who become dependent on parochial relief, have been reduced, to the condition of paupers, either by the infirmity and disease, which intemperance produces, or through the improvidence, which is constantly found to be the companion of the drunkard. It is in the very nature of intemperate habits to destroy all sense of shame, and to produce a disregard to consequences, even in the superior classes: we need not wonder, then, if the poor, when they once become subject to such habits, are totally unmindful of the future; knowing, as they do, that the law has provided for their support, when incapable of providing for themselves. Should it be asked, how can the poor, with the scanty wages they receive, become intemperate? or how can they do more than obtain daily the most moderate quantity of intoxicating liquor? such questions would betray extreme ignorance of the habits of the working classes. It is well known to those who have had the best opportunities for studying them, that there are vast numbers of mechanics, and of labouring men, who spend three-fourths of their earnings in the gin-shop, or the ale-house. They are not, perhaps, to be found, daily, in a state of inebriation; though this is the case with some. Periods of sobriety usually precede their fits of drunkenness; but no sooner are they in possession of the means of gratifying their appetite for drink, than, regardless of their starving families, and reckless of the consequences to themselves, they give the reins to their vicious propensity; and are found, day after day, in the haunts of dissipation, either swearing and raging like maniacs, or sunk into a state of the most sottish, and idiotic stupidity.

Mr. Millar, who was assistant overseer of the parish of St. Sepulchre, London, says, "by far the greater number of our new paupers are persons brought upon the parish, by habits of intemperance; and the others are chiefly pauper children, or hereditary paupers."

Another witness, Mr. Hall, from the parish of St. Botolph, without Aldgate, declares that "soon after the poor are paid, they are seen in groups at the doors of the next gin-shops; and that females have frequently come for relief in a state of intoxication."

"I have stationed persons," says Mr. George Hewish, of St. George's, Southwark, "at well known gin-shops, to observe the number of paupers that came in, and the money they spent; and from all such statements I have drawn the conclusion, that £30. out of every £100. of the money, given as out-door relief, is spent in the gin-shop during the day."

But it is needless to multiply testimonies, to show the connexion between intemperance in the lower classes, and pauperism, for they are as necessarily united as cause and effect.

At the time the new poor-law amendment act came into operation, the sum expended, in one year, for the relief of the poor, in England and Wales alone, amounted to about eight millions sterling. This act, by the alterations it has made in the mode of granting relief, has, to a very great extent, put a stop to the practice of paupers spending their allowance in intoxicating liquors; and by various judicious arrangements, has very considerably reduced the expenditure for the relief of the poor. But, could intemperance, with all its long and dismal train of evils, be banished from the land,

how small would be the amount which our national pauperism would require. Rarely do we find the temperate and industrious labourer, much less the mechanic, a burden on the funds of a parish. The infirmities arising from age and sickness, will, indeed, overtake the most excellent as well as the most worthless. Death will sometimes leave the widow and the orphan to be supported by parochial bounty; and there may be times and places, in which the able bodied and industrious, are incapable of obtaining suitable employment. But taking all these causes of pauperism into calculation, it will be found to be chiefly traceable to intemperance; which operates by producing premature decrepitude and disease-by destroying a sense of shame and a desire for independence-by leading to the formation of the most improvident habits by causing parents to neglect their children, and children to be unmindful of the wants of their parents, as well as by originating other causes of helplessness and want.

Another source of injury to our national wealth, arising out of intemperance, is the absolute destruction of an enormous quantity of wholesome food, by the processes of brewing and distillation.

With respect to ardent spirits, which are the chief cause of drunkenness, in our large and populous towns and cities, and especially in Ireland and Scotland, hundreds of the most eminent men, of the medical profession, have declared that they possess not one nutritive quality-that they have no power to impart the smallest degree of permanent strength to the human constitution on the contrary, that they are to be viewed as among the most potent destroyers of

human life, when habitually taken; and that even the occasional use of them, except under judicious medical direction, is far more likely to prove prejudicial to health than otherwise. As to malt liquors, which are the chief beverage of the drunkard, after ardent spirits, both the labours of the chemist, and the experience of thousands have demonstrated, that no greater delusion can exist, than that of supposing, that they contain any such quantity of nourishment, or that they are capable of imparting any such degree of strength, as to render them at all equivalent to the vast quantity of grain which is employed in their production.

It appears, from official documents, that no less than forty-five millions of bushels of malt are, at present, annually consumed in the manufacture of Beer and Spirits. In order to furnish the barley, for this quantity of malt, more than a million acres of land must be cultivated; in other words, the produce of a million acres must be abstracted from the common stock of food, by which the nation is supported, for a purpose which does little more than produce poverty, crimes, disease, and premature mortality. How dreadful is the amount of guilt, with which we must stand chargeable before God, for thus abusing the richest of his temporal blessings:-and how blind must be the men who can imagine, that because a few millions are brought into the national treasury, by the duties paid by the maker, and the seller of intoxicating liquors, that the use of them is a source of national prosperity. As well might it be argued, if a tax were levied upon every inmate of a lunatic asylum, or a workhouse, that the community was prospering, because the national income was increasing, through the increase of paupers and of madmen.

Many are clamorous for an abrogation of the corn laws, in order that the poor man may obtain a cheaper loaf, and that our foreign commerce may be extended, by means of the greater cheapness of our manufactures. Let such individuals reflect, that at this moment, hundreds of thousands of acres are waving with luxuriant crops, which within a few months will be converted, not into bread, for which they were designed by the Creator, but into noxious and intoxicating drinks; and they will then see that the present corn laws are not the only cause of oppression to the poor; and that something more is necessary, than their repeal, to render Britain prosperous, virtuous and happy. Even the agriculturist is a serious loser, by the conversion of his grain into intoxicating drinks. He may obtain, in consequence of this proceeding, a somewhat higher price for his barley, but he loses upon all the other productions of the field; the demand for which must necessarily be decreased, in proportion as men expend their earnings in the purchase of liquor; and drunkards are known to be regardless of wholesome and nutritious food, as well as of all the other comforts of life, in proportion as they are addicted to intemperance. But he is also a loser by this process, in common with the rest of the community, to the extent to which he is called to relieve the pauperism which intemperance occasions, and to contribute to the innumerable other expences, which are rendered inevitable, by this most ruinous of vices.

In Ireland we have a mournful illustration of the fact, that a large expenditure for intoxicating drink, and, consequently, a large acquisition to the public treasury, in the shape of the duty charged