Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-11-27 00:00:00

KIAIKDALE.

DEDICATED TO THE
REV. C. E. TITTERTON, 8.A., PRESIDENT,

IA
LIVERPOOL WORKING MAN.

" Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy
bottle to him and makest him drunken."—liabak. ii. 15.

(Continued from 26!,i, November.]

The greatness and glory of Britain, like the nations of old, in a
temporal sense, depends upon mercantile enterprise. Merchant
princes are among the most honourable, opulent, and powerful, of all
rulers; while to employ the language of Holy writ, "Her wares go
forth out of the aces, supply many people, and enrich the Kings
of the Earth with the multitude of her riches." Spirit merchants,
brewers, and publicans may ply their prudential expedients, and look
wise and wary in the execution of them, but total abstinence having
a higher and a firmer altitnte, the defensive armour of a shrink'ng
policy does not suit them, and, with the naked majesty and grandeur
of strength gathered from the battles, these principles have already
won. Total abstinence must prevail. To those principles belong the
frankness and simplicity of conscious greatness. In the meantime
the greatness and glory of Great Britain is diminished and dimmed
through drunkenness.
It is an attested fact, that the manufacturing of intoxicating drink,
in proportion to what it sells for, compared with the same amount as
the average of nearly all manu'aztured goods, does not employ more
than I-17th of labour—that is, if elOO, in the production of alcholic
drinks emnloy three men, XlOO in manufactured goods, of domestic
comfort, will employ at! Hence the splendid gin palaces. But this
is not the worst of the viilany of these poisoners. General —, the
father of one of the largest brewing establishments in Liverpool, when
he was upwards of 70 years of age, and had been engaged the greater
part of his life in the spirit trade, told me that he would not keep a man
to serve out drink unless he could,make dye gills:to the:quart ; besides,

there are the two chalks for one pint ; thus are the deluded victims
of intoxicating drink further plundered, and this declaration solves,
to some extent, the otherwise inexplicable modern phenomenon of
the shabby, genteel, and extravagant living of all engaged in the
ungodly traffic kept up, it is clear, by plunder and profligacy.
Now, if the commercialbeneflts resulting to a community from the
investment of capital must be judged of by the amount of profitable
labour it calls into action, the capital invested in the manufactory of
necessary and uteful articles of domestic comfort, is seventeen times
more beneficial to the community thin capital invested in the manu-

facture of Alcoholic drinks, and, therefore, the inhabitants of England
in giving encouragement to the investme it of capit tl in the manufac-
ture of intoxicating drink to the enormous extent they do, evince a
fatuity which, in the absence of the fact, would not be expected in tt...t3
first commercial nation in the world.

It appears to me that the withdrawal of £67,000,000 annually,
expended at the shrine of Bacchus, by the devotee cf intemperance
from the rational expenditure of the country, involves national corn•

inercial suicide.

That this vast amount expendel in Intoxicating' drink would be
expended in food and useful manufactured x.rticles of domestic com-

fort there can, I think, be little doubt, if there was a general adoption
of total abstinence principles, for food, wearing apparel, furniture,
and other manufactured articles of domestic comfort are not very
plentiful among the families of drunkards; indeed, appalling
instances of wretchedness and privation of wives and children of
drunkards are not wanting; instances in abundance might be
adduced, of families not tasting food for a period, when five or six
shillings worth oeght to have been provided, and the same with other
articles of domestic comfort, and thus it is that the commerce of
Brit.iin is more to languish through drunkenness even when most
prosperous.

As each individual from Her most gracious Majesty who sways the
British sceptre to the very meanest peasant has an interest in the
nation's prosperity, eAch one will, therefore, be serving himself while
advocating the cause of temperance, since each must share in the
commercial prosperity of the country.

So far as we have any historical account of emperors, kingdoms,
and countries, they seem to have been remarkable in their origin for
habits of temperance, and intemperate at thew fall, this I shall
endeavour to render apparent.

