June 27. John Branch, aged 35; lunacy, cut throat; had been a drinker; smelt of rum when wounded.

July 9. William Emerson, aged 29; by rupture of a bloodvessel; had been a great drinker, and attributed his illness to it. July 12. Margaret Thompson, aged 24; lunacy, hanged; had drunk so that it was considered to have injured her mind."

Christian reader, before you proceed any further, let me entreat you to read again this black catalogue of disease, crime, and death. Look at woman, in her twentieth or twenty-fourth year, drowned, a lunatic, or hanged by her own hand, and remember, that these females were once as pure as that infant daughte, that now clings to your bosom, and on whom you smile with so much affection. They, too, must have been at one time moderate drinkers, perhaps their parents taught them to drink, and commended to them the liquor that ruined them. The liquid that was their destruction has just as much power to poison that infant, which you now so doatingly admire, and the catalogue shows that respectability in circumstances is no protection against this accursed bane. Look again, also, at the other sex some in early youth, lunatics,—lifting the razor to their own throats,-hung by their own hands,-plunging into the river and sinking like lead, as if the water refused to support a drunkard,—their "brains rent" of apoplexy,-their blood-vessels bursting, their wounds erysipelatous and stinking of alcohol,maddened by drink, administering to themselves a stronger poison than alcohol,—or, bereft of reason, shattering their bodies by accidental, but fatal falls, or walking heedlessly into the devouring flood. We beseech you to weigh these facts in all their bearings on time and eternity.

Here, in the inquests of one coroner in the brief space of one short year, you have twenty-four of your own brethren and sisters, lost to society, sacrificed by their own hands, and ushered into eternity uncalled for and unprepared. We should send a fleet round the world, if so many citizens had been destroyed by a foreign foe, and yet we encourage and commend the domestic demon whose ravages infinitely surpass those of any foreign enemy. Christians, can you tell the worth of these lives and souls ? Would you for the wealth of both Indies stand in their stead a

the bar of God? Would it not cause your heart to burst, if you thought that the end of your son or daughter would be like theirs? These, remember, were once "moderate drinkers,” total abstinence would have saved them all from degradation, disease, lunacy, poison, and death. It was the beer, or the spirit that sparkles so brilliantly in your glass, and even bewitches you, that fascinated them and allured them to ruin. Look at it again. Let your cup, like Joseph's, for once divine, and it will tell that the very cordial,—(alas! it can go to the heart, perhaps it has gone to your heart already,)—the very cordial you so highly commend, can ruin you and your family in both worlds. O that God would give a tongue and an emphasis to the prediction, such as should constrain you to vow that “ your tongue shall cleave to your mouth, and your right hand forget her cunning," before you will touch or taste again!

The examples just given are from the note-book of one coroner, and exhibit the records of one short year. What, if we had the inquests of all the coroners of the country for the last twenty years, what may we suppose would be the character of the catalogue? Our hearts sicken at the thought of the disease, the debauchery, the suffering, the cruelty, the madness, the suicide, the murders, and miserable deaths that would be presented. We need not the cup of the diviner, the past history of drunkenness, all of which originated in “moderation,” is sufficient to show us the future, except that, as the love of strong drinks is increasing by the increased facilities of gratifying so vitiated a taste, these is reason to believe, unless the plague be stayed, that the crimes, and diseases, and infatuation of our children will unfold a scene, black and destructive beyond any previous precedent.

The following testimony from Mr. Wakley, Member of Parliament for Finsbury, and Coroner for Middlesex, is submitted to the serious consideration of the humane reader. "At an inquest held June, 1839, on a person who had died from the effects of intemperance, Mr. Wakley, Coroner, made the following remarks :—' I think intoxication likely to be the cause of one half the inquests that are held.' Mr. Bell, the clerk of the inquests, observed, that the proportion of deaths so occasioned,

were supposed to be three out of five.' 'Then,' said Mr. Wakley,' there are annually 1,500 inquests in the Western Division of Middlesex, and, according to that ratio, nine hundred of the deaths are produced by hard drinking. I am surprised that the Legislature, which is so justly particular about chimists and druggists vending poison, is not equally so with venders of gin.'

