INDIA: Noble Experiment

Thousands of Hindus marched through the streets dragging hideous effigies labeled DEMON LIQUOR. At strategic corners, city officials stepped forward to set fire to the images. Last week Madras Province was celebrating Gandhi's birthday (it would have been his 79th) by going dry.

Madrasis could scarcely have chosen a better way to honor the Mahatma. "If I were appointed dictator for one hour for all India," Gandhi once wrote, "the first thing I would do would be to close without compensation all liquor shops, destroy all toddy palms*. . . Exceptions...

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