Permanent temperance documents of the American Temperance Society. Vol. I.

Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Permanent temperance documents of the American Temperance Society. Vol. I. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    561] complaint; and being allowed six months before entering upon the duties of my office, for the building of a state carriage, pro- curing horses, servants, liveries, &c., 1 devoted this whole period, under the care of an eminent physician, to the recovery of my health, but regret to state, without any abatement whatever of the complaint. In the first month of my official duties, twenty-two persons were condemned to suffer death ; but strong intercessions having succeeded with the government, twelve only (including a female) were executed. And, as a powerful proof of the dreadful ef- fects of intemperance, the condemned cells (as well as myself,)' witnessed every one of these individuals attributing their me- lancholy end to drunkenness and bad company. Happy would it have been for society in general, bad the temperance reformation taken effect at that, or an earlier period. But civic feasting was then (and indeed is to the present) the order of the day ; nor had the awful instance referred to, the least effect upon it; on the contrary, some who had preceded me in office, followed those criminals to a premature grave. But I rejoice to say that, by the municipal bill, at this moment passing through our houses of Parliament, the present year will terminate this profligate expenditure, and drunkenness ; and, I trust, “ the cups that cheer, but not inebriate,” will be establish- ed, where the ladies will preside, forming their proportion of the assembly, and, by their smiles and influence, perfect and per- petuate the moral renovaton, and physical improvement, of the human family. Having, in the year 1834, been summoned to London to at- tend the parliamentary committee on drunkenness, of which, my friend, James S. Buckingham, Esq., M. P. for Sheffield, was chairman, I, for the first time, heard of the Temperance Society at Preston, and having visited it at the end of August, was pre- sent at a festival held in the theatre five successive nights. I had then the happiness to see and hear numbers of reformed characters stand forward, and publicly state to crowded audiences, the poverty and misery they and their families had experienced, while under the baneful influence of intemperance, and the com- fort and happiness they subsequently enjoyed as abstainers from all intoxicating drinks. Satisfied of the utility of this society, I felt it my bounden duty (both as a philanthropist and a Christian,) to give it all the aid in my power, assured that, by the blessing of God, it had been made the means of reclaiming thousands of drunkards—of bringing peace and prosperity to the workingman’s home—of in- ducing parents to send their children to school—ultimately ac- companying them regularly to their respective places of public