strongest gin both before and after those murders. Bartlett, who was lately executed at Gloucester, went into a publichouse, and primed himself with a glass of gin and water, just before he shot and robbed his wife's mother. Two culprits, who were executed together for murdering females to whom they professed attachment, confessed to J. Poynder, Esq., who was then undersheriff of Middlesex and London, that they committed the act when under the influence of liquor.†

The following cases of murder from drunkenness were tried this year (1838) at the Lent Assizes at Liverpool :

:

"Patrick Creegan, charged with having killed James Cornan, on the 24th of December last, at Liverpoo!. Both were in liquor; words passed between the parties, when the prisoner knocked the deceased down, and kicked him: he died almost instantly."

"Timothy Sullivan was indicted for cutting and wounding William Lancaster, a police officer, on the 30th of September last, at Wigan. The deceased had been taking into custody a person of the name of Kelly, for fighting at a public house; and in proceeding to the lock-up, was struck by the prisoner with a spade. The prisoner stated, as an excuse, that he was in a state of excessive intoxication."

"John Williamson, a watchman, was acquitted on the charge of killing John Sheenan, on the 11th of November. It appeared the prisoner had interfered to quell a drunken riot, in which Sheenan was killed."

"Peter Eckersley, charged with having slain Peter Gleave, on the 11th of February, at Winwick. The parties had been drinking together at a public house. They went out, and fought three or four rounds in the lane; and then went into the field, and fought fourteen or fifteen rounds more, when the prisoner struck the deceased a blow on the neck, which proved fatal."

"Joseph Charnock was indicted for having killed John Whitehead, at Bolton-le-moors. It appears that at a wedding party, celebrated at a beer-shop, two of the party quarrelled, and began to fight. The prisoner, who was intoxicated, interfered, and kicked the deceased violently, till he fell down and expired."

"Edward Lowe, charged with having slain John Adamson, at Winwick, on the 19th of August last. It appeared that the prisoner and the deceased were drinking together at the Red Lion public house, Ashton. Both had liquor, when a quarrel took place, and the deceased was thrown against a wall, and his neck was dislocated."

"Thomas Hayes was indicted for killing and slaying Lawrence Robinson, at a beershop in Salford. A quarrel ensued, when the prisoner struck the deceased a blow on the right eye, of which he died. The prisoner acknowledged that he had got some drink."

"William Hill, charged with the murder of Betty Minshull, at Warrington. The prisoner had been drinking at the Leigh Arms till about midnight, of which place the deceased was the housekeeper."

"John Davis, charged with the wilful murder of his wife. The prisoner came home, after having had some drink, and quarrelled with his wife, who also had been drinking. When she was attempting to make her escape cut of the cellar, he pulled her down, and brutally abused her, so as to cause her death." *

Here, in this short narrative, we have at one assize nine cases of murder tried, and each one originating in drinking; and if one Lent Assize, in one place, presented so many murders, what must be the whole amount for England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, for the last year only?—One's heart sickens at the thought. And if, instead of one year, we go back for a century, and examine the Newgate Calendar, the criminal records of each city and county in the British empire, and the inquests of coroners which have been taken during that period, what a mass of crime and cruelty, perpetrated under the influence of intoxicating drinks, will be presented! It is highly probable that the number of Englishmen slain during the late war does not equal the amount of those that have perished during the last century, in consequence of drinking. Such a scene is sufficient to harrow up the feelings of the hardest heart, and make the most relentless and selfish resolve never again to touch or taste liquors which have occasioned so many murders, and in such awful forms. Few of us, perhaps, have estimated the value of the life of one human being. He, "who weighs the mountains in a scale, and the hills in a balance," is the only Being that can tell its worth; and that he considers it infinitely precious, is evident from various facts. He has hedged it about with the most solemn commands and threatenings; for its sustenance he has compounded the air, the water, and the rich and manifold profusion of vegetable and animal nutriment; for its security and preservation, a thousand safetyvalves, both within us and around us, have been provided by His paternal care. In our bosoms, too, he has implanted an intense attachment to life, stronger than any other natural feeling: "Skin for skin, yea all that a man hath, will he give for his life." To feed and sustain our life, the lungs, the

Livesay's Mor. Refor., May, 1838.

