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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

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E VERYONE

GRATEFUL-COMFORTING.

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THE CURE OF

EPP

CONSUMPTION
By EDWIN W. ALABONE, M.D.,

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By this treatment thousands of cases given up as

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London: 3, Northumberland Avenue, Charing Cross, W.O.; 43, Queen Victoria St., EC.;
97, Westbourne Grove, W. Brighton: 135, North St.

THE DEVIL-DRINK FAMILY
FATHER ! MOTHER

! AND THEIR HUNDRED-AND-ONE CHILDREN,

(HOWEVER MANY MORE OF THEM).

BY THE

REV.

P.

B.

POWER,

M.A.,

Author of "The Oiled Feather," c,

PUT.ISHED

UNDEI

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DIRECTION

OF

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LONDON

CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
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97,

43,

WESTBOURNE

BRIGHTON:

QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C.;
GROVE,

W.

135, NORTH STREET.

NEW YORK; E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO.

THE DEVIL-DRINK FAMILY.
CHAPTER I.

IF the mother isof more
the Devil

the father, Drink is

than half the
troubles which come upon our country,
our families; and, if we drink, upon
ourselves.
They are the bad parents of a bad
offspring, and a precious large family
they have had. And every member of
that family has a name beginning with
D; and there are no less than one hundred and one of them to my knowledge, however many more of them
there may be.
One hundred and one D's, born of
the two D's, the Devil and Drink, do I
know of ; and many of their sayings and
doings have I watched for a long time.
A family likeness runs through them
all; for they are all more or less like
the father. Drink is the mother that
brings them into the world; but there
is no mistaking the father; they are
like him, every one of them.
And at their father's work they
always are; and what that is, I shall
very briefly show.
DAMAGE.

This comes from the Devil-

father, and the Drink-mother. Damage
to everything-to health, to advancement, to family comfort, to furniture;
to reputation ;--turn where you will,
there you find this child of Drink.
That tippler just gone to the lunatic
asylum is damaged in the head. That
" jolly boy !" who, though a first-class
workman, has lost the foreman's place, is
damaged in his advancement. That man
who comes home to a half-fireless hearth,
and lean table, is damaged in his comfort; and so, 1 expect, are his wife and
children. That smashed wardrobe, so
bright and new on the wedding-day, is
so damaged by those kicks from Joe
King, when he was in liquor, that the
neighbouring broker offered three-andsix for it only yesterday,--about the

price of firewood; that lot without
credit, who won't be trusted for a loaf;
who won't be employed, for "they
drink !" This Drink and Devil-child
Damage has been doing his bad work
amongst them all; and unless they turn
the father and mother out, there's no
knowing how much more he will do.
DEBT. A ragged vagabond this; but
his father and mother are very proud
of him for all that. When the Devil
and Drink come into a man's home,
Debt is pretty sure to be born there.
Tom Sykes knows it when he winces
at the score at the " Blood-red Heart ;"
and when he's told by the baker that,
he already owes so much, he cannot be
trusted with more; and when he sneaks
home, knowing that his little Polly will
be breakfastless to-morrow morning;
and when the publican jibes him, and
begins to get uncivil; and when the
landlord comes round, and there being
nothing to pay with even as there was
nothing for the last month, he tells
Tom that he'll sell him up; and next
week Tom is sold up, and the cold
streets, or the workhouse, are left for
him, and his wife, and little Poll.
DAGGLE-TAIL.
Ah, yes, Mrs. Jones:
don't think that the men are to be
always catching it, "and serve them
right too," while you women escape.
That's just the way with all you women;
but let me tell you that the children of
Devil-Drink are some of them daughters;
and Daggle-tail, whom you house, is
one of them. Think of what you were,
and look at what you are. You used to
be a nice trim girl, and a neat and tidy
woman. It did people good to look at
you. There were no unlaced boots then,
no half-tied strings, no dirty artificial
flowers, no uncombed hair, no torn or
ragged petticoats or sleeves, no trailing
skirts. It did poor Bob's eyes good to
look at you; he did think you were

THE DEVIL-DRINK

"something like a girl," and so you
were; and Bob said, "The girl who's
tidy herself will keep her home tidy
too," and so you were married. And
proud and happy Bob was until, in an
evil day, the Devil-Drinks came to you.
You let them lodgings, only as it were
one back attic, but Daggle-tail was
born there; and neither Devil-Drinks
nor Daggle-tail have you ever got quit
of since. And so you have lost Bob!
Bob's not dead. It might be a good
thing for you and himself if he were ;
but Bob has gone off after other companions, who please him better than his
wife. You have disgusted him; and
who can tell whether he can be ever
brought back again ? You have become a slattern. You used to be a
pattern; but now you are a slattern,
and your children will follow you, and
become what you are now. A husband
driven away! a woman spoiled! children
set a bad example, which they will
follow ! Surely Daggle-tail, this child
of the Devil-Drink family, has done its
father's and its mother's work in this
unhappy home.
Another of the DevilDISEASE !
Drinks. A pale sickly-looking creature,
but awfully sharp and cunning, and
knowing a heap of things about the
body; in fact, all its ins and outs-knowing a deal more than the doctor
who comes to fight him. Why, he
laughs at the doctor. He gets into the
brain, and the eyes, and the lungs, and
the bowels, and the kidneys, and the
liver, and the heart, and the legs and
arms, and every bit of a man; and
says, " Get me out if you can." Sometimes, the temperance people show a
picture of a drunkard's inside; but, 'tis
so dreadful, people don't like to look at
it. At times this mocking and satirical
fellow puts some thick red on his victim's
face; but it is not the rosy red of health,
but the blotch of disease. He lays it
thick on his nose,-on the top of it;
and he fills his eyes with blubbering
tears,-not honest tears, like clear cold
spring water, or like the dew drops
sweet and fresh, but, dirty-water tears;
so that you can't talk to some drunkards
but that they begin to blubber. Oh,
the misery that this Devil-and-Drink-

FAMILY.

born child brings with him.-the gnawing, the trembling, the fear, the shaking,
the sores, some outside, but most inside,
where no one can see them, but where
the poor wretch who has them feels
them ! Hundreds of thousands get into
the grip of this child of Devil-Drink
every year; and live, as long as they
do live, in misery; and die, when they
do die, in misery too,
Hah! who are you?
"I am only
little DAMr. I'm told you have been
talking against my father, and mother,
and brothers, and sisters, but I'm sure
you won't say anything against me. I'm
a quiet little one. I don't ever make a
noise; and often nobody can even see
me. It is not because I have had bad
brothers and sisters as you say, and
because you don't like father and mother,
that you should talk against me! "
Ah, you little limb of mischief, I am
only too glad to have you by the throat.
I have been wanting you some time!
You are the one who killed poor Jane
Grey and her little child-pretty darling! I used to love to look at her,
with her soft blue eyes and flaxen hair.
For a long time we could not make out
why the mother had such a hacking
cough, and why she was so racked with
rheumatic pains, or why the little one
took after her in just the same way; so
that it seemed as if mother and child
were almost one.

They were like one,

they were so beautiful in life, and in
death they were uot divided; they
looked like one, when they lay side by
side under the same sheet, when all
was over.

It was you who killed them, you little
sneak : creeping up the walls, slipping
into their bed, stealing into their lungs,
so that they both got consumption and
died! Consumption, and rheumatism!
and you gave them both. It was all
because they had no fire, or scarce a
handful. A few scuttles of coal would
have saved their lives ; but they hadn't
them, and so they died. And so, for
want of a little heat, the damp crept
here, and there, and everywhere; and
neither Jane nor her child were over
strong, for their food was not of the
best; and Damp clung to them-inin-into their very vitals; and they

THE

DEVIL-DRINK

faded away; and there are lots more
following their example.
Tom Grey,
who was earning thirty-five shillings a
week at a neighbouring town, could
have sent them plenty to buy coal with,
and food too; but he spent his money
on Drink; and all the thanks the Drink
gave him was to tell the Damp to kill
his wife and child; and this imp of a
wicked father and mother murdered
them both. A few scuttles of coal would
have killed this little sneak; but Tom
Grey had drunk all the scuttles at the
sign of the "Thirsty Traveller." Hie
had swallowed tons of coal there, and
poisoned his wife and child with damp,
just as much as if he had done it with
arsenic, or anything else. And, Tom
Grey, you shall be tried for murder byand-bye,-all such as you,-when the
last day comes.
CHAPTER II.
THE next of the Devil-Drink family I
have to speak of are twins. They are
known by the name ofDISTRESS

AND

DISTRAINT.

I

don't

know in how many drunkards' homes
these have not been found. Distress
was born first, and Distraint made its
appearance quickly after. Their father
and mother brought them up together,
and told them, like good children and
dear little twins, to stick to each other
through life; and help one another in
everything they had to do. "My dear
child," the father used to say to Distraint, " don't you ever be in a hurry:
you'll be sure to get your share. Let
your brother Distress work on; and
you'll be sure to come in for snacks.
You may have to wait awhile now and
again; but when you get your chance,
it will be such a good one, it will pay for
all. You'll be a regular little smasher."
And this, getting abroad amongst
the Devil-drink family; Distraint always was known amongst them by the
name of "The Little Smasher."
"Dear children," said Devil-Drinkthe father and mother, to these twins,
one day, "don't let your eyes pity,
or your hands spare : pay off the topers
well for all their jolly glasses. You,

FAMILY.

