APPEAL

ΤΟ THE BRITISH PEOPLE,

AND

Especially to the Opulent and Influential,

ON

THE GREATEST REFORM YET TO BE

ACCOMPLISHED.

FELLOW COUNTRYMEN,

THE age in which we live is called the Age of Reform, and among the nations of the earth, England takes the foremost rank amongst Reformers. The wise and the good in all countries look to it for example, and in most instances look to it with hope; but there is one Giant Evil yet to be reformed, in which its example is more pernicious than beneficial, and in which its national influence has created so vast an amount of injury, that all its energies should be put forth at once, and without an hour's delay, to remove the blot from its otherwise bright escutcheon.

As a people, you are intelligent-the world admits it but, much as you have learnt, and great

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as is the superiority you manifest, in arts, in science, and in commerce, you are yet, as far as the majority of your numbers is concerned, steeped in the profoundest ignorance as to the extent of injury sustained by you all, in a greater or lesser degree, by what you deem the "innocent" and "moderate use of intoxicating drinks.

As a people, you are wealthy-no other people on the globe are your equals in this :-but, in no country on earth is so large a portion of that wealth utterly wasted and destroyed, as it is by usages and customs prevalent among you, in all ranks of society, from the cottage to the palace-by all ages, in all professions, of both sexes, and among all conditions of men.

As a people, you are courageous-your history has proved it but there is one Foe you have not courage to front, whom you shrink from attacking -and before whose sway you bend in dread and homage the tyrant, Fashion.

As a people, you are free:-none perhaps really freer;—but amidst all your boasted freedom, you are slaves to a habit which holds you in fetters more closely riveted than those which manacle the African; for while you have broken his chains to pieces, you still wear your own, apparently unconscious of the bondage.

As a people, you are benevolent, moral, religious; ―your numerous institutions and munificent subscriptions everywhere proclaim it ;-but you nevertheless seem to be unmoved by a sweeping torrent

of destruction, rolling over every part of your otherwise beautiful and happy country, which mars your benevolence, outrages all morality, and is the greatest stumbling-block to pure religion that has ever obstructed its heavenly path.

These are severe rebukes, I admit; but are they just? are they true? If so, their severity is kindness, and their utterance will be mercy, should they awaken you to a sense of the incalculable and indescribable evils under which thousands of your fellowcountrymen and countrywomen-nay, even thousands of young children-still labour; evils which it is entirely within your power almost instantly to remove; and for the further continuance of which, you are, therefore, in a great degree responsible.

Let us reason together a little on this subject, till the light of truth shall gradually become visible to you :

It has been proved by Parliamentary evidence,sifted, examined, and scrutinized, but never yet confuted or denied,-that the actual expenditure of money, in Great Britain alone, exclusive of all her Colonies, in the mere purchase of intoxicating drinks, exceeds fifty millions sterling! a sum greater than the whole revenue of the kingdom, from every available source.

Does this vast expenditure make any one stronger, or healthier, than if he abstained entirely from its use? The united intelligence of the most enlightened and eminent Medical Men of the country answer NO!—and out of a long list of those who

have so answered, by their signatures to a public document expressing this, it will be enough to mention the names of Sir James Clark, Sir James Macgrigor, Sir Benjamin Brodie, Sir William Burnett, Drs. Chambers, Paris, Bright, Copeland, Forbes, Latham, Bostock, Guy, Key, Elliotson, and a host of others, including the very heads of the medical profession.

Does it make any one more industrious, or capable of enduring greater labour? The uniform testimony of landed proprietors, merchants, manufacturers, and employers of large bodies of men, in agriculture, trade, mining, in fleets, in armies, in isolated labour or in co-operative force, answer NO! On the contrary, they prove that it produces idleness, to such a degree, as that, on an average of the whole working community, one-sixth part of their time, or one day in every week, is wasted and expended, by drinking usages and indulgencies; and that another fifty millions sterling are therefore lost to the whole nation by the suppression or stagnation of so much productive power: while the sickness and debility occasioned by intemperance, both in parents and their progeny, adds considerably to this loss of efficient labour and production, great as it already is.

Does it improve the intellect, or increase the skill of any living being? All experience answers NO! It renders some stupid, others self-willed and obstinate, some vain and conceited, and others furious and demoniacal: but of patient learning, practised

skill, and calm and deliberate wisdom, it never imparted an atom. It makes present idiots and future lunatics, but it makes no man wiser or more competent to the discharge of any of the great duties of life.

Does it make men more moral, women more chaste, or children more truthful and honest? Alas! in no one instance has it ever done this. Stimulating drink is every hour the exciting cause of nearly all the crimes that fill our prisons, that people our penal colonies, and that supply the executioner for the gallows. Strong drink is the parent of nearly all the mutinies in the navy, and insubordinations in the army; and almost all the tortures of flogging and every other species of naval and military punishment is clearly traceable to this single cause. Stimulating drink is the powerful agent used to facilitate seductions, adulteries, and the daily violations of chastity, in thought, word, and deed: and the inmates of every female asylum, with one united voice, will answer, that, but for the use of reason-drowning drink, their betrayers would never have succeeded in depriving them of all that rendered life valuable, their hitherto unspotted honour; and that but for the same conscience-searing poison, they would have returned again, repentant, to the bosom of society; their expulsion from which, as outcasts, was owing to the criminal conduct of others; but, in the delirium produced by drink, they find their only solace, by steeping their unutterable woes in temporary oblivion. And for children—in every