DRUNKENNESS. 351 



but obtain the concurrence of the people at large. Intemperance is 

 occasioned by the immoderate use of spirits imported into, and dis- 

 tilled in this country, producing a revenue to the country, and in- 

 tended for consumption by the country. If there be some and that 

 there are many we do not deny who are constrained to take " a 

 drop too much," we do not know why <f restraints" should be placed 

 on " human liberty" to debar the community from the occasional and 

 temperate use of spirits. But, forsooth, because there are daily and 

 nightly patroles to guard the lives and properties of the innocent and 

 unoffending, " so you should submit to equal restraints those " 

 psha ! we cannot swallow this rubbish, and must recruit our sto- 

 machs with a toothful of brandy. 



We resume. Where is this pestilence that " walketh at noonday ?" 

 We have, indeed, occasionally seen a few patients who were by no 

 means in a situation to walk at noonday ; and towards night, many 

 more are sometimes to be beheld in a like predicament ; but that this 

 pestilence is rapidly destroying the labour, the wealth, the morals, 

 and the happiness of millions of the people, we really do not know 

 we must take care to inquire the next time we have occasion to write 

 to America from whence many of Mr. Buckingham's notions of 

 English drunkenness appear to be drawn. We can only at present 

 say that we have lived in London many years, and have found that 

 the labour is rather hard than otherwise the wealth not contemp- 

 tible the morals so-so and the happiness very much "as people 

 please to take or to make it ; some finding it at the bottom of a cup 

 of coffee others seeking it in a glass of gin all apparently agreed 

 upon this point, that no man has a right to dictate happiness to 

 another ; and that which is one man's meat is another man's poison. 



But now let us see the frantic zeal with which the select committee 

 must have drawn up their report. They appear to have got toge- 

 ther some pliant facts, and then to have swelled them out of all 

 reasonable compass by pumping into them the gas of their own 

 boundless imaginations. They summon before their excited visions 

 all the crimes, the vices, and the enormities of mankind ; and having 

 done so, they steep them in gin-and-bitters or label them with 

 " brandy," tf rum," or " Hodges' best" and send them stalking 

 before the astonished community, while they bring up the rear with 

 their report, crying, " Look at these new facts with the gloss on !" 



The report states that the remote causes of the intemperance now 

 prevalent are to be found " in the influence of example set by the 

 upper classes of society, where habits of intoxication were more fre- 

 quent in such ranks than among their inferiors in station ; and the 

 many customs and courtesies still retained from a remote ancestry of 

 mingling the gift or use of intoxicating drinks with almost every 

 important event in life ; such as the celebration of baptisms, mar- 

 riages and funerals, anniversaries, holidays and festivities, as well as 

 in the daily interchange of convivial entertainments, and even in the 

 commercial transactions of purchase and sale." 



These are indeed remote sources ; and drunkenness, it seems, is 

 superinduced by the influence of example. How are we to reconcile 



