NATIONAL INTEMPERANCE AND REMEDY.

§ 1. In modern times, the United States of North America have the unquestioned honour of originating the first systematic and organized plan for the suppression of national Intemperance. Here, as in the motherland, it had been considered, by legislators and moralists alike, that the licence and supervision of the drink-traffic, the punishment of drunkards, and the fining of transgressing publicans, were all that could be done to repress intemperance, beyond the appeals of the moralist and the preacher.

The people of the Western Republic, however, untrammelled by the conservative and conventional habits of the old country,-unburdened by the dead-weight of enormous pecuniary interests,-unvitiated as yet by the despotism of fashion and the reign of an 'upper ten thousand,'—uncorrupted by the love of pleasure, by the influx of wealth and luxury, of war and speculation, of party politics and placehunting (which are more recent developments)—were not disposed to accept the great curse as a thing of fate, absolutely necessary and inevitable. On the contrary, as a practical people, engaged in hewing out a new form of society and civilization, they set themselves to ascertain the reason of things being as they were, and then straightway began the work of reform. There were, of course, great difficulties in the road,—of interest, prejudice, appetite, and even fashion, but these were neither so inveterate nor so

vast as in Great Britain, where a new truth has to fight its way over strongly entrenched interests, and the social débris of a thousand years. Besides, what were difficulties to the genius of a people who had just emerged, not only safely but triumphantly, from a long and terrible conflict for political independence, and had become a nation of sturdy republicans in spite of English king and oligarchy? So the notion of a needed reform, of a work to be done, having once been fairly injected into the minds of the people, they pursued, and are still pursuing it, and, it is to be hoped, with something of the steady, invincible zeal of their puritan forefathers. The occasions, rise, and advance, of this remarkable movement we have now succinctly to record. The enterprise has had its six stages, and is destined to its seventh, ere it reach the culminating point which shall usher in the crowning epoch of civilization.

1. A confused perception of the EVIL.

2. Attempts at regulating the machinery of mischief. 3. The Era of vague Temperance.

4. That of Abstinence, or Neephalism.

5. The No-licence agitation.

6. The break-up of party-bonds and the epoch of Prohibitive State Law.

7. Absolute and universal prohibition of the manufacture and sale by the National Will. This is now known as the 'Constitutional Amendment' agitation, which has already triumphed in several States.

We propose to give an outline of the American agitation, and of similar attempts elsewhere, in the hope of our people learning how better to deal with the evil.

FIRST STAGE.

§ 2. There was the period of chaos, when darkness brooded over the elements of social life in the United States. The freedom which the people exercised, at a period of great political and warlike excitement; the abundance of

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Drinking spirit is a gradual descent, where every inch increases the declivity and quickens the progress, so that none turn again, neither take they hold on the paths of life. Look to the whole history of drinking, and if it does not give to these conclusions the clearness and force of demonstration, what could?

Part III. expounds the ravages of strong drink (both wine and spirits) in regard to health, temper, understanding, property, and perdition. In 1810, not less than thirtythree and a half millions of gallons of distilled liquors were consumed by seven and a quarter millions of people— or nearly four and a half gallons of spirits (to say nothing of beer, wine, and cider) to every man, woman, and child in the nation! This distilled and burning spirit, would fill a canal ten feet wide, two feet deep, and forty-two miles long! How deeply must such a beverage have drained away the vitality, and dulled the moral sense, of the people.

Part IV. proceeds to consider "what can be done to remove the evils already felt; to check the torrent that is sweeping us away, and dry up the streams by which it is fed?" Here is the significant, and to us instructive fact, that instead of the secular and religious education of New England having prevented intemperance, it was the most highly educated States of the modern world that first perceived the necessity of the temperance reformation, and first established societies for the purpose of carrying it on. The following passages open out the whole question, and for the first time in modern times, propound the full and true remedy :

"Before we venture to propose remedies, it seems necessary to investigate the nature and causes of the disease. Whence is it, then, that drinking has become so common?

(a) Multitudes learn to drink, first moderately, and then to excess, by using spirits as a medicine. 'I have known,' says Dr Rush, 'many men and women of excellent characters and principles betrayed by occasional doses of gin and brandy into a love of those liquors.'

