charge is to be such as the sanitary authority and the selling landlords, practically the same people, may determine; the occupancy will be under conditions which keep the tenant in constant submission to his landlord in all respects, and with special obligation not to erect a dwelling in which he may find shelter for his family. Accommodation may be provided for poultry or for pigs, but not for a horse or a cow, and above all not for children.

For what purpose, in the estimation of a

WHO SLEW

WILLIAM JAMIESON DOUGLAS is known to the readers of the DEMOCRAT under the title of the Scottish Pressman. Educated at the Glasgow University and possessing remarkable natural power, both physical and mental, he became a leader amongst his fellows. Those of his friends who were best acquainted with his abilities formed great expectations of his usefulness. With remarkable unselfishness he devoted his powers to exposing injustice and expressing his heartfelt sympathy with suffering humanity. His style of writing enabled him to obtain engagements on some of the first literary publications of the day, but he gave most of his time to publications which he held to be useful rather than profitable. He sought the interest of the people rather than personal profit.

At the commencement of the present year he came to London in order to follow the profession of literature under more favourable circumstances than in his native town. Here he was soon surrounded with a host of personal friends, for literary Londoners are quick to appreciate genius, and keenly enjoyed the warm-hearted good-nature with which, in this instance, it was accompanied.

He had not, however, been many weeks in the Metropolis before he was struck down by a sudden attack of erysipelas of such a severe type that he had to be removed at once to St. Thomas's Hospital, there to undergo a severe struggle for life.

For some days the issue was uncertain, and for many weeks he remained in a critical and painful condition, but still in the enjoyment of mental faculties of fascinating power. He always had a remarkable capacity for exciting sympathy, and both in and out of the hospital he found friends who devoted themselves throughout his illness to providing every possible alleviation. For about ten weeks he remained in the William Ward as a paying patient, preferring, as he said, the company of other patients to the comparative seclusion to which he would have been subjected if he had removed to the ward where paying patients are usually received. After about ten weeks he left the hospital with his arm still in a sling, and often

Tory government, was the world created? It would be difficult to find a reasonable use for it under the interpretation given by the Labourers' Allotment Act. The employment of public money in the purchase of land is a fraud under any circumstances, as it raises the price of land against the people. To buy it in the manner proposed and then let it to working-men on the conditions laid down in the Act is a double fraud. After buying land the people would have no control over the land they have purchased.

DOUGLAS ?

very painful, and attempted to resume his literary engagements.

He had undertaken to write for the DEMOCRAT a series of pamphlets on subjects of popular interest and importance, and this engagement, which his illness interrupted, he was anxious to complete. It soon, however, became apparent that he had lost the power of self-control. His friends were obliged to warn him of the danger of his condition, and to urge him to take such steps as were obviously necessary to save himself from destruction. He did not resent the warning, but, on the contrary, admitted the necessity for it, and not only expressed his willingness but his desire to give up those habits, which were leading him to ruin.

It was not difficult in his case to name inducements to self-control. With wealth and ability at his command, what might not life have been to him? He recognised this, he earnestly desired to live, and to live a life worthy of a man. He knew and felt not only what he might become, but he realised also the horror of the abyss into which he had fallen. It will be easy for me to reform, he said, for I am so disgusted with what I have suffered that drink and dissipation have lost their fascination; their power over me is gone, and you need have no apprehension for the future. I warned him not to underrate the power of his foe. Thousands had been ruined after experiencing the horror which he had expressed and felt as he felt an earnest desire to reform. He wished me to take from him a written promise that he would never again touch alcoholic liquors, and this promise, I believe, he kept for some weeks. During the few days that followed he regained in a wonderful degree a fresh and youthful appearance, but within a fortnight the haggard look returned, and when I called attention to his condition he declared that he had kept his pledge of total abstinence, which, he said, nothing would induce him to break after the sufferings he had undergone. But he got worse instead of better, and yet there was no smell of alcohol about him, and he still declared himself a total abstainer therefrom. After a while he told me

that the demon which held him in chains at that moment was not alcohol but opium, and explained that he commenced the habit of taking this drug about three years previously at the instigation of a literary friend who had great influence over him, and whom he even now greatly respected.

