DRAM-DRINKING USAGES.

Ir is high time that a resolute stand should be made against certain injurious and irrational social customs, which, so long as they prevail to their existing extent, present a truly formidable obstacle to the final triumph of temperance. The following are the customs to which we allude:

The first custom is that which prevails in many respectable families, of giving ardent spirits to persons employed in occasional domestic services. By this agency, ruinous habits of intemperance have frequently been formed in the cases of porters, charwomen, &c.; and by the same agency, intemperate propensities already contracted, have been fearfully established and increased.

The second custom is that of offering drams, or producing spirituous liquors under a mistaken estimate of hospitality. Thus, in many circles, if a friend make his appearance, he must be dosed with ardent dent spirits when he takes his departure, he must spirits-while he remains, he must be dosed with arbe dosed with ardent spirits. Delusive hospitality! which puts an enemy down a friend's throat to steal away his brains. Delusive hospitality! which, to obviate the imputation of niggardliness, endangers the destruction of the body and the soul.

he is dry; when he suffers from cold or from heat;
when he is either at home or abroad; whenever he is
either elated or depressed; when he either wants an
appetite or has gorged himself into indigestion. All
this valetudinarian drinking cannot be too strongly
condemned. Ardent spirit, it is true, may be used me-
dicinally, but let it be recollected that in this case
"every man is not to be his own doctor;" or else an
apology is directly afforded for the most inveterate
spirit-drinkers in the world, for they will very readily
declare that they never drink, except to "do them-
selves good!" Away with these frivolous excuses for
personal indulgence-British and Foreign Tempe-
rance Advocate.

were allowed to send three families, to consist of twelve paupers, six orphans or foundlings, a married couple, or a woman to take charge of the children.

The whole establishment was placed under the superintendence of General Van-den-Bosch; a sub-director was appointed to preside over each hundred families; a quarter-master over twenty families; and a section-master, thoroughly and practically an agriculturist, over twelve families. Perhaps no arrangement to prevent confusion and to promote industry could be better than this plan, each section being as it were placed in a state to emulate the other.

Their employments were regularly subdivided; some were occupied in making bricks, erecting dwellings, [There are other causes for intemperance not noticed burning lime, &c.; the women in spinning and wearin the above. One of the most prominent of these is ing. But the chief occupation was reclaiming and the system of public dinners, at which drinking toasts cultivating the land; the spade and hoe have been forms the principal business of the meeting. We con- generally used. All labour has been, and is still, persider public dinners as little better than schools for formed by the piece, or quantity, not by time. A repractice, and help to keep alive what would otherwise, the sanguine expectations of the society, nor, as a teaching drinking; they, at any rate, sanction thegular account of all the work done is kept; and although the colony, in point of profit, has not realised most likely, soon be little heard of. We are delighted commercial speculation, is it likely to succeed, yet, to observe that in Edinburgh and elsewhere, heavy, dear, public dinners, with their bad wines, and dis- eight thousand paupers, including two thousand four comforts of various kinds, are giving way before the hundred orphans and foundlings, have been well provided for. The labour of the working paupers has enlightened practice of light, agreeable soirées, conThe third custom is that of rendering every im- ducted at a tenth of the expense, and without any enpaid their maintenance, and the lands are considered portant occurrence in social life an occasion of drink-couragement to intemperance, while there seems no worth nearly as much annual rent per acre as the oriing. In what numberless instances are births, baptisms, falling off in the quality of the speeches for which all ginal cost. From the statement given me at Amsterentering upon situations, liberation from apprentice- such assemblies are convoked. We are, however, not dam, the order, sobriety, and industry of Frederick's ships, the forming of partnerships, the ratification of so sanguine as to expect to see this venerable and Oord, is remarkable; they have places of worship and bargains, marriages, natal and matrimonial anniver- vicious usage abated to any great degree, until society schools for Lutherans, Catholics, and Jews." saries, and even the celebration of the funeral rites of at large has undergone a change for the better-until the dead-how often are all these events made, if not a horror and contempt of dram-drinking has been inthe scenes of absolute excess, at any rate the means culcated in the moral training of the young. The old of accelerating the progress and extending the influ- are pretty nearly hopeless: temperance associations ence of intemperance ! must address themselves vigorously to the task of enforcing infant education-there a glorious field lies before them.]

