23
If you would smash windows, break the peace, get your bones broken, tumble under carts and horses, and be locked up in watch-houses, be a drunkard ; and it will be strange if you do not succeed.
Finally, if you are determined to be utterly destroyed, in estate, body, and soul, be a drunkard ; and you will soon know that it is impossible to adopt a more effectual means to accomplish your - end.
Drunkenness expels reason - drowns the memory - defaces beauty - diminishes strength - inflames the blood - causes internal, external, and incurable wounds - is a witch to the senses, a devil to the soul, a thief to the purse - the beggar's companion, a wife's wo, and children's sorrow - makes a strong man weak, and a wise man a fool. He is worse than a beast, and is a self-murderer, who drinks to others good health, and robs himself of his own.
What is it that saps the morals of youth - kills the germ of generous ambition - desolates the domestic hearth - renders families fatherless - digs dishonoured graves? - Drunkenness! What makes a man shunned by the relatives who loved him - contemned by the contemporaries who outstripped him - reviled by the very wretches who betrayed him? - Drunkenness! What fills our asylums with lunatics — our ponds and rivers with suicides - our jails with thieves
