IMPRESSIONS OF A TEMPERANCE CITY.
THE following is part of what Dorcas Spencer says of Portland, Maine, after a recent visit to that city, as given in the W. C. T. U. Pacific Ensign:— The mayor of Portland gave many interesting and suggestive figures. Portland has a population of 50,000, and is assessed for $50,000,000—without a millionaire in it. As I was driven about in a carriage all over and about the city, I could readily believe it had no paupers. I asked my host, “Where do the poor people live?” His reply was, “Well, I suppose there are some poor people, but I really could not tell where to find them.” There was certainly no squalor, and if there was dirt or filth at all, it was hidden as completely as the liquor traffic. Portland is strikingly clean. Think of it—not a saloon in it; the twin vice of tobacco is rather shame-faced. Men smoke, without doubt, in that city; but the streets are not polluted with the smell of it, and it is refreshing to see so many men free from the habit. And that is what temperance laws, faithfully enforced, would do for any city, the canteen and saloon defenders to the contrary notwithstanding.