Page:Englishwomaninan00elli.pdf/121

 has shown equal wisdom by prohibiting the sale of alcohol. In Constantinople it was said, with a truly "Western" hauteur: "How can the Turks imagine that they will succeed where the United States have made such a failure?"

"Is that a sound argument" I replied, "for giving them a chance of becoming what the States were before prohibition? Americans do not know 'how to drink'; and I am afraid the Turks also might learn to use alcohol, not as a beverage or a pick-me-up, but just to get drunk."

The strength and endurance of Turkish children, nourished on bread and water, must prove of the strongest possible support to prohibition. "And remember how quickly the Arab's wounds were healed at the front, while alcohol was so effective an antidote for septic-poisoning, because it had never before even entered their systems."

Constantinople had proved a sore affront to my national pride; but there was an occasion in Naples when its humiliation was even more complete.

I was passing a crowd of happy children on the quay, rolling and tumbling about in some strangely ridiculous fashion. Always keenly interested in children's games (and prayers), I went up to them and asked what they were doing.

It was a game entitled "The drunken Englishman"!