Wipe out the saloon, and the social evil becomes an easier problem with which to deal. The wine room is the vistibule of the house of shame, while liquor inflames and arouses the evil propensities of those who are the patrons of the horrid trade.

Would God place in my hand a wand with which to dispel the evil of intemperance, I would strike the door of every saloon, every distillery, of every brewery, until the accursed traffic should be wiped from the face of the earth. Archbishop Ireland.

The drink traffic is a public, permanent and ubiquitous agency of degradation to the people of these realms. The drink trade of England has a sleeping partner which gives it effectual protection; every successive government raises at least a third of its budget by the trade in drink. The drink trade is our shame, scandal and sin, and unless brought under by the will of the people it will be our downfall.-Cardinal Manning.

Doctor Cartwright, of New Orleans, who served through the great yellow fever epidemic there, said afterward, "About 5,000 of them (the regular drinkers) died before the epidemic touched a single citizen or sober man, so far as I can get at the facts."

It is said that "two temperance people can be supported on the land needed to support the coarse tastes of one regular frequenter of the saloon."

Prof. Starr, of the University of Chicago, the noted anthropologist, said in a lecture, "An African living in an African hut after an African fashion is likely to be a better man than he would be after the Anglo-Saxon introduced his religion, his surface civilization and his rum."

C

The Bottle Imp

BY JULIA M. THAYER.

OME, little Hans," said the lame cobbler, with a good-natured wink, "run round the corner for father, and get a bottle filled; here's a penny for a ginger-snap; quick, now, before the mother gets back! he! he! he!" and he nodded and chuckled to himself, as if it were a rare joke to send the absent mother's darling on a fiend's errand, whither the angel of her prayers would hardly follow.

The little one hesitated, knowing in his heart that the mother would say "Nay, the child shall not meddle with hell-fire;" but was there ever a little one could resist a ginger-snap? Not Hans Christopher, certainly, for whom the cottage shelf seldom held such dainties.

"There goes the cobbler's boy to old Grinder's den, with a big black bottle," said the brisk little dressmaker over the way, glancing out of the window. "Now we'll not hear the rat-tat-tat of his hammer again for another fortnight. Mother, what think you will ever become of that man? He goes from bad to worse, that's certain; and the boy will be ditto, I suppose. None of my business? Of course not; it is none of my business that my own father and brother went the same way to destruction; it is none of my business that ten thousand fathers and brothers" she stopped suddenly, for the old woman's sigh struck her to the heart.

Meantime little Hans came back, picking his way carefully over the rough paving-stones.

"Say, little one," and the dressmaker put her head out at the window, "what have you in that lovely junk bottle? Is it a nice sup of his infernal majesty's favorite bitters, seasoned with tears and curses? Your mother likes to have your father drink that, don't she? Take care! don't spill a drop of the precious stuff. I'll tell you what, little boy," and the tone sunk to an awful whisper, "there's an ugly little black imp shut up in that bottle; you let him out, and sometime he'll tear the very heart out of your body!"

She shut the window with a jerk; and little Hans, on wings of terror, flew back to the dingy shop.

"Oh, father," he shrieked, panting for breath, "don't let him out! don't let him out!"

"Who? What? The child's bewitched," said the cobbler, pausing in the act of drawing the cork.

"The-the-oh, father, she said there was a-impin the bottle, and he'd tear your heart to pieces! Don't! Oh, father, don't!" and he held up his little hands imploringly, while drops of perspiration beaded his face.

Such agony was distressing to witness, and Christopher set the bottle down to reason with the child.

"What is it, Hans? Who has been putting this nonsense into your head. Why, let me tell you, little man, this bottle is my comfort-my angel; just see, now, how he warms my stomach, and cheers my heart, and is, altogether, a very good friend. What could a poor man do without it, indeed? Here's to your health, little Hans." And the little boy, with horror, saw the fatal vessel uncorked, and lifted to his father's lips.

Shrinking back into the uttermost corner, and pressing his hands tightly over his heart, he gazed long and shudderingly; but no uncanny imp appearing to verify the dressmaker's assertion, with a child's light-heartedness he soon dismissed the horrid phantom from his imagination.

Not so Christopher. A new train of thought was awakened in his brain, now roused to unusual activity by the stimulating draught.

