sent by it into premature graves; another quarter rendered insane; another quarter made beggars and criminals; and the remaining quarter, taxed to their last dollar to meet the expenses of confining the insane, supporting the paupers, and in bringing the thieves and murderers to justice.

"It soon

The Maine Law went into operation on the 4th of July, 1851. became the settled policy of the State, and was cheerfully acquiesced in by a large majority of the citizens. Its results surpassed expectation in diminishing pauperism and crime, and increasing the comfort and prosperity of unnumbered families. With the exception of Portland, the law was as well enforced in the large towns and cities, as in the rural districts. To secure its more proper observance, the Hon. Neal Dow was once more elevated to the mayoralty of Portland, and new and more stringent sections were added to the law. To create disaffection and disturbance, an attack was made at midnight hour, upon a quantity of liquor in possession of the municipal authorities, and, in their prompt and vigorous defense, a man was killed. It was as fire to powder amid all the disaffected classes. Accordingly the ensuing election, in September, 1855, for State officers, was one without parallel for fierceness; and though the Temperance vote was fifty thousand, ten thousand stronger than in 1854, yet the combinations were greater, and by it an opposition legislature and opposition governor were elected; and the Maine Law, after a fair trial of five years, was overthrown, and a license law, promising unusual strictness, placed in its stead. But it was a license law. It permitted, under State authority, the re-introduction of the traffic into the State. The prohibitory clauses were but little regarded, even by the civil authorities, and, as an inevitable consequence, the State became at once flooded with liquor. Cities, towns, and villages were filled with open rum-shops of every grade. Drunkenness, rows, crimes, again appeared, with a frightful increase. The people were alarmed. Wives were distressed for their husbands; parents for their children. The philanthropist, patriot, and Christian, sprang to the rescue; and, in the elections of September, 1856, though in connection with other great and most exciting national issues, the prohibitory ticket again succeeded, with a clear majority for governor of over fifteen thousand votes, and a legislature was returned of almost entire Maine Law men. The triumph was astounding and overwhelming to the liquor interest." From motives of policy, no action was taken to restore the law, until the year 1858, when the people of the State, by a direct vote, nearly unanimously adopted a Prohibitory law, substantially like that of 1851, in preference to a License law.

Laws on the principle of the Maine Law, have with varying results, been adopted in several States. While public opinion is strong enough to enact such, the moral force to sustain them is usually wanting. The public move only under the smart of a wrong, and when that is past, all is forgotten until the forces of evil rally and scourge anew.

The liquor interest never sleeps. Millions upon millions are invested in it. On the passage of a stringent law in opposition, the many thousands who live by the business, combine to wage an unrelenting war; to render void its provisions, and to bring it into popular odium, that they may again open the sluices and wax fat to the injury of a forgetful, forgiving, and pre

occupied public. It is with society as with the individual: the forces of evil are ever in conflict with the forces of virtue. And in viewing how much has been accomplished by society in this reform, we have faith that the future will measure a like degree of progress.

One point remains to be touched upon in this article-the adulteration of liquors. This is now carried on to such a vast extent, that the intelligent physician hesitates to prescribe alcoholic liquors, even in the most urgent cases, for external or internal application, from the uncertainty of procuring anything but a poisonous imitation.

An old revolutionary soldier, whom we knew "as a boy knows a man," thus called out one day to his daughter: "Hannah! what is this delirium tremens I hear folks talk about so much? When I was a young man nobody had the delirium tremens.” Old Captain B- y was right, for he it was that so spake. Delirium tremens, or mania-a-potu, in those days was scarcely known. The common alcoholic drinks of that time, New England and Jamaica rum, Monongahela and Bourbon whisky, were pure, and people who did restrain themselves to "moderation," not unfrequently attained to the age of eighty or ninety years. Now-a-days, the drinking men die in a very few years, and often a single debauch with a man ordinarily temperate, brings on the delirium tremens, and then death. Such are the murderous effects of the terrible poisons now used by the manufacturers of liquors. Not only are nearly all foreign liquors of our time either imitations or adulterations, but it is the same with what purports to be our own made whisky and rum. It was thought that the native wines, from the grape of our soil, and the lager beer of our German citizens, would furnish a stimulus, that, by their comparatively innocuous qualities, would give an escape for the great mass of these evils. This hope seems liable to be frustrated, for even much of what is called "native wine" contains not a particle of anything so harmless as the juice of the grape; and most horrible cases of delirium tremens, ending in the death of the wretched victims-if we may credit the public prints of the day-have occurred from drinking what purported to be "lager beer."

The poisonous articles mostly used by the manufacturers of liquors are, strychnine, cocculus indicus, opium, tobacco, henbane, potash, nitric acid, prussic acid, oil of vitriol, etc. Some years since, Dr. Woodward, of Worcester, Mass., published an account of his visiting a man who had broken his leg, and when he had set it, he asked if they had any rum in the house. They brought him some, with which he wet the bandages; but two days afterward, he was alarmed when he found the heads of the pins, which he used in binding it up, were corroded, and on examining the rum which was used, he found it contained a large portion of oil of vitriol!

Poisonous flavorings of various kinds, put up in packages of five, ten, and forty gallons, requiring only the addition of pure spirits to make every kind of drink which the debased taste of the community may require, are now publicly advertised in our newspapers. We annex some facts on adulteration, taken from reliable sources: "Brandy is almost universally a base adulteration. The imported article, as a general fact, is adulterated. The profit is so enormous, that the dealers cannot withstand the temptation to adulterate. Aqua fortis is the acid used in the preparation of

counterfeit brandy: when combined with rectified spirits it imparts to it a brandy-like flavor. Potash, ashes, oil of vitriol, are used to give proof.