Of course he promised that this indulgence should be stopped, and I again urged every consideration I could suggest to strengthen his declared resolve. Instead of giving up opium, he again took to drink, and on my meeting him one day in a state of semi-intoxication, he said that his arm was so painful that it was to be amputated, and arrangements had been made for the operation to take place on the following day. I replied, "Your arm will soon be all right if you give up the cause of your suffering. The devil has got hold of your arm and he will, before long, have your whole body if you do not disappoint him by acting as a man." He said, "I will." I replied, “You cannot, unless you recognise your weakness and get someone to be constantly with you from this time." He said, "I will do anything to reform myself and submit to any restriction which can be imposed."

I

Knowing that he had many devoted friends in London, I asked him who could undertake his care, and he replied that Father Hicks, of St. George's, would probably allow one of the brothers to take charge of him. then determined not to leave him until he was in the safest keeping that could be provided, and therefore, after getting some dinner together, we saw Father Hicks, and in the presence of Douglas I explained the case and that it was his own desire to have a companion to assist him to resist the temptation to take drugs and stimulants. Father Hicks expressed his great regret that he could not meet his wishes as all the brothers at St. George's were fully occupied and not one could be spared from his pressing duties. At the suggestion of Douglas, we then went to St. Thomas's Hospital, hoping that he might again be received into that institution, or that the services of a doctor might be obtained for his assistance. It was then 8 p.m., and at that hour no one was found at the hospital who had power to act in such a case. I then proposed that we should go to Mr. Metcalfe's hydropathic establishment at Paddington, and, to my surprise, Douglas readily assented to this. Mr. Metcalfe kindly undertook the case on condition that Douglas would not leave the house. This promise he made and kept for some days, during which he greatly improved, and Mr. Metcalfe seemed to be hopeful of final success, although he said not one half of such cases are ultimately saved.

After two or three weeks Mr. Douglas left the establishment much better than he entered it, and we were not without hope, but day after day he promised to send copy for which he had arranged, but day after day it did not come. One morning I had a telegram from Biggleswade:

MY DEAR MR. SAUNDERS.-This letter is purposely sent to you in a roundabout way. When you get it there will be no such person as he who signs it.

I find that I have only one escape from alcohol -in my grave. Better hell than the public-house.

I know that I may ask you to do for me what little business I have left undone.

I do not dare write to my wife. May God help her and forgive me. It is better that she should break her heart now and at once than live to be the wife of a drunkard. When I married her I thought I could reform, but I cannot. Drink holds me in iron chains.

Since I was a boy all my life ha been a battle between myself and the demon alcohol. Alcohol has won. Therefore, for the .ast time I write myself, faithfully yours,

WHY I DIE.

W. J. DOUGLAS.

I find that I must die. It is only right to say why and how. What kills me? Drink is my murderer. I might have been something, I might have done something, but for Drink. I have married a woman who in every though and action is as one of God's own angels. I am related and indebted to other women who live only o help the helpless. In justice to them I must die. They must not be connected with a Drunkard.

There are some who have in many matters allowed me to lead them. Let me ask them one last favour. Drink has slain me, let them take vengeance on the Drink traffic; let them help to drive that destroyer of soul and body from this land.

I can say no more, and wonder I have said so much. Drink has only done me one good turn in all my life, it has at this last and awful moment enabled me to tell the truth about Drink.

DEAR MR. SAUNDERS,-I am yet alive, and, please God, I will try to live. I have been wandering up and down the country, eating nothing, and sleeping in the open air. Three times I tried to do the deed, and three times failed. The hand of Providence seemed against me.

At last, as I lay under a tunnel with my head in agony, a great feeling came upon me of now weak, how cowardly, was what I was doing. I rose, and giving away my last shilling to a beggar in case I might be tempted to spend it in drink,I set out for London, walking all the way from St. Albans. Of the horrors of that tramp I cannot speak.

Now, all this has done one thing. thas cured

A

me of the taste and passion for Drink. Drink is water with the Devil's soul in it.

I am giving myself a last chance. Can and will you help me? If hard work and faithful service can make up for what is past, these shall be yours. If you cannot-I do not expect you can-well, fate is fate. Do not come to me, but write. For a day or two I cannot endure to look on human face.-I am, yours, W. J. DOUGLAS.

The next day I went to Upper Marsh and found him in a desponding condition, but yet expressing a determination to pull through.

