DRINKING
CUSTOMS.

Confirmed drunkenness.

friends and his farm, one after another, were abandoned. His tastes and his feelings were changed-how completely! The glowing and enthusiastic soul of William Mainwaring had drooped before the withering and blasting influence of alcoholic excitement, and the man had now sunk into a solitary and selfish, a morose and mopish drunkard. Yes! the man who had promised so well to be a blessing to his species, as he was the ornament of the society in which he moved the fame of whose gifts and rising greatness had spread into neighboring states-he, from whom men expected noble things for the elevation of man's social condition, and whom the electors of his own state had thought of appointing their senator-even he, the lately all-admired and admiring lost to the William Mainwaring, had become a drunkard and a sot!

A good man

world.

The gloom of fallen greatness.

This was whispered abroad, and while men at a distance hesitated to give it credence, others shook the head and reflected gloomily upon the frailty of man's best nature. Occasionally, however, glimpses of his former character would again break forth, and some sparks of his original brightness illuminate the darkness he had created around and within him. But as the light given by glow-worms to a lost traveller on a dark and dreary night, though beautiful in itself, only serves to wrap everything around in a double mantle of blackness; so did the bright ray which now and then lit up his character affect even Mainwaring himself. In his poor, forlorn wife, however, it produced a different sensation. It raised in her tender bosom hopes beautiful and buoyant but alas! they were doomed to be delusive and brief; for after the bursting forth of something like his former self, which to her yet sanguine soul appeared as the breaking out and shining of the sun after a cold and rainy day-giving promise of a bright to-morrow-he would again Anxieties and suddenly relapse to his cold and cheerless condition, as the sun sinks behind his sable drapery. Thus, the effect upon her gentle mind was as brilliant and hope-inspiring as, alas! it was transient and illusive.

Months passed away, and things, instead of improving, daily grew worse. At length an event occurred, which, while it promised to Mrs. Mainwaring something of happiness, seemed to stop her husband's progress towards destruction. A son was born: and as the boy grew up, the mother doated upon him with even more than the full degree of that

disappointments of a drunkard's wife.

Birth of a second child.

DRINKING
CUSTOMS.

Hopes of a man enslaved by appetite.

worth carry

ing out.

parental affection which distinguishes her sex.
Her child,
her infant boy, was the only solace she had on earth: her
only hope was centered in him, and she therefore loved him
with more than a mother's love. His father too, degenerate
as he was, displayed towards him an excessive fondness; and
this love for his child formed an oasis in his heart-a fresh
green spot amidst the arid wilderness he had made. When
he looked in his boy's face, radiant with smiles, it reminded
him of innocence and felicity, and of a lesson he had formerly
known and practised, for the one was interwoven with the
other; and he felt as if he might again be happy with his
wife and child. But, alas! it only seemed, for bad habits are
not so easily mastered; and of all the habits which hold the
heart of man in thrall, this habit, when thoroughly formed,
adheres the closest to its victim, and holds him with the most
tenacious grasp. Mainwaring, however, began to think of
breaking the shackles which held him in bondage; and,
indeed, it is not surprising that he should, for if galling to
the most untutored and depraved of men, how much more
unbearable must they have been to a man whose nature and
education were so superior? One night, when he felt,
thought, and talked more rationally than he had done for
some time past, he told his wife that, let what would happen,
he should drink no more intoxicating liquor. "I will join

A resolution the Temperance Society to-morrow," he said; "the father shall yet be worthy of his child, and of himself; and you, my Mary, shall be happy once more." These unusual words, uttered in a soft and serious tone, fell on her soul like music, and tears of joy gushed from her eyes. She rose from her seat in ecstasy, pushed aside her husband's black curly hair, and in transports of rapture, kissed his broad forehead again and again. Once more Hope and Faith arose within her: she was happy.

Morning plight of the drunkard.

at ease.

