The presiding judge of one of the Chicago courts recently said to an Inter-Ocean reporter:— “You may ransack the pigeon-holes all over the city and county, and look over such annual reports as are made up, but they will not tell half the truth. Not only are the saloons in Chicago responsible for the cost of the police force, but the fifteen justice courts, the bridewell, also for the criminal courts, the county jail, a great portion of Joliet (State Prison), the long murder trials, the coroner's office, the morgue, the poor-house, the reform school, the mad-house. Go anywhere you please, and you will find almost invariably that whisky is at the root of the evil. Of all the boys in the Reform School at Pontiac, and the various reformatories about the city, ninety per cent. are the children of parents who died through drink, or became criminals through the same cause. Look at the defalcations; fully ninety per cent. of them come about through drink and dissipation. Go to the divorce courts; fully ninety per cent. of the divorces come about through drink, or drink and adultery both. Of the insane or demented cases disposed of in the courts here every Thursday, a moderate estimate is that seventy per cent. are alcoholism and its effects. “I saw it estimated the other day that there were ten thousand destitute boys in Chicago who are not confined at all, but running at large. I think that is a small estimate. Men are sent to prison for drunkenness, and what becomes of their families? The county agent and the poor-house provide for some. It is a direct expense to the community. Generally speaking, these families go to destruction. The boys turn out as thieves, and the girls and mothers generally resort to the slums. The sand-baggers, murderers and thugs generally of to-day, who are prosecuted in the police courts, are the sons of men who fell victims to drink. The percentage in this case is fully ninety-five. I have studied this question for years, and have passed upon criminal cases for years, and know whereof I speak.”