The people of the Assyrian empire, so far as wo can ascertain from
Scripture, were temperate in tiler habits of d inking. Rabsheka,
the Assyrian Ambassador, when threatening Jerusalem, tells the
affrighted Israelites with an apparent degree of friendship, if they
yielded they should be removed to a land of corn and grapes, bread
and vineyards, that they may eat every one of his own vine, and
every one of his own figtre3, and drink every one of the waters of his
own cistern, affordini clear and convincing proof that the Assyrian
conquerors were of temperate habits, and that the ♦ine was cultivated
tor food and not drink, their drink being waters from their own
cisterns. The fall of this mighty empire presents an awful example
of the ruinous and prostrating Influence of drunkenness, Whilst
temperate the Assyriaaa had conquered every enemy, and brought
under vassalage almost every known country, making the very name
of Assyria amony surrounding nations a synonym° for power and
magnificence, bat as in all other declining empires drunkenness
loosened the reins of power, and ultimateiy prostrate' its splendour
to the dust.

Nineveh, the pride and glory of the East, was assailed by the
troops of those kings who, a short time before, were the vassals of the
monarchy. The Ninevites enervated by intemperance, unlike their
teetotal forefathers, trusted to their arms, and coa'age of their souls,
and shut themselves up within their vast and massive stone walls.
Herein, however, they were doomed to disappointment, for Nineveh
was taken, its inhabitants put to the sword, and their voluptuous
monarch slain in his profligacy. Yes, Nineveh the capital of Assyria,
an empire, which was for many ages a very extensive and populous
city—its walls are described by heathen historians as having been a
10) feet high, 00 miles in compass, with 1,500 towers, each 200 feet
high. This exceeding great city having repented at the preaching of
Jonah, its destruct:on was adverted for a time, bat through intem-
perance was swept ultimately away. " While they are drunken, as
drunkards they shall b 3 devoared as nibble fuliy dry."—Nahatn, Ist,
2nd, and 3rd chapters. The utter destruction jaed perpetual desola-
tion of Nineveh was foretold. " The Lord will make an utter end of
the place thereof; the merchants of Nineveh, who were multiplied
above the stars of Heaven, they fled away, and their ptaae is not
known where they were.,,,,11e will make Nineveh a desolation, and
dry like a wilderness."—Nahum i. 8. Zeph. ii. 13 15. Nineveh,
through drunkenness, is now an extended waste, -proclaiming the
truth of God's word, and thus is the prediction fulfilled.
Babylon, like Nineveh, presents another melancholy in,tance of the
baneful effec s of intemperance —the King and his drunken companions
were slain in their revelry. Babylon even rivalled Nineveh in its
greatness and mazniiicence, and lamentable to relate in its drunken-
ness. Its princes, captains, and mighty men were reposing after
their feasts and carnivals, and when they were still drunken were
suddenly slaughtered and slept the sleep of death, and Babylon, which
had never before been conquered, was thus taken without resistance—
see :Isaiah xxi 2 ; Isaiah xlv 1 ; Isaiah xliv 27 ; Jer. 1 31! Jer. li
11, 27, 30, 31, 36, and 37.
The Persian empire rose upon the runs of Babylon, and, like its
predecessor, having been corrupted to the very core by luxury and
drunkenness, after one shot bottle with the troops of Alexander, of
Macedonia and Babylon, saw again a foe within its walls. The relics
of voluptuousness so shocked the good sense of Alexander, that he
expressed his feelings in the most marked terms of disgust; but from
that moment it is singularly appalling. Alexander's entire life seems
to have been given up to drunkenness, for Aristobulus tells us that
after drinking several days, he died raging me i. Thus, meanly, died
Alexander, in the prime of his life, tie meridian of his power, the
victim of Alcoholic drinks, and with his life was extinguialied the
ephemeral empire he hat established on the rains of the Persian
monarchy.

The next domineering empire was that founded by Romulus and
Remus, two brothers, about 700 years before Christ, and such,
ultimately, was the guatness, magnificence, and spendour of the
eterual city, and its power so vast that no other c'ty could contend
against the triumph of Roman arm., to celebrate their triumphs,
continual libations, numerous bachanalian festivals were instituted,
the effect of which was the degrading of the national character, and,
finally, like the preceding empires, the vitals of the Roman constitu-
tlon became corrupted through drunkenness, and that mighty empire
ell, tale upon pile, with a crash, to which history presents no pa-al:el,
and the delay resulting to social progress through the drunkenness of
ancient Rome was subsequently prolonged for at least a thousand
years by the voluptuousness of modern Rome, now cushioned on the
French bayonet, and kept from immediate dissolution by French
arms.

