Petrograd, Aug. 3.
It is calculated that the suppression of the vodka sales in Russia means an annual loss to the Government of £93,000,000—Reuter Telegram.
No war, no plague of humanity—cholera, tuberculosis, or famine—has made so many victims, has caused so much poverty suffering and death as the use of alcohol."
I translate these words of Charles Darwin from the Russian for I find them in one of the innumerable articles in Russian. newspapers which deal with the extraordinary change which has come over this country as a result of the prohibition of vodka until peace is signed.
That prohibition was originally intended to cover only the mobilization period when noisy demonstrations were likely to take place and when soldiers parting from thulr families were likely to indulge to excess in the national beverage.
But the good effects were so great that the whole nation petitioned for a prolongation of the period; and, though such a prolongation was against the interests of the Government—which gets nearly one bun-dred million pounds out of vodka jyearly—those petitions were at last granted, and the sale of vodka
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.