tially intoxicated, and instead of preparing for another night's fishing, go ashore, and finish with complete intoxication. Stranding and upsetting of boats is, of consequence, a frequent occurrence; the market is ill supplied, the trade ill managed, and loose and immoral habits forced on the population by the prevalence of these customs. To complete the evil, the coupers, on coming to port, are obliged, by the rule or etiquette of the trade, to bargain for the distribution of their cargo among the hawkers and retailers, over whisky.

At agricultural roups, or auctions, it is the practice of the seller to introduce spirits, and to dispose of them, gratis, to bidders in the most plentiful manner: many individuals are thus led to lavish their offers in a foolish way, greatly to their own detriment. Foreigners would scarcely believe what is said of the cautious, suspicious character of the Scots, were they witnesses of a public sale of stock in this country. How respectable persons can shamelessly excite the emulation of an auction by means so exceptionable, is much to be wondered at; but it is the custom, and that seemingly reconciles to all monstrous things.

Among cattle-dealers and butchers there are few or no dry bargains; and if the business be in the country, they will go miles to a public-house, to proceed in and close the transaction. Our informant states, "that when a grazier or drover proposes for sale either black cattle, sheep, fed calves, or pigs, the butcher alleges the necessity of tasting* together; the seller then is his gill or two, perhaps more; and if a bargain happen to ensue, the buyer calls in his gill or gills, and they part hearty."

Tasting is common even in selling a side of beef, and at the settlement of accounts is universal: so that this class of transactions is greatly shackled by the intrusion of spirituous liquor; and waste and wickedness follow.

Although the custom of drinking over bargains, among merchants and traders of the higher rank, is happily obsolete, it is by no means the case among the industrious classes. It is

* It may be proper to explain to the English reader, that the cautious feelings of the Scotch nation induce them often to under-colour their phraseology. Thus a reprobate is called by them "a hooly do weel," (i. e. one who is tardy in doing what is good.) A peasant, when asked how he does to-day, replies, "No that ill, I thank you," (i. e. I am not very ill.) Tasting, in the sense of the text, does not mean merely to try by the palate, but to drink whisky moderately. The intention, it may be conceded, is frequently to partake only in moderation, but in a great plurality of cases it finishes with excess. A cautious Scotch matron will not say that her next neighbour is a thief; but, if pressed by proper authority, will admit, that were one to lay down any thing within the said neighbour's reach, he would not require to take it up again.

C

much the practice in bargain and sale to any considerable extent among inferior dealers of every kind, to settle the transaction over strong liquor-a most pernicious order of things, that vitiates and debases the springs of common business at their source.

It would be impossible in this place to calculate the extent of the deterioration of morals which this custom occasions, seeing that it is nearly universal over North Britain, and that it infers not only the common evils that are incident to inebriation, but frequently also an element of treachery and deceit. The seller, trusting to his superior capacity of withstanding the power of liquor, sometimes expects in this way to procure a better bargain, and the buyer is no less sanguine. "It is a hard heart that whisky will not soften," was the observation of one accustomed to adopt this method of improving his circumstances.- -"The market-gill! O what a profusion of roses and ripe fruits, dry gravel and shining laurel, might be had for a thousandth part of the price given for drams, which cause at the market-places needless stay and vain or silly bargains, together with the growing vice which ruins all."*"

In some places, what is called a rue-bargain is admitted on the following terms:-A customer, after having been overreached at a bargain made at a public-house, goes home, and acknowledges to his wife the stipulations he has come under, who next morning satisfies him that it will be for his interest to attempt to procure redress. If the seller be a hard man, he will not probably get free; but sometimes a rue-bargain is permitted on a forfeit of whisky, which varies in amount according to the value of the merchandise in question.

A respectable informant states, that he has known many sad results of drinking over bargains, in the case of retailers at their wholesale purchases, or settlement of accounts. Many individuals in these professions have been taught habits of intemperance from this custom; and many others, having found that the mode of life to which it subjected them was becoming ruinous, managed to substitute the principal shopman in their own place, in order that they might undergo the risk of fulfilling the baneful usage: this, however, was only putting one unfortuate victim in the place of another, which the sequel in general sorrowfully demonstrated.

Commercial orders of any consequence given to tin-smiths, joiners, smiths, ship-chandlers, flax-dressers, slaters, tanners,

Manse Garden.

and almost all the minor manufacturers, are frequently adjusted over strong liquor, as a matter of etiquette and necessity.

It is, however, no small encouragement to know, that the usage of drinking at bargains, inveterate as it is, has given way in some instances to direct combination. In a populous district in the west of Scotland, the cattle trade was much infested with an apparent necessity of drinking at all sales. The parties concerned admitted that this practice was expensive, worthless, nay, pernicious in the extreme; that it cost even a temperate man twenty-five pounds a-year in tasting; that it wasted time, and impeded despatch of business at the rate of a day for an hour; that it led astray the young men in the trade, and that consequent drunkenness had cut off, in one instance, nearly a whole family; in short, that it was of the utmost importance that the usage should be abrogated. But how that could be accomplished it was impossible to say, as a wet bargain was in this trade a matter of strict honour and etiquette; and no individual could dare to controvert the custom without losing caste, and in some sort throwing himself out of society. An attempt, however, at joint measures was made. Individuals were advised with again, and again, and again. When matters were ripe, a select meeting was called; some influential friends of temperance also attended : the whole matter was discussed for two hours: some objections were stated, though somewhat languidly, to the following effect:-"It is not for sake of the whisky that we taste at bargains, but to drink the health of the customer, and success to the transaction. Do not gentlemen drink healths,—if not at such bargains as ours, yet on similar, or on other occasions? Would they like to be laughed at, or thought mean, or deficient in manners?" and so forth. It happened fortunately, on this occasion, that it could be stated of various influential individuals, who lived in the district, that they had, on principle, given up the practice of drinking healths for some years, without any loss of character, or injury to their affairs.

