Baynard, Dr., in an Appendix to Sir John Floyer's History of Cold Bathing.

"As water is, in chief, the universal drink of all the world, both animals and vegetables, so it is the best, and most salubrious; for without it no plant nor creature could long subsist.

"That good and pure water has a balsamic and healing quality in it, I could give many instances, as well externally in curing of wounds, as internally as ulcers, excoriations, &c. For I once knew a gentleman of plentiful fortune, who by some accident fell to decay, and having a numerous family of small children, whilst the father was a prisoner in the King's Bench, his family was reduced almost to want; his wife and children living on little better than bread and water. But I never saw such a change in six months time, as I did in this unhappy family; for the children that were always ailing, and valetudinary, as coughs, king's-evil, &c., were recovered to a miracle, looked fresh, well coloured and lusty, their flesh hard and plump. But, I remember the mother told me, it being a plentiful year of fruit, she gave them often baked apples, with their coarse bread, which, I think might very much contribute to their health. And that most remarkable story of Alexander Selkirk, a Scotchman, who from a leaky ship, was upon his own request set on shore on an island in the South Sea, called Juan Fernandez, about the latitude of thirty-three degrees, where he lived four years, and four months by himself alone, and eat nothing but goat's flesh, and drank water, having neither bread nor salt, as he told me himself at the Bath where I met him; and that he was three times as strong, by exercise, as ever he was in his life. But when taken up by the two ships, the Duke and Duchess sent out from Bristol, for the South Sea, that eating the ship-fare with the other seamen, and drinking beer and other fermented liquors, his strength by degrees began to leave him, like cutting off Samson's hair, crinitim (to make a word,) or lock by lock, so that in one month's time, he had not more strength than another man. I insert this relation to show that water is not only sufficient to subsist us as a potulent drink, but that it liquifies and concocts our food better than any fermented liquors whatsoever; and even those strong and spirituous drinks, were it not for the watery particles in them, would prove altogether destructive, and so far from nourishing, that they would inflame and parboil the tunicles of our stomachs, as is daily seen, and especially in the livers of most clareteers, and great drinkers of other strong liquors."-p. 439, 40.

3. TEMPERANCE FAVOURABLE TO LONGEVITY.

"By the last grant of Providence to man, his life is 120 years, and where disease, arising from other causes, does not shorten it, the reason why so few attain to that age is to be found in the excessive stimulation to which the mass of the community are continually subject."-Dr. Farre, Parl. Evidence on Drunkenness.

Polemon, of Athens, in his youth, led a life of debauchery and drunkenness. When about 30 years of age, he entered the school of Zenocrates, in a state of intoxication, while the philosopher was delivering a lecture to his pupils on the effects of intemperance. He was so struck by the eloquence of the academican, and the force of his arguments, that from that moment he renounced his dissipated habits. Henceforth, as a beverage, he drank no other liquor but water. He died in extreme old age.-Lemp. Biblioth. Class. in loco.

Francis Secardi Hongo, died, A. D. 1702, aged 114 years, 10 months and 12 days. He left behind him forty-nine children. He was never sick. His sight, hearing, memory, and agility, were the surprise of all. At 110, having lost all his teeth, he cut two large ones in his upper jaw one year before he died. He used for drink only water; never wine, strong waters, coffee, or tobacco. His habits in other respects were temperate.-Long Licers, by Eugenius Philalethes. 1722, p. 91.

In the Miscellanea Curiosa, you will find a very remarkable observation, of an old man, 120 years of age, without the loss of a tooth, and of a brisk and lively disposition, whose drink, from his infancy, was pure water.

The famous Civilian, Andrew Tieraqueaus, who is said, for thirty years together, to have given yearly a book, and by one wife, a son, to the world, never drank anything but water from his infancy.-Vide "The best and easiest method of preserving uninterrupted health to extreme old age," &c. From a manuscript found in the library of an eminent physician, lately deceased, 8vo. published 1748, p. 64. His life is in Bayle's Dictionary.— Sinclair, Code of Health and Longevity.

