lished.* Although habits of long sitting and deep drinking were gradually abandoned, as the intellectual resources of the people increased, excesses were still common among the higher and middle classes till past the beginning of the present century. For this, society was in no small degree indebted to the war consequent on the French Revolution, during which moral sentiment made but faint advances, and likewise to the false glory thrown over intoxication by the eulogies of popular poets. From this last-mentioned cause sprung mischiefs which are yet far from being eradicated. Intemperance was in some measure elevated to a kind of virtue: "the foaming tankard," "the flowing. bowl," ""the cheerful glass," and other engines of intoxication, were represented as indispensable to human happiness. There was no joy like the joy of drunkenness: grief was absurd, for it could be always drowned in a potation: there was no friendship like that cemented over liquor: he was a poor spiritless wretch who could not take his glass: the man who could swallow the greatest quantity of drink without falling on the floor, was worthy of royal honours

"Who last beside his chair shall fa',

He is the king among us three!"

Living in one of the most brutalising periods of English history, it is lamentable to think how the unfortunate Burns was involved in this vortex of false philosophy, and should "knowing better, doing worse"-have not only fallen himself a victim to intemperance, but have so frequently lent his pen to promote it in others. In the present day, his noble nature would have shrunk from such mental and personal debasement.

Supported as convivial intemperance was by popular poetical effusions, as well as by old-established usage, it came gradually towards an end among the higher and middle classes; and in the present day, so far as they are concerned, it may be described as but the ghost of what it was. Unfortunately, however, while drinking for conviviality, and otherwise, has been pretty nearly abandoned by a large portion of society, it has been perpetuated in another. A hundred years ago, and perhaps much less, noblemen and gentlemen possessed so feeble

* "We have of late had numberless instances, both in town and country, of persons being fined for retailing spirituous liquors, and of all their goods being seized for the payment of their penalties, to the utter ruin of themselves and families." -Caledonian Mercury, January 1737. "We hear there are now 350 persons in the several bridewells, within the bills of mortality, for selling gin. There are now in Clerkenwell bridewell 125 persons convicted of retailing spirituous liquors."-December 1737. "Yesterday died in Newgate William Davies, where he had been confined for non-payment of the £100 penalty for retailing spirituous liquors. He is said to be the seventy-fifth person who has died in the several jails and bridewells here, who had been sworn against since Christmas last."November 1738.

are.

a sense of decorum, that they habitually frequented taverns. got drunk, reeled about tipsy in the streets, brawled, fought, and otherwise disgraced themselves. Walker, in his Original, mentions that, sixty or seventy years since, certain hackneycoachmen in London carried on a lucrative business by going with their vehicles through the streets during the night, in order to take home drunk gentlemen whom they saw staggering about, and who next day paid them liberally for their pains. Few gentlemen are now seen in these circumstances; but many individuals among the operative and humbler classes The scenes of intemperance visible on Saturday evenings in the streets of our populous towns are close representations of what occurred nightly a century ago, when gentlemen of fashion were numbered in the crowd of motley practitioners. In the present, as in past times, ignorance and want of self-respect are at the root of the evil; but there are numerous causes of aggravation among others, the drinking usages connected with professional undertakings; drinking at entry into workshops, drinking at departure from workshops, and drinking of fines in workshops; drinking at births, drinking at marriages, and drinking at funerals; drinking at various festive occasions and their anniversaries; drinking of success on going a journey; drinking of toasts, and drinking of healths; and, in short, drinking for any reason that can be conveniently assigned.

