modern Circe is not even imbruted, for
the brutes have no such appetite; he becomes a demonized man; all the
treasures of life are trampled under his feet, and he is fit only to
dwell "among the tombs." But, while labor is what it is, and the
liquor-shop alone offers sociality and amusement to the poor, alcohol
will still possess this overwhelming attraction. The results in this
climate, and under the form of alcoholic stimulus offered here, are
terrible beyond all computation. The drunkards' homes are the darkest
spots even in the abyss of misery in every large city. Here the hearts
of young women are truly broken, and they seek their only consolation in
the same magic cup; here children are beaten, or maimed, or
half-starved, until they run away to join the great throng of homeless
street-rovers in our large towns, and grow up to infest society. From
these homes radiate misery, grief, and crime. They are the nests in
which the young fledgelings of misfortune and vice begin their flight.
Probably two-thirds of the crimes of every city (and a very large
portion of its poverty) come from the over-indulgence of this appetite.
As an appetite, we do not believe it can ever be eradicated from the
human race.

If we look at criminal statistics for the effects of this appetite, we
will find that in the New York City prisons, during 1870, there were,
out of 49,423 criminals, 30,507 of confessedly intemperate habits, while
no doubt, with a large portion of the rest, indulgence in liquor was the
cause of their offenses.

In the Albany Penitentiary there were, in 1869-70, 1,093 convicts, of
whom 893 admitted they were intemperate. Of this whole number only 563
could read and write, and only 568 were natives of this country.

Among the children of misfortune in our city, the homeless boys and
girls, and those compelled by poverty to attend the Industrial Schools
(which I shall hereafter describe), it would be safe to say that ninety
out of a hundred are the children of drunkards.

As a direct cause of crime in children, drunkenness takes but a small
place. This is not an appetite of childhood. Very few boys or girls of
the poorest class are addicted to it till they become mature.

The effort for Total Abstinence has been, indeed, an untold blessing to
the working class in this country and many parts of Europe. It may be
said, in many regions, to have broken the wand of the terrible
enchantress. It has introduced a new social