38 



believe, doctors do not disagree. Anyone vrho reads the re-published articles 

 from the Conlemporanj Review, will observe that there is certainly a wide 

 divergence of opinion amongst the doctors on this subject : but 1 think there 

 are tM'o points upon which every medical man in the kingdom is agreed — first, 

 that alcohol is not necessary for children, and in the next place, that it is 

 possible for a man to ruin his health and bring himself to an early grave, by 

 the use of alcohol, without ever having been drunk in his life. Now, I think, 

 that these two truths, if there were no otViers, if taught to children, would of 

 themselves form the basis of a very important temperance reformation." 



Sir William Bovill, said: "Amongst a large class of our population, 

 intemperance in early life is the direct and immediate cause of every kind of 

 immorality, profligacy, and vice, and soon leads on to the commission of 

 crime — including murder, manslaughter, robbery, and violent assault." 



Sir a. Caklysle, M.D., says: "The most obnoxious practice is 

 assuredly that of giving children wine and strong drinks at an early period." 



Dr. Macnish, writes: ''Parents should be careful not to allow their 

 youthful oflFsprings stimulating liquors of any kind." 



Dr. Norman Kerr, of London, writes: "We ought to bring up our 

 children as abstainers, for though we may have been able to drink moderately, 

 one or more of them may be unable to stop at moderation. If they are 

 abtstainers till they arrive at years of discretion, they will then be able to 

 judge for themselves, and resolve upon a line of conduct uninfluenced by their 

 previous habits ; but if they are allowed to drink from their earliest youth, a 

 liking for alcoholic beverages may have been acquired which may pievent 

 them from forming an impartial and unbiassed decision." 



ENDURANCE OF GREAT BODILY LABOUR WITHOUT 



BEER. 



TESTIMONY OF TRAVELLERS. 



The following evidence was given by Mr J. S. Buckingham, in his evidence 

 before the Parliamentary Committee for the Suppression of Intemperance in 

 1834. — " He once commanded a frigate in the service of the Imaum of 

 Muscat, whose crew consisted of three hundred men, all Arabians, who never 

 tasted any intoxicating liquor ; and they were the most athletic and elegantly- 

 formed men he had ever seen. He has further remarked that when he was 

 at Calcutta he witnessed a trial of strength between a number of men who 

 came down from the Himalayan mountains and the most powerful Europeans 

 who could be selected from the English grenadiers and the vessels in the har- 

 bour ; and that in lifting weights, hurling the discus, vaulting, running, and 

 wrestling, each of these Indians was found equal to one and three quarters of 

 the Englishmen ; and yet not one of them had ever tasted any liquor stronger 

 than water." During his extensive travels among the Mahomedan popula- 

 tions of Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, &c., Mr. B. was struck with their 

 generally tine development, and their remarkable amount of muscular vigour, 

 notwithstanding their universal abstinence from alcoholic liquors. 



Almost every traveller who has visited Constantinople has been struck with 

 the remarkable muscular power of the men engaged in the laborious out- 

 door employments of that city. Sir W. Fairbairn, an eminent machine- 

 maker at Manchester, remarked, in his Sanitary Report, 1840, p. 2o2, that 

 " the boatmen or rowers to the caiques, who are perhaps the finest rowers in 

 the world, drink nothing but water ; and they drink profusely during the hot 

 months of summer. The boatmen and water-carriers of Constantinople are 

 decidedly, in my opinion, the finest men in Europe, as regards their physical 

 development : and they are all water-drinkers." And several other observers 

 bear testimony to the extraordinary strength of the porters of Constantinople, 

 who are accustomed to carry loads far heavier than English porters would 

 undertake, even under the stimulus of alcoholic beverages ; yet these Turkish 

 porters never drink anything stronger than coflee. 



In the copper mines of Krockmahon, as we are informed by their manager, 

 Captain Petherick, more than one thousand persons are daily employed, of 

 whom eight hundred have taken the Total Abstinence pledge. Since doing 