The British empire seems to me, when I contemplate its drunken-
ness, to be fast approachin4 a crisis—almost yearly adding to the
extant of its dominion, at the same time to its weakness. The Romans
subdued the world as far as it oat known to the ancients, but their
dominion fell far short of the territory under British rule. The sun
never sets on Briton's empire, bat in every period of r n•olving time
shines upon some part or other—a fact which no nation on earth can
or ever could boast. As with the anc ant mistress of tha world so
with Briton. We read with glowing emotion of her possessions and
conquests, often ceded to the prowess of British arms, as of acknow-
ledged right rather than bloodshed. Often do we feel pride in our
bosoms that we belong to Briton—that we were born under her
temperate and changeful sky, and can we think upon her noble deeds,
ker generous acts of emancipation from the thraldom of the very
worst of oppression, giving an example to the wide wide world without
being affected and humbled into the very dust, with the appallini
fact that, while Great Britain is thus se zing authority in almost every
clime, she is neglecting the cultivation of her strength at home. It
is true, she is sending the Bible n millions to almost every part of the
habitual globe. Her missionaries go forth in vast numbers, holy and
devoted men, not counting their lives too dear, so that they may
promote the work of their Lord and Master; but what matters it,
when morality, which is the springs of political power, she abandons
through her drunkenness.
The Assyrians, Babylonians, Ninevites, Persians; Romans,
ancient and modern, did the same, and fell ; and can Great Britain
expend J 667,000,000 at the shrine of Bacchus, and offer 34,000
human sacrifices annually to the moloch of Europe—alcoholic
drink—and stand, when we are assurad in the word of the Ziring

and eternal Lord God, that righteousness exalteth a nation. There
are, already, 500,000 drunkards in England, 100,000 constantly
in prison, at a cost of two millions sterling to the country, 1,000,000
regularly fed by cold legal charity, at a cost of seven or eight
millions sterling annually to the nation, 40,000 continually confined
in the dark cells of the asylums—the sad and dreary abodes of the
insane. This constant and appalling amount of crime, pauperism,
and lunacy, requiring 4,000 relieving officers, 5,000 chaplains,
gaolers, and physicians, 40 judges, 80,000 lawyers and clerks, and
upwards of 150,00) police-officers, altogether about one to fifty of
the entire population of England. Can these things go on increasing
as they have done since the commencement of the present century,
and Great Britain stand? Can these appalling evils, resulting in
causing 75 per cent. of all the crimes committed in the land go
on increasing without causing England's desolation at no distant
day, with a crash more tremendous than any that have preceded it,
adding another to the world's list of nations that have been hurled
from the loftiest pre-eminence through drunkenness unto the dust.
A financial policy that lays its basis in public-house property,
or the public-house revels of the deba,ed of the British Isles, can
no more stand than a throne cushioned on bayonets, as Rome is,
at this moment. £67,000,000 annually consumed in intoxicating
drinks is not a very pleasing sign of England's might or England's
greatness or majesty. Behind that there lies a tearible gehenna,
and that abyss of ignorance and crime, and the mockery of all
human and divine law, has, within it myriads of the doomed and
the lost of this fair and mighty nation, the gratification of the
saloons of the wealthy. The convivialities of the moderate cannot
pass away without tracing on the highway of time a lured streak
red with the perdition of countless multitudes.

Government may derive annually eighteen or twenty millions of
revenue at the Hell of burning waters, engulf the ignorant and
deluded victims of drunkenness, and craven-hearted and infidel
statesm>n may be delighted with the reflection that an appetite
reigns, the gratification of which is the tax accumulating power
of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; but, unless England's real
interests are sought by the head, heart, and hand of Christian and
patriotic rulers, who will banish the wretched convivialities that
marshal the drunken debasement of the land? England's prostration
is not fir distant.

