A correspondent of the Times informs us that Lord Grey's
plan for improving the liquor trade is to be tried in New York. A Trust has been formed, and a public-house—locally called a saloon—has been opened at an expense of £2,000, in which spirits, wine, beer, temperance drinks, and food will all be sold. The manager, however, will be paid only from the profit on the innocuous articles, and intoxicants will not be sold to women. Five per cent. will be paid to those who provide the capital, and all remaining profit will be devoted to the extension of the system. The scheme has received the strong support of Bishop Potter of the Episcopal Church, who has opened the first "saloon," in a speech declaring that prohibition produces too much hypocrisy. The experiment, which has been made in one of the thronged foreign quarters, will be watched with the greatest interest, hard drinking being in America, as it is in England, the most pressing, if not the most serious, of social problems. We fancy, perhaps on insufficient evidence, that climatic conditions make it an even more dangerous vice.
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