e frost more feeling for
the flower it kills; the fire more tenderness for the tree-branch it
consumes; the storm more pity for the ship that it shivers on Long
Island coast, than a gambler's heart has mercy for his victim.

Deed of darkness unfit for sunlight, or early evening hour! Let it
come forth only when most of the city lights are out, in the third
watch of the night!

Again, it is after twelve o'clock that drunkenness shows its worst
deformity! At eight or nine o'clock the low saloons are not so
ghastly. At nine o'clock the victims are only talkative. At ten
o'clock they are much flushed. At eleven o'clock their tongue is
thick, and their hat occasionally falls from the head. At twelve they
are nauseated and blasphemous, and not able to rise. At one they fall
to the floor, asking for more drink. At two o'clock, unconscious and
breathing hard. They would not fly though the house took fire. Soaked,
imbruted, dead drunk! They are strewn all over the city, in the
drinking saloons,--fathers, brothers, and sons; men as good as you,
naturally--perhaps better.

Not so with the higher circles of intoxication. The "gentlemen" coax
their fellow-reveller to bed, or start with him for home, one at each
arm, holding him up; the night air is filled with his hooting and
cursing. He will be helped into his own door. He will fall into the
entry. Hush it up! Let not the children of the house be awakened to
hear the shame. He is one of the merchant princes.

But you cannot always hush it up.

Drink makes men mad. One of its victims came home and found that his
wife had died during his absence; and he went into the room where she
had been prepared for the grave, and shook her from the shroud, and
tossed her body out of the window. Where sin is loud and loathsome and
frenzied, it is hard to keep it still. This whole land is soaked with
the abomination. It became so bad in Massachusetts, that the State
arose in indignation; and having appointed agents for the sale of
alcohol for mechanical and medicinal purposes, prohibited the
general traffic under a penalty of five hundred dollars. The popular
proprietors of the Revere, Tremont, and Parker Houses were arrested.
The grog-shops diminished in number from six thousand to six hundred.
God grant that the time may speed on when all the cities and States
shall rouse up, and put their foot upon this abomination.

As you pass along the streets, night by night, you will see the awful