VASSE. 79 



pay the penalty of a disordered stomach and severe 

 headache. On the next liberty-day Bacchus had but 

 few votaries. 



I will now endeavor to give a slight description of 

 the town of Vasse. The town and bay take their 

 name from a French vessel and her master — the town 

 from the captain, and the bay from the vessel. She 

 was cast away here years ago, and remnants of her 

 timbers are still to be seen. After half a mile's 

 wading through the sand, we came to the outskirts 

 of the town ; the first house was a grog-shop, the 

 second a smithery, the third a grog-shop, and, half a 

 mile farther on, another groggerj' ; so that it was 

 easily to be seen that the Maine Law had not yet 

 gone into operation in this vicinity. Three grog- 

 shops, in a village of about one hundred inhabitants, 

 are rather more than one would suppose were 

 needed ; but all seemed to be doing a thriving busi- 

 ness, everybody, men, women, and children, indis- 

 criminately going to the bars and drinking miserable 

 spirits, for which they pay six-pence sterling, equiva- 

 lent to twelve cents of our money, per glass. Then 

 again, within a compass of a few miles, numerous 

 sawyers are employed, who, after laboring hard for 

 two, three, or six months, and accumulating a sum 

 of money, resort to the village, and, to use their own 

 expression, proceed to knock their earnings down. 

 This they soon efi:ect, and return to their old employ- 

 ment, wdien forced to, for want of funds to continue 

 their carousal. The ticket of leave men, too, who 

 are mostly employed in this section by the govern- 

 ment, in repairing roads and public works at certain 

 seasons of the year, are allowed a short time for 