Then for the first time I learned the particulars of his marriage. His wife was a nurse, who had been trained at the Mildmay Institute, and had been more than six years at the hospital, from which after her marriage she discharged herself. The marriage took place during her holidays, and with the approval of her friends, whom Douglas went to visit when he sent me the telegram about a supply of copy.

There were still some grounds for hope. Douglas had ceased to feel that spirit of selfconfidence which is always fatal in such cases, and it was possible that the influence of his wife might assist him to recover.

Those, however, who had more experience than myself in such matters said without hesitation, "It is a hopeless case, Douglas can no more reform himself than a prisoner can escape from Newgate."

--

On taking up the Pall Mall Gazette of August 25th, I saw the following paragraph :— SUPPOSED TO HAVE POISONED HIMSELF.

Last night Mrs. Butler, the landlady of 44, Upper Marsh, Lambeth, attended at the Kennington-road police-station and informed the authorities there that she had not seen or heard anything of her lodger (whose bed-room door was locked) since early the previous morning, and she feared something was wrong. Inspector Garland and another police-constable proceeded to the house in question, and upon forcing the door open found the man, whose name is believed to be William Douglas, lying on his bed dead. A half-pint bottle labelled "Laudanum" was found by the deceased's bedside.

Here then was the end.

At the inquest held on his remains, the jury returned a verdict of death from misadventure through an overdose of laudanum.

The facts of this dreadful story are told in fulfilment of the commission which Douglas imposed upon me.

His case is only one of thousands which occur where young men enter upon a life full of promise and fall victims to the temptations by which they are surrounded. Surely a slave, "Butchered to make a Roman holiday," is not a more shameful and distressing spectacle than a free-born Briton tempted to his ruin for the profit and amusement of his fellows.

Douglas came into the world without a taste for alcohol. Nature, with all her severity is not so unkind as to supply that. The taste was possibly imparted to him with his mother's milk. The temptation was sold to him in order

to profit by a few shillings those who are licensed to supply it.

He was goaded to a continuance of the indulgence long after he saw his danger, and earnestly desired to reform himself, by companions whom he supposed to be friends.

The question returns, Who Slew Douglas? Was it his mother by mixing alcohol with his milk?

Was it the publican who tempted him for the profit of a few pence?

Was it the barmaid who tittered when he was tipsy and did not refuse to hand him the fatal draft?

Was it the distiller who made the drink, and became a legislator on the enormous profits which he realised?

Was it the tutor and professor who first recommended the fatal fascination?

Was it his friend who drank with him and ridiculed his efforts to rescue himself?

Douglas is gone beyond our praise and blame. But the causes of his degradation and death remain, and are doing the same work. Christian men and women continue to sanction laws and customs while they see the fatal consequences as plainly as they see the serpents coil in the Laocoon. Not one intelligent person drinks because he thinks that in the long run he is better or stronger for doing so. Science and experience alike demonstrate the contrary. We pray to be delivered from temptation, but do not endeavour to keep from it and we continue to press it on others after we know that they see their own danger and are vainly endeavouring to save themselves.

WILLIAM SAUNDERS.

LITERATURE.

FREEDOM OR BONDAGE: an Appeal to the Working Classes on the Drink Question, by Joseph Howes, Brook House, Rochdale. Price One penny. This is an excellent compilation of telling temperance truths. The author argues in favour of self-reliance, and relates the story of "the slave who was told to pray for his freedom, said he prayed and prayed until his prayer's got into his legs and then he ran away and was free." Many men might be free if they would run away from the drink despot.

A LETTER TO THE RIGHT HON. A. J. BALFOUR, by Cassius.-We suspect that Mr. Balfour's friends will not let him see this pamphlet. It contains some home truths. Whether in his private capacity as landlord, or in his public capacity as Chief Secretary for Ireland, Mr. Balfour has exhibited throughout his life all the genuine characteristics of the true tyrant and oppressor of the people. That smile of utter ignorance" which Mr. Balfour, in the words of Sir William Harcourt, "takes for true statesmanship" is never absent from his face, and that tone of bitter cynical indifference to suffering is never absent from his speech. He is the people's enemy from top to toe, and represents the climax of exasperation in our dealings with Ireland-the darkest day that is said to come before the dawn.