to attack some of the fallacies which float in the minds of so many persons, as to the real nature of drunkenness and strong drink.

The first article appears in a highly respectable journal devoted to the cause of Sanitary Reform. We have observed, from time to time, that, altho the sanitary reformers have spoken out on the subject, many of them treat intemperance as the offspring of ignorance and discomfort, and point to better homes and improved sanitary regulations as the appropriate antidotes. The Editor of the Journal of Health takes this view. He is disposed to censure the Temperance Reformers for treating drunkenness as the cause of crime, and proceeds, by a process of induction which, we are sure, he would be the first to repudiate if applied by another to his own favorite 'crotchet' (we quote in no contemptuous spirit his own term)-Sanitary Reform. Intemperance he treats as an effect of certain causes distinct from the use of strong drink. The same fallacy is interwoven with the arguments of the Examiner, and the characteristic witticisms of Punch. It is mere repetition of some portions of the speeches of Lord Ashley, Lord Ebrington, Dr. Southwood Smith, and other sanitary reformers. It has passed current long enough, and we propose to combat it with whatever power and nerve we are masters of.

The cause of Sanitary Reform and the cause of Temperance are kindred in their methods and objects. They each seek to secure the physical, social, and moral improvement of the masses; and both are identical in the means they employ. They aim at acccomplishing their work by practical means. We have noticed with some concern that many of our Temperance Reformers,-men of one idea,— contend for precedence, and the argument used is simply this: "Intemperance is the cause and not the result of filth and wretchedness-and therefore Teetotalism is the cure." The Sanitary Reformer stands in a similar attitude, intimating, if he does not positively assert, that there would be no need of Temperance Societies if all his favorite measures were carried out. Now what is the truth of the matter? Why, this-That if all the world were teetotalers to-morrow, the great work of Sanitary Reform would be as much needed as it is to-day. Absti nence from strong drink would not protect us from the evils consequent upon defective sewerage and drainage, bad ventilation, and impure water. Give us a corrective for all these, and altho some of the temptations and facilities to drinking might be withdrawn, it would be still necessary to teach the people the nature and properties of intoxicating drinks. The triumph of one cause would not supersede the necessity of the other. It adds nothing to the value of Sanitary Reform to slight that of Temperance-nor would it speed the triumph of the temperance cause, if we were to depreciate the value of every other. One must help the other, altho our one-idea'd advocate may not be able to see it. We desire to place both in their fair and honest position. Whatever predilections we may have for the cause with which we have been identified for nearly the whole years of its existence, we are bound to state our convictions, and do our meed towards breaking down those sectarian feelings and narrow jealousies which interfere so much with the march of general improvement.

Now we grant that there are many causes of intemperance-that is, proximate causes-but the primary one we hold to be the popular delusion as to the nature