To this miscellany of apologies for drinking, may be added drinking to assuage misery and drown care, the solacement only adding to the sorrows of the sufferer, and drawing him down more surely to perdition. While much of this branch of intemperance is owing to ignorance, much also is ascribable to generally unfavourable circumstances, and an absence of self-reliance. If misery, and an abandonment of all the common decencies of life, produce the perpetual spectacle of intemperance in our large towns, idleness and vacuity of mind lead to intemperance in the small ones. In these limited seats of population, where there is little to do, and where time hangs heavily on hand, the usage of evening drinking still prevails to a remarkable extent, even among persons of good education and respectable exterior. Most of the loose cash, or what can be wrung from the ordinary legitimate expenditure, is spent in public-houses in the evening on the long-established potations. What sums of money, what resources, have been squandered, and are at this very day being squandered, in this manner! Old men are dropping off from their wonted haunts, but young men are growing up to take their places in the same public-house parlours which witnessed the festivities of past generations. It would perhaps be wrong to say, that in these habitudes of intemperance the son sueceeds the father. The sons of drunkards have seldom anything left to them wherewith to procure indulgences of any kind. It is chiefly the sons of the careful who fill up the ranks, and they

seldom stop till they have dispersed all that was bequeathed to them.

THE TEMPERANCE REFORM.

Considering the number and extent of the social evils produced by intemperance, all of which were open to public observation, it is somewhat remarkable that no means were attempted to assuage them. Presumed to be too inveterate for eradication, they were allowed to fester unchecked, and scarcely even encountered reproach. The pulpit, bench, and press-all the recognised organs of moral police-were silent on the subject of this vast national malady. Private influence was exerted, but only in relation to individual cases. The idea of rousing and concentrating public sentiment on the evils of intemperance was first developed in the United States of America. Throughout that country, intemperance in liquors had gone very extraordinary lengths. The practice of dram-drinking had become almost universal. French or Spanish brandy, West India and New England rum, foreign and domestic gin, whisky, apple brandy, and peach brandy, made a variety which recommended itself to individual tastes. But besides this choice, there were numerous artificial compounds, in which fruit of various kinds, eggs, spices, herbs, and sugar, were leading ingredients. Thus, at home or at the bars of taverns, there was a continual dabbling in spirits, grog, sling, toddy, flip, juleps, elixirs, &c. as if alcohol in one or other of its seductive disguises had become a necessary of life. Such was the extent of this national vice, that in 1810, when the population consisted of 7,239,903 persons, the annual consumption of spirits was 33,365,559 gallons, being on an average of more than four and a half gallons to every man, woman, and child in the United States. The amount of domestic misery, bodily ills, bankruptcy, and poverty, caused by such a consumption of liquors, was but too apparent, and at length an effort was made to stem the evil. At the meeting of an ecclesiastical body, called the General Association of Massachusetts Proper, in 1811, a committee was appointed to draught the constitution of a society whose object should be "To check the progress of intemperance, viewed by the association as a growing evil." Such a society was accordingly formed, and held its first meeting in 1813.

The design of the members of this, the first temperance society, was to act both by example and precept. They engaged neither to use spirituous liquors themselves, nor to offer them to others; and here the principle of coming under any such obligation may be adverted to. No doubt the entering into a mutual obligation, or the taking of a pledge to refrain from doing that which common sense points out as erroneous, argues, in the abstract, a feebleness of resolution, and is perhaps objectionable on various grounds. A monstrous national vice, however, was to be corrected, and a common bond to unite all men, strong-minded and

weak-minded, together in one common cause was desirable. Looking to results, this method of procedure does not appear to have been ill-judged. Governed by a settled and uniform purpose, and stimulated by a mutual enthusiasm, the members of the society attracted considerable attention to their proceedings; facts were collected and disseminated; other societies were formed; influenced by example, many gave in their adherence to the cause; dram-drinking was gradually lessened; and, in effect, the temperance reformation had begun. In a few years thereafter, it was confidently stated that pauperism, crime, and mortality had materially diminished; education had advanced; and 10,000 drunkards had been reclaimed.