(¿) Domestic trials, hypochondriacal affections, loss of property, and

the like, produce despondency in many. Under these circumstances, not a few madly attempt to drown their sorrows in the wide, troubled sea of intoxication!

(c) To the unfaithfulness, timidity, and temporizing policy of Informing Officers and Magistrates, may be traced many of the evils we deplore. Had the laws been faithfully executed when hard drinking began its desolating career, the flood would never have risen to its present height. It is by parleying and temporizing, that we are brought to the brink of ruin. It is because so many of our Sentinels have slept at their posts, or would not maintain them, that the enemy has been able to break into the camp, and is carrying on the work of death in every part of it. The informing-officer excuses himself by saying that he does not see the men drink; and the magistrate by saying that no presentments are made! Hard-drinkers walk or stagger on every side; they lie at the corners of the streets at noon-day, and nobody complains or prosecutes.

(d) To the great and increasing number of taverns and dram-shops, may be traced many of the evils of intemperance. They are at once causes and effects of these mischiefs. While they strongly indicate, they greatly increase, the disease. It cannot be safe to provide so many facilities for hard drinking. It is an undoubted fact that at least threefourths of the places where liquor is sold are fountains of corruption, whence flow in every direction streams not to fertilize and cheer, but to curse the land with barrenness and death.

(e) Dulness is another legitimate parent of intemperance. man's mind is the devil's workshop.'

'An idle

(ƒ) The countenance which has been incautiously given, in worthy and serious families, to a 'friendly use' of spirits, has contributed not a little to swell the tide that roars around us. 'Come,' they say, 'do taste a little!' Rather than be thought guilty of an unpardonable breach of politeness, those who at first decline, in most cases finally yield. Thus are the temperate oftentimes over-persuaded, till they come, by degrees, to love the sling, or the cordial, much too well.

(g) A large part of the woes and waste of intemperance may be distinctly traced to the distilleries, with which our whole land is burdened. Who is so ignorant as not to know that wherever a still is set up, it soon forms around itself a kind of intoxicating atmosphere? How do the fiery streams which issue from it, like the melted lava from the flaming crater of a volcano, spread desolation and death wherever they flow! Thousands of bodies and souls are annually destroyed. What are the benefits which can compensate the Community for such a waste of its vital strength, and such a drawback upon its population?

The idea that our wound is incurable must not be indulged for one

The doctrine of Temptation.

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moment. Unquestionably, the sober and virtuous members of the community, have it in their power to mitigate, if they cannot at once cure, the disease. The

(1) REMEDY we would suggest, particularly to those whose appetite for drink is strong and increasing, is a TOTAL ABSTINENCE FROM THE USE OF ALL INTOXICATING LIQUORS. This may be deemed a harsh remedy, but the nature of the disease absolutely requires it.

(2) Let those who are yet temperate, and desire to continue so, AVOID ALL PLACES OF TEMPTATION, such as taverns and stores where ardent spirits are kept and offered, either gratuitously or for sale.

(3) The late formation of a general SOCIETY in this State, promises to be a powerful engine to PUT DOWN DRAM-SHOPS and arrest the progress of intemperance. A few prosecutions would go far towards clearing the most thronged grog-shops, and many who are beginning to fall would be saved from utter ruin. [If the tavern be kept down.] To prevent the abuse of licences, it should be an invariable rule with the authority of each town, never to renew the licence of a man who has ONCE been convicted of abusing his privilege No Society of the above description can go into operation without drawing upon itself the bad wishes of corrupt and dissolute men. It is an honour to be opposed by the devil and all his adherents."

§ 18. From 'An Address of the Western Association of New Haven County,' published about this time, we learn that "Men of character are extensively uniting their exertions to check the growing evil. This appears by the documents published, and the measures adopted, by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, the Convention of Ministers in Vermont, the General Association of Massachusetts, of New Hampshire, and of this state (Conn.). A committee has been appointed by the Medical Convention of Connecticut, to inquire and report on this subject. Immense evils afflict communities, not because they are incurable, but because they are tolerated; and great good remains often unaccomplished, merely because it is not attempted" (p. 11).

In a 'Sermon delivered before the Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance,' at their Annual Meeting in Boston, May 27, 1814, by John T. KIRKLAND, D.D., President of the University of Cambridge (Boston: printed by John Eliot, 1814), we find passages that almost anticipate