Distress, squeeze them gradually; and
you, Distraint, smash them up with a
bang."
"I'll boil the mother's eyes with
scalding drops," said Distress.
"I'll
bewilder and bother her so that she
shan't know where to turn for a meal.
I'll make her tremble at every knock,
lest it is the landlord coming. I'll
keep her awake at night "
" Oh, you little darling," said the
fond parents: "you'll be a credit to
us ! Go on."
"I'll keep the wife awake with fear,
and the children with cold. I'll cover
the wife's face over with wrinkles, and
"
I'll make her hair grey, and
"Now I'll have a go," chimed in the
twin-Distraint. "I'll come upon them
with a smash. I'll bring in a bailiff,
and pull the bed from under them.
I'll clear out their home from top to
bottom: I won't leave as much as a
penn'orth in the home. I'll kick the
whole lot of them out into the street."
"Oh, fie, fie !" said the parents, in a
kind of make-believe voice of reproach,
but really wanting to set on the little
twin, who quite understood what they
meant.
"Where, where, my little
one, will the poor wife and her dear
little children go to, if you turn them
out into the street ?"
"What do I care !" said the little
imp. "I don't care if they lie down
on the stones and die, or turn to
stones themselves. I don't care if they
go to the workhouse, and live on the
rates,-the hard earnings of many an
honest man. They may drown themselves, or hang themselves, or poison
themselves for what I care: I have
the law on my side. The bailiffs and
I will smash them up, after brother
has worried them long enough. He
need not be afraid that I will hurry
him,-not I: I like to see him worry
folk. I saw him pinch up a woman's
face in three months, until it was no
bigger than an apple. He was going
to finish her though without me. I
thought that was a dirty trick. I said,
'You may worry the woman, but I'll
kill her;' and so, down I come upon
her one day when she was never expecting it, and I pulled the place to

THE DEVIL-DRINK

pieces-; and she was buried from the
workhouse a fortnight after."
"Bravo, little one !" said father and
You'll, be a
mother.
' You'll do.
credit to the Devil-Drink family. You
have a fine field before you. Stick to
business. You, Distress, stick to your
work steadily by night and day. Don't
let folk sleep, or eat such a bit as they
Keep at it. And you,
have in peace.
Distraint, when 'tis your turn, crumple
them up like a piece of brown paper.
No matter if they were roses and lilies,
But you'll find
crumple them up.
they'll easily smash up, after your
brother has had a while at them."
said
pretty blackbirds!"
"Hah,
Devil-drink.
Four little blackbirds all in a row,
All like undertakers in a house of woe:

One is looking scared, and one is full of
fright,
And one is all amazed, and one as black as
night.

Pretty birds, no doubt you've been
Acting in some pretty scne.

"Pretty scene! pretty scene!" cried
the first of the blackbirds which came
" We call
a pretty
within hearing.
scene. But you should have heard the
people at the place where we have just
come from: they did not call it ' pretty
scene!' but one cried out 'Horrible;'
and another, ' Did you ever see such a
scene as that before ?' and a third fell
down on his knees, and began to pray;
and another wouldn't look, but covered
his eyes with his hands. I saw one
man's knees shake under him,-we did
make a scene of it, I can tell you."
"Bravo, my little blackbird, let us
have it all."

'it

"Well," said
DREAD, "here's

DOLEFULNESS,

Dis-

TBACTION, and DIsMAY,-the four of us
made an agreement to finish up John
Peace to-night.
We've been a long
time working John Peace. We've had
a jolly time of it with him."
" Aye," chimed in a cringing, sneaking-looking little imp, who egged his
way in amongst the four, 'you have
had a fine time of it, I know ; but you
never could have done anything if it
had not been for me. You could never
have so much as got a foot into John
]peace's house without my help."

F4MI;,f.

' Itah, little awyer,'' said Devildrink, " you're always helping the
family. There's .pot one of them but
owes you a great deal: your mother
and I knew what we were about when
we called you,.
There's not one of the
DECEIT.
family has done better than you."
"They might have given me some
credit for it then," said Deceit.
I
slinged about that fellow Peace, and
dodged about him, and tried him this
way and that way, before I could make
a drunkard of him, for he was brought
up with temperance principles; but I
did him at last. I deceived him when
I told him it was not manly to refuse
the invitation of a,friend, and of the
people he met with in business, who
I: deceived him
offered him liquor.
when I' persuaded him that a man can
always go so far, and no farther; and
I deceived him
stop when he likes.
when he began to get a habit of drinking, and felt a kind of pain or void
inside without it; and I told him that
'he wanted a drop to keep him up.' I
deceived him when I said a drop would
do it, for I knew the craving would
come on again. When his business
began to get bad, I deceived him by
telling him that a drop would comfort
him, and keep him up, and give him
Some way or another I've
courage.
deceived almost every man that has
A troublesome
become a drunkard.
job I've often had of it; but I've
stuck to my work; and now the jolly
blackbirds would never have had a
night of it with John Peace, or finished
him off as. they have done, or tormented
him so long before, if, it had not been
for me."
"Righti little lawyer'" said DevilDrink (for father and ;mother always
spoke together, as though they were
one,-and, indeed, so they were, for a
more united and loving couple never
"Right, little lawyer; but
lived).
now let us hear what the blackbirds
have been doing."
"Well," said DISMAY speaking for
the other three as :well as ~or himself :
"we've been finishing him up with
delirium tremens :We've often worked
the delirium with John; but never to

THE

DEVIL-DRINK

kill him, until now. We've given him
the fits, but let him out of them again.
Sometimes we kept him in a short
time, and sometimes long ; but we
finished him to-night.
" At one time DOLEFULNESS here got

hold of him, and would make his heart
sink into his boots; aye, far below his
boots, down into the cellar; aye, far
below the cellar, down into the very
depths of the earth. You should see
him moping; you should hear him,
sighing; you should see him with his
head hanging down, and his hands in
his empty pockets, feeling for pence to
go to 'the public' with; and not a
penny had he. You should see him,
when he felt there was no hope for
him,-when fog came over his heart,
and soul, and all the inside of him,when he'd sit for hours with his face
buried in his hands on the table; or
stand looking out vacantly into the
street, with his nose flattened against
the window pane; and neither food nor
fire in the house.
" Then DREAD used to take a pull at
him. That fellow, DREAD, used sometimes to get behind him, and sometimes
hide himself, and make a noise somewhere in front of him. That fellow,
DREAD, was as good as a conjuror. He'd
make a man believe almost anything
that was awful, and expect it too.
Sometimes John Peace used to think he
heard a little tapping at the door, and
he'd be afraid to say, ' Come in,' for he
feared lest it was little Jenny coming
back from the churchyard, to ask him
why he stole her little boots for drink,
and gave her that cold which took away
her life. Then John would be afraid
to get up off his chair, for it was set on
the edge of a precipice; and if he stood
up, there wasn't an inch of ground to
spare on any side; and the chair must
fall down, down, no one knew where,
and he with it. Now and again DREAD
would tap him on the shoulder. John
was afraid the police were on him; and
many a time DREAD drove him into the
coal cellar, for fear the house would
tumble down upon him. But the funniest sight ever I saw was John Peace,
when a friend had given him a good
dinner, sitting with his ;nife and fork

FAMILY.

in his hands, and his eyeballs almost
starting out of his head, for he declared
that the good piece of meat before him
was a dead man's heart; and he ended
by forcing his poor wife to take it in
her apron at night, and throw it over
the churchyard wall; and for a month
after, he was afraid every hour of his
life that the police would be upon him;
and that, in some way or other, he would
be mixed up, with murder.
" I used to do my part, when the fits
were not strong upon him. I used to
take a turn at him then too; but I used to
like to work him principally when he was
at his best. Sometimes I used to come
upon him suddenly when he had all his
wits about him; and I always then made
him see things full as bad as they were.
Didn't I preach to him then! Didn't I
work him as 'a wicked sinner !' Didn't
1 make him stand aghast, as if he had
seen a thousand ghosts! When DECEIT
was egging him on, I kept in the background,-not to spoil his sport; but
when his work was fully done, I came
with a vengeance to the fore. I told him
he was ruined; I told him he must
be damned, for no drunkards could get
to heaven: the Bible said it. I made
him look at the ruin on his house and
on himself, and I made him realise it
all; I made him say to himself, ''Tis
true ! true ! true !'

I've brought it all

down on his head at once with a crash
like thunder, and struck it through him
like a flash of lightning. I've brought
before his mind, just as if in a lookingglass, the days when he was strong and
healthy,-a happy boy, in a happy
home; and how proud he was when he
married the girl he loved, and brought
her to a well-furnished home. And I
took him in the mind's eye to Sundayschool, and church, and I made him
hear the bells ring; and I sat him
beside the waterfall near the old mill,
where he used to watch for the miller's
daughter; and then, in a moment, down
I thundered upon him with what he had
become; and I've made him start at
himself in dismay at the wreck and ruin
he had brought on others, and himself.
"No wonder that DISTRACTION

had

not much trouble. He soon made him
turn this way and turn that: and every

tHE DEVIL-PDRINZ FAMILY.
way, I'm glad to" say, but the one way
by which he might even then have
escaped. 'Twas grand to see him running his hand through his matted hair,
and looking this way and that, as if he
were looking for some loophole of escape; and to hear him say, ' What
shall I do?'
'Where shall I go?'
'Who'll lend me a hand ?' and all such
stuff as this. I don't know how long
we might not have kept on at him, one
by one; but we all came on him together to-night, and we made him
shriek ! and howl! and curse ! and
pray ! and tear himself ! We showed
him all manner of horrid sights, and
made him hear all manner of horrid
sounds; until at last, with one bound
out of the bed, almost as if he had
been shot. out of a gun, he flung
every one from him, dashed his head
against the wall; and then a thing lay
on the floor that nobody cared to look at.
It was what people used to call Ar.
Peace not so long ago; but, the battered skull and devil-stamped face, no
one cared to look upon too much."
CHAPTER III.
BUT before I have done with this little
limb of Satan; this Devil-Drink-born
imp D)ECEIT, let me tell you what he did

to poor Jonathan Stone; and how he
broke up his teetotal home.
Jonathan Stone had once been a
hard-drinking man; and though he
had no children to pull upon his earnings, he nevertheless had no better than
a hovel for his home. And Jonathan's
wife, who was a decent and respectable
woman, was dragged down by him, and
with him, to the lowest depth of distress. Good cause had she to curse the
day she met Jonathan; but how could
she know what was before her, when
everything promised fair ? At that time
Jonathan owned his own cab; and no
woman had a better prospect of a happy
and respectable home. The drink deceived her in this; for her husband got
first into tippling, and then into downright drunken habits; and things went
from bad to worse, until the home went,
and the cab went, self-respect went, and
everything else that was good.

