What Next?

To the Editor of The Register : . Sir : - The local option election has decided tbat in this county, for three veare at least, the law is not to demand absolute prohibition ot the saloon. The legislature of Michigan has decided that in this case we are to have the benefit of a system of taxation and restriction far more rigid than anything we have known in the past. In view of the state of public opinión which the late election has revealed, the failure to carry prohibition is not to be regretted. But are the temperance people of Ann Arbor now going to fold their hands and say in effect, let thingg go to the devil until the people are so sick of it that they are willing to take our medicine ? If so, the devil ought to take them while in the business, and probably will. But what is to be done ? Well, when a man from the country or a etranger finda it necessary to spend an hour or a half a day in the town, he ought to have some reputable place, not a saloon, where he can sit and warm himself. He ought to be able to get a cup of hot coffee as cheap as he could get a glass of beer. lie oueht to be able to read the papers and magazines in a warm and comfortable room without expense, and he ought to have a comfortable place where he can chat in freedom with his neighbors or talk about his business. There ought to be several such places in the town and this would meet the real need which the saloons now meet, and on which their support depends. If none should patronize the saloons but those who are addicted to the vices which they foster, or who prefer the dis reputable associations which they find there, they would soon close for want of support. The disreputable character of the saloons and their assooiations are very generally recognized now, and those who know and feel this would not patronize them if they had any respectable place to go and find eomfort. But when a man comes into Ann Arbor chilled on a load of wood, where shall he go ? Is there any other place than a saloon where he can go? And while there is no other place than a saloon where he can go, how can we expect to banish the saloons?