CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE 



men do against the general and natural bent of their minds. 

 Fraud, theft, and even murder, are frequently, and most frequently 

 the offspring of want. In these cases, it is a choice of evils ; crime 

 or hunger. But, drinking to excess is a man s own act ; an evil 

 deliberately sought after ; an act of violence committed against 

 reason and against nature ; and that, too, without the smallest 

 temptation, except from that vicious appetite, which he himself 

 has voluntarily created. 



368. You, my dear Sir, stand in need of no such lectures as this, 

 and the same is, I hope, the case with the far greater part of my 

 readers ; but, if it tend, in the smallest degree, to check the fearful 

 growth of this tree of unmixed evil ; if it should make the bottle 

 less cherished even in one small circle ; nay, if it keep but one 

 young man in the world in the paths of sobriety, how could my 

 time have been better bestowed ? 



161 