Many a time did poor Mary Stone
remember the happy days of her early
home, and the time when she was in
good service, and wish she had never
seen Jonathan Stone.
At last, Jonathan was reduced so low
that, he had to become a night cabman.
There he was to be found amongst the
rickety cabs, and rickety horses, and
rickety men, who make up no small
part of the London night cabmen. And
when the morning came, it was little
Jonathan brought home; and, what he
did bring, little of it did he give his
wife; the drink got it all.
At last, there came a great change.
One night, while they were waiting for
a train, down comes a City Missionary,
and begins to read to the men. They
gathered round him willingly enough;
for they had little to enliven them at
that hour of the night.
Amongst other things the Missionary
held forth on the drink. The way he
came to touch upon it was, he was
speaking of heaven, and what a glorious home and rest it would be for all
the toil-worn and poor, who looked for
it through Christ; and then, he was
obliged to talk of certain people who
could never hope to get there, while
they continued what they were; and
amongst these, the drunkards.
They
don't want boozy people, and staggering people, and people who don't even
care about their own selves, in heaven;
much less those who are killing others
"No, no,"
and breaking up homes.
said the Missionary: "it won't do for
a man to wait to get sober, until he gets
to heaven."
All this struck Jonathan Stone like a
sledge-hammer. It was as sure as that
two and two make four that ihenever
could get to heaven, as long as he continued a drunkard.
And so Jonathan determined to give
up the drink.
Now the Missionary had told the men
that, unless they sought the help of
God's Spirit, they could not expect to
thrive in any determinations which they
might make to give up the drink.
But Jonathan thought he could get
on very well by himself, if only he
made up his mind, really, and truly,

'THE DEVIL-DRINK FAMILY.

and in earnest, and without any mistake about the matter.Well, for awhile,-and for, I may
say, a good long while,-Jonathan got
on very well.
So well did he get on
that, he first of all, became a day cabman again. Then he won back his
own cab, and he won. back his home
also, and his wife's affections ; and he
seemed on the high road to being a

and .she believed it would all last.
But Mrs. Stone did not know that,
strong drink is a deceiver, and mocker;
nor that her husband had been carrying
on in his own strength all this time.
Alas! in one hour the whole bright
vision passed away, and Jonathan
became a drunkard again i
Home had the poor woman come from
seeing a sick neighbour,-home, in

cab-master some day himself.
It would have done you good to have
seen Jonathan's home,--the clock, and
the pictures on the wall, the kettle on
the fire when he came home in the
evening: all was the picture of comfort.
But all this was nothing to the change
in Mrs. Stone herself. No longer was
she the down-trodden creature she used
to be. Her cheeks were plump, her
dress was good: she was happy now,

good time to receive her husband, for
whom the kettle was boiling; and who
was not expected, or due, for at least
another half-hour.
But what a sight met her eyes!
There, before the fire, stood a violent,
angry man; and that man was her
husband.
" Get out, woman: begone out of this
house ! " cried he, lifting up his hand.
At first, poor Mrs. Stone feared her

THE DEVIL-DRINK

husband had gone mad; then she tried
to reason with him; but soon she perceived that, he was in liquor-a drunken
man-and, to judge by his language,
lost to shame, and self-respect, and
reason, and everything else that ought
to influence anyone who called himself
'' a man."

Forth from her warm home did
drunken Jonathan Stone drive his wife
that night. That home was scattered
to the winds within a month; the work
of half-a-dozen years was undone; and
DECEIT, this artful child of Devil-drink,
had done it all.
The way it came about was this. One
cold, raw day, Jonathan Stone met an
old chum,-a fellow-cabman. Jonathan
had not seen Ned for a long time; and,
as a matter of course, Ned asked him to
have half-a-pint. At first, Jonathan
stood stoutly out. He said he had
aan"' that upon
become a "coffee
coffee he had thriven, and to coffee he
would stick; b:t he iwas pressed so
to
close by Ned ~ t,jt was ~dork
but hala-pint that
hold out. It as ..
Ned wanted hiin to have."-: What harm
could that doinaman ? Did a man ever
get drunk on half-a-pint? Jonathan
remembered that half-a-pint used at one
time to have no effect on him at all: no,
nor had several half-pints; and DECEIT
began to whisper in him that, half-apint now, was the same as half-a-pint
then; and that, for the sake of so small
a compliance, it was not worth while to
offend an old comrade, whom he might
And Jonathan
never meet again.
yielded; and, according to promise,
Ned came out with him the moment he
had drunk the half-pint; and then,
with a hearty shaking of hands, they
parted.
But that half-pint had in it a power
of which Jonathan never knew. Had
he known it, he would as soon have cut
off his hand as stretched it out to touch
it. That half-pint was half-a-pint, not
only of beer, but of deceit. Imagine
half-a-pint of deceit in a man; and
what will it not do!
The taste of the beer was like the
taste of blood to a tiger. It stirred up
within Jonathan all sorts of recollections
of old drinking times ; but not a thought

FAMILY.

did it give to the wretchedness which
belonged to them. Oh,. no:; it would
have ceased to be deceit, if it had done
that. Old beery liquorish tastes began
to come into Jonathan's mouth; and
with them the taste of spirits too.
And, with the remembrance of these,
came an old gnawing and craving, and
the opening of a hundred mouths
within him, every one of which seemed
!
to cry out " Gin !" or "'Beer "
Oh, that Jonathan tad had the happiness to drive straight home when he
felt these dreadful gnawings, and scrapings, inside,-when he felt that liquorish
taste in his mouth! But he did not.
And every quarter of an hour these
grew stronger, and at with increasing
power; until at la : he went into a
public-house, and fatther on in the day
into another, and in tle end he returned
to his home, like the man out @.fwhom
the devil had gone, whose house was
swept and garnished; and who went and
took unto himself seven devils worse
than the first.
" Only one,--only one half-pint!"
How this Devil-Drink child, D)ECEIT,
grinned from ear to ear, as the " only
one" flowed down Jonathan Stone's
throat; adding one to the many successful operations he had on hand just
then !
CHAPTER IV.
AT the time that DECEIT, that DevilDrink child, ruined poor Jonathan
Stone, I said he had other operations
also on hand ; and how one of these
ended I must tell you. I say " one; "
for if I were to tell you all about
Deceit in connection with drink, I
should have to run the whole circle of
crime. Men have been led by the
deceit of drink, even to the gallows itself.
There was a low mean rascal of the
Devil-Drink family called DEFALCATION.
That seems a long word; it means
coming short in one's accounts, nmking
away with other,people's money, adso
forth; but let g4tell you thre.are
many of this family who have much
longer names than this.
Well, DEFALCATION and DECEIT were
sworn friends; and they always worked

The Cabmun's wife retU~ns tQ fJqd a drunken 1fban~d

THE DEVIL-DRINK

together. At least, so far as DEFALCATION
was concerned, he could not get on without DECEIT; though DECEIT did many
a stroke of business with which DEFALCATION had no concern.
DEFALCATION had to do with prigging
money from the till, of which account
should be given at the end of the day.
It had to do with changing the figures
in account-books.
It had to do with
not paying in money, which had been
collected during the day. And so forth.
DECEIT and DEFALCATION were just
now finishing up a piece of business they
had on hand for a good time. For
most of DECEIT's business took some
time to do; he had so often, as it were,
to burrow under ground, and to go
cautiously.

The pair were just bringing the
junior partner of a mercantile house to
grief. Faithful for many a year as a
clerk, trusted with uncounted money,
Henry Marston was at last made a
junior partner in the house of Corrothers, Brent, and Company.
That
was worth one thousand pounds a year
to him; and when old Mr. Brent should
die (and he was now seventy years of
age), another two thousand at least
would come to his share.
Meanwhile, Henry Marston's duty
was to take oversight of the books, and
arrange all matters with the bank. On
the strength of all this, Harry Marston
married a girl he had loved for a long
time, and who was devotedly attached
to him.
It was champagne that finished off
Harry Marston. After his marriage he
went out a great deal. He got into a
new round of society, now that he was
a partner in the house of Corrothers
and Brent; and being of a free and
genial disposition, the love of society
grew upon him; and, sad to say, his
own home life of an evening seemed
hum-drum.
Harry Marston's young
wife went out with him : she could not
let him go alone, for she saw with
grief that, he was getting fonder of
company than he ought to be; and she
observed, now and again, that, he looked
as if he were flushed with wine.
Champagne, suppers, and cards were
what deceived and ruined Harry Mar-

FAMILY.

ston and his wife. He went on from
one loss to another, until one day he
found himself in debt £1,000.
Harry Marston never would have
gambled to that extent-never gambled
at all, had it not been for the excitement of drink ; but he was continually
deceived into the hope of regaining
what he had lost; and so, one night,
playing "double or quits," he found
himself in this serious fix.
As Harry Marston would not tell
his wife, he determined to make up
this sum without her ever finding out
anything about it. In order to do this,
he took to the Stock Exchange, where
he lost in speculation ten times as
much; then he took to making false
entries in the books of his firm; then
to forgery; and at last he found himself in prison.
The poor, excited, and fuddled head
could not resist the importunity of
those who were no friends: it was
drink did it all; and the inside of a
jail (where his poor young wife saw
the last of him for many a day), and
penal servitude for five years, left
Harry Marston a broken and ruined
man for the end of his days.
DEGRADATION!
Yes: this is another
of them,-a true spawn of Devil-Drink
origin, -one of the family, and no
mistake. There is a touch of this
creature's work everywhere, where
there is drink. He is to be seen plain
enough in that poor fellow who is led
by champagne into prison; and now,
behold him in his work on woman, in
that degraded creature being dragged
off to prison. That is, or I had almost
said once was, " a woman." She looks
as if she were possessed of a devil,
and so she is, and a degrading devil
too; but she is a woman for all that.
A drunken woman is one of the foulest
blots to be seen on the face of creation :
she is a masterpiece of the Devil, and

of Drink. Amongst the most degraded
women, you will always find that
Drink has played some part in pulling
them down; and it has almost always
been the means of stifling their better
thoughts, and drowning their conscience,
and keeping them down.
Sometimes people do not get the

-THE DEVIL-DRINK

good they might from what they read,
because they meet with words too hard
for them; and some of the Devil-Drink
family have names which are very long,
and require to be explained. I should

FAMILY.

rank." When a sergeant has his stripes
cut off, and is reduced to being a
private again, he is degraded ; when an
honest workman becomes a thief, and
is imprisoned as a felon, he is degraded;

Harry Marston in prison visited by his wife.

like to make sure that every one who
reads these pages understands the
meaning of the word Degradation,-the
name of this Devil-Drink imp. It
means "a shameful.come down, or a
disgraceful fall from a higher grade or

when sober men, or women, become
They
drunkards, they are degraded.
come down from the rank of sober,
respectable people to the debased ranks
of the drunkard.
A degraded woman is a dreadful

THE DEVIL-DRINK FAMILY.

