5 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the Second Zouaves, was one night awakened by the growling of his 

 spaniel, and thought he saw something like the form of a man crawl- 

 ing out of his tent. The next day the captain informed the company 

 that some fellow had entered the hospital-camp with burglarious in- 

 tent, and that he had instructed the sentries to arrest or shoot all noc- 

 turnal trespassers. About a week after, the doctor was again awak- 

 ened by his dog, and, lighting a match, he distinguished the figure of 

 a large man crawling from under his table and carrying in his hand a 

 box or a big book. He called upon him to stop, cocking his pistol at 

 the same time, but the fellow made a rush for the door, and in the 

 next moment was floored by a ball that penetrated his skull two inches 

 above the neck. He lived long enough to confess the motive of his 

 desperate enterprise. His regiment had been stationed in Northern 

 Algiers, where he learned to smoke opium, and having exhausted his 

 supply, and his financial resources, as well as the patience of the hos- 

 pital steward, who had at various times furnished him small doses of 

 the drug, he felt that life was no longer worth living, and resolved to 

 risk it in the attempt at abducting the doctor's medicine chest. What 

 can exhortation avail against a passion of that sort ? We should learn 

 to treat it as the advanced stage of a physical disorder, rather than as 

 a controvertible moral aberration. 



And, even after the delirium of that disease has subsided, homilies 

 should be preceded by an appeal to reason. Ignorance is a chief cause 

 of intemperance. The seductions of vice would not mislead so many 

 of our young men if they could realize the significance of their mis- 

 take. All the efforts of the Temperance party have thus far failed to 

 eradicate the popular fallacy that there is some good in alcohol ; that 

 somehow or other the magic of a stimulating drug could procure its 

 votaries an advantage not attainable by normal means. Nor is this 

 delusion confined to the besotted victims of the poison-vice. Even 

 among the enlightened classes of our population, nay, among the 

 champions of temperance, there is still a lingering belief that, with 

 due precaution against excess, adulteration, etc., a dram-drinker might 

 " get ahead " of Nature, and, as it were, trick her out of some extra 

 enjoyment. 



There is no hope of a radical reform till an influential majority of 

 all intelligent people have realized the fact that this trick is in every 

 instance a losing game, entailing penalties which far outweigh the 

 pleasures that the novice may mistake for gratuitous enjoyments, and 

 by which the old habitue can gain only a temporary and qualified 

 restoration of the happiness which his stimulant has first deprived him 

 of. For the depression of the vital energy increases with every repe- 

 tition of the stimulation-process, and in a year after the first dose all 

 the " grateful and exhilarating tonics " of our professional poison-vend- 

 ers can not restore the vigor, the courage, and the cheerfulness which 

 the mere consciousness of perfect health imparts to the total abstainer. 



