touch his lips. [Abstinence, after all, being his guard!] He sees it to be the source of nearly all the brutal crimes committed in his country, THE GREAT PROPORTION OF WHICH SPRING FROM THE WINE-SHOPS, among whose frequenters the navaja [knife] is constantly produced to settle disputes, and horrible murders in this way committed. I do not, however, include [amongst the abstemious] the arrieros and caleseros, a class with which the traveller is most frequently brought into contact. These men, true to the habits [ temptations?] of their calling, which all over the world appears to be a thirsty one, have no objection to the juice of the grape, and imbibe it freely: for this many among them substitute a fiery liquid, called aguardiente anisado."-p. 313.*

§ 22. Pass once more to the North of Europe, for an illustration of the essentially mischievious nature of the Manufacture and Sale of intoxicating drink, and of its inherent tendency to generate excess and crime under the highest restraining influences, Dr EDWARD CLARKE, the traveller, pronounced Sweden to be a temperate country in his day. SCHUBERT, in his Travels in Sweden, declares that "the laws against intoxication are enforced with great rigour. It is forbidden to give, and more explicitly to sell, any spirituous liquors to students, workmen, servants, apprentices, and private soldiers." The Swedes are well taught, morally trained, and liberally governed: the very nostrums for the cure of intemperance, now so confidently put forth by the Literati and Legislators of England-and yet what is Sweden now? FORSELL and LAING have told us the facts, but Sir ARCHIBALD ALISON, the historian, shall paint the picture :

"The people of Sweden are universally educated; landed property, especially in the northern provinces, is very much divided among them; and no country in the world possesses, in proportion to its population, a greater number of clergy, who instruct the people in the pure tenets of the Protestant religion. The national character is admirable, and the manners of the people, except in one unhappy particular, worthy of general imitation. Brave, kind-hearted, and hospitable, sincere in their devotion, enlightened, when duly instructed in their intellects, gentle in their dispositions, the Swedish peasantry exhibit as fine a specimen of rural civilization as is to be met with in the whole domains of the family of Japhet. But one fatal indulgence + has well nigh obliterated all these advantages, and let-in upon this simple, kind-hearted people, the whole catalogue of human sins. Drinking is universal-the liberty of distilling in every separate house, on paying a trifling duty to government for the right to use a still, has, from time immemorial, been established among the whole peasantry of the country; and, at this moment, there are no less than one hundred and fifty thousand of these manufactories of 'liquid hell-fire'-as they have been well denominated-which distil annually thirty millions of gallons of spirits, for the

*The Economist for April, 1856, in an article on 'Crime,' says:-"Offences against the person are the species which spring from drunkenness." It is mistaken: all kinds of crime spring from it, not one or two in particular. It also says:-" Crimes of violence are much more numerous among the sober and grave Spaniards, and the sober and gay French, than among the less sober English." The citations above will show how widely these theorists stray from the path of fact and truth. It admits, however, that while, since 1835, the consumption of liquor has decreased 25 per cent, crimes against the person have decreased 24.

The indulgence, as he shows, springs from the temptation-the facility of Manufacture: one happily for us, not yet permitted in England.

consumption of three millions of people. The consequences of this calamitous facility in producing and obtaining spirituous liquors have been to the last degree disastrous. Notwithstanding the small number of manufactures which are established in the country, the general simplicity of rural life, the absence of great towns, and the moderate size of its capital, which contains only eighty thousand inhabitants, the average amount of crime over all Sweden equals that of the most depraved cities of Great Britain. The illegitimate births are to the legitimate, over the whole country, as one to thirteen; while in the capital they have reached the astonishing number of one to two and three-tenths, exceeding the proportion of even Paris itself.* So fearfully does this destructive passion for ardent spirits inflame the blood, and generate crime, even in the coldest latitude; so perfectly adequate is it to counteract all the efforts of reason, prudence, morality, and religion; and so fallacious is the system which, proceeding on the mistaken assumption that the people will of themselves abstain from such enjoyments as are pernicious, allows them to manufacture-without limit or restraint ―this most seducing and dreadful of all physical and moral poisons.”†

The History of the United States teaches the same important lesson. Freedom, education, et cetera, did not prevent a deplorable amount of national intemperance.