Although this, the first temperance movement, afterwards languished, as a public occurrence of no little notoriety, it might have been expected to attract attention in Great Britain; nevertheless fifteen years elapsed before it was generally known, or at least followed in the British islands—a fact curiously illustrative of the indifference to social advancement twenty years ago. The first temperance society in the United Kingdom was founded in New Ross, Ireland, in July 1829, at the instance of the Rev. G. W. Carr. At the same time one was formed in Belfast; other associations were soon after organised in Ireland; and at the close of the year an aggregate body of 12,000 members was reported.

About the year 1828, John Dunlop, Esq. of Greenock had his attention drawn to the fearful amount of intemperance in Scotland, and, encouraged by intelligence from Ireland, began to rouse public attention by lectures on the subject. The intemperance in Scotland had resembled in some measure that of the United States—a pretty frequent tippling and dram-drinking, with the addition of deep carousing on festive occasions, particularly on New-Year's day. Mr Dunlop encountered much ridicule in his attempt to overthrow the Scotch drinking usages; but persevering, he ultimately gained his point. Societies were formed, the first of importance being at Glasgow, November 12, 1829. Shortly afterwards, one was established in Edinburgh. At this period" deaths, accidents, brutal scenes, and ruin of families, were brought prominently forward in newspapers and conversation. The stomach-pump went like a mill every evening at the police-office in Edinburgh, saving from immediate death, being only used in extreme cases. Men, women, and children were conveyed thither on wheelbarrows, in order to clear the streets of their carcases." The movement spread so rapidly, that at the close of 1829 there were a hundred societies in Scotland, comprehending 15,000 members.

The movement was carried into England from Scotland by Henry Forbes, Esq. a merchant of Bradford, who had attended a public meeting of the Glasgow association. By his influence a temperance society was formed in Bradford in the spring

of 1830. Similar associations were soon after established in Leeds and other large towns in the north of England. Mr William Collins, of Glasgow, being in London about this time, put forth great and successful exertions towards the formation of a society in the metropolis. The first public meeting of the London, since distinguished as the British and Foreign Temperance Society, was held on the 29th of June 1830. Much was now done by tracts, sermons, and lectures, to urge the necessity of abstaining from spirituous liquors, and many societies, with many members, were formed in all parts of the United Kingdom. The fact, however, soon became apparent, that the doctrines made little impression on the public; and that, on the whole, there was about as much intoxication as ever. It now appeared, on close examination, that the obligation of temperance in America, as well as in the United Kingdom, by not excluding the use of wine and beer, had failed very much in its effect. Thus, on the one hand, the doctrine put forth was inapplicable to large masses of the population; while, on the other, the mere spiritdrinker or ale-drunkard looked with coldness and suspicion on a plan which proposed that the poor should abandon their ale and spirits, while the rich were permitted to retain their costly wines. It was easy, they said, for the rich to propose, but hard for the working-man to practise.

The lapsing into intemperate habits of men who had oecome members of temperance societies, brought the question to a crisis. It was felt that if these associations should continue in existence, and be of any practical value, their fundamental principle must be extended; that the pledge of abstinence must exclude the use of any liquor whatsoever containing intoxicating qualities. These opinions were made the grounds of an association established at Paisley January 14, 1832. The principles subscribed were as follows:-"We, the undersigned, believing that the widely-extended, and hitherto rapidly-increasing vice of intemperance, with its many ruinous consequences, is greatly promoted by existing habits and opinions in regard to the use of intoxicating liquors in every form, and believing that it will be calculated to promote true and consistent temperance principles, and of the cause in general, do voluntarily agree to abstain from all liquors containing any quantity of alcohol, except when absolutely necessary that is, as medicines. On the 23d of August 1832, a similar pledge was drawn up at Preston by Mr Joseph Livesey, and subscribed by himself and several others. These steps at Paisley and at Preston were taken without concert between the parties, and unknown to each other. In March 1833, the committee of the Preston Temperance Society agreed to propose the incorporation of the new pledge with the existing one; and at a large general meeting of the society on the 26th of the same month, it was proposed accordingly, and carried by a large majority. Thirty-four persons attached their