On another occasion, not very long after, the same gentleman observed, "I have lately seen so much of the evil effects of gindrinking, that I am inclined to become a tetotaler. Gin may be thought the best friend I have; it causes me to hold annually one thousand inquests more than I should otherwise hold. But beside these, I have reason to believe that from ten thousand to fifteen thousand persons in this metropolis die annually from the effects of gin-drinking, upon whom no inquests are held. Since I have been coroner, I have seen so many murders by poison, by drowning, by hanging, by cutting the throat, in consequence of drinking ardent spirits, that I am astonished the Legislature does not interfere. I am confident that they will, before long, be obliged to interfere with respect to the sale of liquors containing alcohol. The gin-seller should be made as responsible as the chimist and druggist. And I think it is right the publicans should know that even now they are, to a certain extent, responsible in the eye of the law. If a publican allows a man to stand at his bar, and serves him with several glasses of liquor, and sees him drink until he gets intoxicated; and if that man should afterwards die, and a surgeon should depose that his death was accelerated by the liquor so drunk, then would the publican be liable to be punished for having aided in bringing about that death."

These remarks appeared in most of the public papers of the time, and they are the more valuable, because Mr. Wakley, not long before he became coroner, in his place in the House of Commons, spoke rather sneeringly of the tetotalers the observations made above were, therefore, extorted from him by the scenes which, in his capacity as coroner, he had witnessed. What man, after reading these statements, can either vend or give away any "liquor containing alcohol?" To do so must

betray an obtuseness of feeling little creditable to our patriotism or Christianity. An army of 15,000 fellow-subjects dead on the field of battle would fill us with horror, yet, according to Mr. Wakley, fifteen thousand citizens of London are annually slain in the most brutal manner by alcoholic drink. Either let us hasten to stay this carnage, or, for consistency's sake, let us renounce the name of Christians.

If medical men, at least those who have scientifically studied the physiology of disease, would only favor us with the result of their anatomical and pathological observations, the reports of coroners, black and horrific as they appear, would sink into insignificance. These gentlemen know full well that by far the majority of the diseases which have come under their notice have been caused by the use of alcoholic drinks. We have not the number of physicians and surgeons in the country, much less can we get at a list of their patients for the last ten years; but had we both before us, and, at the same time, sufficient knowledge to trace diseases to their direct or indirect causes, we might then have some idea of the ills occasioned by moderate, as well as by immoderate, drinking. We should then perceive that millions of persons have doomed themselves to pains and anguish for life, and have hurried themselves to a premature grave, by the use of these stimulants. We would invite professional men themselves, before they recommend these poisons again, to review their anatomical and surgical observations.

Ancient augurs used to consult the liver and the intestines of birds, that they might benefit their countrymen; in the diseased brains, kidneys, hearts, livers, blood-vessels, stomachs, and limbs, of the bodies they have opened or dissected, practitioners of our day have a fund of real, not delusive, information, which might benefit the people to an incalculable degree. To their honor it may be told that five thousand medical men in America have come forward and given their testimony against alcoholic drinks. In doing so, they have acted as became disinterested patriots and Christians. By recommending spirits, wine, beer, and cider, they all know that they might multiply patients and

wealth a thousand fold.

But they also know, that he who en

riches himself by increasing, encouraging, or even neglecting the maladies of others, differs little from the beast, or the vulture which fattens upon carrion; and, therefore, they have made declarations which ennoble their character, while, at the same time, they must limit their practice and their gains. Several gentleman of equal integrity and honor, have already, boldly and honestly, in our own country, pronounced their veto against these pernicious drinks.

Mr. Higginbotham, an eminent surgeon, in Nottingham, in a letter, dated Scarboro,' Aug. 1836, says to his friend, who was troubled with an affection of the throat,-"I want you to give a fair and full trial of total abstinence from all stimulating liquors, and also from tobacco, in every form. I am fully persuaded that many chronic diseases are brought on and continued by their use. I consider I shall do more in curing disease and preventing disease in one year by prescribing total abstinence, than I could do in the ordinary course of an extensive practice of one hundred years. I have already seen diseases cured by total abstinence that would not have been cured by any other means. If all stimulating drinks and tobacco were banished from the earth, it would be a real blessing to society, and in a few weeks they would never be missed, not even as a medicine. No one," he adds, can for one moment doubt that alcohol, which is the basis of all intoxicating drinks, can pass through parts of the body in a state of irritation or inflammation, but the parts must be further injured, and I have no doubt that thousands fall into a premature grave by the temporary relief from exhaustion it gives when laboring under these affections." This gentleman, it should be remarked, has practised total abstinence himself for thirty years.

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At a meeting held in Dublin last month (Nov. 1837), in the presence of 1,200 persons, in the Rotunda, Dr. Orpen, a distinguished physician, said, "It is my conviction that those who belong to such a society as this (meaning the Temperance Society), will seldom have occasion for medical men. The diseases of your children will be diminished by adopting the principles of this society, and the public health immeasurably improved. In fact, every year adds to my conviction that if the public would