blood-vessels, the heart, and the pulse, incessantly toil; and, like their Divine Creator, neither "slumber nor sleep." To hold us in being, the laboratory of nature is worked without the least intermission; angels are our guards, "lest we dash our foot against a stone;" and even the perfections of the Deity are proffered as our shield. Divine justice, in one moment, heard the voice of Abel's blood, and doomed his murderer to be a fugitive and a vagabond,-to be a monument of vengeance himself; and, by the mark on his forehead, to announce to all with whom he conversed that sevenfold retribution awaited the monster who should imitate his example. The holy oracles tell us that "murderers shall not inherit the kingdom of God." The omnipotence of Jehovah guards us; his bounty feeds us; his pity heals our infirmities; his providence holds our souls in life, and crowns our existence "with goodness, loving-kindness, and tender mercy." What a favourite of Heaven, then, is man; and what an inestimable treasure, in the mind of the Deity is human life! Yet this precious boon, of which savages will not allow themselves to be robbed without a struggle, and which every sober man, educated in a Christian country, looks upon with awe, is treated as a thing of nought by those whom intoxicating drinks have inflamed, and bereft of feeling. Under the impulse and inspiration of these homicidal poisons, myriads of the human family have been hurried, uncalled, and too often unprepared, to the bar of the Eternal. Human blood is as lightly esteemed as water, and poured upon the earth with as little reverence. It may be said of intoxicating drink, as it is said of Satan, that it "has been a murderer from the beginning." One murder has sometimes struck the sober part of the community with horror, from land's end to land's end. What indignation was felt towards Thurtell, and Burke, and Bishop; and thousands seemed to exult when the drop fell, and freed the world from the cruel hand of Greenacre. But do we well thus to be angry at the individual who destroys a solitary life, while at the same time we harbour among us, and actually commend, a destructive beverage which has murdered, or been the occasion of the murder, of tens of thousands? As long as we continue to use, or to sanction the use of intoxicating drinks, we are actually bestowing our smiles and praises on a worse than Bishop, Burke, or Greenacre. God, hereafter, will "make inquisition for blood;" and in the investigation will not pass over the neighbour or parent who first put the inebriating cup into the hand of his child or acquaintance, and both by example and precept inculcated the use of a poisonous beverage which eventually changed the victim that it infected into

a being far worse than a beast or a savage. Not many years ago, through the ignorance or mistake of a chemist, oxalic acid was dispensed for Epsom salts, and one life fell a sacrifice to the blunder. But what was the result? The country resounded with the deed; the matter was brought before Parliament; the laws respecting the labelling of poisons were most rigidly enforced; and almost every newspaper circulated a test to prevent the recurrence of such a catastrophe. In this case only one human being was the victim; but alcoholic drinks destroy thousands annually, and yet we do not label them as poisons: yea, so far from this, that parents, friends, and neighbours, the press, and sometimes even the pulpit, instead of execrating, dwell on the praises of this almost omnipotent destroyer.

But, after all, the numbers murdered by violent hands will give us but a faint idea of the fatal consequences that follow the use of inebriating drinks. He who starves his wife and children, or breaks their hearts by his cruelty, and ruins their morals by his example, destroys as effectually, though far more cruelly, than he who employs the razor, the pistol, or the dagger; yet this mode of destruction is rife everywhere. We have of late been horrified in reading of the Thugs, a tribe of wretches in India who are murderers by profession, and often destroy whole villages; but we should remember that the Thugs are among us. Where is there a city, town, or hamlet in Britain, but has witnessed disease and death in their most cruel forms, brought on by drinking? Almost every newspaper brings us the intelligence of children that have been starved, or of adults that have terminated their existence, in consequence of their attachment to these desolating liquors; and if we had a full and particular statement of the real cause of the death of every child, wife, and parent, of drunkards, every newspaper might fill columns with details of the murderous effects of these pernicious beverages. Intoxicating drinks, as testified by several witnesses before the House of Commons, and by a thousand other medical testimonies, predisposed us for the cholera, prepared amongst us an asylum for that destroying angel, and led him through the length and breadth of the land. Not, indeed, that alcohol asks for the aid of the cholera, the pestilence, or the plague. This giant pest, as if independent of heaven, earth, and hell, can destroy alone -can with a magic spell, to which even Satan himself never yet laid claim, poison the soundest frame; and with marvellous rapidity inspire the soul, which before was meek as a lamb, with every infernal passion, and render it callous to every feeling of humanity, purity, justice, and religion.

