to sell the goods belonging to the commune than the communal alcohol. This original proposal met with a storm of objections, but the only objection which induced the Government to abandon it was that such official publicans would become political instruments in the hands of whatever Government might be in power. In Roumania the mayor is really the instrument of the prefect, who himself is that of the Government of the day. Thus a change of Government would bring about a change of official publicans. The abandonment of this ideal publican was largely the cause of the increased facilities and advantages offered to temperance societies, who would naturally have every interest in preventing excessive drinking. The law actually contains the following provisions with regard to the publichouse keeper: He must be a Roumanian citizen, knowing how to read and write, at least twenty-five years of age, and married at the time of the conclusion of the contract; he must be known as a man of good behaviour, without vices, and have never incurred a penal sentence for crimes mentioned in the law of licences. The assistant of the public-house keeper must fulfil the same conditions, and all the servants of the public-house or of the public-house keeper must be Roumanians. Nobody except the public-house keeper, his family, his servants, or bona fide travellers, may sleep on the premises. Any publichouse keeper who breaks these regulations will be liable to a fine of from 81. to 401., and for a second offence to a penalty of from three months' to a year's imprisonment and the cancelling of his lease. Any publichouse keeper possessing more than one public-house, or endeavouring to do so through an agent, is liable, together with this agent, to a fine of from 20l. to 40l. and imprisonment of from three to twelve months, together with the loss of his lease. With regard to the amusements allowed in the public-houses, it was rightly considered that to transform the public-houses simply into shops without meetings, family gatherings, dances, music, would have been to violate the traditions of the country, and to show at the same time real cruelty towards a population which has much more suffering than pleasure in life. Thus the law, while forbidding all games of cards or other games of chance, allows games of skill such as skittles and billiards, and all amusements such as dancing are allowed in accordance with ancient customs. It is absolutely forbidden to public-house keepers to supply drinks or any goods on credit. Each sale must be made against cash paid at the moment of sale. It is also forbidden to barter drink or any goods for grain, eggs, poultry, or other products of agricultural or domestic economy (domestic economy was added owing to the tendency of public-house keepers to endeavour to induce the peasants to pledge the results of the home work of their women, such as embroideries, &c.). Neither public-house keepers nor their wives can, in any case, either directly or through agents, farm land belonging to peasants. Public-house keepers cannot bring actions for debts

incurred for the supply of drink, nor other sums of money paid by them in connexion with agricultural work or the farming of lands belonging to peasants. For every sale on credit the innkeeper will be punished by a fine of five times the value of the drink or of the goods. Should a public-house keeper farm land belonging to peasants he will be punished by a fine equal to the value of the farm for five years, and the contract will be cancelled. Communal public-houses will remain closed until eleven o'clock in the morning on Sundays and recognised religious holidays. From the 1st of April to the 30th of September they will close at nine in the evening, and for the other six months at eight. On all election days, parliamentary and communal, all the publichouses in the country districts will be closed; in the town districts only those will be closed which are within the district affected by the election. Infringements of these regulations are punished severely by fines ranging from 20s. to 80l. Innkeepers are forbidden to serve drink in public-houses to children aged less than sixteen. Neither may they serve under any pretext, or under any pressure or threat, people already drunk, or such as are included in the public list of drunkards, nor shall they allow to enter the public-house drunken people or women of notoriously evil character. Public-house keepers and their employés are expected to prevent any disorder in their houses to this end they have the right to call in policemen or gendarmes to restore order. No excuse for having broken the law owing to threats or violence shall be allowed to protect the publichouse keeper. Any public-house keeper who does not keep wine on his premises will be punished by a fine of from 41. to 121.

Keeping artificial brandy or wine on the premises is punishable by a fine of from 81. to 201.; but if such artificial liquor be manufactured by the public-house keeper himself, or if he shall have tampered with any alcoholic drinks, the fine shall amount to from 40l. to 4001. A second offence will be punished by a double fine and loss of the contract. Any public-house keeper whose contract has been cancelled for any infringement of the law will no longer have the right to lease a public-house or to be associated with another in such enterprise, or to be in any way connected with a public-house under any condition whatever. In order to render difficult any infringement of the regulations with regard to artificial brandy or wine, the law enacts that whoever shall give information of such infringements shall receive 50 per cent. of the fine inflicted.

With regard to the supervision and control of country publichouses, the Roumanian Government has multiplied as much as possible the bodies charged with these duties; and this because of the unfortunate lack of confidence, not without foundation, of the rural mayor. Thus the supervision of the public-houses will be exercised equally by the communal authorities and by the following officials: the prefect, the financial administrator, the administrative inspector,

the agricultural inspector, the financial inspector, and the doctor of the district. The municipal authority represented by the mayor or his representative, as well as by the officials mentioned above, have the right of taking notice of infringements of the law committed by the innkeeper or by his customers, and the right of inflicting such penalties as are within their competence, or of handing over to the district judge cases the penalties for which exceed their powers. The prefect and the above-mentioned officials have also the duty of controlling the mayors and their representatives and noting any infringements which these may commit or any negligences of which they may be guilty, and have the right of demanding of the district judge their punishment. Should these officials prove that the mayor has not exercised his right of punishing infringements of the law on the part of the public-house keeper or his clients, they have the right of condemning immediately the guilty persons to the prescribed punishments, and the mayor to a fine of from 20 to 60 francs; this fine must be paid at once, the punishment of the mayor being without appeal or defence.

