It is in vain that interested sophistry would plead its benefits in particular cases--such, for instance, as the ludicrous plea of the needfulness of drams for market-women on wet and frosty mornings.[A] Set these specious benefits against the dreadful results to men's health and pockets, from the present low price of spirits, and their consequent enormous consumption; and then let common sense and honesty deliver its judgment.
I have spoken thus candidly and at length upon the subject in the present chapter, though somewhat out of place, because my feelings would not allow me to be less plain or more brief, or to postpone the matter to "a more convenient season." Perhaps in talking of legislative alterations I have been wandering upon forbidden ground; if so, in returning to my proper path, I will comfort myself with this thought:--the progress of improvement, however slow, is sure, and it is certainly advancing in this country; I require no other assurance than the establishment of Infant Schools and Mechanic's.
[Footnote A: Some conception of the fearful height which drunkenness has attained, may be gathered from the fact, that in 1829, the quantity of distilled spirits on which the duty was paid in the three kingdoms, amounted to 23,000,000 of gallons.

To form a due estimate, however, of the actual consumption, an immense quantity must be added, obtained by smuggling.

Of the rum imported for home consumption, allowing for that re-exported, the quantity was 5,000,000 of gallons.
Of brandy and other articles imported, 1,500,000 gallons; making a total, with the omission of all on which the duty was evaded, of 30,000,000 of gallons of ardent spirits consumed in the year.
Five millions of revenue grew out of this, but it cost the people 15,000,000_l_.

sterling, a which would have paid half-a-year's interest of the national debt.] "No person," says Sir Astley Cooper "has greater hostility to dram drinking than myself, insomuch that I never suffer any ardent spirits in my house--thinking _them evil spirits!_--and if the poor could witness the white livers, the dropsies, the shattered nervous systems which I love seen as the consequence of drinking, they would be aware that _spirits_ and _poisons_ were synonymous terms." Institutions; it _will_ advance, and what the legislature may never be able to accomplish, the spirit of improvement eventually will.
But having considered those cases, in which wilful neglect and bad example may be charged upon the parents, we should not forget to tell those who object to our interference in the duty of a child's natural protectors, that it is not, in every instance, from _wilful_ neglect on their part, that their children are left unprotected in the streets.

The circumstances of the labouring classes are such, in many cases, that they are compelled to leave their children either wholly unprotected, or in the charge of some one who frequently becomes a betrayer instead of a defender.