The bases of the temperance reform: an exposition and appeal./ With replies to numerous objections. By Rev. Dawson Burns.

I48 The Suppression of the Liquor Traffic.
intemperance of others with whom they have had business relations, or to whom they have lent money, or for
whom they have become legally responsible. If, as the
result of these causes, all proceeding from one source,
we can explain whywe have two cases of general distress
instead of one, and four cases of poor-law relief instead
of one, we shall perceive why all means for the abatement of pauperism must fail to effect any striking reduction until intemperance and its chief fountain, the drinking-shop, are successfully assailed.
(2.) There is crime of every degree andformn, from petty
larceny to red-handed murder, which could not prevail as
it does, did not strong drink and the drink-shop engender, nurse, train, stimulate, and develop it. It is not
true, as some would represent, that poverty is the principal cause of the more serious crimes; and, if it were
true, the poverty, as we have seen, finds its mainsprings
in the bottle and the tap. Every act of Parliament
passed for the regulation of the drink traffic has proceeded on the supposition of its crime-creating power; every
writer of experience on crime traces the connection between it and intoxicating liquor; and judges, jailers, and
chaplains have concurred in this, if in nothing else-in
assigning to drinking, and temptations to drink, a predisposing and producing influence on crime the most intimate. From such a chain of testimony, at once authoritative and unbiassed, there can be no appeal; and the
inference-that crime cannot be extensively rooted up
while intemperance and drinking-shops abound-is simply one application of the axiom that the effect must
continue till the cause is abolished. The testimonies
of the most ancient judges, from Chief-Justice Hale to
Chief-Justice Bovill, would constitute a valuable cateta;*
* Lord Chief-Justice Hale says (i670): 1' The places of judicature which I
have long held in this kingdom have given me opportunity to observe the
original cause of most of the enormities that have been committed for the