For the truth of the following narrative I have the most satisfactory evidence-A

most industrious and pious woman had the misfortune to be the wife of a notorious drunkard. He had constant work, and good wages; but, notwithstanding, would get so much in arrear at the beer-shop, that his poor wife was sometimes obliged to pay, out of her own small earnings, the debt that he had contracted for drink, in order that she might thus prevent their goods from being seized. A little before her death she had been confined, and, before having properly recovered, went one evening to bring him home from the public-house. Not being ready to accompany her, she waited some time for him in the cold and rain. The consequence was, she took a chill which confined her again to her bed; inflammation rapidly followed; medical advice was needed, but the wretch that should have hurried to obtain it was drinking himself drunk at the public-house, and late in the evening came home in a state of beastly intoxication; and, heedless of the pangs and groans of his wife, crawled into her bed. During the night the paroxysms of pain were such, that, in turning to obtain relief, she rolled out on the floor; and, being unable to help herself, there she lay on the cold boards until the morning. He all this time was in bed; but, from the stupefaction occasioned by what he had been drinking, remained deaf to her cries. When the monster did awake, and discovered the scene, he procured medical aid, but it was too late. In a short period, the spirit of the unhappy sufferer was summoned to the bar of Heaven, to bear witness against the villain who, at the altar of God, had sworn to nourish and cherish her until death. The period of her death will not soon be forgotten. The heavens seemed on fire, the lightnings flashed, and the thunder rolled horrifically; and the moment in which she breathed her last was marked by one of the most vivid flashes of lightning the spectators ever beheld. All nature testified against the cruelty, still I am not aware that one person that evening understood the voice. Although the thunder re-echoed the cry of her blood, perhaps not a single individual that night denied himself the poison which had occasioned this suffering and death. A family of six or seven children was thus bereft of their only guide; and but a little time rolled away before the pregnancy of her eldest unmarried daughter told the sad tale, that suffering and death are not the only evils attendant on drunkenness. In looking at this case, let us suppose that any husband, instead of shooting, or cutting the throat of a wife whom he was about to destroy, should have adopted the plan of depriving her of life by a slow and highly-torturing process, so that, instead of slaying her at once, he had, by that refined cruelty which the savage Indians of America are said formerly to have exercised,

deprived her of one limb after another, until at last, after days of torture, his victim, unable to suffer any longer, died under his hand. What, we ask, would have been the horror and the indignation of the country at hearing that such a crime had been committed in a Christian land? And if it had been discovered that the demon that impelled the guilty man to this deed could be expelled from among us, is there an energy which young or old could command, but would have been employed for the purpose? Now, the fiend that effected all this misery and crime-that first robbed the husband and father of a human heart-that deprived him, or rather impelled him to deprive himself, of a fond and pious wife, and his children of a kind and godly mother-the fiend that did all this was alcohol, concealed in the insidious draught of beer, or what is called, but falsely called, "a wholesome and nutritious beverage."

We are sometimes told that poisonous gases are in the atmosphere, and even in our food. Granted, they may; but nature's compounds, intended for the daily use of man, are none of them chargeable with prompting the human family to commit those outrages which, by all parties, are attributed to the use of intoxicating drinks. When we consider the ingenuity that has been employed in producing these pernicious liquors, and the countless millions of ills that have sprung from their influence, surely we shall cease to call them "a good creature of God." As well might we attribute to him the extraction of chlorine or prussic acid, and recommend their daily use, as impiously assert that he formed, or intended intoxicating drinks for the human constitution. Breathing the wholesome air never impels a man to murder his wife, or hate his children. Bread, and the other nutritious bounties of Providence, are never chargeable with being the incentives to barbarity and cruelty; nor can other poisons, generally speaking, be subjected to such an imputation. It is alcohol that, pre-eminently above other articles of diet, possesses power either slowly or rapidly to infect the body, stupify or madden the mind, and harden the heart. Other poisons, for the most part, do their work at once, and instantly destroy the unhappy victim that swallows them; but intoxicating drinks often work slowly, and by degrees undermine both the health and morals of their votary, and hardly ever allow him to die alone in his iniquity. Wives, children, neighbours, and friends, are all involved in the wide-spreading eddy of the devouring element. The plague and the cholera were not half so contagious, nor even famine so petrifying to the human heart. "Even the sea-monsters," says the prophet, "draw out the breast; they give suck to their young

ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness. The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask for bread, and no man breaketh it unto them." Such were the effects of famine; but how would the prophet have been shocked, had he been told that all this hardness of heart would afterwards exist in a land of plenty, and of religious knowledge? Yet such destitution of human feeling presents itself to our view, throughout the length and breadth of the land, and how few are the Jeremiahs that lament, or the priests that rush with the censer to stay the plague which has so furiously begun! In every insidious form, whether as beer, wine, or ardent spirit, the desolating pest is ravaging our country. The Dane, the Norman, or the Frank, no longer threatens our shores; and yet are we besieged in our own dwellings with an enemy more potent than they. Our sons are made slaves before our eyes; our fair countrywomen are dishonoured in our streets; our most valuable citizens are ruined, beggared, and slain by a worse than Vandal assassin; and we may almost add, "there is none to pity." The cruel and premature death of the unhappy woman to which we have just referred is far from being an isolated fact. Let those who sigh for the miseries and abominations of the land, turn their attention to this subject, and only calculate the evils that, under their individual notice, have been the effects of drunkenness; let them obtain a correct census of the suffering, want, disease, crime, and death, that in their own neighbourhoods are known to have been the dire results of drinking, and let the information that each one can collect be added together into one grand sum total of misery and guilt, and a scene will be presented, to which the horrors of war, pestilence, and famine will furnish but an imperfect parallel. In speaking of the amount of life that has been wantonly sacrificed by intoxication, we must not forget the disease and premature dissolution that all medical men and physiologists agree in attributing to this direful poison; but as we shall make a distinct head of the subject of disease, we need not here anticipate that topic. There is one point, however, which must not be passed over, namely, the solemn consideration, that by drunkenness so many of our countrymen are hurried, unprepared, into the presence of their Judge. Hundreds every year die drunk, and, therefore, die in the committal of a crime which prevents the possibility of repentance. They die in the very act of sinning against God. The man who murders another may live after the deed, and repent of the crime; and even he who attempts suicide sometimes, from being unsuccessful in his endeavour

at self-immolation, may have his life for a while prolonged to allow him to sue for mercy; but the drunkard, with reason and conscience besotted, and with passions burning with an infernal flame, presents himself, uncalled for, at the bar of that Judge who has said, that neither "thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards shall inherit the kingdom of God." We need not comment upon this awful passage, we leave every Christian to weigh in his own conscience the import of the words, "Shall not inherit the kingdom of God." We ask him to consider what it is for one soul to be rejected from that only eternal abode of bliss, and then to endeavour to find words to express the horror that reverberates to his inmost soul, at the thought of hundreds of immortal beings being excluded from the kingdom of heaven, and doomed to that misery from which there is no redemp tion. If we have no balance by which the value of the life of one human being can be estimated, much less are we capable by any standards, scales, or calculations that we can command, to arrive at even a very distant approach to the worth of one immortal spirit. Could we take in our hands the balances in which the Creator determined the weight of the mountains and the hills, and by which he apportioned to each orb in the immensity of space its relative and appropriate gravity, still, in these mighty standards of equity and truth, we should find that the whole material universe, if weighed against one human soul, would be light as a feather. We have no compasses that can span the circle of those years that are to fill eternity, and we have no arithmetic that can tell their duration. Yet the soul must live for ever in bliss or in torments. And if one soul, one lost soul, is of such value, what, then, must be the worth of myriads? And yet, if we consider the number of persons who annually die drunk, and who annually destroy others and send them unprepared to the divine tribunal, instead of myriads, we must say that millions have already perished in consequence of drinking. There is reason to believe that the Christian church has not yet represented or depicted to itself a thousandth part of the magnitude of the evil. Our souls have thrilled with horror as we have heard of Juggernaut and the Suttees of India, or of Moloch, and the valley of the son of Hinnom; but at the very moment that we are pouring forth the tears of our pity over India or Israel, we ourselves, by using or encouraging the use of intoxicating drinks, are dragging along the ponderous wheels of the British Juggernaut, are heaping and kindling piles quite as cruel and impious as those of Hindostan, and are listening to the timbrel and pipe of the drunkery which so heartlessly mock