When the parties were fully satisfied of this fact, they came to a unanimous resolution to combine, and thus to countenance one another in declining to drink at bargains; and not a little pleasing has been the result. To use somewhat the language of one of themselves, in speaking several months afterwards of the combination,-"It is a good institution. The dealer, instead of spending four days drinking in the way of business, gets his lots disposed of in four hours; and off he goes

across the Highland ferries, with bills and cash, in perfect sobriety, without expense or folly."

Some of the parties to this combination did not, it must be confessed, always strictly adhere to its obligation. Nevertheless the usage-spell was broken; and to make up for defaulters, many tradesmen in other lines of business either joined the special combination, or have been encouraged to emancipate themselves from the pernicious custom; and its total disuse is making progress throughout the district.

It is extremely affecting to find, that an inebriate is sometimes one of the most anxious of his class to remove a drinking usage, as being to him the source of continuous and irresistible temptation.

I shall conclude this point with the following relation. A young married man, of respectable circumstances, in the middle ranks, had fallen for years into habits of inebriation. On hearing of the institution of a Temperance Society in the town in which he resided, he resolved to join it, and did so. The first two days of total abstinence from his ordinary stimulant told severely on his nerves, and he kept his bed; the third day, in attempting to get up, he, through sheer weakness, fell flat on the floor. His friends became alarmed, and urged him to take a little spirits, but he resolutely refused, and declared his determination to die on the spot, rather than return to whisky. The fourth and fifth days he felt very ill, but became convalescent on the sixth. In little more than a fortnight he was perfectly well; the tone of his stomach recovered; he could partake of hot meat; his flesh returned; the sweetness of his natural disposition, moreover, was restored; his children no longer crept terrified out of his way, to bed or elsewhere; he was kind to his wife, and had no more the temper of a tiger, as was sometimes affirmed of him before. His wife even declared to a friend, in the joy of her heart, that their house was now a heaven upon earth. His affairs were soon retrieved— new clothes were put on-the snuff was wiped away from the nose; and he, being a handsome, personable man, walked forth erect into the streets, while all wondered and were glad at the favourable metamorphosis. This state of felicity continued for a twelvemonth; but, unluckily, the usage of drinking at bargains was not departed from; he seemed to find it very expedient for his affairs to repeat this custom, but he fulfilled it in porter, not in spirits. By and by he is known to have reasoned thus with himself,-"I am now independent of whisky; this I have demonstrated to my own satisfaction,

and to that of all my friends and acquaintance. The drinking of porter, while others take spirits, will not do; I am singular, and am laughed at; besides, it brings old failings to every body's remembrance. I will now order whisky as before, but shall taste only, and do no more." He withdrew from the Temperance Society-began to take whisky at bargains once more-continued sober for some months-increased his doses -and finally fell again into the gulf of intemperance. Now, but for this usage, this man, humanly speaking, never would have relapsed, unless he had further become ensnared to a taste for porter or strong ale.

The multiplicity of the rites and ceremonies of drinking at fairs, markets, and sacraments, can scarcely have passed unobserved even by inattentive spectators, although it is unaccountable how little known to one class are the mysteries of inebriation of another. The stopping of farmers on horseback or in carts, with their friends or families, at a variety of public-houses, as they pass homewards, occasions a sad deterioration of morals in that class of the inhabitants. We have been disturbed at a respectable inn, in the Carse of Stirling, as late as ten o'clock at night, by farmers and their families making their fourth or fifth stop from town on a market-day; and at this stage, the noise, singing, and riot of these (otherwise respectable) people, was inconceivable. A principal motive of this practice lies in some of the party thus rewarding the owner of the cart for giving them a cast homewards; with others, a parting glass is the excuse.

The tasting by young country females at markets, fairs, and sacraments, is most deleterious; and the national character of that class, from this circumstance alone, is on the high road to ruin. Some investigations upon this subject, and a comparison of our rural population with that of France in the year 1828, first led the author to consider the Temperance question, and afterwards to introduce the system into Scotland in 1829. The absolute necessity of treating females in the same manner, in steam-boat jaunts, is lamentable; both sexes are in this way reduced to a most awkward dilemma; for a girl cannot refuse a glass from her admirer, because this is the authorized universal mark of respect and kindness; and as little can the best-intentioned young man decline to offer it, because he would thus fail in courtesy to her on whom he wishes to bestow pre-eminent honour. Some youths have been known to defer their entrance into a Temperance Society till after their marriage, lest failure in the usual compliments should be