horror alone remains. When the habitual
stimulus reaches its highest, and the undermined constitution can stand no
more, then comes the reaction. If the excitement could go on _ad
infinitum_, the prognosis would be different; but the poison-symptoms
appear as soon as the dose can no longer be increased without producing
instant death, and the drunkard dies of the want of drink! Many persons,
it can not be denied, reach a tolerable age under this stimulus; but they
do so only by taking warning in time--perhaps from some frightful
illness--and carefully proportioning the dose to the sinking constitution.
"I can not drink now as formerly," is a common remark--sometimes elevated
into the boast, "I _do_ not drink now as formerly." But the relaxation of
the habit is compulsory; and by a thousand other tokens, as well as the
inability to indulge in intoxication, the _ci-devant_ drinker is reminded
of a madness which even in youth produced more misery than enjoyment, and
now adds a host of discomforts to the ordinary fragility of age. As for
arsenic-eating, we trust it will never be added to the madnesses of our
own country. Think of a man deliberately condemning himself to devour this
horrible poison, on an increasing scale, during his whole life, with the
certainty that if at any time, through accident, necessity, or other
cause, he holds his hand, he must die the most agonizing of all deaths! In
so much horror do we hold the idea, that we would have refrained from
mentioning the subject at all if we had not observed a paragraph making
the round of the papers, and describing the agreeable phases of the
practice without mentioning its shocking results.

A CHILD'S HISTORY OF KING JOHN'S REIGN. BY CHARLES DICKENS.

At two-and-thirty years of age, John became King of England. His pretty
little nephew Arthur had the best claim to the throne; but John seized the
treasure, and made fine promises to the nobility, and got himself crowned
at Westminster within a few weeks after his brother Richard's death. I
doubt whether the crown could possibly have been put upon the head of a
meaner coward, or a more detestable villain, if the country had been
searched from end to end to find him out.

The French King, Philip, refused to acknowledge the right of John to his
new dignity, and declared in favor of Arthur. You must not suppose that he
had any generosity of feeling for the fatherless boy; it merely suited his
ambitious scheme