THE HISTORY OF ALCOHOL. 389 



tone of society has changed, and intemperance, while still unfor- 

 tunately prevalent, is nothing like as common as it used to be. 



Indeed, it is hardly possible for us to imagine the state of 

 affairs in our grandfathers' times. A hundred years ago a gentle- 

 man who went out to dinner, and was not brought home in the 

 bottom of a cab or in a wheelbarrow, was a very poor-spirited fellow 

 indeed. So with the poorer classes. Just a century ago George 

 Washington was engaging a gardener, and in his contract it was 

 expressly stipulated that he should have " four dollars at Christ- 

 mas, with which he may be drunk for four days and four nights ; 

 two dollars at Easter to effect the same purpose ; two dollars at 

 Whitsuntide, to be drunk for two days ; a dram in the morning, 

 and a drink of grog at dinner at noon." Nor was the sum mentioned 

 a niggardly one, when George Washington was distilling his own 

 whisky, and selling it, probably, for thirty or forty cents a gallon. 



And now, just think of the change. We can hardly imagine a 

 gentleman perceptibly exhilarated with wine at a dinner table. 

 He certainly would never get a second opportunity, if the fact 

 were known. And as for the working classes a clerk, an en- 

 gineer, a coachman, or even a gardener whose breath smelt of 

 whisky, or who was seen often dropping into a saloon, would run 

 a good chance of losing his position. 



For the world has at last found out what intoxication means. 

 Alcohol in large doses is a poison, but it is a poison which in- 

 jures the family and neighbors and friends of the inebriate more 

 than the victim himself. It, to some extent at least, causes him 

 discomfort, but think of the discomfort it causes his family ! It 

 shortens his life, to be sure, but think of the other lives that it 

 shortens! And while some attack the problem with fierce and 

 violent denunciations, and others by quieter and not the less 

 effective arguments and appeals, the world certainly owes a debt 

 of gratitude to those who are doing so much now, and who have 

 done so much already, to relieve mankind from the burden of ine- 

 briety. 



The electric telegraph cable laid five years ago between the Senegal 

 coast of West Africa and Pernambuco, Brazil, has broken twice about one 

 hundred and fifty miles from the African coast. On examining it for re- 

 pairs, the cable was found surrounded by great quantities of vegetable 

 growth, with refuse and rubbish of various kinds; while the color of the 

 sea changed to a dirty brownish green, indicative of the presence of river 

 water; yet the nearest stream was a great distance away, flowing at its 

 point of discharge in a direction different from that of this spot. It was 

 supposed to be a sudden outburst of a submarine gully or stream. A 

 number of such streams or fresh-water submarine wells are known, but 

 how gourds, pieces of orange peel, and scraps of carpets, such as were 

 found around the cable, got into them, remains a mystery. 