sight. The good God made woman to
be a charm, and a grace, and a beauty,
in creation; no flower was meant to
be able to compete with her in fairness, no music with her in voice: she
was to be a masterpiece of His hand.
When the Devil degrades a woman,
it is like a man taking a rose, and
trampling it in the mire under his foot.
Woman was meant to be the grace and
ornament of man,-an influence, from
whom streamed blessing; but when not
as God made her, but as Drink and the
Devil make her, there streams, and
streams from her, a curse.
And the higher and more lovely God
intended her to be, the lower and more
odious does the Devil make her to be,
when he degrades her by drink. A
drunken woman must be numbered
amongst the offscouring of creation.
She is a mire-trampled woman, she is a
pest to the world, she is a blotch of
disease, and not a blush of health-a
stink, and not a scent, an open sewer,
and not a clear running stream.
nasty
Hard words! -hard ,words!
words!. nasty words! :To:be sure, to be
sure; but they are not half' hard and
nasty enough to describe a drunken
woman, who (bad as he is) is more
n.
degraded than a drunken
I wish women 'knew what a grand
place in life the Almighty has intended
for them. I wish they knew their
mighty power in life. I wish they understood what a beautiful influence
God intended them to b-how much
Hie intended man to owe them,--how in
their gentleness, aid s*eet' ministries,
and in the wealth of theii affection, He
has set a mighty power, so that every
woman may be a holy centre, from
which would stream forth blessings of
one kind and another to all around,then a woman would be ashamed to get
drunk, to become degraded. A daughter
would be ashamed to be a drunkard, a
sister would be ashamed to be a
drunkard; above all, a wife would be
ashamed to be a drunkard,-to be
degraded, cast down from all God intended her to be.
If any woman reads these lines who
is a drunkard, or who is on the way to
becoming one, let her think of what

God intended her to be, and say, "By
God's help, as He has made me a woman,
I will not make myself worse than a
beast."
The ranks of the degraded in life
have been swelled by Drink more than
by anything else. It has filled prisons
with degraded men and women,-it has
shamed families, and with the help of
its cousin DISGRACE has made a father
or mother or sister or brother hang
down the head in shame. It hag
brought plenty of people down to the
level of the beast that perishes, and I
might almost say below it. The very
beasts of the field, if they had reason,
would scorn the drunkard.
Here comes another couple of little
Devil-Drinks. Ah, yes: twins again!
that bad couple have lots of twins.
DISTRUST and DISCREDIT,--these two
D's generally go together. If you were
to see them, one is seldom more than a
step. in advance of the other; and when
they come, they generally contrive to
bring ruin with them.
Sometimesyou meet with these two
in families; but generally they are to
be found in commercial circles. They
may often be seen in London in the
City, in the neighbourhood of Lombard
Street, where the banks are; often in
country towns, where the bank is ; often
at the wholesale place of business,
where the small shopkeepers go to
supply themselves; often at the village
shop, where the necessaries of life have
to be bought by numbers. Aye! you'll
hardly believe it, but so it is, that you
will find the
even in publichouses; and, although it suits the publican's interest-to laI man run up a long
score; yet when ~ce he becomes a
drunkard, and th .publican knows that
his earning power is gone, that he has
fallen into distrust with t~he master, he
will soon fall into discredit with him;
and the men who don't supply liquor
for nothing will not be long in letting
him know that, even with them, Discredit and Distrust are the drunkard's
portion.
But I must tell you how this pair
carried it on, in just a couple of places.
I say "a couple of places ;" but theo truth

cple

THE DEVIL-DRINk

is, they have been all the world over.
At one time Mr. Jonathan Comber
was a thriving builder. He began as
a journeyman carpenter, but by saving
money from the public-house, and in
other ways, he became at last a
31 i

,i

Ii l I I
It I-H l l1111111
I
iA

' lll ll

ll

FAMILY.

a very shrewd little man with one eye;
but who saw as much with that as many
would do with three (two before, and
one behind), kept that eye well fixed on
the doings of Jonathan Comber. He
had watched him, man and boy, for
-1

I
I

IIu I~I Itl

I

I

Ii

i ,

1

"

------------

builder

on his

own

account.

From

building cottages, he took to building
houses; and was in a fair way
for becoming a rich man. But, of
course, Mr. Comber could not carry on
so large a business without some money
help; and this the bank was very ready
to give him. The manager of the bank,

good fifteen years; he knew Jonathan
to be a sober man, and so he advanced
liberally, and Jonathan got on.
But Devil-Drink also had an eye on
Jonathan Comber; and Jonathan began
to drink,- just tipple a little,-and
that only at home.
"Hallo -

wheehew -hem

-

hah--

THE DE VIL-DRINK

hoh-indeed--well--oh ho." Who is
wheehewing, and hemming, and hahing,
and ho-hoing like this? Why the
little banker with the one eye; and
he is making all this to-do over a
hamper he sees at the station, while he
is waiting for the train.
"Well, Mr. Cameron, hasn't your
one eye seen plenty of hampers before?"
"To be sure, sir,-to be sure,-too
many of them; but it never before
saw one directed from Thomas Fresh
and Co., Wine Merchants, to Mr.
Jonathan Comber, North Street, Camberthorn."
Mr. Dugald Cameron held a private
and confidential conversation with his
one eye on that railway journey; the
upshot of which was that, that eye got
strict injunctions to keep itself wide
awake in the matter of the ways and
accounts of that particular customer of

the bank, called Jonathan Comber.
Having received such positive injunctions from its owner, Mr. Dugald
Cameron's eye looked into Mr. Jonathan's account more particularly than
usual; and on a slip of paper noted
down that, it had picked out from his
cheques no less than four on Thomas
Fresh and Co. within the last nine
months.
"Hah !" said the banker, as he sat
by the bank parlour fire, looking intently with his one eye into the coals;
and seeing there, unluckily for Jonathan
Comber, the face of a man all pimply
and blotchy with drink; and when he
gave that face a crack with the poker,
seeing the red-hot coal turn into a
tumbling-down house. " Hah, I fear,
Mr. Comber, you are going to the
bad. I shan't trust you quite as much
as I used."
" Take a turn round now and again
on those houses which Jonathan
Comber is building," said Mr. Dugald
Cameron to his useful little blinking
twinkling eye; " and tell me if you
see him on the spot, superintending
the men as he used to be."
Alas, the eye gave a bad report!
For two years it watched, and Jonathan
was found there gradually, very gradually, but still too surely, less and
less. And the less he was at the

FAMILY.

15

works, the oftener he came to the bank
for money, and the tighter he found
the banker; until at last Mr. Cameron
told him that he must withdraw his
credit, and stop any further advances.
That speech did not help to finish
the houses; on the contrary, it prevented their ever being finished by
Jonathan Comber. But it did something in the finishing way nevertheless. It finished the builder himself.
Within three months from the final
loss of his credit, Jonathan Comber was
a bankrupt. Of course, Jonathan was
sold up. The new row of houses went,
and his own house went, and he went
himself: that is, "went to the dogs,"
as we say; he never would have
" gone" by auction. If Jonathan had
been put up for sale along with his
houses, no one would have bid for
him. In vain would the auctioneer
have

cried

"Going,"

" Going ; "

he

never would have got as far as "Gone."
What use would he have been to any
one ? If there had been a pillory in
front of the town hall in which Jonathan
Comber could have been set permanently, or a pair of stocks; it might
have been worth while for the mayor
to have bought him, and set him there,
as an example of the ruin which drink
can bring upon a rising man; and
how it can undo, even in a very short
time, the efforts of years of honest toil.
CHAPTER V.
comes another of the Devil
Drinks, with a short ugly name,DRUDGE.
Every rhyme that jingles
with your name, DRUDGE, seems to me
to have something disagreeable connected with it. DRUDGE, "grudge,"
"smudge," "fudge,"
"judge," and
so on.
The poor Drudge is, alas!
dirty and grimy; her arms are
smudged, and her clothes are smudged;
there is dirt here, and there, and everywhere.
" It can't be helped."
Fudge, I say; the plain English of
which is, "that's a lie." For, the
reason why that woman, and a great
many women, are drudging is, because
their husbands, or, perhaps, they the a
HERE

THE DEVIL-DRINK FAMILY.

selves, have used in drink the money
which would have got them help.
Poverty makes drudges, and drink
makes poverty. And as to "judge,"
it has unpleasant thoughts of police,
and courts, and jail, connected with
it; and very few, if any, pleasant
thoughts at all.
Work, work, good honest work, fairly
paid, and fairly done, that is a grand
thing; and, perhaps, there is no happier
lot in life, taking it all in all, than that
of an honest healthy workman, with
work to do, and ability, and will, to do
it; and good money for it. Don't you
envy, my friend, the rich people who
have, as you think, a fine life of it; as
though they have it all their own way
in the world. I have known a great
many rich people; some of them very
rich; and I can tell you that, they
have their own vexations, and plenty of,
them. " No one knows where the shoe
pinches, but the man who wears it."
Let me tell you that is a very true proverb, and there are few rich men who
have not a pinching shoe. I don't mind
what they put on, boot, slipper, or shoe,
they are safe to have a pinch, and sorrow, and discomfort somewhere, if not
in the instep, or heel, perhaps under the
ball of the great toe.
Don't quarrel with work, my friend;
but though it is good to be a workman,
it is bad to be a drudge.
I do not go in for drudgery at all.
I do not believe that the Almighty ever
made any one to be a drudge-to be so
overburdened with work that, his or
her life becomes a burden. The Devil
makes his servants drudges; and though
you would not think it, some of the
worst and weariest of his drudges are
those who are employed in pleasures
which they are always pursuing, and
are never satisfied with. Believe me,
many a man and woman is set by the
Devil to work at pleasure, far harder,
than even an honest artisan has to
labour at his work.
But there is such a: thing as drudgery; and some of the .worst forms of
it come from drink.
That thin-faced toiling woman sitting
up at twelve o'clock by a scrap of fire
on a snowy night, while her husband,

with three pints in him, is snoring away
in bed, might have had those clothes of
her children made over and over again,
and she might have been asleep too, if
only her husband had let those pints
alone; and saved- up the money they,
and many like them, have cost; and
bought his wife a sewing machine. He
promised to "cherish her" when he
married her, "to love and cherish till
death us do part" were the very words
he said; and that's his way of "cherishing "-snoring there in bed, with his
three pints; and his poor wife dead
beat, drudging at twelve o'clock at
night, after having drudged from six
o'clock in the morning-eighteen hours.
Tom Stokes, my fine fellow, do you
take that in ? I wish you had eighteen
nightmares to impress it on your mind.
And you, and your mates, think eight
hours a day work enough for any man.
And if eight hours is enough for a
man; I want to know why eighteen is
not too much for a woman.
You complain, Tom Stokes, of the
washing being long about; you complain, Tom Stokes, that your wife looks
grimy at times; you complain that when
you come home 'tis always work, work,
work; and yet it never struck you,
Tom, my friend, that it is all your own
fault,; that for a trifle, old Mrs. Gow
would have come in for an hour every
morning, and helped. In your case, at
any rate, Devil-Drink has brought
drudgery into the house; and for all
its attendant discomfort, you have to
blame yourself.
You complain, Tom, that you can
never take a holiday. I feel very much
for you; for I believe in holidays; and
I believe the good God approves of an
honestly-earned, soberly, and properly
enjoyed holiday.
I think it freshens
up a man, and does him good, and
makes him a better man for his work;
and I think what is good for man in
this way, is good for woman too; and I
should have felt still more for you, Tom,
if I had heard you complaining that
your poor wife never got a holiday
either. I don't quite like to hear a
noble Briton like you (as I hear you
sing at the public that you are) thinking
only; of yourself. But let that pass.

