What a lamentable fact, that 210 British officers-educated gentlemen -could suggest nothing better than the lash or the guard-room! while the poorest and most untutored labourer, whose attention had been arrested by the great moral reformation going on among his associates, by their abandonment of the drinking customs of society, would have exhibited sounder and more practical philosophy.

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But, alas! British officers are not the only parties who have exhibited such an absence of practical philosophy. What can we say of our government and magistrates-parties who ought to be the guardians of a people's morals-parties who ought to keep within the narrowest practical limits all incentives to vice and national dissensions; what can we say to their having so generally multiplied through the length and breadth of the land those " 'pest houses," as Cowper very properly designates our drinking establishments-the government making a gain of this destructive and immoral traffic?"

A similar testimony is borne by the author of "The Age That's Coming :"

"There never was, in any age, a more desperate struggle of any kind whatever, than that existing at this period between the moralizing and demoralizing institutions of Britain. Spirituality and Love are warring against hate and fleshly lusts, with greater vigour than at any other stage of the world's history. Michael the Archangel is contesting for the dominion of the earth, with the Old Dragon, the great enemy of man, and Britain seems to be the centre point of the war. Every place of divine worship, and all Sundayschools and moral institutions, are the former's strongholds; while public-houses, beer-shops, and spiritvaults, are evidently the chief holds of the latter.

"If this be disputed, look upon society, and mark the ignorance and heinous depravity that everywhere abound, and you must perceive the great CAUSE, and CAUSE of causes,

to be drinking. With our present educational establishments and exalted position among the nationswith Sunday-schools and mechanics' institutions spread over the land, and hundreds of thousands of teachers and lecturers, we should hardly have had an ignorant person in the country, but for habits of drinking! Why have children been kept from the National and British schools? Ask

the busy, plodding, experienced, practical educationist, and he will tell you it is through drinking. Why do our Sunday-school scholars, as a rule absent themselves from their classes at the age of sixteen or eighteen years? Trace them, and you will find that they have just begun to drink. It is a fact that one-fourth, at least, of our Sabbath-school scholars become confirmed drunkards!

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Considering that Britain is not only a land of Bibles, but a Bible warehouse for the world, how is it that our churches and chapels are so ill-attended, and the Sabbath so little regarded? Observe the crowded state of public-houses, beer-shops, and gin palaces on the Sunday-eve, and you will have a ready solution of the question. There can be no surprise at the absence of religious principle in the masses of society, when you are familiar with the scenes of merely this one night. In Glasgow it has been estimated by one of its citizens

"the historian of Europe"-that each Saturday night 30,000 persons retire to bed in a state of drunkenness. And allowing the populations of other large towns of Great Britain to be considerably less immoral than that of Glasgow, we may assert that, in Birmingham there are 18,000, in Edinburgh 20,000, in Manchester 25,000, in Liverpool 30,000, and in London 150,000 persons, who retire to rest on the eve of every Sabbath in the state of gross intoxication! In these six British towns alone, more than a quarter of a million of individuals, chiefly heads of families, thus commence the Lord's day as baptized brutes! Sodom's iniquity and Gomorrah's sin could not have equalled this; nor the abominations of the cities of the plain have been half so

abominable as the vices of these choice cities of Christian Britain.

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Again: look into our teeming prisons, and ask the functionaries of the law, What is the cause of crime? They will answer, drinking. Ninetenths of the hordes of criminals that live upon, and are punished by, society, are victims of drinking. This has been frequently, and unequivocally, attested by numerous judges, jurists, jailors, and chaplains."

What an appalling statement is the following:

"I have said that one-fourth of our Sunday-school scholars are, in their time, degraded to this melancholy state; but I believe that a much greater proportion would not be above the average.

Where statistical inquiry has been instituted, it has been found that in some instances the numbers so fallen have been threefourths; and very frequently more than the half.

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In one parish, 91 adult persons then and there living, out of 130 whose names appeared on the school register, were reported, open drunkards.' In another, 38 out of 65 persons-the latter number being all living of the 100 first admitted to the school- are reported, confirmed drunkards.' In a 6 well-conducted Sabbath-school" in Cornwall, 44 out of 74 males had been overtaken by drunkenness.' In another parish it was found that of 117 then living, who had attended the Sunday-school twenty years before, a large proportion were intemperate,' and some

In

most abandoned profligates:' only about 23 were doing WELL." another instance, while during a period of twenty years, 2164 young persons had entered a Sunday-school, only about 70 of them entered the church in connection with it. In one institution a pious teacher, after tracing the history of 60 persons who had been under his care, found that one-half had been ruined by drinking!"

3. In the third place, we cannot but be interested with the consideration of the vast means which

the temperance system would set at liberty for the most important purposes.

Statistics bearing upon this point, and worthy of the most serious and candid consideration, are easily and satisfactorily obtained. The following article on the cost of drunkenness appears in the Family Economist for last month. The reflections which it necessarily suggests are almost overwhelming :

"National facts demand national consideration. Let no preconceived opinions therefore preclude a careful study of the following most lamentable and portentous facts. This kingdom groans under the burthen of five hundred thousand confirmed drunkards, and one hundred thousand occasional drunkards. It is computed that about seven thousand of this intemperate multitude annually perish through accidents while inebriated. The pecuniary cost of this wide-spread drunkenness is enor

mous.

