Harvard T. A. League.

A public meeting of the Total Abstinence League was held last evening in Sever 11, with an audience that was very good for Friday. Prof. F. G. Peabody was the first speaker. He spoke particularly of the work of the Law and Order League in Cambridge. He dwelt on the need of unity in all reforms and of united forces against common enemies. The need was felt in Cambridge, and finally a league was formed, merely for the enforcement of the laws relating to the liquor traffic. This league included men who were prohibitionists, licencists, extremists, moderatists, Democats and Republicans. The liquor laws forbid sales of liquor to minors, on Sundays, on election day, to drunkards or men who have been seen drunk within six months, within four hundred feet of a schoolhouse. They forbid also the placing of any sort of screens in doorways or windows of saloons. The league was formed to enforce these laws, and has thus far confined itself chiefly to the first two restrictions. This has been done by prosecution, resulting in conviction, 24 cases of 26. Two years ago not one dealer in Cambridge obeyed the laws, but now very few don't. The league has thus far done little more than make a beginning and get people interested; it has been but paring away at the great evil that wars so against society and government.

Hon. L. Edwin Dudley, Sec'y of the Nat. Law and Order League, followed Prof. Peabody. He gave a brief sketch of the history of the League, showing how much the cause resembled the cause of slavery, how hopeless both had seemed at first. The first league was formed in Chicago, in 1877, with the purpose of enforcing the liquor laws passed in Illinois in 1860. During the intervening eight years, only two arrests had been made, neigther of which resulted in conviction. In a very short time the League had turned into the city treasury, over $1,300,000 from fines had effectually enforced the existing laws, and originated new ones, and had set an example which has been followed very generally over the whole country. The speaker was very active in forming the Massachusetts League. The league includes every college president in the state, four ex-governors, almost all, if not all, the leading men in every branch of life. The work of the League has been done chiefly through detectives. The platform is that every law should be obeyed by every citizen, and therefore every citizen should promote the enforcement of law. A law, good or bad, is still a law, and should be an active law, and not a dead letter. Public opinion in the case of the liquor laws, certainly is favorable in Massachusetts; and though it were not, should the laws be neglected?

At the close of the meeting, Prof. Peabody presented a petition for an increased license fee, to which he asked the signature of any Cambridge voters who might be present.