A HOME COLONY IN HOLLAND.

THE idea of planting colonies of paupers or indigent
families on waste lands, and assisting them to bring
the soil into a state of productive tillage, has frequently
been started in this country, chiefly with a reference
to the poor and extensive wastes in Ireland, and, we
believe, it has in some places been carried into effect
has been done in the way of home colonisation in Hol-
on a limited scale. The following is a sketch of what
land, as given by Mr Macgregor in his newly published
work, "My Note Book."

The fourth custom is that of paying wages late on Saturday nights. Against this custom, which prevails to a deplorable extent both in London and the large provincial manufacturing towns, it is absolutely necessary that all the friends of the temperance cause should unanimously and incessantly protest. Not only is this custom injurious to the comfort of the working classes, because it is impossible that they can go into the mar ket with the same advantage, or make their purchases on the same terms as though they were to be paid at an early period in the course of the day, but it is the origin of much of that revolting intemperance which is visible on the morning, and in fact during the whole course, of Sunday. Were this custom abandoned, a very large proportion of the wages now squandered away in the taproom or the ginshop, would be devoted to the promotion of domestic comfort and peace. "Frederick's Oord, a district lying near Steenwyk, The fifth custom is that of paying wages in public- situated on the confines of the Drenthe, Overyssel, houses. This custom is tantamount to an intolerable and Friseland, was fifteen years ago chiefly a barren tax, both on the resources and the morals of that part heath, and the origin of its cultivation and settlement of the operative community which is cursed by its may be considered as owing to circumstances which influence. When wages are paid in a public-house, it seem to coincide by arrangement for good purposes. is almost universally expected that part of those wages Some time before, General Van-den-Bosch returned should be spent, as it is called, "for the good of the from Batavia to Holland. He had been remarkably house;" and thus the gross amount of those wages successful in the profitable cultivation of waste lands is not only materially reduced, but, in countless in- in Java, merely by imitating the example of a Chinese stances, the reign of intemperance is established, the mandarin, who, with several emigrant countrymen, individual character is depraved, and domestic virtue settled near the lands possessed by the general. Soon and happiness are destroyed. The payment of wages after his return to Europe, he published a pamphlet on the utility and practicability of establishing nalate on Saturday nights, and the payment of wages in public-houses, are the means of accumulating a mass tional pauper home colonies on the waste land within of guilt, from which the mind recoils with dismay. the kingdom. The king immediately entertained the The sixth custom, which is confined of course ex- subject; a society was at once formed at the Hague, clusively to working men, is that of connecting en- with Prince Frederick as president; the members of trances into particular trades or particular departments which, twenty thousand in number, immediately conof trade, with drinking bouts. Thus there are nutributed 70,000 florins, about L.5850 sterling, a small footings," fines, &c., which are almost al- sum individually, only three and a half florins; yet ways devoted to debauchery, and to the cherishing of sufficient to purchase one thousand three hundred acres the most ruinous habits of extravagance. This custom of tolerably good land, two thousand six hundred acres is associated with many others of a similar character, of heath district, and to pay the expense of prelimiwhich our operative readers will immediately remem-nary operations. The land cost 56,000 florins; 14,000 ber, and which we have no space at present to describe. remained. The first operations were rendering the The seventh custom is that of holding the meetings river Aa, which runs through the district, navigable of benefit societies, trade societies, literary societies, to the Zuyder Zee; erecting fifty-two cottages for as &c. &c. in taverns and public-houses. It is of the many families, or for six or eight individuals each; ntmost importance to the temperance cause, and to and a public magazine, a spinning factory, and a the general good of the whole population of the coun- school. try, that in London, and in all provincial towns, commodious buildings or apartments should be prepared, in which the members of these societies may regularly hold their meetings, without being compelled to throw away, upon the spirit-cask or the ale-barrel, that which might be infinitely more usefully employed.