§ 23. The facts we have here adduced demonstrate, not simply the peculiarity of the Traffic in intoxicating liquors, and the uniformity of its consequences, which place it out of the category of Free-trades, because vicious; but also another important proposition-viz: that (cæteris paribus) the facilities for the sale, manufacture, or purchase of strong drink, measure, because they are amongst the factors which generate, the Intemperance of a People. And this is precisely why no Legislation that licenses the Traffic can possibly get rid of its evil fruits-can SATISFACTORILY regulate it. We may limit its effects, as we might chain a Bear; but so far as either Business or Beast had range, it would do mischief. At present, it is certain that half our pauperism and three-fourths of our crime, and a vast proportion of our taxation, disease, and other sufferings, are traceable to the Traffic. With a Sunday free from its curse, so far as an imperfect measure could free us, which leaves the motive and machinery of evasion intact, the 75 per cent of crime might be reduced to 60; or the sum of crime (not the proportion) might even become lessened 25 per cent. But would that convert the remaining sum of evil into anything satisfactory? We should still object to the diminished sum of crime, that 3-4ths of it sprang from the Traffic as before; and insist upon the duty of the State to prevent all preventible crime. To license or tolerate

the Liquor-traffic, therefore, is equivalent to sowing the seeds of social disorder; whence, by inflexible law, the harvest must come, to be reaped in sorrow and bitterness.

§ 24. Our proposition may be established by other evidence. We have referred to the fact that there is more Intemperance in

* In Middlesex, it is one to thirty-eight. Over all England, one to twenty. + History of Europe. Chapter 70.

the Army than the Navy. Why? Because on land, the Soldier is more exposed to temptation to drink, through the facilities of obtaining it. Even the cheapening of Liquor has this effect, by making it more accessible; and the supply then creates the increased demand-reversing an ordinary law of trade. The annual consumption of Spirits in England and Wales, for the years 1823, 1824, 1825, was 44 millions of gallons. In the latter year the duty was lowered from 12s.7d. to 7s. the imperial gallon and what followed? During the next 3 years, 84 millions were consumed annually (in 1828, indeed, above 9 millions), and crime rose everywhere one-fourth. The licensing of Grocers to sell spirits in Scotland and Ireland, furnish, in their results, evidence of the same truth, that the facilities for drinking create drunkenness, even where comparative temperance before prevailed.*

An afflicting example is found in the conduct of the English Fencible and Militia regiments that were sent into Ireland in the period of the insurrection of 1798. Being, in consequence of the disturbed state of that country, freed very much from the usual strictness of military discipline, the tendency of facilities for getting drink was permitted to develop itself with little hindrance. Spirits were everywhere found in abundance, both the produce of legal and of illicit distillation, and they were of course very cheap. Habits of intoxication rapidly formed, and spread so widely amongst the army, that hundreds of men died of what the Surgeons aptly but truly designated the 'Whisky Fever.'

The author of an Inquiry into this subject, so far back as 25 years ago,t states that it is a common complaint on the part of the Masters of English coasting vessels, that their Sailors, though temperate and well-behaved in their own harbors, become drunken and riotous when at an Irish port, under the temptations of the Whisky Shop.

It is the same with our Sailors in the Chinese ports, where horrid grog shops are set up for entrapping them, and the issue contributes to produce in the minds of the Chinese, a disgust and re-action against the very name of Christian. It was but the other day, that a young man, a relative, just returned from his first voyage to China, narrated to us some of the disgraceful scenes of debauchery he had witnessed, and one outbreak in which

* One of the worst consequences of Smuggling Spirits is the private facilities for their purchase, aided by the temptation of their cheapness. This brings a vast increase of crime along with it. D'ANGEVILLE remarks of France, that the districts of the coast and frontiers, where Smuggling most prevails, are marked by a dark band of crime. In Scotland, experience has shown that the vigorous suppression of Smuggling has tended materially to improve the sobriety and morality of the towns on the East Coast (see Report cited in ? 32-237). So taxes have a probibitory force, while cheapness of drink promotes drunkenness. When the duty on spirits was reduced in 1825, the consumption immediately doubled. The Times admits that a tax is "a very legitimate sort of check on our drinking propensities." (December 28th, 1853.)

+ Dublin: Milliken and Son, 1830, p. 8.

he had participated. Seventeen of the Sailors, after getting excited at the raki shops, went into one of the Pagodas, and destroyed its gilded 'Gods.' They were all arrested of course, sent to the Tread-mill, and finally liberated only on paying handsomely the 'smart-money,' with which fresh Idols would be purchased in the place of those demolished by these strange Missionaries, in their alcoholic and iconoclastic zeal.