It amounts to at least fiftytwo millions of pounds; and during forty-six years it consumed one thousand eight hundred and sixty-nine millions, nine hundred and ninety-four thousands, nine hundred and forty-six pounds! Wicked and terrible waste this.

"Certain communities squander immense sums of money to procure drinks. The people of Lancashire pay at least one million a year in taxes on intoxicating liquors; other counties expend similar sums. To gratify their taste for drink, the population of Ipswich pay fifty thousand pounds yearly; Bury, in Lancashire, fiftyfour thousand pounds; Merthyr-Tydvil, seventy thousand pounds; Dundee, (1841) one hundred and eighty thousand pounds; Bristol, three hundred thousand pounds; Glasgow, one million pounds; and London about three millions. The greater proportion of these prodigious sums of money is expended by the working-classes. Mr. T. Beggs says, 'It is ascertained with tolerable correctness, that the sum spent by the working-classes alone in spirits, cannot be less than twenty-four millions yearly.' It is

grievous to reflect upon the large sums spent in public-houses by working-men. In Runcorn, for example, the working-people are paid eighty thousand pounds every year in wages, and of this large amount seventeen thousand pounds are spent in pleasing their taste for drinks. We possess a table of the expenditure in one year by the cotton operatives of Ashton-under-Lyne. From an examination of that table, we find that they expend fourteen thousand four hundred and thirty pounds in intoxicating drinks, and only two thousand two hundred and twenty pounds in the education of their children. A sad contrast this! Thus much for the direct cost of conformity to our national and demoralizing drinking customs. It is time to glance at the losses which they induce. The annual loss is one million out of every six of the entire manufactures and productions of the kingdom. The loss to individuals is frequently almost incredible. We give a single instance. In a London establishment there are one hundred men employed. They are exceedingly drunken, and waste every Monday in riotous living. Their annual loss is one thousand eight hundred and twenty pounds! Similar facts may be obtained from any large employer. What shall we say to these things? Surely it is no wonder that Poverty, Vice, Ignorance, and Misery abound in this kingdom."

But "The Age That's Coming" presents the matter in a national and political aspect, which, however novel, is not the less entitled to serious consideration :

"Under the present order of things, Britain can never be prosperous without a good foreign trade; but, alas! we in vain look round the world for any sign that it will permanently recover from its present languishing state. While the increasing exigencies of the nation demand that it should constantly improve, the signs of the times declare that it must

gradually diminish. Our foreign customers are becoming their own manufacturers, nay, are actually competing against us with success in

the foreign market; and, so long as peace continues and civilization progresses, this state of things must every year grow worse. Already the haughty Turk is becoming a cotton spinner; and the long-lazy Egyptian has resumed those industrious habits by which his ancestors reared the mighty pyramid, and scooped the lake Mareotis. The night of lethargy and idleness is rapidly passing away, and the morning of activity as fast setting in. The earth is going by steam; the nations are putting on high-pressure speed: all the world is awaking to industry; and if Britain depend still upon its export trade, it must sink to a state of wretched indolence.

"Let it not be supposed that I imagine we shall return, in this ́NEW AGE,' to the simplicity of primitive life, and become a pastoral and soiltilling people. To such a subject I have no reference. The land-rich and the money-rich need have no apprehension that I am covertly advising a seizure and division of property; or endeavouring to promote anything like the land scheme.' There are other possessions than money and land awaiting the people of this country, in the Age that's coming. What is a sound, practical, and thorough education? A POSSESSION to which every individual has a birthright claim, but of which thousands, ay, millions, are deprived : in the age that's coming each shall have this RIGHT. What are the blessings of national and domestic peace, but POSSESSIONS all ought to enjoy? These Britons in general shall possess in the age that's coming. Health-of both body and mind; well-supplied and contented homes; cheerful, well-trained, and dutiful children; with the prospect of a comfortable old age, are POSSESSIONS that belong of right to every child of earth, and which, in this country at least, will be speedily entered upon.

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*

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And, firstly, this will come to pass from a right expenditure of family earnings. When we consider the frightful profligacy attendant on the

drinking system, we shall perceive the feasibility of the prophecy under a total abstinence régime. Sixty-Five Million Pounds is the sum generally accredited as being the annual cost of drinking; but, in the "The Teetotaller's Companion," I have shown that it cannot be less than Eighty Millions sterling. In addition to this, it was estimated by a Select Committee of the House of Commons, in 1834, that habits of drinking occasion a loss to the wealth of the nation of one million for every six produced; and, had I more space, a variety of evidence might be adduced fully proving the accuracy of the calculation. But taking the loss at only one million in ten, it cannot, at present, be less than fifty millions. Here, then, we have the enormous sum of £130,000,000, as the annual cost of the drinking system-a sum which, in cart-loads of a ton weight of sovereigns each, would require 1800 horses to draw it, forming a train, in single file, more than six miles long!