merous

The eighth custom is that of resorting, in almost every case of real or fancied ailment, to the spiritbottle. How general is the practice of recommending and taking spirits when there are pains in the stomach, or pains in the head, or pains in any other part of the corporeal structure; when the individual is wet or when

LUCK OF FATALISM.-At Tunis, by permission, we visited the powder-manufactory: it so happened that it took place after our having been presented to the Bey, so that we were in uniform, and, to make the matter worse, cavalry uniform. On entering the manufactory, we were rather surprised at finding part of the guard quietly enjoying their pipes under the archway, within a few yards only of many hundred-weights of sudden gust of wind, would have sent them, us, and powder drying on frames. One spark, carried by a the fabrique, heaven knows where. This is not all. We went through the place with our sabres on, not to name spurs. Some of the mules, too, working at the mill, were shod; and very little attention seemed to be paid as to whether or not there were flints on the ground. And yet, who ever heard of the explosion of a Turkish powder-mill? At Tunis, at least, the thing was never dreamt of as probable, or possible; and I was informed never had, in the memory of the inhabitants, occurred. Go into an English store-room, and behold list shoes, &c. &c. been more than once?-Amulet, 1836. And yet, where has Dartford,

AN AMERICAN ADVERTISEMENT.-" Persons indebted to the Tuscaloosa Book Store are respectfully is no use to honey the matter; payments must be made solicited to pay their last year's accounts forthwith. It at least once a-year, or I shall run down at the heel. Every body says, how well that man Woodruff is getting on in the world; when the fact is, I have not, positively, spare change enough to buy myself a shirt or a pair of breeches. My wife is now actually engaged in turning an old pair wrong side out, and in trying to make a new shirt out of two old ones. declares that in Virginia, where she was raised, they never do such things, and that it is, moreover, a downright vulgar piece of business altogether. Come, come, pay up, pay up, friends. Keep peace in the family, and enable me to wear my clothes right side oblige, dear sirs, the public's most obedient, most You can hardly imagine how much it will obliged, and most humble servant."—Newspaper paragraph.

out.

She

INGENIOUS MODE OF TYING HORSES.-The Icelanders have a most curious custom, and a most effectual one, of preventing horses from straying, which, I believe, is entirely peculiar to this island. Two gentlemen, for instance, are riding together without attendants; and wishing to alight for the purpose of visiting some objects at a distance from the road, they tie the head of one horse to the tail of another, and the head On the 10th of November 1818, fifty-two pauper of this to the tail of the former. In this state it is utfamilies were sent from various communes and settled terly impossible that they can move on either backin the colony, to which was given the name of Fre-wards or forwards, one pulling the one way and the derick's Oord. other the other; and therefore, if disposed to move at all, it will be only in a circle, and even then, there must be an agreement to turn their heads the same way.-Barrow's Visit to Iceland.

The expense of establishing, with necessary outfits, three families, or twenty-four individuals, was found to amount to 5100 florins, or about L.142 sterling. Loans were then raised, each limited to this amount, as the expense of locating three families-these were advanced by the government; by the king, in his private capacity; by communes; and by benevolent societies or individuals. For each loan the contributors

The present number of the Journal completes the fourth vo lume of the work, for which a title-page and copious index are prepared, and may be had on application to the publishers or their agents, at the usual price of a number.

END OF THE FOURTH VOLUME.

Edinburgh: Printed and Published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, 19, Waterloo Pl: ce;
and ORR and SMITH, Paternoster Row, London.