THE

DEVIL-DRINK FAMILY.

Why can't you afford a holiday, Tom?
Because you have to work for two
homes instead of one; and I don't see
how a man, who does that, can have
much holiday.
You must work for the publican s
family as well as your own; and pay
for the publican's trap, and his wife's
trip to the sea-side; and for Sunday
holidays for him, and his children. And
you must teach his daughters to play
the piano; and you must keep his wife
fine while your own is--well, you
know; and as I hope the day will not
be far off, after you read these lines,
when you will be ashamed of yourself
for not lightening your wife's burden,
and your own too, all you can, I will
say no more.
No wonder poor Mrs. Stanley clutched
th e stair-banister for support-no wonder she felt her heart flutter,nd leap,
and then become still and cold like a
stone; when she heard what Dr.l
said, after he came out of the sick room
of that only child.' .
.
RIteginald Stanley was, or
er had
been, a fine, noble lad;
gven
great promise when he firs tarted in
life. As sool as he was of a he was
to come into a fine property; :and even
a couple of years before te time, half
the neighbourhood were ta ing of the
fine doings there would bpt$tanley
There
Court when that day cat~ewere old people on the estate who
remembered the coming of age of
Reginald's father, and his marriage,
and Reginald's birth, and all the fine
doings which took place on those occasions; and, there was a general looking
forward to the like, when Reginald himself should come into his property.
Alas, alas ! look at this picture, and
you have the day of the young man's
coming of age.
This is how it is
being kept.
No addresses, no fireworks, no games, no illuminations at
the Hall; no gathering of tenants,
of friendly .neighbours.
Reginald's
widowed' mother is keeping the day
of his coming of age, with a broken
heart, and the doctor. There she is
clutching the banister, and no wonder;
for the good doctor, after fencing with

Roots

Mrs. Stanley's questions for a long time,
has at last been obliged to tell the
whole truth, and say, "There is no
hope : your son must die !"
Dr. Roots was not a rich man, and
he had seven small children at home,
who were depending on his exertions;
but he would have given half he possessed in the world, not to have been
obliged so decidedly to pronounce that
his patient must die. But truth is truth,
and when forced to speak, it had to
come forth; and no wonder, as I have
said, that Mrs. Stanley gasped for
breath, and clutched the banister for
support.
For many a long day of
dreary widowhood had she watched
that boy; she had devoted her life to
him, she. had allowed her heart to be
bound up in him; and now he must
die. And what kind of death? A
death of DISuoNoun. The young man
was about to be executed: not, it is
true, by the hands of the common
hang nan, but by the hands of the vices
in which he had indulged. They were
his hangmen; and before that day week
they would do their work. One week
was the longest which Dr. Roots could,
at the outside, hope that his patient
In one week the young
could live.
man, who ought to be beginning life
with a grand career, would be stretched
a helpless corpse: a fine constitution
wrecked, noble prospects disappointed,
life wasted, run out almost before it
had begun-a triumph to the DevilDrinks, a number of whom have to do
with this unwholesome business.
There were present at that time in
that young man's room-aye, in his
very person,-no less than seven devils,
all members of the Devil-Drink family.
There were DEFILEMENT, and DEPRAVITY, and DEBILITY, and DisIIoounR, and
DELUSION, and- DEVASTATION,

and

DE-

STreLCTOrxN.t"es: that poor youth went
to college a fine strong lad. A mother's
care had matured him well, and nature

had given him a fine strong body. He
ought to have been the first in long
jump and high jump, in rowing and
running; but wine parties did for him,
and brought him into debility, and goodfor-nothingness, instead.
There is often but one step from

Mrs, Stanley hearing that her son must die.

THE DEVIL-DRINK FAMILY3

drink to defilement and depravity.
Drink stirs up the animal passions,
and, at the same time, removes the
checks which God has given, whereby
they can be restrained. Drink may be
said to be the gate standing upon the
road of defilement and depravity, which
ends in the gulf of destruction. If it
were not for drink, many a deed of
defilement would be left undone. Man
cannot defile himself without depraving
himself, without making himself so
much worse than he was before-so
much the more willing to sin-so much
the more likely to sin than he was
before; and as he becomes more and
more defiled, he becomes more and
more depraved. Away go honour, and
self-respect, and prudence, and all that
might have kept him back: the very
power of the depravity helps to make
him worse and worse.
The steps down-hill are quickly
trodden, and in the case of young men,
I have seen them taken at a gallop;
and so it is here. Vice brought with it
debility, and that debility was only the
forerunner of death.
There is weakness,-debility, which
is no offspring of Devil-Drink, which
may come from the immediate visitation
of God, or from any natural causes,-debility, which has in it much of trial,
but also much of blessing for the one
who suffers from it; but this Devildrink debility is a pitiable thing. It is
a melancholy spectacle to see knees
knocking together, which ought to be
firm, and well knit,-to see the back
bowed down, and the neck awry, when
the body might have been straight and
strong ;-to see the legs dragged along,
and the arms hanging almost powerlessly down,-this is sad, when it is
Devil-debility--a part of the Evil-One's
offspring through drink. Alas, it was
thus with this poor young man; and
the Devil, by dissipation, by defilement
and depravity, brought him to it. Here
was devastation indeed,-here was
wreck and ruin,-here was murder and
theft,-the murder of a man's life,the theft of everything good in him,the theft of all he might have been.
Devastation! all laid waste. Destruction!
all gone for ever. Sometimes devasta-

tion may be repaired; but where there
is destruction, there is utter ruin; and
that is what was here,-whole ruin.
And there was delusion with it. Ah,
yes: Delusion played a great part in the
whole matter, from beginning to end !
All the poor victims of the Devil are
deluded, more or less.
Reginald Stanley would not listen to
any one who told him that things were
likely to come to this. He was young
and strong; he felt plenty of life in
him; he had the world before him; he
could stop this course of life when he
pleased: what old fogies said about the
end of such ways was not true; and so
on. Moreover, there was something
else; and, good reader, attend to what
I say. There was a glamour, a mist, a
charm, a something which cannot be
explained or put into words, which led
the young man on. Sin can throw rosy
lights on the darkest objects. Sin can
make a man believe that he is hearing
music, when really there is nothing but
discord. Sin can bewitch, and it has
bewitched, even those who thought
themselves the wisest; till at last, they
are led on to eternal ruin.
CHAPTER VI.
THrERE was another pack of these
hounds hunting in another direction,
and they ran their game to death,
as indeed they generally do. DIFFERENCES, and DISAGREEMENT and DISSENSION, went on with DISTASTE, DISLIKE,
and DISGUST, to at last DISTURBANCE and

DIVORCE. No wonder that, a happy
home fell beneath the onslaught of such
a pack of wretches as these,-DevilDrinks were they: every one.
At first, there were no such things
as differences heard of in Michael
Hamblin's home. Michael had a pretty
little villa near London; and in the villa
Michael had a pretty little wife. Had
it not been for the Devil-Drinks, this
couple might have been happy for many
a long year.
At first Michael and his wife agreed
on almost every point; but gradually, a
change came over their happy life.
Michael used to take great pride in the
little woman, and the little villa; and

THE DEVIL-DRINK FAMILY.

seldom returned from his day's work in
the city, without bringing some trifle
for the one, or the other. But, after a
few months, things altered sadly for the
worse. Mary Hamblin observed that
Michael often returned empty-handed;
and often, in a very different mood from
the loving one of their earliest married
days. When, at last, she ventured to
remark this, with many tears in her
eyes, and much trembling in her voice,
all the answer she got was that "a
fellow could not be always boiling
over, "-that "he, individually, had
fizzed as long as anyone, at any rate as
long as most people; and that, he now
meant merely to stand on the hob for a
while, and take married life easy."
Now, to tell a woman that you intend
to "take her easy" is, perhaps, one of
the most exasperating things that you
could do. She would, in nine cases out
of ten, rather be punched outright. If
you punch to-day, you may purr tomorrow; but cold neglect! indifference!
there is little hope, when this strong
coldness once sets in, of its thawing.
And gradually, things grew worse and
worse. Michael Hamblin could hardly
hear his wife say anything, but that
must differ from her and contradict
her.
Differences, Devil- Drink spawn,
became common; and, as aimatter of
course, Disagreement came in. Sometimes, people may agree to differ; one
may like white, and another black; one
may be like Jack Spratt, who could eat
no fat, and another like his wife, who
could eat no lean; but there need be
no quarrelling on that account. But
the unreasonableness of drink was on
Michael Hamblin. He would be master
over his wife's opinions, and fancies,
and everything else; and soon matters
came to dissension and open war. And
drink did it all. Michael Hamblin had
a friend who came home with him in
the same train every evening, and who
first began by treating him to a glass
now and again, as they passed the
Railway Inn.
Then the "now-andagain" became almost a constancy;
only Michael, after a few turn-about
treats, began to pay for himself ; and to
take spirits of one kind and another.
And so, he used to come home to the

Jae

poor little wife, in the nice little villa,
not his real self at all, but a complaint
ing, snappish, cross, disagreeable man;
a man not above fighting with a woman,
or for the matter of that, with a cat, if
it happened to cross his path.
It was :not always the actual drink
that made Michael Hamblin what he
was. The consciousness that he was
going wrong made him irritable. He
felt ashamed of himself, even though
he would not allow it. He knew that
he had lowered himself in his wife's
eyes, even as he felt himself certainly
lowered in his own.
It is very seldom that, a wrangler is
allowed to have it all to himself. The
world seems full of flints and steels;
and when the one knocks against the
other, the fire is pretty sure to be struck.
Michael Hamblin was not allowed to
have it all his own way. At last his
wife's patience gave way, and dissensions and quarrels became frequent;
they might be said to be the rule of the
house.
Servant after servant went;
and the wife soon began to care very
little about the comforts of the man
who cared so little about her.
And now, three other of these hellhounds, these members of the DevilDrink family, drew on upon her,-DisTASTE; yes, more, DISLIKE; yes, worse,
'

fastened upon her. And to
look at the mans changed, and now
bloated face, who could wonder at it !
She turned utterly against the man she
once loved so much. At first, she became simply indifferent to him. But
few women are satisfied with indifference; she soon proceeded fo dislike ;
and at last she felt (disgust. She
loathed the man she once loved, 'and
who had once loved her. She felt that,
he was not worthy of the name of a
man; and she felt indignant at being
tied to such a creature.
At last, the whole affair came to a
melancholy ending. Infuriated by his
wife's giving him a bill, which the
sender said must be paid, at oncb, and
for which there would have been plenty
of. money but that it' gone in drink,
had
and by her pressing him to see to its
being paid; the wretched man dashed
the paper upon the ground, and dashed
DISGUST,

THE DEVIL-DRINK FAMILY.

