the city authorities. Atlanta has become the laughing-stock of this country and a stench in the nostrils of the Almighty. The City Council is winking at the violation of the law and hand-cuffing the Police Department. But the "bosses" who have sworn to enforce the law will not allow the Chief of Police to do it. Atlanta is still in the clutches of the liquor gang and the authorities are dominated by it. The Brewers' Association fiddles and the City Council dances to the music. Atlanta is being debauched by the godless gang of liquor men. The Legislature is afraid to stand by the very law which it enacted twelve months ago. White men and black men, white women and black women, and even children, are now seen at the bars of the beer saloons, drinking together.

The writer realizes that he could not better picture the farce of prohibition in Atlanta than by calling attention to the utterances of the very men who were responsible in a great measure for the passage of the law and who promised so many good things to come to pass when it should take effect.

"Prohibition will not prevent in Atlanta," said the conservatives. "Look at Maine and Kansas! It has never prevented anywhere. Then why should it prevent here?"

"Just wait until we give it a fair trial here," replied the Prohibitionists. "Prohibition will prevent in Georgia; it never had a fair chance in Kansas or Maine. And the Legislature listened and heeded, and gave them the very law they said they wanted. Now, by the very men who imposed prohibition on Georgia and said they would compel its enforcement, we are told, many months after the law went into effect, that it is not preventing what it was intended to prevent.

When the Prohibitionists called on the Chief of Police for an explanation, some means to prevent the increase in drinking, the constant violation of the Prohibition Law, he said:

While of course there are some "blind tigers" in the city, I believe they are responsible for only a very small percentage of the drunkenness prevalent at present. The people are simply sending outside the State and having whiskey shipped in to them, and are drinking until they get drunk. There is not any excuse for a "blind tiger" any way, when people can get beer and whiskey as easy as they can here, with only a few hours' wait. The average man is not going sneaking through the streets and alleyways hobnobbing with "bums" on a hunt for a "blind tiger," when he can communicate with Chattanooga and shortly afterwards have all the liquor he wants dumped right at his doorstep. This is the problem the police are up against and it is the solution of the amount of drunkenness in Atlanta. Of course, we run down every report of the existence of a "blind tiger," but it is nearly impossible to get evidence to convict.

Any unbiased observer of conditions in Atlanta must, in fact, be forced to the conclusion that, under the present prohibitory law, beer is being openly sold and whiskey can be purchased; and that, while there is no decrease in city and state cases in the police court, there is, on the contrary, an increase of perjury on the witness stands and of easily handled juries in the city courts.

While this article applies to one city only, the writer is firmly convinced that conditions in Atlanta are paralleled in every other large city in the State of Georgia, and that in some cities they are worse. For instance, it is charged that, in Savannah, through an alleged arrangement between certain city authorities and the "blind tigers," the latter are permitted to operate openly and (except on Sundays) sell anything drinkable they choose, on the understanding that the "blind tigers" are to be raided twice each year and fined in the city court. In this indirect way does Savannah, it is alleged, license its saloons. It is said that one raid, in 1908, yielded over $15,000 in fines.

We

HE construction of the Panama Canal and recent events of a quasi-political significance, point to our greater interest in the Central American republics. Only a few months ago Mr. Carnegie gave $100,000 for a peace palace at Cartago, the ancient capital of Costa Rica. A peace congress held in 1907 proclaimed the brotherhood of these turbulent countries. were promised a long era of peace. Promptly following the peace congress, several of the republics plotted new wars upon each other. The difficulty, however, is not with the Central American people so much as with some of their accursed political leaders. Presidents Zelaya of Nicaragua and Cabrera of Guatemala have been the principal disturbers of the peace which, it is apparent to any traveller in that region, the people earnestly desire.

She

In this region of constant political upheaval and periodic revolution and rebellion, the miniature Republic of Costa Rica stands up as a rock in the agitated sea. She has not had a first-class revolution in over forty years. She has shrewdly minded her own business and kept herself clear of the imbroglios to the north. has had several stormy political campaigns of her own, but nothing which rent her people into factions seeking to destroy each other. Her politics are at times cathartic, but seldom destructive of the ideals of her people. Observe the fact that she employs more school-teachers than soldiers and you have one view of her serious and national purpose.

The United States and Costa Rica have secretly become intimate lately. If we have not in formal terms guaranteed her peace, we have certainly dedicated the Big Stick to her protection. Just south of her lies the zone of our colossal enterprise, the Panama Canal, into whose maw we

are pouring hundreds of millions and the talent and lives of many men. Between that zone where we can enforce peace and order, and the mountains and jungles of Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras and Salvador, where we shall find that we can not, lies the peace-loving, enterprising Republic of Costa Rica, with ports on the Atlantic and on the Pacific, practically inaccessible except from its coasts, save perhaps through certain narrow cattle-passes from the northwest along the valley of the San Juan and San Carlos rivers in the Province of Alajuela. It is there

powers interested in the Monroe Doctrine. That they exist, there is hardly the shadow of a doubt. Representatives of the Costa Rican official life, whom the writer in his journeys through that country has charged with the fact, have virtually admitted our secret protectorate over their miniature republic.

This relationship with us and the development of the Canal Zone will mean much to the smallest of the Central American countries. It will mean the readjustment and the unification of her public debt, much of which, issued during a previous gov

the provinces of San José, Cartago, Alajuela, Heredia and Guanacaste, and the comarcas of Punta Arenas in the Bay of Nicoya on the Pacific, and Limon on the Caribbean coast. It is exceedingly mountainous, and confines its inhabitants to within a few miles north and south of the tenth parallel. Within fifteen miles from either coast, most of it lies between 3000 and 6000 feet above the sea. Volcanoes, some of rare magnificence, distinguish the two principal mountain ranges. They are Irazú (11,200 feet), Turrialba (11,000), Buenavista (10,800), Chirripó Grande (11,850), Pico Blanco (9650), Barba (9335) and Poaz (8675). Of these, Irazú has been the only active crater during recent years.

The scenic beauty of Costa Rica is as yet unsuspected even by the widely travelled, and the country is particularly interesting to the observant traveller. Her dense forests contain over one hundred and forty varieties of merchantable timber. She is rich in cedars, nispero, mahogany, cocobola, guayacan, teak

and satinwood.

The finest bananas and coffee in the markets of the world come from Costa Rican plantations. The United Fruit Company of Boston operates a banana fleet between Port Limon and New York, Boston, Baltimore, New Orleans and Mobile. Thirty thousand bunches leave Costa Rica daily for the north. Ships sail weekly with banana cargoes for England and France. Over 13,000,000 bunches left Port Limon in 1908. Costa Rica coffee is of the finest quality and flavor, which accounts for the vigilant manner in which it is all bought up for European courts and by other special bidders. When the coffee crop fails, as it did in 1907, there is woe in Costa Rica, for the loss is about $2,000,000.

As its name signifies, Costa Rica (Rich Coast) has abundant natural resources. The soil is very fertile, and the mountain slopes and valleys are dotted with the finka of the planter. In the northwestern region gold mines are yielding bullion, and throughout the coastal regions bananas, cocoanuts, plantains, cacao, rub