e sons and three daughters, are now
in the drunkard's grave, and the only surviving child is rapidly
following in the same way, to the same dismal end.

The best authorities attribute one-half the madness, three-fourths of
the pauperism, end four-fifths of the crimes and wretchedness in Great
Britain to the use of strong drink.

4. Ardent spirit increases the number, frequency, and violence of
_diseases_, and tends to bring those who use it to a premature grave. In
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, of about 7,500 people, twenty-one persons
were killed by it in a year. In Salem, Massachusetts, of 181 deaths,
twenty were occasioned in the same way. Of ninety-one adults who died in
New Haven, Connecticut, in one year, thirty-two, according to the
testimony of the Medical Association, were occasioned, directly or
indirectly, by strong drink, and a similar proportion had been
occasioned by it in previous years. In New Brunswick, New Jersey, of
sixty-seven adult deaths in one year, more than one-third were caused by
intoxicating liquor. In Philadelphia, of 4,292 deaths, 700 were, in the
opinion of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, caused in the same
way. The physicians of Annapolis, Maryland, state that, of thirty-two
persons, male and female, who died in 1828, above eighteen years of age,
ten, or nearly one-third, died of diseases occasioned by intemperance;
that eighteen were males, and that of these, nine, or one-half, died of
intemperance. They also say, "When we recollect that even the temperate
use, as it is called, of ardent spirits, lays the foundation of a
numerous train of incurable maladies, we feel justified in expressing
the belief, that were the use of distilled liquors entirely
discontinued, the number of deaths among the male adults would be
diminished at least one-half."

Says an eminent physician, "Since our people generally have given up the
use of spirit, they have not had more than half as much sickness as they
had before; and I have no doubt, should all the people of the United
States cease to use it, that nearly half the sickness of the country
would cease." Says another, after forty years' extensive practice, "Half
the men every year who die of fevers might recover, had they not been in
the habit of using ardent spirit. Many a man, down for weeks with a
fever, had he not used ardent spirit, would not have been confined to
his house a day. He might have felt a slight headache, but a little
fasting wou