"An imp in the bottle, hah! that is an idee, truly," quoth he to himself. "An imp is a devil, and a devil is good for naught but to frighten women and children; let him come on! I'm not a-feared!" With that he took another draught of the liquid fire. "Go to blazes! can't a man have a drop of somethin' warm, but they must get up a scarecrow of some sort o' 'nother to it? Goto Good God! there he is now," shrieked the cobbler, gazing, with livid face and eyes starting from their sockets, into a dusky corner of the room.

"Get out! get out! you nasty, grinning, ill-mannered devil, you! Get out, I say!" flinging his hammer at the fiend, while boots, lapstone and last went flying after.

But the creature moved not. He sat enveloped in a

bluish smoke; his tongue darted forth flames, and the glance of his eyes burnt into the cobbler's very soul, who already felt those horrid claws tugging at his heartstrings.

"Come!" said the goblin.

Great drops of sweat rolled down the cobbler's face as he strove in vain to move his palsied limbs.

"Come!" and the black-faced imp began to leer, and chuckle and dance about in horrid glee.

"I'm the bottle sprite-your comfort, your angel, your good friend, in whom you delight! Cheer up, and let's away; I've something to show you.' With that he made a dive at Christopher, who, with superhuman effort, sprang from his bench, and struggled wildly toward the door. He missed it, and, after spinning round and round like a top, went sprawling to the floor, whence the bottle sprite lifted him by the hair of his head, and bore him off triumphantly through the roof-away, away into the fields of air.

At last he found himself set plump upon the roof of a vast distillery. He knew it by the pungent odors that filled his nostrils, and helped to restore his scattered senses. Square before him was his black "angel," encircled still in the blue atmosphere of the nether world. Christopher shrank away in horror, and covered his face with both hands.

"You loathe me—you shrink from me," hissed the imp; "me, who have cheered, and warmed, and comforted you so often! Is that fair?"

The cobbler felt his brain on fire-his throat parched— his blood like molten lead in his veins.

"Drink-give me drink!" he cried, in an agony of thirst, "devil or not, I must have drink."

The bottle sprite laughed mockingly, and again uttered the magic word "Come!"

"Ah! but this is a fine place, isn't it?" said the bottle imp, delightedly; "not much elegance and beauty, or even comfort, here. A good many tears have been shed -a good many ghosts of dead hopes and joys are flitting round; but we'll do better than that! Only stick to the bottle, good Christopher, and we'll stay by you, never fear! Here are a few tools might yet be pawned for liquor; things aren't quite so rickety as they may be.

And then the woman-she's a brave one-she works hard to keep things together, and wears a pretty bright face, but we'll break her heart yet-and the little one! for all her tender coddlings and fine teachings, just train him up to follow your footsteps, and won't he toss the first clod upon her grave?"

The poor cobbler wept and groaned in anguish of spirit, for, with all his faults, he heartily loved his wife and child, and thoroughly detested his own bad ways.

With one last, mighty effort, he broke the spell that bound him.

"Out, fiend! liar! devil!" he shrieked; "take that--and that!"

Crash-clatter-crash!

"What can be the matter?" exclaimed Madame Christopher, just hurrying in from her morning's scanty marketing.

"Oh, father, have you done it? have you smashed him?" shouted little Hans, capering with glee around the shining fragments of the "lovely junk bottle."

"Yes, my son, I have done it, and I am done with it forever!" said Christopher, gathering himself up slowly from the floor, and standing erect upon his lame leg.

"Do tell, mother! what do you think?" said the little dressmaker, one day. Doesn't everything go nicely over the way? Little Hans is as happy and well-dressed a boy as one often sees, and Madame steps around about her work as if she was fairly dancing to the rat-tat-tat of the cobbler's hammer."

Of the great fraternal orders, the following bar saloonkeepers and bartenders form membership: Gleaners, Tribe of Ben Hur, American Yoemen, Catholic Mutual Benefit Association, Catholic Order of Foresters, Fraternal Brotherhood, Fraternal Union of America, Red Men, Foresters, Odd Fellows, Junior Order of United American Mechanics, Knights of Columbus, Knights of Honor, Maccabees, Knights of Pythias, Modern Woodmen, Mystic Workers, National Union, Protected Home Circle, Royal League, Woodmen of the World.