healthy action of the We believe that the

and properties of strong drink. Whatever disturbs the body has a tendency to create an appetite for false stimuli. desire for alcoholic drinks, for tobacco, for opium, for benj, or for any other stupifying drugs, is utterly incompatible with a state of perfect health and sanity. Even a desire for such things can only arise from a morbid condition of body. On this principle, a tainted atmosphere, the use of bad water,-undue exposure to cold and variations of weather, an insufficient quantity of food, or food of an unwholesome quality,-excessive toil, or study,-grief and suffering,-disease and bereavement,- -are all incitements to intemperance. A morbid want is generated, or an unnatural excitement is produced, and the unhappy subject of these calamities is often driven to take large quantities of drink, to relieve the feelings of exhaustion and weariness, or the painful sensations, to which he has been subject,-to drown in the delirium of intoxication the wretched ennui, or more active suffering, of which he has become a prey. It follows, therefore, that whatever tends to improve the physical condition of the people, will have a corresponding effect upon their habits. Give them better homes, make their workshops clean and salubrious, destroy water monopolies, reduce their hours of labor, give them gymnasia, and supply them with agreeable recreations and innocent pleasures, stimulate their mental faculties,—and you will diminish the attractions of the public house,-you will remove, in some degree, the appetite for drink. We have proof of this in many living instances. But the question with which we have to do is this-Will you thereby banish drunkenness? We affirm that you will not. Punch makes one of his imaginary orators at the Moderation Reading rooms,' ascribe his conversion to the fact of his becoming an inmate of a Model lodging house, and his companions reiterate the same thing. Will Punch get down from his crotchety stool, and point, in actual society, to one such instance? The argument we have now under review would be all very well as a pleasant fiction, were it not contradicted by a thousand familiar instances in every day life. The last time we were at the Model lodging-house, we noted one or two incidents. One of the persons to whom we were introduced was an occasional writer for the Press. He was a scholar-had been educated at Cambridge-was the son of a country clergyman, and a member of an amiable family-had been very beloved until the pleasures of the table became too strong for him. He finally became a sot. He had recently taken the pledge, and was then an inmate of the Model lodging-house. Discomfort had nothing to do with his fall, and the Model lodging-house was only a secondary agent in his recovery. We need not cecupy space in citing instances, which abound by hundreds and thousands. Are there no men with clean, comfortable, and inviting homes, who frequent the tavern and sink by degrees into miserable sots? Are there no members of the 'learned professions'-no lawyers, doctors, or clergymen-none of the educated and respectable classes-none of the better paid workmen-who become drunkards? Nay, is the Editor of Punch acquainted with no literary man,—no popular writer, who is so much a slave to conviviality as to be found at two or three o'clock in the morning, for days together, in a tavern, in the midst of smoke, noise, revelry, and intoxication? It is a monstrous absurdity to talk about discomfort as a cause of drunkenness, except it is taken as one among many other

causes. Give comforts to the poor, but by all means protect those comforts by teaching them the danger, the uselessness, the folly, of drinking beer and strong liquors. Plant paupers in palaces, says one of our Temperance writers, and let them retain their love of drink and the palaces will soon become hovels. It is interesting to enquire how these improved homes, this increase of comfort, is to cure drunkenness? It is not argued that these things will render the drink innocuous—but the people will be induced to take less. Does it never occur to any of these parties to make one enquiry-Whether in fact it is not philosophically unsound, to take that as a daily beverage which (in no great quantity) is capable of making a man drunk? Do such effects indicate dietetic adaptations?

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The writer in the Journal of Health falls into a common, we may say, a vulgar error, in the following sentence. Drunkenness is a manifestation of crime; so is uncleanness, theft, debauchery, lust, treason, and murder." Now drunkenness may be only a manifestation of weakness, ignorance, or infirmity, as in the case of Noah, or Morton. We do not wish to be too critical, however, and rather take the sentence for another reason-it places drunkenness in the same category as "theft, lust, treason, and murder." This is one of the plausible falsehoods of the day, and renders the treatment of drunkenness extremely difficult. Preachers and teachers will treat drunkenness as a moral evil, and plead the gospel as a cure! Educationists and Sanitary Reformers regard it as belonging to the same class of vices as theft, and proceed to the application of an empirical remedy! Now the drunkard's appetite does not need the parson, but the physician. Primarily, it is a purely physical disease, not a moral evil-a nervous disorder rather than a vice. The men who bring in the Bible to cure it, Lelong to the race who bring astronomy and geology, chemistry, physiology and psychology, to the same test. There is a wide difference between drunkenness and theft. All the crimes cited above are the mere expansion into unnatural growth, or the misdirection, of primitive feelings and appetites-Theft, of the desire to acquire,-Lust of a propensity implanted in our nature for the wisest of purposes; Murder, of the useful instinct to destroy; but Drunkenness is not the overgrown development of any feeling inherent in man. A foreign agent must have been taken into the stomach before drunkenness can be produced. We find in the decalogue various commands— 'Thou shalt not kill'-Thou shalt not commit adultery'-'Thou shalt not covet'—etc.—but no command, Thou shalt not get drunk.' If these commands were for all time,—and we believe them to be as necessary now as in any age of the world-why was the prohibition against drunkenness not included? Clearly, because the use of the article as a common beverage which makes men drunk, is not even recognized-and therefore nothing is said about 'excess.' Theft is acquisitiveness in excess, and so with other vices and crimes. We are told not