21

his fist into her face. Husband and
wife made such a disturbance in the
neighbourhood that, the landlord of the
pretty little villa gave them notice to
quit. They disturbed the peace of the

after a miserable existence of a couple
of years. But there was one dreadful
D yet to come. The little wife, disgusted with her drunken husband,
found someone who flattered her; and

oaspectable people about.
Iomes !
neighbourhood s ! hearts ! consciences!
bodily health !-Drink can disturb them
all !
And so the home was broken up,

one fine evening, Mlichael lIamblin
found a note on his table saying that,
his wife had found someone she liked
better than him; that he need not
trouble himself to look after her, for

THE

22

DEVIL-DRINK

she had left the country. And on the
strength of this Michael got a DIvoRcE.
There was no one to oppose the application for it. But it did him no good; it
only set him free from one of the few
checks to his intemperance. The drunkard went from bad to worse, as most
drunkards do; until, without a friend to
follow him, he was laid in the grave; and
the Devil-Drink family held high holiday,
for they had run the game to earth!
T
CI.\PTER V II.

Ir_

JDrink

TIIU
. , i=.able
. -work

family are
to
in
many difEerent direct ions.
they are

I'

n

-

accomn-

plished
.family in
Sevil and
rmis ery
-"

of every
kind.

-'

theirother

Amongst
--- -

-

_

perform-

ances,
they are
able to make men as deaf as posts. I am
not talking now of their deafening the
two ears which most people wear at the
sides of their heads, but the ears of a
man's mind; or whatever those organs
are, by which he takes in what is for
his good. You hear of a man being
"deaf to all entreaty," " deaf to all
advice," and so forth; and this is the
deafness which the Devil-Drink family
are so well able to bring about.
" Well, son: what have you been
doing these times to help on the good
cause? " said theDevil-Drinks one dayjto
this one of their amiable flock. " You
are stupid to look at, but you are not
stupid to work; with all your heavy
features, you know well what you're
about. Come, tell us what you've been
at the last week."

FAMILY,

"What I've been at the last week,
did you say ?" said this imp, putting
his hand, or whatever he had like a
hand, up to his ear. " Well, I've been
deafening people, as usual; I'm at the
same work every day. I'll tell you
what I've been doing with the man I've
just left sprawling on the ground, in
front of the ' Three Thirsty Crows;' and
what I've done to him, I've done to
hundreds like him. There he is this
moment, a sight that would do your
heart good to see,-more of a beast
than a man. There he is, lying above
ground now, all of a heap; but wait a
while, and he'll soon be lying under
ground, not all of a heap, but stretched
out stiff and straight enough.
"I'm killing Farmer Stooks, just in
my own way, by deafening him. I'm
shutting up his ears every way. I shut
up even his natural ears at times; for
when he's in liquor you'll hear him
saying, ' Eh ?' and ' What's that ?' even
though people shout into his ears; for
his muddled brain can't be reached in
the common way,-he'd better, by long
odds for him (though not for us), have
a pair of good honest ass's ears. But
I've deafened the ears of his conscience.
When a man is in liquor, he has no conscience; but when a man is sober he
may have, and often does have, a conscience that gives me a great deal of
trouble; and there's many a man the
Devil-Drinks, my brothers and sisters,
could never get hold of, if I didn't drug
and stupefy his conscience. I've had
my share of trouble with Farmer Stooks,
I can tell you. The man had a conscience, and he has it now, too; only
i've made it deaf.
"This conscience led the man a
terrible life of it, when he began drinking. Like most people, he didn't
plunge into liquor at once; and no
sooner did he begin to go to 'the
public,' than conscience began to tackle
him. I can tell you, Stooks has not
come to what he is, without having a
sorry time of it. Sometimes, conscience
would come down on him with a slap
bang, and a shot that, went through
him, and made him quake, and said,.
'The drunkard will be damned, and
you're a drunkard;' and Stooks used

THE DEVIL-DRINK

to shake all over, and vow he'd never
go near 'a public' again. And sometimes, that conscience used to naggle
at him, and eat at him like rust at iron,
or like a moth at a piece of cloth, and
fret him night and day,-not making
him quake, but making him feel uncomfortable, and so wretched, he did
not know what to do with himself. To
have broken off with the drink would,
as far as that matter is concerned, have
given him ease; but that is not my
game; he'd never be lying where he is
now, if I had not had another way for
dealing with his conscience. I led him
to more liquor to drown it, and deaden
it, and make him stop his ears to it.
Parson White used to come along from
time to time stirring up Stooks' conscience ; and a real good one at making
conscience bite was that same Parson
White. I think he kept a file to
sharpen up the teeth of the conscience
of everyone in the parish; for even the
publican he often made miserable, and
kept him awake at nights. But I beat
Parson White, as I've beaten many
parsons. The parsons want folk to be
saved, and I want them to be damned;
that's the difference between us; and
we're not likely to make it up together ;
so he works at conscience his way, and
I work at it mine.
"Conscience doesn't trouble Farmer
Stooks much now. When it gives a
twinge, he knows where to go to get
all right, and he won't listen to it;
so he's safe for us, whether his time
be long or short.
" And there are thousands of others
who are becoming deaf to their conSome are only just beginsciences.
ning, and they are having a sore time
with its twinges; and some are hardening on, and will soon be as tough as
leather. And when the work is finished
up, and a man's conscience has no
more any power over him; then, father
and mother, the man is yours."
"We know that, my son. We have
plenty of people, once deafened to their
We have them safe
consciences.
enough; but they have all wakened
up to their consciences, and got back their
of
hearing again Now, when it is no use to
them, except to add to their miseries."

FAMILY.

23

"To be sure," said the Devil-drink
" You know my only business with them is while they are on
earth; and to make sure of them.
Once we have them, I don't care how
keen they are in hearing; the keener
the better, for the more miserable will
they be; and to make them miserable
is the one point we have in hand. I
wouldn't deaden their hearing of conscience for anything; once they are
ruined; the more it bites, and eats,
and gnaws, and stings, the better.
And i've made Farmer Stooks deaf to
other voices besides those of conscience:
deaf to the voice of his real interest,
deaf to the voice of afection, deaf to
the voice of warning.
"'Tis wonderful what the DevilDrinks can do in befooling men as
They are
regards their real interest.
keen enough in making bargains, and
all that sort of thing; but they do
not see that it is folly, for the sake
of a little passing pleasure, to lose
their own self-respect, and other
people's respect for them; nor do they
see how this loss must bring them
down in the world, sooner or later.
"Many a time Farmer Stooks' common sense told him this; but the glass
was close at hand, and the real interest
seemed a long way off,-a glass today couldn't hurt it; and so, he turned
a deaf ear to what must be even the
business-lot of the drunkard in the way
of ruin.
"And as to afection,-pooh, pooh
for that,-we Devil-Drinks would blow
bubbles with affection: we don't care
twopence a bushel for it! Why, we
are squashing it, and putting an extinguisher on it, and doing for it, every
day. Though at one time it could
speak with a tongue as loud as a
trumpet, we can bring it down to a
miserable squeak. When Stooks was
married, why, he'd catch the smallest
whisper of his wife: it was almost
dangerous for the woman to think anything, much less say it; for her husband
would read it in her eyes, or face, or
somehow; but now, Stooks is deaf even
to the entreaties of love: he does not
mind his wife's sobs any more than
And, by the
Punch minds Judy's.
DEAFNESS.

THE

DEVIL-DRINK FAMILY.

way, I'm always glad to see that show;
For it teaches children from their
earliest youth to laugh at a woman's
ill-treatment. I've thickened the drum
of Stooks' ear, so that it won't vibrate
now to the sounds of any such trash
as a woman's sobs.
" I had a hard pull in the matter of
warnings; but I succeeded in deafening
my man at last. That Parson White.
was the plague of my life. He was
always shaking his fingers at Stooks;
and telling him what dreadful things
lay before him, and all drunkards too.
Parson White used not to go about the
parish chirping like a young canary
bird, but slap-banging at sin, and the
devil, in downright earnest; and telling
the truth, and no mistake. If folk in
that parish go to hell, when they get
there they'll never forget Parson
White,-they'll say, ' He told us all
about it: he said we'd come here, and
he's proved right.' The fools!"
"Ay, aye," said another DevilDrink, who had just come in, and
heard the last part of his brother's
speech : "Ay, aye : the fools !'"
Now this Devil-Drink is a sneeringlooking fellow, with a curl in his lip,
and the skin at the side of his nose
twitching upward.
"You

know all about it, DERISION:

don't you ? The drunkard is laughed
at in this world, and the next,-on
earth, and in hell."
" To be sure he is," said the Devil" No one
Drink thus appealed to.
knows that better than myself, for I
make it my special business ; indeed,
the business, of my life that, it should
be so. The drunkard is the laughingstock of the publican, and the publican's wife, and the potman, when he
reels about in the street, and tumbles
in the gutter. Every one has a contempt for him; and even when people
pity him, they cannot help despising
him too. The man who does not respect himself, cannot expect others to
No one would
respect him, either.
believe it, unless they knew it for a
fact that, a man could sink so low as
not to care at being laughed at for
such a cause as this. But liquor can
bring him low every way, and make a

fool of him every way; and in this
amongst the rest.
"'Tis bad enough here; but what
will it be hereafter, when these fools
deride one another in hell; and when
the devils mock at them,--aye, and
when God Himself mocks them; for
because He called and they would not
answer, now He mocks when their
fear and calamity have come ? And
they shan't have a single word to say
for themselves: the drunkard shall be
a prime object of derision and mockery
in hell."

CHAPTER VIII.
and DEVOUNG !-another pretty pair of Devil-Drinks.
Wherever drink is going on, you
may, sooner or ;later, see these at
their bad work.
They both had a
hand in the ruin of Tom Frith, who
ought to have been a useful Squire;
but who took to drink, and so was
Then
both defrauded, and devoured.
DEFRAUDMENT

took
I)ESPERATION
and
possession of him, and finally DESTRUCTION; and so, like hundreds of thouDEGENERACY

sands of others, he was pulled down to
a dishonoured grave.
Tom Frith had about £3,000 a year,
-a very pretty sum for a young man
to be happy with, and do good with,
and be a blessing wherever he lived.
And Tom had not a bad heart in this
way: he was, as we say, no one's
enemy but his own.

