To the Editor of the "Nonru-Cuixa Dany News."
Sm,—It is manifestly unfair, as pointed out in your columns afew Gays ago by "Bishop. Birney, discredit the dry movement' in the United States by an article from such a "wet" source as the "New York Times" which has from the first been bitterly opposed to the dry movement. The facts are that with the exception of a very few places in America, and that in the centres containing a large foreign element in the population, the American people are very well satisfied with prohibition and the wet and dry question is one that is considered permanently settled. The fact that American people as a whole are not at present opposed to prohibition is shown by the fact that neither of the large parties in the election held recently dared to declare against _prohibition. Both took it for granted that this question was settled, at Toast for the present, To confirm further the fact of good effects of prohibition note the following editorial from the San Francisco Chronicle"
"We are rather staggered by the figures in the annual report of the police department. Though—_the first six months under the 18th Amendment have seen the arrest San Francisco of about $00 violators, which is at the rate of 1,000 a year, we shall hardly be able to say that this counterbalances u drop of more than 15,000 in the number of arrests for drunkenness in this city for the last fiscal year, as compared with the previous 12 months.
"It has been obvious to every one on the streets that drunken mes have been less conspicuous in this arid ere, but we were hardly prepared for an announcement that only 1,814 persons were arrested for drunkenness in the last year, as against 17,354 who reeled into the arms of the law in the year before. It is notorious that powerful waters are to be had, the arrests for bootlegging indicate a largo traffic, there is a world of talk of home brows, but, at any rate, this condition seems' not to produce the public drunkenness that marked the wet old days. The police department finds itself unable to any other explanation than prohibitic for this falling off in arrests for toxication, a falling off that also extends to arrests for most other classes "Wo find that the total number of arrests for all offences was 26,673, while the year before it ran to 49,647, and the year before that to 47,813. It in Keeping with the lessened drunken. ness that' the arrests for boggin battery, petty larceny, robbery sccaults all show a heavy falling off.
"There is a text in each one of these but a different sort of text in the roll of burglars. The year saw 471 of these gentry arrested, although there were only 450 in the year before. It should be noted, though, that the record of arrests for this offence is no guide to the number of burglaries committed. We are unable to say just what thie increase in the number of captured bur-glare means. Perhaps the police have grown more efficient, perhaps the porch-climbers are not so brave without Dutch I am, ete, W. W. Locxwoop.
Shanghai, Nov. 2.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.