A Scotch newspaper, notices an old woman living at Glasgow who is 130 years of age, and for the last fifty years, she has taken nothing stronger than tea or coffee. She never had occasion to take a doctor's drug, nor was a lancet ever applied to her frame. She is perfectly free from affections of the chest, and during the last century has been a perfect stranger to pain. Her pulse does not exceed seventy strokes in a minute. Her grandfather died at the age of 129, and her father died in the 120th year of his age. Her grandfather and father were very temperate

Another old woman died recently in the Western part of England. She was 110 years of age, leaving 450 descendants, more than 200 of whom attended her funeral. This woman had never taken any kind of intoxicating liquor until she was 30 years of age-remained a very moderate drinker twenty years and for the last sixty years of her life never took anything of an intoxicating nature, unless occasionally ordered by her medical adviser.

On Friday, the 3rd of February, 1837, died, Anne Parker, aged 109, the oldest inhabitant of Kent. During her whole life she abstained from spirituous liquors, indulging only in tea.—Public Papers.

Died, on the 26th of June, 1838, at Bybrook, Jamaica, Mrs.

Letitia Cox. She outlived the oldest inhabitants in this parish for many generations. By her account, she was a grown-up young woman at the time of the destruction of Port Royal, by an earthquake. She declared that she never drank anything but water during the whole of her life. She must have been upwards of one hundred and sixty years old.

An old black woman, at Holland Estate, died eighteen months ago, at one hundred and forty years old. She also declared she never drank anything but water.-Jamaica Royal Gazette.

4. STATEMENTS RELATIVE TO THE HEALTH OF CERTAIN TRIBES WHO ABSTAIN FROM THE USE OF STRONG DRING.

American Indians.

"At the first arrival of the Europeans in America, it was not uncommon to find Indians, who were above a hundred years old. They lived frugally, and drank pure water. Brandy, rum, wine, and all the other strong liquors, were utterly unknown to them. But since the Christians have taught them to drink these liquors, and the Indians have found them but too palatable; those who cannot resist their appetites hardly reach half the age of their parents."-Kalm's Travels in Pinkerton's Collection, part liii. page 494.

Natives of Shetland.

"In Shetland, the inhabitants give an account of one Tairville who arrived at the age of 108, and never drank any malt liquor distilled waters, nor wine. They say his son lived longer than he; and that his grand-children lived to a great age, and seldom, or never drank any stronger liquors than milk, water, or bland. This last is made of buttermilk mixed with water."-Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, part xvii. p. 693.

Natives of Sierra Leone.

"The natives of Sierra Leone, whose climate is said to be the worst on earth, are very temperate; they subsist entirely on small quantities of boiled rice, with occasional supplies of fruit, and drink only cold water: in consequence, they are strong and healthy, and live as long as men in the most propitious climates." -Monthly Magazine, July 1815, p. 528.

The Kaffres.

"Milk is their ordinary diet, which they always use in a curdled state; berries of various descriptions, and the seeds of plants, which the natives call plantains, are also eaten, and a few of the gramincous roots with which the woods and the banks of the rivers abound. Occasionally, too, the palm bread, of the Bosjesmans is found among them. Their total ignorance of the

use of ardent spirits and fermented liquors, and their general temperance and activity, preserve them from the ravages of many disorders which abound amongst the other native tribes, to say nothing of the value of their independence.”— Barrow's Travels.

The Circassians.

"Owing to their robust frames, and temperate habits, the Circassians generally attain an advanced age, their diseases being neither numerous, nor dangerous. Their favourite beverage is the skou, a species of sour milk peculiar to the East."-Travels in Circassia, by E. Spencer, 1837.

The Brahmins.

"Their Temperance is so great, that they live upon rice or herbs, and upon nothing that has sensitive life. If they fall sick, they count it such a mark of intemperance, that they will frequently die from shame and sullenness; many have lived a hundred, and some two hundred years."-Sir William Temple.

5. ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE EFFECTS OF INTEMPERANCE.

Individuals blessed with a vigorous and healthy constitution, more powerfully resist the influence of intoxicating liquors. This circumstance will account for the fact, that hard drinkers are not unfrequently known to live to an advanced period of life. The advocates of strong drink dwell with considerable satisfaction on this apparently contradictory fact. The following anecdote among numerous others, is often quoted by way of illustratration :-On one occasion, in a court of law, two witnesses appeared before the bench, advanced on life's list, but hale and hearty in their appearance. The judge surprised at the healthy appearance of one so old, made inquiries of the first witness as to his mode of life, and in particular his course of diet. During these interrogations, it appeared that he had from an early period of his existence, drank nothing stronger than water. Upon hearing this statement, the learned judge commented with considerable eloquence on the advantages of temperance, of the good effects of which so striking an example was then presented for their imitation. Shortly afterwards the second witness appeared in evidence. To the surprise of the judge, as well as of the legal gentlemen who sat on the bench, it appeared on the man's own confession, that he had seldom or never gone to bed in a sober state. The tables were now turned, and to a casual observer the evidence on both sides appeared to be equal. On a more careful examination, however, it will be found that long-lived drunkards are exceptions to a rule general in its results. The peculiar habits of the drunkard, engage that degree of observation, which more sober members of society fail to attract. Hence, thousands of

temperate individuals, vigorous in mind, and strong in body, arrive almost unnoticed at a green old age, while the aged and seemingly healthy drunkard, if such a phrase be not deemed absurd, is held forth and pointed at, as an example of the harmlessness, if not beneficial influence of inebriating compounds.

Bishop Berkeley, in his Essay on Tar Water, has a forcible passage on these unenviable members of society. "Albeit," he remarks, “there is in every town or district in England, some tough dram-drinker set up as the devil's decoy, to draw in proselytes."

Dr. Cheyne, (of Dublin,) relates an anecdote, which may serve as an additional illustration. A gentleman far advanced in years, one of Bishop Berkeley's "devil's decoys," on one occasion boasted that he had drank two, three, or four bottles of wine every day for fifty years, and that he was as hale and hearty as ever. Pray, remarked a by-stander, where are your boon companions? "Ah," he quickly replied, "that's another affair; if the truth may be told, I have buried three entire generations of them."

Dr. Beddoes, a physician of high reputation, in allusion to the popular objection that all who indulge in the use of intoxicating liquors are not injured, remarks, that we are perpetually reminded of the exception, as an excuse for a practice so universally marked by medical observers as destructive. But neither, he continues, do all who are exposed to its contagion catch the plague. And yet is the hazard sufficient to induce every man in his sober senses, to keep out of the way of infection?"

Dr. Rush, argues much in the same strain. "The solitary instances of longevity," he observes, "which are now and then met with in hard drinkers, no more disprove the deadly effects of ardent spirits, than the solitary instances of recoveries from apparent death by drowning, prove that there is no danger to life from a human body lying an hour under water."

On reference to authentic data, however, it is found that drunkards do not escape the consequences which result from unlawful indulgence. Appropriate illustrations are now adduced.

Dr. Parry, details the cases of two gentlemen, each of whom drank in a day a bottle of gin, the same quantity of rum, and two bottles of Madeira. One was afflicted for some time with mental alienation, and put under the necessary restraint. The other for many weeks had repeated attacks of epilepsy, followed by occasional wanderings of perception. The following case fell under the observation of Mr. Cheselden, an anatomist of great celebrity: A man died through excessive palpitation of the heart, occasioned by hard drinking. He had indulged in this habit for years. About ten inches of the largest vessel that issues from that organ, was found to be distended with blood about three times its natural diameter.

Dr. Cheyne, details the following case :-A naval officer took two or three tumblers of grog daily. On one occasion, after feasting with some officers for two days, who "tarried long at the wine," he became sick, complained of intense head-ache, and