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committed when those who did these things were intoxicated; scarcely an assize passes without some unhappy prisoner, attempting to excuse his guilt by the plea that he was under the intluence of liquor. This excuse the laws allows not, and most justly; for if men voluntarily deprive themselves of their reason, surely they cannot be innocent of whatever evils they commit while in that state. Tremble then, O Drunkard, reflect before you put the cup to your lips: remember that you are about to make yourself ready to commit every crime to which an evil nature no longer checked can incite you, and that you may awake from this state, guilty of offences against the laws of your country, sufficient to draw down just vengeance upon your head; and while suffering the punishmeut of your evil deeds, or reflecting ou the harm done perhaps to your best friend, what consolation can the remembrance of your worse than beastly enjoyment give you?
"All the crimes on the earth do not destroy so many of the HUMAN RACE, nor alienate so much PROPERTY as DRUNKENESS." LORD BACON. Surely these are reasons suffcient and more than sufficient to induce you to dash the poisoned cup to the ground, and shudder at the danger.
"Tis the curse and the plague of my life ;.
It ruins my credit, my health, and my purse,
My peace and my comfort; and, what is still worse,
It vexes and angers my wife.
It torments and embitters my life:
To ruin 'twould hurry its votary headlong,
