breweries than would amply suffice for the supply of all our wants in our least productive seasons. Dr. Lees, in his admirable Prize Essay on Legislative Prohibition of the Liquor Traffic (of which two editions of eleven thousand each have been sold, and a third of twenty-two thousand is already nearly disposed of), says, in reference to this matter, "This is confirmed by the fact, that in the years of Father Mathew's greatest temperance triumphs in Ireland, while the revenue from whiskey was vastly reduced, the total revenue had increased £90,000 above its average, besides saving much cost in collection."
Without going into minute calculations to exhibit our actual expenditure on alcoholic poisons, I may state that it amounts to many millions of pounds sterling annually; and as this expenditure neither adds to the wealth nor the strength of the nation, but actually diminishes both, it is obvious that one great element in the elevation of our workng classes is to be found in the direction of this enormous waste of our resources into healthful channels, which would be continually reproductive of the comforts of life, and would be found no trifling aid in the formation of those habits of self-respect and manly independence, without which no people can be elevated in any true sense of the term.
I have always held that ignorance is the main cause of human error and degradation, and that education must be looked to as the primary means of improvement—as the pioneer of civilization. But some statistics recently collected in England by Dr. Lees warn us against placing our entire hope of amelioration on education, as the term is popularly understood; for it appears by enquiries taken over a wide extent of country, that crime and the consequent degradation of the working classes depend more on the facilities offered for indulgence in drinking habits, than upon any other cause; for it is found that in those counties where there is a larger number of public houses in proportion to population, and in which there is a larger amount of school education also, there is to be found the greatest amount of crime. The moral advantages are largely in favour of those counties in which there are fewer facilities for obtaining strong drink, and in which school education is much less extended. Thus proving that, where the appetite for alcohol is most indulged, it counteracts the advantages of secular education, and even of religious instruction, which is imparted most freely where schools most abound. One hundred and thirty thousand licensed houses in Great Britain, and probably twenty thousand in Ireland, in which the appetite for alcoholic poisons which madden and degrade, is kept alive by legislative sanction, are found too strong a counteractive force against the good influences of education and other benevolent labours of every kind. We must "take the bull by the horns," and banish the evil thing, and thus prove that we are in earnest, or the elevation of our working classes will be the work of future generations. If we lack the virtue, the honour will not be ours. As eminent distiller once said to me, when I pressed on him these opinions, "We will place the folly of mankind against the
