William Henry Blair was a Republican senator from New Hampshire and ardent supporter of prohibition. He introduced the first bill in Congress to ban the manufacture, sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages and published this work while he was still in the Senate.
Although the book is heavy reading, the map tells the story. In Blair's words (363): "The eye is the chief inlet to knowledge, and the map of New York city which accompanies this book, upon which are located over 9000 of the 10,168 saloons and places where intoxicating liquor was for sale in that metropolis on the thirtieth day of June, 1886, looks like a chart of the capital city of the regions of despair." See generally Vaughan 2018, 186-88.
