oon as have married a girl whom I had thought liable to be persuaded to
drink, habitually, '_only_ a glass or two of wine at dinner, or so;' as
soon as have _married_ such a girl, I would have taken a strumpet from
the streets. And it has not required _age_ to give me this way of
thinking: it has always been rooted in my mind from the moment that I
began to think the girls prettier than posts. There are few things so
disgusting as a guzzling woman. A gormandizing one is bad enough; but,
one who tips off the liquor with an appetite, and exclaims '_good!
good!_' by a smack of her lips, is fit for nothing but a brothel. There
may be cases, amongst the _hard_-labouring women, such as _reapers_, for
instance, especially when they have children at the breast; there may be
cases, where very _hard-working_ women may stand in need of a little
_good_ beer; beer, which, if taken in immoderate quantities, would
produce intoxication. But, while I only allow the _possibility_ of the
existence of such cases, I deny the necessity of any strong drink at all
in every other case. Yet, in this metropolis, it is the general custom
for tradesmen, journeymen, and even labourers, to have regularly on
their tables the big brewers' poison, twice in every day, and at the
rate of not less than a pot to a person, women, as well as men, as the
allowance for the day. A pot of poison a day, at fivepence the pot,
amounts to _seven pounds and two shillings_ in the year! Man and wife
suck down, in this way, _fourteen pounds four shillings_ a year! Is it
any wonder that they are clad in rags, that they are skin and bone, and
that their children are covered with filth?

92. But by the word SOBRIETY, in a young woman, I mean a great deal more
than even a rigid abstinence from that love of _drink_, which I am not
to suppose, and which I do not believe, to exist any thing like
generally amongst the young women of this country. I mean a great deal
more than this; I mean _sobriety of conduct_. The word _sober_, and its
derivatives, do not confine themselves to matters of _drink_: they
express _steadiness, seriousness, carefulness, scrupulous propriety of
conduct_; and they are thus used amongst country people in many parts of
England. When a Somersetshire fellow makes too free with a girl, she
reproves him with, 'Come! be _sober_!' And when we wish a team, or any
thing, to be moved on _steadily_ and with _great care_, we cry out to
the carter, or other operator,