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(and that in the case of personages whom we are meant to like 
and rather to respect) is represented as frequent, and as no cause 
for shame. And my own remembrance of school and college life 
entirely corresponds to this. The habitual or confirmed drunkard, 
of course, is not often found among the young. But we were all 
from childhood accustomed to the free use of stimulants. The 
young schoolboy at a boarding school had his beer at dinner as a 
matter of course; little boys and girls coming down to dessert 
after dinner to see their parents’ guests, were supplied with their 
half-glass of wine. In my undergraduate days the tankard of ale 
was habitually passed round after every breakfast party, and nearly 
every one drank some. I suppose my statement will astonish 
some of the younger total abstainers here (for no doubt there are 
some such present); but it is a simple fact, that up to the time 
when I came to be vicar of Kirkby Lonsdale in 1862, I had in my 
whole life (so far as I can now recal to my memory) only known 
personally ove total abstainer! Now of course I do not for a 
moment wish to imply that total abstainers are the only people 
interested in true temperance (in fact I am not one myself) but I 
do think that all these things point to a very extraordinary change 
of the general sentiment in such matters. 
Again, what some boarding schools (at all events) were 
like, we may read in the pages of “Nicholas Nickleby.” It 
may be hoped and believed that few schools were altogether 
like that conducted by Mr. Squeers. But let me remind 
you that Dickens did habitually draw from life. He saw 
the grotesque side of things, but he wrote what he saw: 
and almost always with the distinct purpose of abating evils 
which he knew to exist. And I have to-night with me a curious 
illustration of the fact, which I can show to any one interested in 
it. It is the original advertisement of Mr. Squeers’ academy, cut 
out from the Zzmes by a relative of my own, at the time when 
“‘Nicholas Nickleby” was being published. And I do not envy 
the feelings of the prototype of Mr. Squeers, if he bought that 
green covered number to beguile the tedium of the long stage 
coach journey from the George and Blue Boar, Holborn, to the 
