wrote that
"the knowledge of every-day affairs which I acquired in my business
apprenticeship at Groton has been a source of pleasure and profit even
in my last ten years' discipline."

The quantity of New-England rum and other liquors sold at that period
would astonish the temperance people of the present day. Social drinking
was then a common practice, and each forenoon some stimulating beverage
was served up to the customers in order to keep their trade. There were
five clerks employed in the establishments; and many years later Mr.
Lawrence, in giving advice to a young student in college, wrote:--

"In the first place, take this for your motto at the commencement of
your journey, that the difference of going _just right_, or a
_little wrong_, will be the difference of finding yourself in good
quarters, or in a miserable bog or slough, at the end of it. Of the
whole number educated in the Groton stores for some years before and
after myself, no one else, to my knowledge, escaped the bog or slough;
and my escape I trace to the simple fact of my having put a restraint
upon my appetite. We five boys were in the habit, every forenoon, of
making a drink compounded of rum, raisins, sugar, nutmeg, &c., with
biscuit,--all palatable to eat and drink. After being in the store four
weeks, I found myself admonished by my appetite of the approach of the
hour for indulgence. Thinking the habit might make trouble if allowed
to grow stronger, without further apology to my seniors I declined
partaking with them. My first resolution was to abstain for a week, and,
when the week was out, for a month, and then for a year. Finally, I
resolved to abstain for the rest of my apprenticeship, which was for
five years longer. During that whole period, I never drank a spoonful,
though I mixed gallons daily for my old master and his customers."[1]

The following advertisement is found in the Columbian Centinel (Boston),
June 8, 1805:--

_James Brazer_,

Would inform the public that having dissolved the Copartnership lately
subsisting between AARON BROWN, Esq. SAMUEL HALE and the subscriber; he
has taken into Copartnership his son WILLIAM F. BRAZER, and the business
in future will be transacted under the firm of

JAMES BRAZER & SON;

They will offer for sale, at their store in _Groton_, within six
days a complete assortment of English, India, and W. India GOODS, which
they will sel