With regard to the measures taken against drunkenness and drunkards, great care has been shown to prevent any abuse of power so dear to all those who possess a small amount of authority. Thus in the towns all offences of drunkenness are judged by a justice of the peace, whereas in other countries light punishments may be awarded by the police. In the villages all punishments involving imprisonment, even for only twenty-four hours, may be awarded by the district judges alone. Only fines are imposed by the administrative officials whose duty it is to supervise the public-houses. In other cases the proceedings must not be delayed, and the judge must give the sentence within three days at most. Care is also taken that persons shall not be arrested for drunkenness unless there is no doubt possible, as shown by definite actions, that they are drunk. Thus the law provides that the drunkard is one who, being in a state of drunkenness, shall seek a quarrel, provoke disorders, or fall down in the street. Such drunkards are punished by a fine of from 2 to 20 francs. In the case of a second offence in the same year, imprisonment for twenty-four hours will be added to the fine; while a third offence within twelve months from the first entails three days' imprisonment. After this third sentence the district judge will inscribe the name of the offender on a drunkards' list similar to the Black List in England. The great difference, however, is that this list in Roumania is posted up publicly in all the town halls and in all the communal public-houses. Persons inscribed on this list may no longer enter any public-house, either in their own commune or in any other commune to which the list has been officially communicated. If for three successive years a person inscribed upon this list has undergone no sentence for drunkenness, his name may be removed by the district

judge. If, however, at any future time he undergoes a sentence for drunkenness, his name will remain upon the list for the rest of his life, and any other further crimes of drunkenness which he may commit will be punished by fines and imprisonment. These are the main points of the law as far as the country public-houses are concerned.

With regard to the town public-houses, the law does not provide against them directly, and, indeed, benefits them indirectly. The Government has decided that so long as the number of public-houses in the towns does not increase, the regulations against drunkenness and the possibility of efficient police supervision are sufficient to prevent serious danger to the country. The number of public-houses existing at the time of the enactment of this law, either in the town communes, communes or in a zone of one kilometre around these may not be increased in any case. Public-houses which close may not be replaced in any circumstances, or reopened, and it is hoped that a continuance of these measures will result in there remaining but one public-house to every hundred families. Only the legitimate or legitimatised descendants of the public-house keeper will have the right to continue the business, on condition that these descendants, or at least one of them, exercises in person the profession of public-house keeper in his father's house. In the case where the heirs are minors, the public-house may be kept by the guardian until their majority. Public-houses are closed either voluntarily or by the neglect of payments, or by the closing of the establishment in consequence of the law for licences of aicoholic drinks, and cannot be again reopened.

With reference to the question of confiscation or compulsory closing of public-houses in Roumania, the Government possesses under the laws most enviable powers. In virtue of the law on licences, the Minister of Finance has the right to withdraw the licence and to close any public-house or drinking-shop which does not conform with the law of the monopoly of retail sale. Besides this, the Minister of the Interior can request that the licence shall be withdrawn from any public-house or drink-shop for an infraction of the law, and the Minister of Finance is bound to conform to this demand. The actual public-house keepers possess no hereditary right, and only exploit their public-house in virtue of a licence given them by the Government. In the towns the public-houses are more firmly established, and there may be found some which are relatively old and which have been in one spot and run by the same family for two generations. There is, however, no instance of three successive generations running a public-house. In the country districts the case is not similar, because up to 1864 the public-house as a rule belonged to the large proprietor, it being his exclusive right. This right the proprietor generally disposed of by letting it; and those who rented publichouses were principally Jews in Moldavia and Greeks in Wallachia.

After the right of keeping public-houses became free, the temporary character of these holdings was preserved amongst foreign publichouse keepers. Later, when it was forbidden to strangers to have public-houses in the country districts, this continued still indirectly through agents, the public-house belonging in name to a Roumanian, but de facto to a stranger. Recently steps have been taken to prevent this, but so recently that the Roumanian public-house keepers have not had time to obtain vested interests.

The number of public-houses in the country fluctuates enormously. When the agricultural year is good, public-houses sprout up like mushrooms after rain; but when the year has been bad, publichouses close in great numbers. It is very rare to see the same publichouse keeper possessing the same public-house during all his life and leaving it afterwards as an inheritance to his children. The new law leaves in existence 9000 public-houses and provides for the extinction of the licences of about 4000. This number is not much more than the difference between the number of public-houses in a good year and in a bad one. Much criticism was directed against the Government, with the cry of what will become of the unfortunate public-house keepers whose houses are closed. The reply was that this criticism would be as much justified in any year of agricultural depression, and that the public-house keepers as a rule in Roumania carry on at the same time other occupations. The closing of the public-house, therefore, will only necessitate their adopting the same course that they would have done had the harvests been bad. There is, for instance, no comparison between the misfortune for these relatively few individuals possessing other trades, and many of whom are not Roumanians, and that which befell hundreds of thousands of men engaged in the transport of goods by waggons at the advent of the railway, or the tens of thousands of independent dealers in tobacco at the advent of the State monopoly. Under the new law, actually the public-house keeper was placed in a much better position, having several months allowed him in which to find other employment; whereas, when the Minister exercises his right to withdraw the licence for whatever cause, the public-house is closed on the spot.

This, then, is the practical application on the part of the Roumanian Government to achieve sane temperance legislation, neither led away by rabid teetotalism nor dominated by the interests of the producers of alcohol. It is twenty-six years since the idea was first mooted, and it is greatly to the credit of the actual Government that it has at last succeeded in overcoming the many political interests leagued against such legislation, and that it has been able to take effective measures to save the country from the curse of alcoholism.

ALFRED STEAD.