OUR ISLAND STORY ’ 89

. Commissioners were appointed by the Government to issue vendor’s license for the sale of alcholic liquors for medical and me- chanical purposes, and of wine for the Sacraments; and regula- . tions were adopted by whiCh the vendors were governed. It was further enacted that A'p‘no person shall keep or have in his premises any liquor unless such liquor shall have been purchased from a vendor in accordance with the provisions of the law; that any liquor in possession of any partnership or company shall be deemed to be in the possession of each member or shareholder thereof; that all liquor purchased from a vendor shall, until actually used, be kept in a bottle or container on which the labelhas been attached by the vendor; that any person having in his possession any liquor which is not in a bottle or container on which such label has not been attached shall be presumed to have such liquor 1n possession in violation of the law. .

. This law was subsequently amended. But it was never rigid- ly or fully enforced. - Many persons entertained the opinion that ‘ its prohibitions~ were too far—reaching and inquisitive. Some per- sons believed that the possession of a case or bottle of wine,'or other spirituous liquor, kept and used in a house or other. place of resi- dense for medical or strictly social purposes, should not be in vio~

A lation of the law for the” abatement, of the liquor evil affecting the - , public. By some of these persons the law was not observed. They -

acted on the principle that the privacy of a household should not be invaded by officers of the law, except when crime was committed. But by the main body of those who desired the reduction of the liquor evil the .law was respected. The open sale of intoxicants as beverages was stopped. An illicit sale of liquors Was, however, secretly maintained; and public opinion in respect to the liquor

evil was not sufficiently pronounced to insist on the vigorous pro. ,

secution of all thOse who violated the law.

Yet upon the whole the liquor evil affecting the public at large was distinctly lessened as a result of the passage and Opera- tion of the Prohibitory Liquor Law. In the Charlottetown police

court there were, in the year 1877, seven hundred and twenty-nine '

convictions on account of drunkenness,———and 1n 1924 only sixty- three. Throughout the period 1n which prohibition was first ap-