As the foreign population to the American population was only 20.95 per cent., these statistics carry their own conclusions.

Intemperance is a delicate subject with which to deal in an address upon a special topic, partly because of the strong feelings entertained upon both sides of the subject, when agitated as a political question; partly, also, because many who clearly and honestly feel the evils which flow from the free use of intoxicating drinks, yet have among their pet weaknesses a lingering fondness for the "little brown jug." Yet any one who attempts to record or proclaim the moral condition of the mechanic classes, as they are to-day, must say that all the evils which they endure, combined, are not so harassing or vexatious to our master mechanics, or so disastrous and debasing to their workmen, as that of intemperance.

By a careful estimate, the total loss to the community in this State alone, from the cost of liquor uselessly consumed, the loss of productive labor while under its influence, and the destruction of property by its victims, amounts to nearly

$15,000,000 annually, to say nothing of the loss of life, demoralization of society and business, suffering and destitution of outraged families, which are either directly or indirectly chargeable to the same account.

The conviction is gaining ground with many who have hitherto strenuously opposed what they termed sumptuary legislation, that no branch of mechanical industry would be tolerated or endured, which abstracted five dollars from the general resources for every dollar which it gained.

This corroding evil, which is the cause of more woe to the poorer classes than all other ills beside, must be met by kindness, firmness, and vigilance. We cannot entirely reform those now under its influence, though we must by all means save some, but by precept and example we must teach our children and youth to avoid those causes which lead so many to poverty, degradation, and death.

I can imagine gentlemen of elegant leisure and scholarly refinement looking out, occasionally, from their retirement, upon the scene of bustling activity which surrounds them, and, finding their philosophy unable to account for the rapid advance of manufactures, population, and wealth, retreating to their seclusion with doleful but well-meant admonitions at the sad havoc which a pushing and progressing people are making with the traditional habits and customs of the past generation.

Were I one of them, I could not better express my feelings than by language like this: "Where once 270,000 colonists tilled the soil and faced the sea, are now gathered a million

and a half of busy, bustling men, living in cities, working in factories, revelling in undreamed-of wealth, and struggling under harsh and hopeless poverty; a community becoming more and more sharply divided between those who have and those who have not; the responsibility and knowledge of government disappearing year by year with the old town meetings; ignorance and vice keeping steady pace with the increase of poverty, while the old, ominous class-cries of other lands and darker days grow yearly more familiar to our unaccustomed ears.” *

This, as a general statement, would be sufficiently startling to arrest the attention; it is highly rhetorical, and reads beautifully; it is euphonious, and sounds elegantly; but the plain man who participates in these busy, bustling scenes would be puzzled to understand from what point of observation such a picture could be drawn. One would naturally infer that our farms are being abandoned and going to waste, that our sailors no longer go down to the sea in ships, while the furnace and the factory monopolize all the opportunities for toil, and furnish all the avenues to untold wealth.

Such a mode of statement is not ingenuous; it exaggerates and withholds the truth. The prominence which the old Bay State holds to-day in wealth and manufactures is the result of the same spirit of enterprise and indomitable energy which originally planted the colony on these sterile rocks, and sent its hardy sons to seek their fortune on the deep.

* Oration before the municipal authorities of Boston, July 4, 1872.

Our farmers, it is true, are unable with the ordinary methods and appliances, to compete with those who till their broad prairie farms of boundless fertility; but they have reduced the area of unproductive lands during the last twenty years by 218.514 acres, or 17.87 per cent.; increased the value of their farming implements and machinery $1,791,295, or 55.8 per cent.; and find their annual products, by improved and thorough culture, increased in value $10,636,216, or 49.4 per cent. A generation ago this would have been called wonderful progress; now it is overlooked in the glare of more glittering success.

It is true that special manufactures are not a safe basis upon which to establish the permanent prosperity of any community, while this would hardly hold with regard to a varied industry; but the limits of our State are circumscribed; the area of arable lands is still more limited — being less than two thirds of the whole, and the soil itself is not generally fertile. In view of these facts, no one can for a moment suppose that Massachusetts could sustain any considerable population from her own agricultural resources; and as we have already seen, she has long since passed the stated limit of her population, since when her increase must be of those engaged in industrial labor, or the State must cease her growth.

But we have found by the statistics of the State, that the number engaged in agricultural pursuits is steadily increasing, while languishing commerce and fruitless fisheries have not yet driven the sailor from his ship on the sea to the shop on

the shore; waste lands are being reclaimed, and the unimproved acres of the State are thereby diminished, so that while a largely increased attention must of necessity be given to the mechanic arts, the cultivation of the soil is not disregarded, but is carried to a higher degree of perfection than in any other part of the land.

The poor we have always with us, and their needs, if distressing, should call forth our sympathy and assistance.

No disgrace attaches itself to honest poverty, which, though sometimes harsh, is never hopeless, except for the utterly degraded and depraved.

Among the coming glories of our institutions shines the star of hope undimmed by the deadening influences of caste or class, which are only cherished by the haughty and proud. The honest, industrious, contented poor of to-day, a few years hence may start their children in life upon a higher plane of usefulness and preferment; it is the steady, substantial growth, generation after generation, that best indicates true culture and established society.

There are many who rise suddenly from indigence to affluence, or from obscurity to prominence, but they are not always successful, either in adapting themselves to their changed relations, or in retaining their wealth and influence in their families. Fortunes, suddenly made, become as suddenly broken.

But where are those lines so sharply drawn between those who have and those who have not? Thousands yearly throng to our shores, sunk in poverty and wretchedness, escaping