And, in truth, at first he did very
well. He set to and improved all the
cottages on his estate, and made up the

fences, and helped the parson in his
charities; and everyone thought he
was going to be a blessing in the
neighbourhood.
Tom's sister lived with him, and a
happier two than Tom Frith and his
sister Minnie were not to be found in
the country round. But, alas! Tom
took to the races, and then to keeping
a couple of race-horses himself! Many
a tear did these horses cost his sister
Minnie; but Tom assured her, come
what would, he would never go beyond
his income,--and he was always kind
to her,

THE DEVIL-DRINK FAMILY.

But, somehow, these horses did not.
bring a blessing to them, or comfort
By'
to the house, but the reverse.
degrees strange, people came about
the place,-sometimes for an hour or
so, sometimes just to stay for the night;
and gradually, the circle of these
people increased, until the Hall was
seldom free from them.
And with these people came winedrinking, and smoking. Tom Frith

himself used neither to drink nor
smoke; but a man too soon in general
becomes like his company; and Tom, to
his sister's great horror, once or twice
came up to the drawing-room after
dinner, evidently the worse for liquor.
Little did Tom Frith-poor,'easy going
fellow! think that, he was harbouring
the Devil-Drink family under his roof;
and that, he was on the way to ruin.
But so it was. At first, the young man
kept well within his means. But such

25

-soon

company ,as he kept
led. him
beyond that. Then Tom began to keep
a smaller balance at his bankers', then
to overdraw his account, then to borrow
money, and finally to get into difficulties.
It was all down-hill. The stairs had
still a carpet on them, for Tom was as
yet far from being -ruined; but it was
all downstairs nevertheless, and at the
bottom of them . was an ugly fall.
The Devil-Drinks do a stroke of

in every direction. rTiley
cheat a man out of his respectability,
and his self-respect, and out of his
health, and his wits, and his position,
property,-out of all they can in
this life (and it is not their fault if that
is not everything), and out of everything, most certainly, in the life that is
to come.
Poor Tom Frith was marked by the
Devil-Drink called DEFRAUDMENT. NOW
this Devil-Drink had plenty of confedeDEFIRATUDMENT

.and

THE DEVIL-DRINI

rates in flesh and blood; from the
common pickpocket in the street, up to
the sleek and honey-tongued moneylender. And the Devil=drink DEFRAuDMENT had one of these latter all ready
for Tom Frith.
There was a great race coming on,
and Tom Frith was persuaded that his
horse "War Chief" would win. Things
had been going down lately, but "War
Chief" would make up for all. "To
be sure he will," said Jack Nippers, his
particular friend; "but you must lay
heavily upon him. If I had the money
I'd lay every farthing I possessed on
him: 'tis a certain fortune; such a thing
as comes in a man's way only once in
one's life."
"But where is the money to come
from?" said Tom. "I'm deep at the bank."
"Oh, I'll find the money ! " said
Nippers. Nippers had his man all
ready: it was only to telegraph to Mr.
Jenkins, who occasionally lent money
quite privately ; and Mr. Jenkins
answered to the telegram by the very
next train. Mr. Jenkins was a very
sleek-looking gentleman, bald, and
somewhat advanced in life, with his
clothes very well fitting; and not at all
in appearance anything to frighten a
young man. Mr. Jenkins did not in
the least push himself forward: on the
other hand, he -observed "a policy of
expectancy;" or, in other words, he
waited to see which way the cat would
j ump; or, in plainer words still, how
things would turn out.
Nippers did most of the talk; and,
unfortunately, while the talk was going
on, the bottle was at hand, and Tom
had had a glass too much. It was in
vain that poor Minnie Frith stood by,
that she often touched her brother's
shoulder. Nippers was too energetic,
and Jenkins too accommodating; and
the drink was too powerful in poor
Tom's brain. His judgment was fuddled; and before that interview was
over, the cat jumped in such a fashion,
that, in virtue of his name put by Tom
Frith to a paper which Mr. Jenkins
happened to have handy in his pocket,
Tom's doom was sealed. He never
recovered that loan. The race was run
and lost. The horse "War Chief" was

FAMILY.

nowhere; and, one year after that race
Mr. Jenkins was the master of Hornhdean, poor Tom's estate; and Mr.
Nippers and he Walked round it
together, and declared it to be a very
compact and eligible property; and
before he left, Mr. Nippers received
from Mr. Jenkins the sum of five
hundred pounds, being the sum agreed
on between them, if the transaction
about Tom Frith turned out all right,for there is such a thing as "honesty
amongst thieves."

It was a swindle, a defraudment
throughout; but Mr. Jenkins was able
to keep well within the law, and could
make a ring of the Lord Chancellor, the
Justices of Appeal, the Master of the
Rolls, and the twelve Judges, and sit in
the middle smoking his pipe, and
laughing at them all.
Nippers and Jenkins were Devil-drink
devourers,-the instruments used by
liquor to put poor Tom Frith out of his
property, and Minnie out of her home.
But, though Tom Frith had been a
fool, that did not save him in any wise
from the consequences of his folly.
Nothing of the kind ? If you choose to
eat a paving-stone, you shall get indigestion; if you sit in your wet clothes,
you shall get cold, or fever, or rheumatism, or all three. In whatever respects
a man is a fool, he shall find that foolish
acts draw after them the consequences
of folly; so it was with Tom, he was as
much ruined as if he had been the
greatest villain in the world, everyone's
enemy as well as his own.
Then a number of other Devil-Drinks
set upon him. Just as all sorts of insects
attack decaying wood, and decaying
flesh, so there are evils ready always to
pounce on those whom Drink has
knocked down.
DATION,

DEGENERACY, DILAPI-

DESPERATION,

DESTRUCTION,-

they all came on Tom Frith, one after
another.
Tom Frith was devoured. The DevilDrinks, by means of Messrs. Nippers
and Jenkins, ate up his paternal home,
his farm, and cottages; as effectually
devoured them, so far as Tom was concerned, as if they had eaten them, and
digested them, and they had ceased to be.
But they did not knock Tom out of

THE

DEVIL-DRINK FAMILY.

the world all at once. Tom Frith lived
for some time after this. Two or three
other Devil-Drinks had to have a pull at
him, and so DEGENERACY took him in

hand, and down he went, day by day,
down in his tastes, down in his health,
down in his clothes, down in his companions, and down in his feelings, until
at last he became the victim of DILAPIDATION :

and

there he is,and that I call
-6

27

The conscience that might have kept
a man from going the down-hill path
is drowned with a dram: it becomes
easier and easier every day, then comes
some grand Devil-chance, and DevilDrink is ready to avail itself of it; and
destruction is the end; and winds up
the scene. Ah me ! only so far as this
world is concerned, - for there is a
tremendous D, the worst of all the
Devil-Drinks, to come,-DAMNATION,--

DILAPIDATION.

for no drunkard is to come within
" the city's wall," or inherit eternal life !

Talk of buildings becoming
dilapidated, of
the roof falling

THERE

CHAPTER IX.
are plenty of daggers which are
not made with steel at all,-sharpin, of the flooring becoming pointed, keen-edged daggers, able to
rotten, of the slide in between the ribs into the
be- heart, cutting deeper than any steel.
furniture
coming moth- Wherever the heart of hearts is, there
eaten, of decay those daggers are able to reach, and
here, and there, pierce, and cut, and rend,-even where
steel could never come.
and everywhere.
All these daggers are of Devil-Drink
no
There is
dilapidation so manufacture, and are intended to do
JI
terrible, so com- Devil-Drink work; and this they do,
And there are no
plete as that of only too well.
earthly surgeons to cure these wounds,
a human being,
which generally, after inflicting more or
of a drunken,
dissipated man less torment, end with miserable death.
Drink has struck its dagger into the
woman.
or
will hearts of husbands, and wives; into
Nothing
round health, honour, hopes, - everything
gather
\\
them, as the ivy that could brighten life. When men
does around the ruin, to veil in have begun to give themselves to drink,
beauty its decay; never can they they have often little known that they
look picturesque, or group round them were playing with edged tools, sure to
Devil- cut them at the last. There is many
fond memories of the past.
work is all that they can present to the a murder committed in God's sight, of
which human law does not take any
eye, or to the mind.
notice.
The hangman has no one
And so at last came DESPERATION
handed over to him for breaking
In the fulness of
and DESTRUCTION.
his misery poor Tom Frith just dropped human hearts: killing by inches. INo
over the parapet of Waterloo Bridge doubt, Drink has handed over to the
one winter's night. The tide was out, executioner more than anything else.
and he was just buried in the mud. Plenty have been hanged who would
There he was found at daylight,--a never have come to the gallows but
mud heap, and nothing more. At for drink; but for one who has been
least nothing more to the eye of the executed for open murder, there are
waterman who took the body; but oh, hundreds who have committed as bad
how much more, if one went below and as real murder, who have never
been even accused of it, much less
the surface of things !
Here is the ruin of all God has hanged for it. They are the assassins
who have murdered wives, and homes,
made, - here is Devil-work indeed!