Follow our Countrymen to the Colonies, and we find the same truth. On Colonel COLLINS' description of BOTANY BAY, in 1796, BENTHAM makes the following commentary :—

"The most prominent cause of this state of abandoned profligacy, is the universal and immoderate passion for spirituous liquors it is the exciting cause which leads to every species of vice— gaming, dissoluteness, depredation, and murder. Servants,

:

soldiers, laborers, women, the youth of both sexes, prisoners and their gaolers, are all alike corrupted by it: it was carried to such a pitch, that numbers of the settlers were in the practice of selling the whole of their crops, as soon as they were gathered, in order to purchase their favorite liquor.”*

Speaking of his PANOPTICON PENITENTIARY, under the head of 'Temperance,' he has the following: :

"We have already had occasion to show that nearly all the crimes committed at Botany Bay, either originate, or are increased, by the use of spirituous liquors, and that it is impossible [owing to the smuggling facilities and extent of coast] to prevent their use. Here the evil is arrested in its source: it will not be possible to smuggle in a drop of this poison; transgressions will, therefore, be impossible. There is much humanity in a strict rule, which prevents not only faults and chastisements, but temptations also.”

He afterwards speaks of the prisoners as "deprived of all intoxicating liquors, those stimulants to dangerous enterprizes. The success of these establishments has permanent causes in the sobriety and industry established. The rule which has ensured sobriety, has been the entire exclusion of strong-liquors,-even small-beer. It has been found more easy to ensure abstinence than moderation. Experience has proved that the stimulus of strong liquors has only a transitory effect, and that an abundant and simple nourishment, with water for the only drink, fits men for the performance of continued labors. Many of those who entered the Prison of New York with constitutions enfeebled, have regained, in a short time, under this regime, their health and vigor. The Duke de Liancourt, and Captain Turnbull, have entered into more details. We learn that the charge for medicines, which amounted annually to more than $1,200, has been reduced to $160."

That things have not much improved since 1796, will be

* Principles of Penal Law. Works Vol. i. p. 495.

evinced by an extract from Wilkes' United States Exploring Expedition, 1839-40, referring to Sydney.

"The vice of drunkenness stalks abroad at noon-day. It is not rare at any time, but on holidays its prevalence surpasses anything I have ever witnessed. Even persons of the fair sex were to be seen staggering along the most public streets, brawling in the houses, or borne off in charge of the police. The facilities for the indulgence of this vice are to be seen everywhere, in the form of low Taverns and Grog-shops, which attract attention by their gaudy signs."-i. p. 211.

for

In 1838, the consumption of spirits was five gallons annually, every inhabitant of the Colony-old and young!

§ 25. Mr DE QUINCEY, in treating of the Philosophy of the Temperance movement, wisely observes, that "preparations of intoxicating liquor, even when harmless in their earlier stages, are fitted to be stepping stones for making transition to higher stages that are not harmless." We have seen already (§ 18) how true this is of the Light Wines of France, and of the Cider of our Western Counties; and it will be easily comprehended, therefore, how the Beer Act came to increase our national vice. By multiplying facilities it enlarged temptation and multiplied customers, and then, by inevitable law, the use of the weaker excitant tended to foster an appetite for the stronger. That act was passed with acclamation in 1830; and, without destroying one single Public-house, high or 'low,' it in a few years added some 50,000 still more baneful houses to the list of temptations already so fatal to the independence and virtue of our people! In 1834, the Sheffield Iris records the speech of a magistrate in that town, which states that from the 1st October, 1830, there had been 300 new Beer shops opened, and that no less than 110 had applied for Spirit licences. "Such was the increased desire for Spirits, formed by the facilities of obtaining Beer." The government, in fact, were increasing the temptations to drink in a new class, as well as extending the temptations to all; and hence the Beer Trade became the Jackall to the Spirit Traffic, and both the wholesale feeders of the poor-house and the prison.

We seize a passing event for another illustration-to us the saddest of all! From the Hospitals of Scutari the report travelled that FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE was ill-worn out by her womanly devotion to the suffering and the sick. The cause of her illness does not seem to have been caught at by the press;—perhaps it did not wish to discuss the question involved, its interests lying on the other side. Let us say, then, that it was really a sickness of heart. It was not the breath of the pestilence, nor continued toil and watching, nor the fierce blaze of an oriental sun, before which she succumbed:

"All this could I have borne with deep joy," she writes; "but to see the stretcher brought to the gates every hour, laden with men foaming in the mouth and black in the face, not with the gore of battle, but with the horrible defacement of a foe more dreadful or deadly than the Russian or the plague-oh, it is terrible!"