funeral itself, the change in some measure has altered the preliminary and posterior whisky service we have before noticed.

An important corollary may be deduced from this relation; viz. that when an artificial drinking usage is burdensome and pernicious, it does not require all the inhabitants of a district to sign obligations, or join directly for its abrogation: a very few determined persons, by combining together, will demolish a usage. In the case mentioned, thirty-six individuals changed a practice, that on account of the sensitiveness of men touching all matters connected with dead relatives, was thought to be quite inveterate and unalterable,-and that over a community of thirty thousand inhabitants. I am most anxious that members of Temperance Societies should ever bear this principle in mind, when they are affected by despondency in contemplating the multitude of usages, and the multitude of persons in this empire whose individual consent seems necessary, before we can expect a general abrogation. All artificial drinking usages are burdensome; they are in the nature of taxes; the inhabitants generally yearn to be quit of them, if they dared. But we shall not at present press this point further; we shall recur to it by and by, and in the mean time proceed with our list.

Saturday was not always the pay-night in Scotland, but it has become nearly universally so, and this for two reasons: first, the men thus obtain the Sabbath to lounge, after Saturday night's debauch; and secondly, the masters thought, that by interposing Sunday, they would get their operatives sober to the workshops on Monday. However, it has scarcely answered this latter purpose; or, if so, it has been at the expense of rearing up a system of educating the men for inebriation, by giving them the advantage of a leisure day, in which they may drink and lie in bed all the forenoon. Many masters pay regularly in a public-house; and many, to save the trouble of procuring change, give pound notes among a number of their men, who adjourn statedly to the tavern, in order to change them and divide the wages. The publichouses are provided accordingly on Saturday nights with change and drink; and the ordinary rule is, sixpence to be drunk for each pound changed. Sometimes, besides the sixpence, a greater part of the wages is drunk. Wives scold or weep, and spend cold wet nights in searching up and down desolate streets for their husbands, sometimes accompanied by several crying, half-sleeping little children, who, under such

treatment, starve and sicken; the police-office is filled, and Monday's catalogue quadrupled above the other days of the week. This source of evil is truly deplorable. In a few large works in the west of Scotland, the pay-night has been changed, and the method of paying each man his own individual wages has been adopted. It is most necessary to observe, that both these changes must be adopted, in order to ensure success; for when the pay-night merely is altered, still retaining the plan of sending men in groups with pound notes to get changed where they may, little good is effected.

Reams of paper have been devoted by respectable travellers, to point out the idleness and waste of the Sabbath that obtains on the continent; and we join in lamenting this universal sin, which has been often demonstrated by experienced physicians and pious divines, as suicidal both of body and soul. Not only, however, is the Sabbath in many cases wasted in our own country, but its most hallowed hours employed for the purpose of a fearful training into iniquity, a hell-born nurture into habits exitial and destructive. Short-lived is the policy of employers in this case, when the desecration of the Sabbath, to purchase a deceitful Monday of sobriety, revenges itself upon them by inebriation, augmented a hundred-fold, that rules and revels throughout the whole year.

Sabbath-school teachers also ought to know, that the meager attendance and rebellious behaviour of their children arise chiefly from the carelessness of parents; that this proceeds from the general prevalence of inebriation; and this again chiefly from the potency of the drinking usages, and from none more than the payment of wages on Saturday night, and drinking usages therewith connected.

The subscribers to Mechanics' Libraries, and the managers of Mechanics' Institutions, should also be continually put in mind, that national intemperance is the great barrier to the spread of these establishments. The young operatives are from this cause indisposed to intellectual improvement; their time for reflection is wasted in meditations on new plans of drinking and frolic; and the money thus spent leaves nothing wherewith to help the funds of a public library, or to purchase books for private perusal. Let any benevolent gentleman, interested in the scientific education of mechanics, inquire into this matter, and I am confident he will find this statement correct. It is with great satisfaction that I have found these sentiments prevalent among very intelligent men in the industrious classes, who have been concerned in such institu

tions; and I trust, that, at no distant period, a universal rise shall be made among them against drinking usages;-a comsummation I am not unprepared to expect, from what I know has already taken place in this way. But as the subject is extremely important, we must incur a slight repetition; and I take leave to say, that I speak not without some experience on this topic as to educational matters.

