public-house. He does not care much for the drink, but as he cannot have the company without the drink, of course, he takes it. The habit, in some cases, grows upon him, and he becomes a drunkard."

Why wonder at this which is all so natural? Where is he to go for necessary change and recreation? Where, but to the public-house? Can he go and enjoy his pipe and his company at home, in his one small room, his wife working there, and rocking the cradle with her foot? She would scarcely thank him for that.

"The Country Parson" must have given the following description from living scenes.

"How well one can understand the state of mind of a poor man quite crushed and spirit-broken: poisoned by ceaseless anxiety: with no heart to do anything: many a time wishing that he might but creep into a quiet grave; and, meanwhile trying to shrink out of sight, and slip by unnoticed! Despair nerves for a little while, but constant care saps, and poisons, and palsies. It has shattered many a nervous system, unstrung many a once vigorous mind, crushed down many a once hopeful spirit, and aged many a man who should have been young by his years."

Dr. Southwood Smith, whose long and loving labors to improve the moral and sanitary condition of the working classes, and whose great experience and medical skill, added to great abilities and untiring zeal, have placed him highest in the list of authorities on this subject, has, on this particular part of it, thus expressed himself.

"A clean, fresh, well-ordered house exercises over its inmates a moral, no less than a physical, influence, and has a direct tendency to make the members of the family sober, peaceable, and considerate of the feelings and happiness of each other; nor is it difficult to trace a connection between habitual feelings of this sort, and the

formation of habits of respect for property, for the laws in general, and even for those higher duties and obliga. tions the observance of which no laws can enforce. Whereas, a filthy, squalid, un wholesome, dwelling, in which none of the decencies common to society—even in the lowest stages of civilization--are or can be observed, tends to make every dweller in such a hovel regardless of the feelings and happiness of each other, selfish, and sensual. And the connexion is obvious between the constant indulgence of appetites, and passions of this class, and the formation of habits of idieness, debauchery, and violence."

Then, again :-look at the Trades Unions, the Benefit Clubs, and Friendly Societies, (as these are miscalled) so thickly spread over the kingdom, and,-among their many other abuses-see how fruitful they generally are of encouragement to drunkenness.

No terms of denunciation can be too severe against the practices of these most injurious Associations. No language can express too strongly the dangerous influence which they exercise for leading into the worst sort of temptation those whom they get into their power; nor too strongly reprobate the means by which they obtain and hold their power. For a full understanding of these means, and of this power, and of all the injurious consequences, the facts must be sought for in numerous printed Reports of the proceedings of these Trades Unions, and Benefit and Friendly Societies, and especially in the various Reports of Select Committees of the House of Commons, the main results of which can here be only very slightly glanced at.

Few, perhaps, have bestowed, or ever will bestow, the time and pains necessary for bringing from darkness into light the numerous and important facts bearing on this question, and buried in those repositories for dead truths. But there are to be found the true causes of intempe

rance, and it must here suffice to say that, those causes are not in the facilities for getting drunk, but in the little encouragement given for keeping sober.

That this was Burke's view, is evident from the following extract from his political writings :-" As to what is said, in a physical and moral view, against the home consumption of spirits, experience has long since taught me very little to respect the declamations on that subject-whether the thunder of the laws, or the thunder of eloquence "is hurled on gin," always I am thunderproof. The alembic, in my mind, has furnished to the world a far greater benefit and blessing, than if the opus maximum had been really found by chemistry, and, like Midas, we could turn every thing into gold.

Undoubtedly there may be a dangerous abuse in the excess of spirits; and at one time, I am ready to believe, the abuse was great. When spirits are cheap, the business of drunkenness is achieved with little time or labor; but that evil I consider to be wholly done away. Observation for the last forty years, and very particularly for the last thirty, has furnished me with ten instances of drunkenness from other causes, for one from this.

Ardent spirit is a great medicine, often to remove distempers-much more frequently to prevent them, or to chase them away in their beginnings. It is not nutritive in any great degree. But, if not food, it greatly alleviates the want of it. It invigorates the stomach for the digestion of poor meagre diet, not easily alliable to the human constitution. Wine the poor cannot touch. Beer, as applied to many occasions, (as among seamen and fishermen for instance) will by no means do the business. Let me add,-what wits inspired with champagne and claret, will turn into ridicule-it is a medicine for the mind. Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows mortal condition, men have at all times, and ntries, called in some physical aid to their

of o

moral consolations,-wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco."

Some may think Burke, even on this question, no common authority: at any rate, this reads very like

common sense.

From all this, we may learn a useful lesson, which is, that if we would make the People better, we must first make them happier.

The miseries of human life are made up of large masses, each separated from the other by certain intervals.

But the happiness of life, on the contrary, is made up of minute fractions-as Coleridge said :-"the little soon forgotten charities of a kiss, a smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the disguise of playful raillery, and the countless other infinitesimals of pleasurable thought and genial feeling."

But it is a happy world after all,—and was, surely, intended to be so for all,-as we may see in a spring noon, or summer's evening, when myriads of happy creatures crowd our view, whichever way we turn our eyes. As Paley said :-"their sportive motions, their wanton mazes, their gratuitous activity, their continual change of place without use or purpose, testify their joy, and the exaltation they feel in their liberty, and lately discovered faculties."

Can any one contemplate this lowest insect life, and for a moment doubt that this world was intended to be a happy for the highest human life? And if it be not a happy world,-why is it not?

Perhaps, the answer is to be found in man's wickedness-and, mainly, in the cruelty and injustice of man

to man.

HOW TO MAKE INTOXICATING DRINKS

HARMLESS.

We have already said that-the causes of intemperance are not in the facilities for getting drunk, but in the little encouragement given for keeping sober.'

We will now show how more encouragement may be given, and how effectual that may be made.

To make out even a plausible case for prohibition, it must be proved that this would be an effectual remedy, and that no other can be found. Both these propositions are asserted by the prohibitionists; but neither of these has been, or ever can be, proved.

It is said to be easier to make a nation of abstainers, than to cure a nation of drunkenness. But what has ever been done to prove this, or to lead any one of common sense ever to expect this?

But this is not the question. The choice is not between abstinence and drunkenness, but between moderation and excess.

It has yet to be shown that moderation cannot be obtained without the aid of prohibition; or, that temperance is impossible. It has yet to be shown that a Maine Law will accomplish its object. If it stop drinking, will it cure intemperance? It does not reach the root of the evil. The root lies much deeper. It is not in the facilities for drinking. It is not even in the drink itself. It is in the want of something better. Raise the working man's standard of comfort. Give him new wants, and thereby raise his standard of intelligence. But first, it is essential that all his domestic comforts should be increased. These will create the new wants, and will also go far to provide for them. The want will not be provided for until it be felt; and, if all things be right, the want will find means to provide for itself. For this no law but the law of Nature is required. Any interference