To prepare and sweeten gin, etc., oil of vitriol, oil of almonds, oil of turpentine, oil of juniper berries, lime water, alum, salt of tartar, subacetate of lead, are used. Sulphate of lead is poisonous, and the use of it is frequent, because its action is more rapid, and it imparts to the liquor a fine complexion; hence some vestiges of lead may often be detected in malt liquor. As with brandy and gin, so with rum. If whisky will sell for more money under the name of rum than under the name of whisky, it is as easy to turn whisky into rum as into brandy, gin, or wine.

We now come to wine. Here the fabricators make their greatest profits, exercise their greatest skill, and probably do the greatest amount of injury. Unadulterated wine, according to its name and quality, must command a certain price, to make it worth dealing in. The fabricator's ingenuity is put to the greatest trial, to produce an article resembling the pure, so as to obtain, as near as possible, the price of pure; and, as it is impossible to distinguish the pure from impure; and as the impure can be made at one tenth to one quarter of the value of the pure, the impure, as a natural consequence, takes the place of the pure, the same as the bogus dollar would take the place of the pure silver dollar, provided it was settled by common consent a dollar was a dollar, whether bogus or not.

Says Dr. Nott: "I had a friend, who had been once a wine dealer, and having read the startling statements made public, in relation to the brewing of wines, and the adulterations of other liquors, generally, I inquired of that friend as to the verity of those statements. His reply was, 'God forgive what has passed in my own cellar, but the statements made are true, and all true, I assure you.'”

The process of adulteration is carried on in wine countries, as well as in this country, with regard to Madeira, Sherry, Claret, and all other kinds of wine.

The Rev. Dr. Baird has stated, "that little or no wine is drank in France in a pure state, except it may be at the wine press. The dealers purchase it at the vineyards in a pure state, but in their hands it is entirely changed, by adding drugs or distilled spirit."

Says Horatio Greenough, the eminent sculptor, "that although wine can be had in Florence at one cent a bottle, the dealers do not hesitate to add drugs and water, to gain a fraction more of profit."

Champaign: A man who once worked in the office where this is printed, is now engaged in making champaign, for the ladies and gentlemen of the country, at a cost to him of two dollars the dozen. Some cider or whisky, some water, some fixed air, some sugar of lead, etc., form the compound. When this fabricated mixture circulates in the country, it is generally sold as pure, and our young men often quaff it, at two dollars the bottle, and an advance on the original cost of only one thousand one hundred per cent!

A physician in New York purchased a bottle of what was called genuine champaign, of the importers, had it subjected to chemical tests; it was found to contain a quarter of an ounce of sugar of lead. Who would like to drink a mixture of sugar of lead and water?

A gentleman in New York, who made champaign, purchased some, of the

regular importer, wishing to give his friends some of the genuine article. At a convivial party, he produced his pure as imported; when the corks began to fly, one dropped, near him; on examining it, he found it was his own fabrication. The supposed importer had purchased it, and, by his French tinsel and French labels, sold it back, as pure, to the original fabricator-biting the biter.

Port: An Episcopal clergyman, recently returned from the continent of Europe, visited an immense manufactory of all kinds of wine. Logwood came in as a great ingredient-so great, that the proprietors kept a vessel in their employ for its importation.

The dyers in Manchester, England, say, “the wine brewers are running away with all the best logwood ;" and the London people say, "If you wish to get genuine Port, you must go yourself to Oporto, make your own wine, and ride outside of the barrel all the way home."

In the manufacture of beer, nux vomica and cocculus indicus, are extensively used. Nux vomica is the substance which forms the poison in the upas tree; and is so bitter, that one grain deposited in eighty pounds of water, produces a bitter solution. Cocculus indicus is a poison, of which ten grains will kill a dog.*

In fine, it is believed by those who are competent judges, that there is scarcely a drop of intoxicating liquors, whether brandy, gin, rum, whisky, wine or beer, sold or drank in this country, which is not adulterated or drugged. Could the real truth be known upon this subject, it is evident that, with the exception of those already within the deadly embrace of the syren of intemperance, the whole community would at once and forever abandon the use of intoxicating drinks.”

The Temperance Reformation is the most surprising of all American achievements. To see the mass of a nation rise, investigate, and then conquer an evil habit interwoven with all their customs, and cherished by all their prejudices, is a moral spectacle never before witnessed since the foundation of the world. A view of what has been accomplished within the memory of even the middle aged, is given in these contrasted columns.

THEN.

Then, nearly every family in the land had intoxicating drinks on their table and sideboard.

Then, the farms in the land were worked with spirits.

Then, intoxicating liquors were brought into all workshops.

NOW.

Now, the family which has intoxicating drinks on the table and sideboard, is an exception to the general rule.

Now, not one farm in a hundred is worked with spirits.

Now, intoxicating drinks are seldom brought into a workshop.

* The reader who may wish to pursue this subject in full, is referred to Hunt's "Frauds in the Liquor Traffic, elicited and proved from the Standard Receipt Books and Guides of Vintners, Distillers, and Brewers." It not only proves the frauds beyond all cavil but shows the deadly nature of the ingredients used.

We close this article with an extract from an eloquent address, by the Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon, upon the progress of the Temperance Idea.

"The most interesting aspect in which the Temperance Reformation presents itself to my mind is, as an illustration of the slow but sure and certain progress of one idea-of a simple, but great and just idea. That idea, when it was first announced, was announced in its legitimate connection witn Christianity-it came from the bosom of the Church of God-it came from the head of Christianity. It was argued and proved with texts from the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the epistles of the Apostles. We wondered, those of us who composed it at that early period-wondered that