place of public concourse, at the house of feasting and at the house of mourning, this enlivening element was deemed indispensable. If young people met to dance; if ecclesiastical bodies met; if assessors, or jurors, or arbitrators, or judges, or magistrates convened, they must be furnished with the sparkling decanters, or bottles of Brandy or Rum, or they could not proceed. At huskings or bees of every description, nothing could be done without the aid of stimulants. On days appointed for military drills-for holding courts of justice-for the election of civil officers-for literary commencements-for the celebration of Christmas and New Year, and election, there has been more than ordinary tippling and drunkenness. Not unfrequently has the wine and brandy passed freely around in the splendid parlor in which the corpse was reposing, until many were actually disguised and unable to walk to the grave without staggering.

Says Dr. Nott:-"Even in the exemplary and church-going city of Albany, the time was—I remember it well-when pastors and people vied with each other in the production of the best cherry, and raspberry, and strawberry brandy; as well as sundry other quite orthodox alcoholic mixtures, to be served occasionally, not only to company, but to be administered also to the smaller children as a vermifuge, and to the larger ones as a stomachic."

Most private families kept constantly on hand a variety of intoxicating liquors, and offered them as a matter of civility to all who paid them a friendly call; and it was regarded as inhospitable not to

treat friends who called. Spirit rations were allowed all who served in the army of the United States. Laborers in the harvest field must be furnished with a pint or a quart of rum daily, or nothing could be done.

It was regarded as the pleasant cordial; the cheerful restorative; the friend of the infant; the comforter of the enfeebled mother; the universal token of hospitality. It accompanied the laborer in his toil; went with the mariner on his distant voyage; cheered and animated the carpenter, the mason, the blacksmith, the glass-blower, and other mechanics at their various trades. It was regarded as an excellent domestic medicine, good for a cold, a cough, a pain in the stomach or side, and weakness in the limbs, and loss of appetite and general debility.

Thus the poisonous liquid had come into general use, and was as generally abused.

According to a statistical table, compiled from official returns and authentic documents by R. M. Hartley, Esq., Secretary of the New York State Temperance Society, it appears that the citizens of these United States have consumed on an average, every year, from the late war up to 1830, more than eighty and a half millions of gallons of spiritous liquors; and the annual cost of this was not less than thirty-five and a half millions of dollars!

Thus intemperance became alarmingly prevalent, and as generation after generation passed away, rivers of blood and countless lives were sacrificed at the inglorious shrine of Intemperance, filling the

land with the weeping of widows, and the wailing of orphans. The plague visited every haunt; poisoned the domestic circle, passed through consecrated groves, and entered the most sacred enclosures; chilled the warmest and most patriotic hearts; and entered the very doors of our Capitol, and left the stain of its polluting touch upon our national glory. It staggered to the bedside of the sick and dying, and corrupted even those who wore the livery of heaven.

ament.

Monarchs have been humbled and princes abased -the wise and the foolish, the learned and the unlearned, been the cringing slaves of the tyrant Alcohol. Sages, poets, orators, and statesmen, the juryman in the box, the judge on the bench, the culprit at the bar, and the pleader in the forum, have all been in turn the victims of this terrible scourge. With the prevalence of this evil, a dark and threatening cloud began to gather over the national firmOur ships of commerce carried with them the evidences and stains of American debauchery to all the kingdoms of the earth. Foreign nations, and even the heathen, lifted up the notes of our defamation, and all the world branded us as "a nation of drunkards." And had it not been for the timely interposition of the friends of Temperance, and those whose names stand high upon the list of patriots and philanthropists, our country must soon have been either a tributary to a foreign power, or the theatre of anarchy and fratricidal wars.

CHAPTER II.

CHARACTERISTICS OF ALCOHOL.

What is the nature and characteristics of Alcohol, that produced these evils, and was thus extensively used in different forms and in different beverages?

The word, Alcohol, is derived from two Arabic words, al, (the,) and kahol, (denoting a fine mineral powder.) When distillation was discovered, the chemist, seeing the vapor arising from the liquor under the process reappear, when condensed, in the form of a new liquid, called it Al Kahol—the fine, the sublimated. It is a thin, colourless fluid, lighter than water, somewhat volatile, of a pungent smell and taste—readily inflaming by the application of a lighted taper, burning with a dim blue or purple flame. It is produced only by the decomposition of animal and vegetable substances in a state of decomposition.

Alcohol, in the Arabic language, was a fine impalpable powder, with which the women used to paint their faces in order to increase their beauty. Perhaps after using it, they really thought they were more beautiful than they were before: men when drunk with alcohol, have often thought they were more beautiful, or rich, or strong, or in some respects better than they were before. But they were deceived. Alcohol in its nature is deceptive-it is

a mocker." He who is deceived thereby "is not wise."

Alcohol was first extracted from fermented liquors, about nine hundred years ago, by an Arabian chemist. Arnoldus de Villa, a physician who lived in the south of Europe in the thirteenth century, was the first, so far as known, who recommended the use of the article even as a medicine. Under his influence, however, and that of his disciple, Raymond Lully, who was born in Majorca in 1236, its medicinal use was extended, till it spread over a great part of Europe.

Alcohol contained in all liquids, whether wine, beer, brandy, rum, gin, or whiskey, is exactly alike; the difference in the taste and color of one distilled liquor from another, being the result of the different substances with which it is combined. The proportion of alcohol in spiritous liquor, called proof spirit, is about fifty per cent.

Brandy is the spirit distilled from wine, and the fermented husks and refuse of grapes, and contains about 53 per cent. of alcohol.—

Gin contains about 52 per cent. of alcohol,