If, on the other hand, instead of there being here and there
(as the Kirkdale total abstinence society) a handful of individuals
engaged in advocating and diffusing the enobling principles of
total abstinence,—if, in short, one thousandth part of the ingenuity
and attention bestowed in the manufacture of the Ilorsfall
ordinance, and in the investigation of our maritime greatness
and glory, and the establishment of a problem of euclid, were
bestowed In the investigation and establishing the truth of total
abstinence principles, and if persons so engaged would frankly
show their thoughts and communicate their decisions to their
neighbours, I believe that a stimulus would be given of such a
nature as to thrill from heart to heart, from family t family, and
thus through our soc al relations, uet;l the momentous events of
past history, with all their wonderments, would be thrown into the
shade by the majesty and power of the great moral reformation
the general adoption of total abstinence principles wanld produce
throughout the kingdom and the world.
(To be continued.)

VERSATILITY' OF A FRENCH STATESMAN,

In 1852 M. Dupin, who has now accepted the
office of Procureur-General at the Court of Case-
ation, on the appointment of the Emperor, address-
ed the following letter to M. Louis Napoleon, then
President of the Republic. It announces his re-
signation of the office of Procureur-General on
account of the confiscation of the Orleans property :
Peers, Jan. 23, 1852,
To the President of the Republic,—l regret exceedingly
that, previous to the publication of the decree which I have
read this morning in the lifoniteur, you had not heard my
opinion with the same kindness you have sometimes mani-
fested towards me. I should have tried to demonstrate to
you, not merely in the private int rests of the children, the
greater part minors, of the late king—of whom I am one of
the testamentary executors,—but in the interest of your own
government, that those who suggested that measure are not
acquainted with the facts, and that they have disregarded all
the rules of law and equity. In fact there is an extreme
exaggeration (at least to the amount of half) in the
estimate made of the property of the Orleans family.
In law the decree violates in its essence the very
principle of property. This right of property was
recognised, after. a solemn discussion, in the person
of the late King by the 22nd and 23rd clauses of the
law of March 2, 1832; and in the person of his children
by the very acts of the revolution of February, by the
decree of the Constituent Assembly of the 25th of Oct.
1848, and by the law of the National Assembly of Feb. 4,
1850, promulgated by your government, and authorising
the loan of 20,000,000 on that property by your Minister
of Finance. Thus, public right, will, special laws, con-
tracts, all have recognised in the hands of the princes of
the house of Orleans their right to the property, which the
decree of January 22, deprived them of all at once, and in
a manner so absolute that the sacred rights of the tomb,
the burial-ground of Dreux, are not even accepted. If the
constitution of January 15, was in operation, the senate
might be appealed to, in virtue of the 26th article, which
permits that body to make opposition to the promulgation
of laws which are contrary to the inviolable character of
property. In the present state of things the only course
is to appeal to you, Prince, and to invoke your wisdom
and the magnanimity of your own feelings when they
are again consulted and more deliberately listened to.
But if these rigorous measures are to be mantained,
a great scruple arises from the depth of my con-
' science• As Procureur-General to the Court of
Caseation for nearly twenty-two years—as the prin-
cipal organ of the law in that high branch of
jurisdiction, charged as I am by the government
to proclaim the constant respect to right, and to require the
reversal and the annulling of acts which violate the
laws, or which proceed from excess of power by the
government, how shall I be able henceforth to exercise the
same firmness if acts are introduced in our legislation
which are in contradiction with these principles 1' I feel
myself bound, therefore, to tender you my resignation.
But I pray you, Prince, and in an earnest manner, not to
misunderstand my motives. The resolution I have
adopted has nothing to do with politics. As president of
the late Assembly, I rigorously kept myself apart from
parties and their fatal divisions, and. limited myself to the
task of maintaining, as mucti as I individually could, the
legal and moral doctrines on which the essential order of
civilised society reposes. After the coup d'etat of Dec. 2,
against which it became my duty to protest as I have
done, I waited the judgment of the people, appealed to by
you. After that solemn judgment I adhered frankly to
the immense powers which were the result of that appeal,
considering them as the strongest guarantee that could be
presented to preserve or re-establish those principles
which a wild socialism had endangered and menaced;
and, as a public functionary, my co-operation was loyally
given to you. But at the present moment, and on a
question of civil right and of private rights, of natural
equity, and of all Christian notions of what is just and
unjust, and which I cherish in my soul for more tuan fifty
years as a lawyer and a magistrate, I feel myself absolutely
called on to resign my functions of Procureur-General. Be
pleased, Prince, to accept the sentiments of my respectful
consideration. DUPIN.