The principal obstruction to the advancement of mental improvement among the industrious classes arises from lack of means for building library-rooms, for purchasing books, for erecting commodious halls where lectures might be delivered regularly, and scientific experiments be fitly prepared and exhibited; and from want of funds for furnishing lecturers, and teachers of moral and natural science, with a moderate annual provision, to prevent them from being entirely dependent on the casual attendance of students. In every middlesized community in Scotland, the drinking usage-fund amounts not only to hundreds, but to thousands of pounds sterling per annum, part of which might go most legitimately and naturally into this new and desirable channel. Indeed, throughout the whole of this rich and powerful nation, there is in the towns the most shameful want of public walks and healthful resort for general recreation-of play-grounds for children—of public piazzas along the streets, and other shelter from the weather-of convenience for the exhibition of statues, paintings, and other specimens of the fine arts-of roomy buildings for education of children, with gardens and courts attached; and even the prisons, and places for punishment of public offenders, are generally constructed in a way calculated rather to increase than prevent crime: and those philanthropists who would attempt any improvement in any branch of these matters, are constantly met with the hopeless and impassable barrier of want of funds. Now, one year of the drinking usage-money, including the net usage demand, and the sums consumed in drink in consequence, and of the sums annually spent on intoxicating beverages in general, would prove equal to the attainment of all the objects above mentioned. I mean to say, that the sum consumed in one year throughout the empire, in intoxicating liquor, would effect all these objects, if it amounts, as has been stated, to many millions sterling. In some quarters I know that a demonstration has been made by the friends of mental improvement among the operatives themselves, to make the drinking usage-money available for some of these purposes.

D

Although I have taken considerable trouble, I have not been able hitherto to prevail on any friends of temperance in the Three Kingdoms to furnish statistical estimates of consumption of liquor in local districts, and the method and details of its consumption; I have, nevertheless, attempted the following statement as regards a community of about thirty-three thousand inhabitants: at the same time it must be admitted that it is, in the usage department, much founded on conjecture. With some official assistance, I found that the value of the annual consumption of all intoxicating liquors in the place might be fairly stated at about 110,000%.; and the following is a conjecture of the expense of a few of the more prominent drinking usages.

Estimate of Part of the Compulsory Drinking Fund for the Town of

Apprentice Entries.—The regulation sum varies from 5s. to 40s., being an average of 22s. 6d. But this sum is added to by the other workmen; and not unfrequently, many times this regulation amount is consumed in drink; 45s. will therefore be a moderate sum at which to estimate the average of apprentice entries. Two hundred of these occurring in the year, would give 450l. ; but as of late a considerable improvement has been made in this department, by the abrogation of this usage among shipwrights, &c. it may be stated at 1701.

Journeyman Entries.-These may be averaged at 2s. as the regulation amount; but sometimes ten or twenty times the regulation is consumed. It occurs much more frequently than apprentice entries, and may be stated at, per annum, even under deduction of late abrogations, 450l.

Launch and Graving Bowls.-The regulation sum varies from 27. to 107.; the average may be stated at 67.; but there is much more consumed than the regulation amount, say 151.; and twenty launches in the year would give 3001. besides the produce of the graving bowl. Say, as there have been abrogations here also, 250%.

Fines and Bets in Workshops, Yards, &c.-It is not easy to calculate these. They are, however, very many: having been commuted in one tailor's shop, they afforded a fund for two periodicals and a newspaper, besides payment to a boy for occasional reading to the men. As all drinking of regulation money infers greatly more expense than the bare regulation sum, this usage may be understated at 550/.

Founding Pints and Joist-money.-These range from 17. to

107.; the extra drinking included will make the whole be understated at 160l. per anuum.

Drinking at Bargains, at Settling Accounts, at Collecting Orders.-Operatives and others have stated the sum consumed in these to amount, even with sober men, to 13. a year in some trades; in others, 257. a year; and, as respects free drinkers, as far as 401. a-year. The average is 261. ;-may be stated at 20. Four hundred and fifty people yearly drinking on these occasions (out of thirty thousand inhabitants) will give 90007. Pay-night Usages.-These are quite ruinous in many cases. Most work-people are either paid in public-houses, or receive pound-notes, and require to go to the public-house for change and division of the money. The regulation amount that must be drunk is in some trades 3d., in others 4d. in the pound. Not unfrequently, from 2s. 6d. to 15s. is partly drunk or squandered in treating, or lost by pocket-picking, &c. &c. in the street in going home; or the bill is, in some cases, three times paid; or half-filled "stoups" ordered to be replenished and paid for as if full; or a multitude of idle attendant loungers are treated by men half intoxicated, &c. But say the average is as low as 3s. 6d. If one-half of the pay-nights occur weekly, and the other half once a fortnight, the average will be thirty-nine. Out of thirty thousand inhabitants, operatives receiving wages may be stated at seven thousand five hundred; and suppose those who drink on the pay-night only one-third of the whole, viz. two thousand five hundred, then 3s. 6d. × 39=6l. 16s. 6d. But say 61. 10s. for each drinking operative; then 2500 × 6 gives for the pay-night usage-16,250l. per annum.

The result of these seven usages alone is,

Apprentice Entries

Journeymen's ditto

Launch and Graving Bowls

Fines and Bets.

Founding-pints and Joist-money

Drinking at Bargains, &c.

Pay-night usages

for this portion of compulsory usages.

170

450

250

550

160

9,000

16,250

£26,830

I have been all along, in common with many others, deeply impressed with the advantages to the Temperance cause, of instruction to the operative classes by the method of Mechanics' Institutes and Libraries; and have spent much time in attempts in that way. But to those who are averse to personal trouble, and who cover their determination to sacrifice nothing for