Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/737

Rh love of music—especially the drum and the pipe and a sort of rude violin—was characteristic of the people. There was abundance of big game and the Waganda were capital hunters, and their method of hunting was quaint and original in the extreme. A huge crowd, armed with stout sticks, beat down the high grass level and tracked the leopard or lion to his lair, and, getting him inclosed within a space equal to a good-sized room, literally beat the beast to death, and it rarely happened that anybody was much hurt.

The Gothenburg System.—In summarizing his conclusions as to the advantages and disadvantages of the Gothenburg or company monopoly system of liquor traffic in operation in Sweden and Norway, Dr. E. R. L. Gould insists that the system was not originated with the idea of stopping the consumption of liquors, but to combat drunkenness and reduce the evils consequent upon inordinate indulgence in alcoholic drinks. It is founded, too, upon the principle that, since, taking human nature and practices as we find them, it is impossible immediately to eradicate the evil completely, it is better to regulate it through the higher rather than the lower elements of the community. Its strength lies along the line of preventive rather than of reformatory elements. Among the advantages named is, first, the complete divorcing of the liquor traffic from politics. Further, the company monopoly has been so administered that a general reduction of the number of licenses has been brought about everywhere, and, consequently, a lessening of the temptation to drink. "It would be a very strange condition of affairs indeed, in any matter of this kind, if, when the element of private gain was entirely eliminated, a resulting improvement did not take place." A series of effective checks is imposed against a breach of trust, supposing there may exist an inclination to commit it. The companies have, in some measure, gone beyond the legal requirements in the line of general interest, particularly in raising the age of minority from fifteen, where the law puts it, to eighteen, as regards selling drink to young persons, and also in insisting immediately on cash payments. They have gradually raised the price of drinks and reduced their strength. In Norway the saloons are closed on Sundays and at those times of day when the workingman is most tempted to drink. All men employed are paid fair fixed salaries, and there is no temptation to push sales. All taxes are paid under the company system without shuffling. The cause of temperance has been assisted financially and otherwise. The profits on sales of drink are expended for the relief of society. No community which has tried the system has afterward abandoned it. The measure is supported by the temperance party, though many of them would prefer prohibition. The disadvantages are laid mostly to defects in existing law, rather than to faults inherent in the system itself. The monopoly does not extend far enough, but should cover fermented drinks; the limit for retail sales is not fixed high enough; the sale of liquors is often connected with general business, from which it should be separated; a monopoly of production by the state does not exist; the question of profits is still too conspicuous; and, from the temperance view of the case, it is feared that the upper classes of society do not wish to go further than the Gothenburg system.

Volcanic Rocks in Eastern North America.—Mr. George H. Williams has insisted on the presence, in the oldest geological formations, of igneous rocks, disguised, perhaps, under a foliated structure, and has dwelt upon the methods by which their origin may be established. The object of a paper by him on The Distribution of Ancient Volcanic Rocks along the Eastern Border of North America is to show that igneous, and volcanic rocks as well, are widely distributed through the crystalline belt of eastern North America, and to direct attention to them as offering a new and promising field for work in crystalline geology. His review of the field leads him to the conclusion that this class of material is abundant. It has been identified from Newfoundland to Georgia. For many areas the evidence of surface or volcanic origin is conclusive, while in many others it is as yet only probable. The areas of these ancient volcanic rocks now known fall roughly in two parallel belts; of these, the eastern embraces the exposures of Newfoundland, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, the