Exclusively for CLOTHING BOYS from Six to Twenty Years
L :WIC & COMPANY. itanelagn-utec

A PAPER PRINTED AT SBA.—Two copies of a sea news-
paper, called the Vanderbilt Daily News, have been
forwarded to our table These papers take their title
from the ship in which they were published, and not only
is the time carefully msrke I en which they make their
appearance, but also the latitude and longitude in which
the vessel was at the hours of publication. The typo-
graphy is beautiful, and the editorials are humerous and
appropriate to the limited area of news on boar i one of
the largest steamers. The following is a spacimen of the
news department :—" It may be sufficient at this time to
state that a certain quiet and vene-able gentleman among
our passengers is not his Excellency James Buchanan
travelling inc g. on a iisit to Spain, nor is a certain young
gentleman, the recently appointed minister to France, to
succeed the hospitable free, and accepted Mason. We
have also full permission to state that the young lady of
fair complexion and golden locks, is not the Empms of the
French in disguise, nor is the tall lady with dark hair and
eyes. the distinguished authoresss of the Wide, Wirle
World.' "

ANOTHER EXTRAORDINARY CHARGE OF B:G tNIY,-At
the Lambeth Police Court, on Wednesday, John Wilkinson,
a shoemaker, residing in East-street, Lambeth. was charged
with intermarrying with Ann Sullivan, his former wife
Francis being then and still alive. From the evidence it
appeared that the prisoner had been married upwards of
16 years ago at Bury St. Edmunds, and in five years after
he left his wife to live with Arn Sullivan. In 1853 he
married this woman, solely as it was all ged, on
her promise of leaving off her drunken habits and
taking the pledge. Her passion for gin it was stated, was
too strong to resist ; she soon broke her pledge, and the
prisoner in consequence sent for his first wife, which led
to the present charge. The defence set up was that the
second wife was the lawful spouse of John Alexander, a
man of colour, at present living in Kent, Both wives were
present, and the second admitted that she had been the
wife of John Alexander, but said that that person died
before her second marriage. The prisoner requested a
remand, and said he should on a future day produce John
Alexander, the black man, who was at present living with
a female, by whom he had four children. His request
was granted ; and he was remanded for a week.

BOYS' CLOTHING MADE WITH GREAT TASTE, at LEWIS fko
compmiro, Ranciagh-street,

BIRKENHEAD POLICE. *. 7'

BEFORE MESSRS. PRUDEN, CASE, CU ST, JACKSON,
BetaTOX,
AND BRYANS.
A. Goon Bsanortso —James Alderson, of the Cleveland
Hotel, Cleveland-street, appeared on a summons for hail*
on the 15th instant, kept open his public-house, for the
sale of ale, &c., after the hour of 12 o'clock on SOU-
day night, the 14th instant, and before the hour
of half-past 12 on Sunday afternoon. Inspector Thorasooc,
proved that at five minutes to eight o'clock in the morn
of the day named in the summons, he visited the defend
e
ant's house, and found four men in the bar, with tb.re
pints of ale and a glass of whiskey before them. and ills°
three men in the tap-room, each with a pint of ale. Upon
the defendant producing the license for the house, it
.vale,
discovered that no transfer had been made from the prevl9l'
tenant to him, and that he had been selling without authorityi
but had given notice to apply for a transfer on the ISt 11,,,,6
next month, and to-day for an interim permission.
Bench said it was quite evident that he was not a fit m—
to keep the house ; no transfer would be granted to hob
and the house must be shut up, as it was clear no et
victim could take place on the present summons, aein
had no authority to sell. The license must be impounon;
and the owner of the house had better find a more suitOw
tenant.