We can repeat in this matter, the language of Isaiah, who, after inviting to drink at the waters, and to eat of the thick milk and wine of the divine repast, adds—

Hearken attentively unto me, and eat ye that which is good, "And let your soul delight itself with delicacies

And also take up and apply to alcoholic drink the preceding lines—

to covet-not because our covetousness would do any harm to our neighbor or his possessions, but because the feeling is dangerous to ourselves and may grow into theft. But what of drunkenness? Keep the foreign outer agent, strongdrink, away from a mau, and, however ignorant, however depraved, he will never be 'drunk.' Is not drunkenness-the insatiable drunkard's appetite-a disease? Is it not analogous, in a great degree, to a man breathing bad air? Of all men, the Sanitary Reformers ought to take a philosophical view of this subject. With what ineffable scorn they look down upon the men who ascribe the Cholera to a 'special providence.' They assert, in reply, the immutabilty of the laws of God,— that the great principles for which they contend were laid down when the world was made, and man fashioned out of its elements;-that the utmost we can do is to discover, and imperfectly explain, those principles-and they point to our bad sanitary condition as one element of the cause. They protest against every defect in construction which shuts out good air, and every accumulation of filth which corrupts it. They insist upon having, for the wants of man, water as pure as it came from the bosom of Nature, and which is filtered in abundance from ten thousand springs. They hurry on to their beneficent labors, treating Cholera as a disease, and claiming attention to the violated laws of God. They would unceremoniously push out of the way the stupid bigot who would try to divert them from that practical purpose and invite them to some solemn fast instead. Breathing a vitiated atmosphere is not a question of degree. Any portion must do some injury. Why, then, do we talk about drinking as if it were a question of quantity? A pint of ale will not do so much damage as a gallon-but will it therefore do none? The writer in the Journal of Health is a physician. Now Alcohol is the intoxicating element in all strong liquors. What place does it

occupy in his Pharmacopœia? Is it not amongst the poisons? Can any extent of dilution, or any disguise, change its essence? In the popular treatment of the Temperance cause there is either misapprehension or misrepresentation. We are not disposed, for one moment, to deny that the application of wise and practical measures to improve the condition of the people, will not diminish intemperance; but we venture, on the strength of much study and experience, to affirm that the work of Sanitary Reform will not effect its desired end so long as strongdrink is the daily beverage of the people. Look among the abodes of misery, and will see wretched creatures there who have been in comfortable circumstances, but who have fallen thrö drink. Strong-drink is as potent now as everAlcohol is a poison under all circumstances-and so long as its use obtains, is will inevitably keep masses of men in the rear of civilization.

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THE POET.

90 conscious artist he;

As the stars come and the flowers,

As heaven's own gentle showers,

His holy moods shall be.

He must borrow aid from none;
He must tread the path alone;

Must mourn, and weep, and languish,
Know the power of bitter anguish :
Seek the crowd in lighter mood,

But the mountain solitude,
When, another epoch bringing,

New spirit-conflicts rise,-
New blood-sweat agonies
From a broken body wringing.
There weary, worn, alone,

Crying 'Lord, I am undone!'

Strive to wrestle yet again,

With the might, the power, of pain.

Then calm, serene, at length,
He will gather up his strength:
The sunshine on the hills,

The murmur of the rills,

Shall fill his soul with song:

The lilies of the field

Shall to him their beauty yield.

Once more renewed and strong,

His language free and bold,
Shall proclaim with his of old,—
"That the hearing of the ear,
'Gives place to vision clear.'

He shall tread the earth anew

With a young child's Faith and Love. He shall hail the stars above, Howling tempests, gentle dew, Chiming brooks, and ocean's swell,

As voices powerful-sweetThat proclaim in accents meet, 'God doeth all things well!'