Next morning Mainwaring started to the town. He was nervous, so he could not bid his wife good-bye. He was ill It was about the usual time for his second dose of the dangerous drink, and as yet he had not tasted. The horrors seemed to be possessing him, but with an almost superhuman effort, he shook them off, and proceeded along the road. His wife, believing herself about to be again Mrs. Mainwaring, rose that morning cheerful and contented, though a doubt of her husband's self-control would now and

then press upon her mind. "We have yet," she said to herself, "sufficient property left to make us comfortable, if he would only be sober; but I could gladly see it dispersed to-morrow-could willingly bear even beggary itself—were I certain that he would take and keep the pledge. I have strong forebodings, yet I cannot but feel happy. I hope he will not, on any pretence, call at that Deacon Staddle's; I would rather, much rather, that he met with one of his drunken associates, than this smooth-tongued deacon with his cant and prate about Moderation." Thus she reasoned with herself. Meanwhile Mainwaring had arrived in the town, and in passing the grocery and spirit store of this very deacon, he felt so faint, nervous, tottering, and frightened, that he determined to step in and just have one glass-only one, before he took the pledge, and proscribed strong drink for ever. Fatal resolve! He entered the house of this Professor of Righteousness and Dealer in Rum-called for, and was supplied with his glass; but did he stop at the first stage of drunkenness? Was he satisfied with one glass? Those who have observed how one glass of liquor acts upon the brain and system of a drunkard, need hardly be told that he took another, and yet another.

DRINKING
CUSTOMS.

A wife's hopes in the Pledge.

Evil communications corrupt good intentions.

by wives

The hours flew past, and we can imagine how anxious Mrs. Mainwaring became for her husband's return. She would busily employ herself in putting her house in order, and this, with the cheerfulness of new hope, would make the time pass more swiftly than it was wont. But when night came and brought not Mainwaring, how would the tears steal down her cheeks, as she kissed her babe, and her heart sadly prophesy-—“I shall know peace no more.” Then Cares endured going to the door, we may fancy her mistaking the night through drink wind, rustling in the distant trees, for her husband's tardy tread. Hope would forsake her, and again return, as if loth to desert the gentle creature. Kneeling, perhaps, by the bedside of her infant son, she would pray for strength, and feel refreshed; or gazing upon its fair and innocent face, pat its little cheeks, and as she covered them with kisses, fancy the path of its life-journey strewn with flowers-for she would fain have it so. But anon, perhaps, she called to mind something she had heard of the hereditary tendency of drunkenness, and the dread thought would drive back hope to its birth-place on high.

DRINKING
CUSTOMS.

Mainwaring, drunk, kills his child.

His wife swoons.

At last, Mainwaring staggered into the room! As it would appear, he must have been almost senselessly drunk! for he staggered and fell with the force of his whole weight on the bed-under him his poor infant-the centre of a mother's hopes-her only joy-her all! Rushing forward, she seized her drunken husband, and with an effort almost supernatural, she seems to have dragged him off her crushed babe, falling herself the next moment senseless on the floor. Then it was, as starting to his feet, and raising up his child, that the horrible consciousness of what he had done must have flashed upon the father's mind. The child was dead! He its murderer! In that dreadful moment, it seems, he reached from the closet a loaded pistol, put it to his head, and shot He blows his out his brains! There lay the family, last night so joyous with the prospect of restored happiness, now prostrate in death or insensibility. The mother in the unconsciousness of a swoon, the child murdered by its father, and he in early Awful scene life designed to become a christian minister, a disfigured and gory corpse upon the floor! While his brain, the organ of his once gentle and noble mind, bespattered the white walls of the room, and his spirit stood in the presence of his God, confronting that of his babe, answering to the charge of drunkenness, murder, and suicide. Earth, heaven, and hell, were thus witness to the tragic spectacle!

brains out!

The Doings of

Strong Drink.

Discovery of the bodies.

The sun arose, and passing through his eastern portals, gay and gorgeous as a bridegroom, proudly ascended the heavens. The whip-poor-will poured forth his plaintive notes on the morning breeze; the woodman, hearty and happy, proceeded to the forest; the factory bells in town announced the commencement of another day's toil; while the children of the neighborhood kicked up their heels, shouted, laughed, whistled, and sang, in all the joyousness of youth. How different was the scene presented in the house of Mainwaring, where all was still and solemn as the grave! The suicide troubled not the victim, nor the victim the suicide; and the half-breathing body of the swooned one yet remained in a death-like stupor. It was nearly noon before the sad spectacle met the horrified gaze of the neighbors, and hours passed away before their best endeavors succeeded in restoring the hapless wife and mother to consciousness. At length her lips moved, when her friends cried out, “She speaks, she speaks." Yes, she spoke; and her words were: