The Sun.
London, England, 1827-06-04 00:00:00

CAUSES OF DRUNKENNESS.

There are some persons who will never be
drunkards, and others who will be so in spite of
all that can be done to prevent them. Some
are drunkards by choice, and others by necessity.
—The former have an innate and constitu-
tional fondness for liquor, and drink con amore.
Such men are usually of a sanguineous tempera-
ment, and of course unintellectual minds, and
of low and animal propensities. They have, in
general, a certain rigidity of fibre, and a flow of
animal spirits which other people are without.—
They delight in the roar and riot of drinking
clubs; and with them, in particular, all the
miseries of life may be referred to the bottle.

The drunkard by necessity was never meant
by nature to be dissipated. He is perhaps a
person of amiable dispositions, whom misfor-
tune has overtaken, and who, instead of bear-
ing up manfully against it, endeavours to drown
his sorrows in liquor. It is an excess of sensi-
bility, a partial mental weakness, an absolute
misery of the heart, which drives him on.—
Drunkenness, with him, is a consequence of
misfortune ; it is a solitary dissipation preying
upon him in silence. Such a man frequently
dies broken-hearted, even before his excesses
have had time to destroy him by their own un-
assisted agency.
Women frequently acquire the vice by drink-
ing porter and ale while nursing. These sti-
mulants are usually recommended to them from
well meant but mistaken motives, by their female
attendants. Many fine young women are ruined
by this detestable practice. Their persons be-
come gross, their milk unhealthy, and a founda-
tion is too often laid for future indulgence in

liquor.
Men of genius are often unfortunately ad-
dicted to drinking. Nature, as she has gifted
them with greater powers than their fellows,
seems also to have mingled with their cup of life
more bitterness. There is a melancholy which
is apt to come like a cloud over the imagina-
tions of such characters. Their minds pOSSCSB a
susceptibility and a delicacy of structure which
unfit them for the gross atmosphere of human
nature ; wherefore, high talent has ever been
distinguished for sadnsss and gloom.
To relieve these feelings, many plans have
been adopted. Dr. Johnson fled for years to
wine under his habitual gloom. He found that
the pangs were removed while its immediate in-
fluence lasted, but he also found that they re-
turned with double force when that influence
passed away. He saw the dangerous precipice
on which he stood, and, by an unusual effort of
volition, gave it over. In its stead he substi-
tuted tea ; and to this milder stimulus had re-
course in his melancholy. Voltaire and Fonte-
none, for the same purpose, used coffee. The
excitements of Newton and Hobbes were the
fumes of tobacco, while Demosthenes and Haller
were sufficiently stimulated by drinking freely
of cold water. Such are the differences of con-
stitution.

THE BODY LESS SENSIBLE TO EXTERNAL
STIMULI DURING A PAROXYSM OF DRUN-
KENNESS.—Seamen, when absent on shore, are
prone to get intoxicated ; and they will fre-
quently lie for hours on the highway, even in
the depth of winter, without any bad conse-
quences. A drunken man seldom shivers from
cold. His frame seems steeled against it, and
he holds out with an apathy which is astonish-
ing. The body is, in like manner, insensible to
injuries, such as cuts, bruises, &c. He frequently
receives, in fighting, the most severe blows
without seemingly feeling them, and without, in
fact, being aware of the matter till sobered. Per-
sons in intoxication have been known to chop
off their fingers, and otherwise disfigure them-
selves, laughing all the while at the action. But
when the paroxysm is off, and the frame weak-
ened, things are changed. External agents are
then withstood with little vigour, with even less
than in the natural state of the body. The per-
son shivers on the slightest chill, and is more
than usually subject to fevers and all sorts of
contagion.
THE NATURAL DISPOSITION BETTER DIS-
COVERED IN DRUNEENNESS._In modern so-
ciety, life is all a disguise. Every man walks
in masquerade, and his most intimate friend very
often does not know his real character. Many
wear smiles constantly upon their cheeks whose
hearts are unprincipled and treacherous. Many
with violent tempers have all the external calm
and softness of charity itself. Some speak
always with sympathy, who, at soul, are full of
gall and bitterness. Intoxication tears off' the
veil, and sets each in its true light, whatever that
may be. The combative man will quarrel, the
sensualist will love, the detractor will abuse his
neighbour. I have known exceptions, but they
are few in number. At one time they seemed
more numerous, but closer observation convinced
me that most of those whom I thought drunken-
ness had libelled, inherited, at bottom, the ge-
nuine dispositions which it brought forth.

DARING OUTRAGE, AND ATTEMPT AT
MURDER IN THE CITY OF DUBLIN.—About

the hour of ten o'clock on Wednesday night,
twelve or fourteen persons called at the house
of Mr. Norman, an eminent carpenter and
builder, in Townsend-street, one of whom
having knocked at the door, it was opened by Mr.
Norman, who was dragged out and dreadfully
beaten by the ruffians outside, who inflicted
four severe cuts on his head, so that lie now lies
dangerously ill. The cause assigned for this
brutal outrage was his having employed some
men who did not come within the description of
persons whom those censorial inquisitors consi-
der as exclusively entitled to employment, and
whom they designated by well known appella-
tion of cozdts. A person named John M'Lean,
is now in custody, and examination be-
fore the Magistrates of. College-steet Police-
office, being found in the street immediately after
the outrage, under very suspicious circumstances.
—We have also been informed that, just
previons to the committal of the above
atrocious outrage, a poor man, by trade a
sawyer, was attacked in Great Brunswick-street,
and inhumanly beaten, by a number of fellows,
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