Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

to execute his task. It prevents him from attending to his own affairs, and consequently reduces him to poverty. What numerous instances of murder, rape, and every kind of crime are committed under the influence of drink? How many families are daily ruined from its effects? How many sudden deaths are the fatal consequences of drink? How often are the husband and wife separated from further intercourse by reason of death? What quarrels and dissentions are caused in families and among friends by drunkenness? What feuds and quarrels disturb the peace of society, which derive their origin from the same baneful source.

Drunkenness puts an end to all confidence between man and man; the drunkard, unwarily, betrays the most important secrets, and exposes private transactions to the public view. The drunkard forms the most ridiculous ideas of his own consequence, altho' he is, in fact, the most despicable of mortals, and the very outcast of society drink drives man to undertake things far above his strength to accomplish, and it very frequently involves him in the greatest difficulties. In a word, drink not

only divests man of all care, but of all prudence, and sinks him below the character of a rational being, and on a level with the vilest brute beast: but the misfortune is, that those who once give themselves up to their bottle, are seldom reclaimed; they' rush on heedlessly from one step of dissipation to another, until they are swallowed up in the gulph of destruction, of which the following memoirs are a sufficient proof.

JOHN COPERNICUS was respectedly connected, and received a tolerable education; and after serving a regular apprenticeship in the mercantile line, with honesty, sobriety, and diligence, was, under the most flattering auspices, ushered into business for himself; in which, to all human appearance, he might have arrived at respectability and opulence. For some years in the beginning, John attended to his business with all due diligence, and was very successful. Being naturally of a genteel turn, he was well beloved by all his acquaintance, and patronised by men of character and perty. He married an amiable woman, who seemed to make his happiness her

pro

whole study; and he, on the other hand, seemed affectionately to requite that attachment by the kindest attention on his part; and in this loving manner this happy couple spent some years together; but how short are human joys? John, from the nature of his business, had a number of connections in the capital, which frequently led him to the tavern to settle their affairs -a practice too common in Scotland, altho' certainly a dangerous one; yet, such is the custom, that, when a matter of the least importance is to be settled, it never can be done, at least, it seldom or never is finished, out of the tavern, which often leads people into bad habits, and not unfrequently ends in the ruin of their morals and character; yet, however soberly John might otherwise have been, it was not to be supposed that he could make an exception to the common rule, and propose to make his bargains or settle his business out of the tavern: He, therefore, like his neighbours, followed the same plan, and for sometime by no means exceeded the bounds of decorum; "but bad company corrupts good manners." It fell to John's lot to be connected with men, and those by no means

of the lowest class, who had associated themselves with a certain club, whose meetings in the tavern were neither connected with business, nor regulated by proper rules; but who had so far advanced in dissipation, as to reverse every kind of or der, by turning night into day, and day into night. Their usual practice was this: so soon as any of the members were enabled from the effects of their previous night's debauchery to quit his pillow, he summoned the other members to convene by a certain hour at a particular tavern, generally about 12 o'clock forenoon; and being there met, they drank their modicum, which was commonly a gill of whisky each, with cold water from that tavern they went to another, where they dispatched the same quantity, and so on, until they accomplished their circuit, which consisted of a certain number of such Houses at all of which they quaffed their stated allowance, which required the greatest part of the day to accomplish, and this routine they repeated daily, Sunday not excepted,-only, that on Sunday, they circumscribed their circuit-and in this manner they spent the whole year, at least, those whose well tempered

>

constitutions could support the fatigues of the debauch, or resist the irritating effects of the ardent spirit. But these were not the whole of the labours which the members of this respectable club had to performfor they met after dinner to finish their day's labour, which occupied them until about 8 o'clock at night, when the club mustered their whole strength, and commenced what they termed " a set in drink,” which generally lasted until 12 o'clock at night, at which hour the company parted to refresh their exhausted bodies, in order to enable them to renew the next day's campaign; natural and refreshing rest for the support of the body it could not be called, for neither mind nor body could enjoy rest, after torturing both throughout the day with ardent spirits, whose influence must blunt the one, and irritate and inflame the other, and deprive the body of its natural repose.

Into such company had John Copernicus got, and notwithstanding the most pressing solicitations of his wife and friends, and even the admonitions of his own conscience, which often warned him of his danger, John could not be withdrawn from

« ПредишнаНапред »