h. Every possible opportunity is
given him to gain favor in the household and with intimate and valued
friends. He is given the amplest confidence and the largest freedom; and
he always repays this confidence with treachery and spoliation; too
often blinding and deceiving his victims while his work of robbery goes
on. He is not only a robber, but a cruel master; and his bondsmen and
abject slaves are to be found in hundreds and thousands, and even tens
of thousands, of our homes, from the poor dwelling of the day-laborer,
up to the palace of the merchant-prince.

PLACE AND POWER IN THE HOUSEHOLD.

Of this fact no one is ignorant; and yet, strange to tell, large numbers
of our most intelligent, respectable and influential people continue to
smile upon this enemy; to give him place and power in their households,
and to cherish him as a friend; but with this singular reserve of
thought and purpose, that he is to be trusted just so far and no
farther. He is so pleasant and genial, that, for the sake of his favor,
they are ready to encounter the risk of his acquiring, through the
license they afford, the vantage-ground of a pitiless enemy!

But, it is not only in their social life that the people hold this enemy
in favorable regard, and give him the opportunity to hurt and destroy.
Our great Republic has entered into a compact with him, and, for a
money-consideration, given him the

FREEDOM OF THE NATION;

so that he can go up and down the land at will. And not only has our
great Republic done this but the States of which it is composed, with
only one or two exceptions, accord to him the same freedom. Still more
surprising, in almost every town and city, his right to plunder,
degrade, enslave and destroy the people has been established under the
safe guarantee of law.

Let us give ourselves to the sober consideration of what we are
suffering at his hands, and take measures of defense and safety, instead
of burying our heads in the sand, like the foolish, ostrich, while the
huntsmen are sweeping down upon us.

ENORMOUS CONSUMPTION.

Only those who have given the subject careful consideration have any
true idea of the enormous annual consumption, in this country, of
spirits, wines and malt liquors. Dr. Hargreaves, in "Our Wasted
Resources," gives these startling figures: It amounted in 1870 to
72,425,353 gallons of domestic spirits, 188,527,120 gallons of fermented
liquors, 1,441,747 gallons of imported spirits