"Now, were the temperance principle nationally observed, this immense sum (with the exception, perhaps, of about twenty millions expended by independent classes,) would be, by far the most part, disbursed on the comforts and refinements of life: consequently Britain would not then, as now, be dependent upon the custom of foreigners. The whole of the goods at present circumnavigating the globe to find a mart, would be required at home to supply the demand in our own markets. We are now sending abroad each year, about £52,000,000 worth of manufactures that cannot be sold at home, all of which would be bought under the temperance principle by the additional earnings of working people, at the same time that sixty millions, now being spent in intoxication, were likewise added to the profitable labour of the country. Thus, when a nation of teetotallers, we shall be prosperous without a foreign trade for our manufactured goods. The HOME trade will fully maintain us. It will thrive with our thriving means: be the more vigorous from our greater industry, and consequent greater earnings, and

greater consumption; and become permanent from the ever increasing demands, which our ever increasing refinement and intelligence will create.*

"There does, indeed, seem to be something rotten in a state that cannot keep itself. What would be the condition of the world, did each nation rely upon others for support to the extent that Britain does at present? Universal bankruptcy must, of necessity, exist. One nation would be craving help from another, which was at the same time craving equal support from it. Each would be relying on its foreign trade, whilst a judicious cultivation of its own integral commerce might render it as independent of its neighbours as it is possible for a nation to be. Such certainly may be the case with Britain. It is well known that the much encouraged traffic in intoxicating liquors is most unprofitable to the labour market, For every sixpence that their manufacture affords the operative classes, there are from 88. to 10s. paid in the manufacture of useful articles! Yet, eighty millions are yearly expended on this unprofitable commodity; and fifty millions more lost by the expenditure! How little need we wonder then at the present fearfully bankrupt state of the British nation! Let working men, and working men's masters too, ponder this fact;-that whilst by this immense outlay only 400,000 persons are employed the same employment

"The home commerce suffers because industry produces too much in comparison with the slender requital it gives to the_producer." That is, the operatives of Britain would consume more of their own productions, had they more money at their command-this they would have by being total abstainers. "The loss of balance [between British consumption and production,] causes the government to go to China in search of some thousands of consumers; whilst there are millions of English who are stripped of everything, and who, if they could, [or in many cases would] purchase sufficient food and clothing, would create a commercial movement [at home] much more considerable than that caused by the most advantageous treaties."-Extinction of Pauperism, by Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte.

being a curse to both the individuals and the country-it would provide profitable labour for one million and a-half of people, (1,538,463) at 20s. each per week; or at the average of 12s. for all ages and sexes-which is greater than the actual average of the kingdom-not less than Two MILLIONS AND A-HALF-2,564,000!! And all this exclusive of the loss from drinking. Now let it be considered that in the United Kingdom there cannot be altogether Eight Millions who require, or are required to labour, and both the CAUSE of and REMEDY for bad times will at once be evident.*

"As certain as the rising and setting of the sun, the time is approaching, nay, is even nigh, whenunless the temperance principle be nationally adopted-politicians must direct their attention, in good earnest, to the economy of the HOME trade of this country. We are past dependence on our exports. In every market of the world we now find rivals in the very people whom but a few years ago we ranked among our best customers;-nay, indeed, but with the effrontery of that son who dictates to a parent, they have begun to manufacture even for ourselves-they have actually supplied Manchester with cottons, and Sheffield with cut

It is curious to put alongside this statement the following calculations:

"RECLAMATION OF WASTE LANDS. -According to the best authorities there are no less than 14,700,000 acres of waste land in the United Kingdom, which statists have thus apportioned

lery. It is very plain that at no distant period, Britain will be thrown entirely, or nearly so, upon her own resources for custom ;-she will have to depend upon her own consumption of the wares she deals in; and it is, therefore, high time that her home trade were attended to. With that trade the temperance principle is vitally connected. With no foreign marts open to her relief, and without the principle of total abstinence, this country will, to a certainty, be speedily revolutionized!-distress and starvation will break down the constitution of a nation, as well as that of an individual. On the other hand, without foreign marts, but with the temperance principle, we may dwell in secure prosperity. The broad fields and broad looms of England, with this still broader principle, are all that, as a nation of farmers and weavers, we require; for I repeat, there must be something working wrong in the nation that cannot support itself.

"That wrong I have shown to ex

ist in the business affairs of Britain. Her commerce is deranged by the drinking habits of the people. When, therefore, we have reformed these habits, commerce will have reformed itself. Our home market will, then, be our constant and steady support. Panics in trade will no more occur to drive our people into strife and rebellion. The great cause of contention with neighbouring countriescommercial rivalship-will be avoided. And thus, having peace abroad and general contentment at home, we may maintain our name and place on the earth, while other nations, less wise and temperate, sink amidst integral and external broils."

Now, with such a mass of momentous facts before us, can we wonder that the enterprises of benevolent individuals should be somewhat excursive? Nay, should we not wonder if they on whom they have made anything of an adequate impression are not impatient to adopt anything and everything that is calculated to arrest such a tremendous amount of mischief, and to render available for