speech? Thou you are very young, and know little of the tyranny of public-opinion, and the power of money to silence speech, while justice still comes in, with feet of wool, but iron hands.[1]
There is yet another witness to the moral condition of Boston. I mean crime. Where there is such poverty and intemperance, crime may be expected to follow. I will not now dwell upon this theme; only let me say, that in 1848, three thousand four hundred and thirty-five grown persons, and six hundred and seventy-one minors, were lawfully sentenced to your gaol and house of correction; in all, four thousand one hundred and six; three thousand four hundred and forty-four persons were arrested by the night police, and eleven thousand one hundred and seventy-eight were taken into custody by the watch; at one time there were one hundred and forty-four in the common gaol. I have already mentioned that more than a thousand boys and girls, between six and sixteen, wander as vagrants about your streets; two hundred and thirty-eight of these are children of widows, fifty-four have neither parent living. It is a fact known to your police, that about one thousand two hundred shops aro unlawfully open for re-
- ↑ The statistics of intemperance are instructive and surprising. Of the one thousand two hundred houses in Boston where intoxicating drink is retailed to be drunken on the premises, suppose that two hundred are too insignificant to be noticed, or else are large hotels to be considered presently; then there are one thousand common retail groggeries. Suppose they are in operation three hundred and thirteen days in the year, twelve hours each, day; that they sell one glass in a little less than ten minutes, or one hundred glasses in the day, and that five cents is the price of a glass. Then each groggery receives $5 a day, or $1,565 (313 x 5) in a year, and the one thousand groggeries receive $1,565,000. Let us suppose that each sells drink for really useful purposes to the amount of §65 per annum, or all to the amount of $65,000 ; there still groggeries. This is about twice the sum raised by taxation for the retrains the sum of $1,500,000 spent for intemperance in these one thousand public education of all the children in the State of Massachusetts! But this calculation does not equal the cost of intemperance in these places the receipts of these retail houses cannot be less than $2,000 per annum, or in the aggregate, §2,000,000. This sum in two years would pay for the new aqueduct. Suppose the amount paid for the needless, nay, for the injurious use of intoxicating drink in private families, in boarding houses, and hotels, is equal to the smallest sum above named ($1,500,000), then it appears that the city of Boston spends ($1,500,000 + $1,500,000 =) $3,000,000 annually for an article that does no good to any, but harm to all, and brings ruin on thousands each year. But if a school-house or a school costs a little money, a complaint is soon made,
