In my belief, it is the tremendous steam and effervescence of language indulged in by the advocates of total abstinence that keeps them from making more headway. The facts they give us, like the drunkard’s grog, are generally “hot and strong,” though with very, _very_ little of the sugar of forbearance. I find, for instance, in the temperance records before me, frequent allusion to the great number of drunkards who nightly are thrown out at the doors of public-houses where they have been passing the evening, and left to wallow in the kennel. Not only do we read of this in books, we have it from the mouths of preachers in the pulpit, and speakers on public platforms and in temperance lecture-halls. But I venture to declare that whoever believes anything of the kind, believes what is not true. Every man has a right to speak according to his experience; and I speak from mine. I think that I may lay claim to as extensive a knowledge of the ways of London—especially the bye and ugly ways—as almost any man; and I can positively say that it has never once been my lot to witness the throwing (“throwing” is the expression) of a man from a public-house-door, followed by his helpless wallowing in the kennel. What is more, it was by no means necessary for me to witness such a hideous and disgusting spectacle to convince me of the evils of intemperance, and of how necessary it was to reform the existing laws as applying to the reckless granting of licenses in certain neighbourhoods. It is quite enough, more than enough, to satisfy me of what a terrible curse a bestial indulgence in gin and beer is, when I see a human creature turned helpless from the public-house, and left to stagger home as he best may. To my eyes, he is then no better than a pig; and if he took to wallowing in the gutter, it would be no more than one might expect; but he does _not_ “wallow in the gutter;” and it is not necessary to picture him in that wretched predicament in order to bring home to the decent mind how terrible a bane strong drink is, or to shock the man already inclined to inebriation into at once rushing off to a teetotal club and signing the pledge.
And now I must be permitted to remark that no man more than myself can have a higher appreciation of the efforts of those who make it the duty of their lives to mitigate the curse of drunkenness. What vexes me is, the wrong-headed, and not unfrequently the weak and ineffectual, way in which they set about it. As I view the matter, the object of the preacher of total abstinence is not so much the reclamation of the drunkard already steeped and sodden, as the deterring from reckless indulgence those who are not averse to stimulative liquors, but are by no means drunkards. Therefore they appeal as a rule to men who are in the enjoyment of their sober senses, and in a condition to weigh with a steady mind the arguments that are brought forward to induce them to abandon alcoholic stimulants altogether. Now, it must be plain to these latter—sound-headed men, who drink beer, not because they are anxious to experience the peculiar sensations of intoxication, but because they conscientiously believe that they are the better for drinking it—it must be evident to these that teetotal triumphs, exhibited in the shape of converted drunkards, are at best but shallow affairs. “Any port in a storm,” is the wrecked mariner’s motto; and no doubt the wretched drunkard, with his poor gin-rotted liver, and his palsied limbs, and his failing brain, with perhaps a touch of _delirium tremens_ to spur him on, might be glad, indeed, to escape to a teetotal harbour of refuge; and it is not to be wondered at, if, reclaimed from the life of a beast and restored to humanity, he rejoices, and is anxious to publish aloud the glad story of his redemption. As a means of convincing the working man of the wrong he commits in drinking a pint of fourpenny, the upholder of total-abstinence principles delights to bring forth his “brand from the burning”—the reclaimed drunkard—and get him, with a glibness that repetition insures, to detail the particulars of his previous horrible existence—how he drank, how he swore, how he blasphemed, how he broke up his home, and brutally ill-treated his wife and children. All this, that he may presently arrive at the climax, and say, “This I have been, and _now_ look at me! I have a black coat instead of a ragged fustian jacket; my shirt-collar is whiter and more rigid in its purity even than your own. See what teetotalism has done for me, and adopt the course I adopted, and sign the pledge.”