Litchfield enquirer., 1840-07-02
WArcH.HorsE INMATES.

a moral" What can more forcibly point moral than the living examples of the poor victims o1 mem G perance-bowing down to degradation, the slght or "''''" "'"'' ''"'' Danbury Times.
 There was no particular character in the ch-housc this morning-none that might grace a moral or adorn n tale. There were eight prisoners; but they were all dull, lazy and loaferish-all the very dregs of society :; steepcd to the lowest depth in the sloughs of human misery and degradation; but still without care or speculation, and probably without even the wish 10 better their pros- poets.
 And to this passive state of misery were they brought by misfortune and want at least the majority of them, for though few of them may have been paupers' ilegItl-- mates, the natural interiors of shame and beggary, yet were the greatest number the manifest wrecks of better things-rnen who once felt aud understood life, who had their hopes and their fears, their sorrows and their joys-but who had now settled down into an insnne recklessncss of the past, the present, and the future-men who have lost all ener- gy, lost all pride, lost all identity with their former selves; or at least only remember their previous lives as faint and unaccoun- table vision.
 And rum has done all this! Rum, taken probably as a relief from misery, m the hrst ! instance, has made such dreadful havoc of human intellect! Indeed, it would seem us if these Tibes upon the image of the Creator, had pared with their immortal souls, and retained but an animal life, and were hence inferior to animals, as they had neither req son, or instinct 10 guide them. They were worse-apparently more forsaken by the spi- rt, than the raving maniac for in him the principle of reason is but turned aStray- while in them it would seem as if it had en- tirely departed.
 The first man, with the pale face, the sunk en eye, and the hollow cheek, was Q paper merchant! knew him once, about elght years ago and then he was full of enter prize, ambition and hope; and most espe- cial votary to the graces of the toilet But look at him now. He is apparently staring in my face, yet he don't see mo. He scarce ly remembers his own name. His face Is unwashed-his chin unshorn. He has no joy, sorrow, pride, hope or care. So far as the speculation of life goes. he might as well be block of marble as what he is. He eats and drinks, more as matter of form than from any utility he perceives in it. fine were sentenced to be hanged, he would never in- uuire the why or the wherefore, but suffer the rope to be tied about his neck without knowing or caring about the meaning of 1t. Liquor has destroyed or supplied every vital principle but certain imperfect power of locomotion, which acts (when it acts at alp almost independent of will. He is in fact, the very antpode of himself; and yet the same. A.ld :his has all been effected by disappointment in love, and a consequent abandonment to dissipation. He told us his history once, and we have reminded him of it since but so thoroughly had his heart been revolutionized, and his memory de- stroyed, that the very name of his mistress was forgotten.
 That next man, with the stopped shoul. ders, and the haggurd brow, and the pinch'd nose, and the thin lips, and the sharp. chin, and the beggar's garb, has with all his wretchedness, the air of being that was once gentleman, but he has been starving :! God help him he has been starving! for nothing but the want of food, week after week, with q scanty crust now and then to prolong his misery, and snatch him from welcome grave, could have made such skeleton as that. But he is now, in part be- yond his sufferings-the miseries that bowed him down to his present pass have so stupi- fled or bewildcred his intellect. that he has only mechanical feeling of his woes. He would eat food if it were offered to him and o, how voraciously he would eat it but he has no feeling of degradation about him 1; and no aspirations for n happier state. He is dead to every thing but the mechanical pang, produced by the want of food. How we'll for him if he were dead 10 that also!
 The third is another object of wretched- ness, but of different cast. He is-for he wears the badge of it upon his brow-a paul. per by inheritance. He never knew pa- rent nor friend. Rags and famine have been his companions from infancy. But he too has had something to be thankful for, for if he was never blessed with a single com fort, he was of course never cursed with the anguish of parting with it. There is nothing ir his countenance that gives evidence of a mind-not even in it's wreck-for if he has one, it has never been developed. He knows nothing; and never knew any thing of the world. His languagei is few monosyllables which express his few wants. His ideas food, heat, and cold and the sole occupa- tion of his life to beg or purloin wretched crust-and to skulk away in some squaiid den of misery until forced out by imperative hunger in quest of another meal.
 The fourth is a woman dead drunk, and hideously ghastly and ugly. Yet was she not always thus, for though the tout ensemble of that countenance is almost frightful. there is not a feature in it but was formed in a mould of beauty. Alas what n volume of misery is there! What a history of wretch edness is written in that distorted face The blooming child--the graceful girl-the con- fiding damsel-the ruined maid-the paint ed conference.-the reckless out-cast--the present told abandonment ofevery thiNg that links her with her fellows-or gives her Q claim on heaven.
 The fifth !-but nm sick of the picture, and have only the heart to exclaim with CrahhR-