THE .DE VIL-DRINK

and children, and parents, with Drink's
dagger.
There is a scoundrel, who deserves to
have the rope round his neck, who has
murdered the woman lying on that
bed. That is .Ned Coleman, and that
dead woman is, or was, his wife; and
Poor woman, she
that is his child.
was once lithe as a willow wand, but
she is stiff enough now ; her heart once
beat quick and strong when Ned came
near; but now it is as still as a stone,
though he is close at hand. Ned Coleman has daggered her: starved her
body, broken her heart; and that
caindle in his hand, now almost gone
out, has just enough light left in it to
show him that the life has entirely
gone out of the woman he once promised
to "love and. cherish" for ever.
Poor Catherine Coleman, she worked
hard at her needle, and kept .her child
from want, though she starved herself ;
and here she lies, her fingers stiff in
death in the last clutch she made at
her dress, to loosen it for breath. And,
Ned Coleman, that empty plate, those
well-worn scissors, that desolate flowerpot (the flower faded away, like her
life) are all that are left to you: for
that child you can never keep, and a
good thing for it too. The workhouse,
bad as it is, will be better for it than
you can be: the man who drinks the
mother's life away, is not likely to do
much for the child.
I should say that this fellow Coleman
has stabbed child as well as wife.
That child will go to the workhouse;
and while the workhouse is better than
nothing, yet I don't consider it the
choicest nursery for bringing up the
young. Even if that child grows up
well, the wretched father has stabbed
its youth. What youth has the workWhat blessed fond
house child ?
What
memories to dwell upon ?
parent's eye will there be upon him,
when he goes forth into the wide cruel
What parent's hand will
world?
little
there be to shelter him ? .No:
Johnny Coleman will go. forth into the
world with a stab in him; and, in some
form or other, he will carry the effects
of that stab with him to his grave.
And, depend upon it, Mr. John Cole-

FA MILY.

man has stabbed himself, and that
pretty deeply too. Whether he reform
or not, he has the dagger-Drink in
him, and will have it to his dying day.
Let him become never so sober, his
conscience will tell him that heo has
murdered that wife. Let him become
never so much a worse drunkard,
I)rink will not get rid of the ghost.
No: the ghost of the woman, grasping
her nightdress to catch a last breath,
will glide across his path when he least
expects it. He will see it in out-of-theway corners, and dark places; and
when people are drinking with him in
the public-house he will see what they
cannot: the ghost will glide through
the room. And when it is time for
John Coleman and his fellow-tipplers
to be turned out ir-to the street, John
will be afraid to go out,.-out into the
dark; for the ghost may cross hinm in
spectre-whiteness there. A dagger for
John Coleman; a dagger for John
Coleman's wife; a dagger for John
Coleman's child; all well thrust inthrust up to the hilt; for Devil-Drink
likes to do his work well. That will be
enough of the story of John Coleman
here; the rest of all such stories will
be told in the judgment-day.
Ah, poor Simon Smith, a lot of the
Devil-Drinks have got hold of you!
Four " D's," every one of them I)Devildrinks; and they have done for

ouL
in

life.
DISADVANTAGE, and DISABILITY,
and DISQUALIFICATION, and
MENT will finish you up ? Why should

DISAPPOINT-

I say will finish you up ? They hIave
finished you up, and no mistake.
Simon, you entered Mr. Pinkney's
workshop under great disadvantage.
Mind, Simon, when I am speaking to
you of DISADVANTAGE, I am speaking

of a Devil-Drink : one of those wicked
ones of whom I am writing now. You
had the disadvantage of being given
to liquor. I don't say, Simon, that
you were a drunkard; I only say that,
in a tolerably moderate way, you were
given to liquor. And this was a terrible disadvantage to you. Mr. Pinkney's was a workshop in which every
thrifty prudent man cojd rise; but

Coleman finds his wife dead.

THE DE VIL-DRINK

you not only never rose in it, but you
were turned out from it.
That was a nice piece of work which
Mr. Pinkney undertook for Lady Coles ;
and there was no man in his shop
better able to do his part in the carving
than yourself. You were so well able
to do it that, when you entered Mr.
Pinkney's shop, on exhibiting some
specimens of your work, he entrusted
you with one of the most delicate parts
of it. I can see how there was a small
fortune for you, Simon, in the right
doing of that job; but you started on
it, my lad, at a disadvantage.
You
were not always as firm and steady in
the hand, as you might have been.
It is a great advantage to have a
steady firm hand and eye.; to look
well at a thing, and see at once what
has to be done; to be able to take
your chisel in your hand, and make
almost a clean cut of it; that is the
masterly way of doing one's work. And
every man who goes to his work with
a clear eye and a firm hand has, even
at starting, a great advantage.
But,
Simon, you know that, that morning
when you started on that work, the
eye was not clear, the hand was not
firm. You had a pint of strong beer;
it just sufficed to spoil your work.
The

Devil-Drink

DISADVANTAGE

had

you, my poor fellow, and handed you
over to his brother Devil-Drink DisABILITY,

who soon passed you on to

another of the crew, and.did for you
that very day.
Yes: DISABILITY took possession of
you: you were not able for the workyour eye was not as clear as it should
be; you mistook the delicate tracing of
the pattern; and your unsteady hand
niggled at the work, and then took out
what could not be restored. And the
master soon found it out; for this was
an important job, and one on which he
kept his eye pretty closely. And now
comes Devil-Drink-number three DISQUALIFICATION.

"Simon

Smith,

you

walk; and come back to this shop no
more."

And Simon had to walk. He had
disqualified himself for a place as a
good and trustworthy workman. He
had no one to blame but himself. But
he was as badly off, yes, many times

FAMILY.

worse off, than if he had many outsiders to blame. For one may hope to
get away from outsiders, but one's
"'self " a man always carries about with
him. And so, wherever Simon Smith
went, he'carried his enemies with him.
And what could he hope to do in life
weighted with DISADVANTAGE, and DISABILITY,

and DISQUALIFICATION

every-

where, and in everything? What good
was it for Simon to turn his hand to
some other business, or try this or that?
It would only be the same story over
and over again.
Was it any wonder, then, that DIsADVANTAGE,

DISABILITY, and DISQUALI-

these three Devil - drinks,
brought with them, as a natural consequence,- another of their kin: i.e.
FICATION,

DISAPPOINTMENT ?

Simon Smith knew well enough that
he was a good workman, and that he
might reasonably expect to get on well
in the world ; always supposing that
there was not something special to prevent. And here he was, put out of one
place after another, and only now and
again able to do a little job at all worthy
of his powers. Alas, there was just the
something special in the way; and it
was a stumbling-block over which Simon
could not, or rather would not, get.
And so, he lived, and died, a disappointed
man. The girl whom he loved would
have nothing to do with him, when she
found out that he carried that about
with him, which would prevent his ever
being able to make a happy home for her.
He had the mortification to see her
married to another man; and down he
went deeper and deeper by degrees, as
most disappointed men do; until at last
he went down so low that, he could not
be fetched up again.
CHAPTER X.
I FIND that it would be impossible to
give a full account of all the DevilDrink family; to do so woull require
almost a volume in itself.

I shall,

therefore, content myself with giving a
list of their names in full, and shall,
dwellupon only three orfour. Here, then,
is a list of the Devil-Drink family,
everyone of them, of course, beginning
with a D. Of the first division we
have spoken at large; they are--

THE DEVIL-DRINK FAMILY.
DESTRUCTION,
DISTRESS,
DISEASE,
DAGGERS,
DAGGLE-TAIL,
DAMAGES,
DAMP, DEAFNESS, DECEIT, DEFALCATION,
DEFEAT, DEFILEMENT,
DEFRAUDMENT,
DEGRADATION,
DEVOURING,
DEGEDELUSION, DEPRAVITY, DERI-

INERACY,
SION,

DESPERATION, DESTRUCTION, DEVASTATION, DIFFERENCES, DILAPIDATION,
DISABILITY, DISADVANTAGE, DISAGREEMENT,

DISAPPOINTMENT,

DELINQUENCY,

DESERTION, DELIRIUM, DEATII,DISCREDIT,
DISSIPATION, DISGRACE, DISGUST, DIsHONOUR, DISLIKE, DISMAY, DISSENSION,
DISTASTE, DISTRACTION, DISTRAINT, DISTRESS, DISTRUST, DISTURBANCE, DIVORCE,
DOLEFULNESS, DREAD, and DRUDGE.

There remain yet of the family,DESPAIR, DANGER, DAMNATION,DARKNESS,
DEBT, DEBASEMENT, DECAY, DECREPITUDE,

DESPONDENCY, DETESTATION, DEFORMITY,
DEJECTION,

DESOLATION,

DESTITUTION,

DETRIMENT, DEPRESSION, DEMENTIA (madness), DEMOLISHMENT (final ruin), DEMONIANISM (devil possession), DEPLORATION (lamenting), DEPRIVATION, DERO-

GATION (the destruction of the value of
a thing), DISSENSION, DESPISAL, DISCRASY
(bad blood), DISAFFECTION, DISAGREEABILITY, DISAPPROVAL, DISARRAY, DISASTER, DISAVOWAL (rejection), DISCHARGE,
DISCOMFORT, DISCOUNTENANCE, DISFAVOUR,

DISHEARTENMENT, DisOBEDIENCE, DISORDER, DISPLEASURE, DISTORTION, DISUNION, DIVISION, DOGGEDNESS,
DOGMATISM (foolishly positive in one's
own
opinion),
DROPSY,
DROWSINESS,
DaOUGHT,DULNESS, DASTARDLINESS; andno

DISFIGUREMENT,

doubt many more, if we had only time to
hunt up all the relations to the last degree.
Let the drunkard be assured that,
more or less, he has do with everyone of
these; that they are all members of the
same family, and a more disgraceful
lot it is hardly possible for anyone even
to imagine.
But now I must speak, in particular,
of two or three of these evil ones; and
when I have done so, and the reader
puts together all that has been said on
this subject, it is to be hoped that, if
he has already formed any connection
with this evil family, he may break off
from it at once; and if he has not, that
he may keep from it, as far as possible,
for ever.
DECREPITUDE is one of the Devildrink family which, surely, though

perhaps slowly, sooner or later takes
hold of those with whom the DevilDecrepitude is
drinks get connected.
the enfeebling of the mind and body,
-the becoming old before one's time.
It comes generally before the killing of
a man by the Devil-Drinks, and sometimes it lasts long; so that those who
see a man in this condition think that,

he might almost as well be dead at
once. There is no hale old age for the
drunkard, there is no brightness for
his declining days; the man is broken
down, and none can in this world ever
build him up. Many a young man is
to be seen thus old before his time.
Weakness has entered his brain with
all its power of thought, and his limbs
with all their powers of action, and his
mind with all its power of hope and
resolution; so that ,the manhood is
knocked out of a man; and a mere
creeping, crawling existence is left him,
which is not worthy of the name of
life. The men upon whom the DevilDrink family fasten, become brokendown men,-an army of cripples; hangers- on, instead of active doers in life;

good for nothing to themselves, and
less than good for nothing to their
unfortunate wives and children, if they
have any; and whether they have or
not to society

and,

their fellow-men,

who have too often to support these
self-made cripples in a workhouse for
the rest of their lives.
Then there is DESOLATION.

Ah! many

a drunkard's home is just the very
abode of Desolation. Foodless, furnitureless, fireless, with often no more
than a poor heap of shavings for a
bed; the home of the drunkard in its
desolation is not worthy the name of
And, worst of all!
"home" at all.
there is to be found in this house, for
we can scarce call it a "home," desolation of heart.. That is the worst deso-

lation of all.

A heart with all its

furniture, fire, and food stolen from it;

and it, left.empty and bare! There is
no desolation like this. And many a
wife, and many a child, have had this
desolation; and the drunkard has had
it himself.
There are moments in the life of even
the hardest,and the most debased,when
the heart will be empty, and the man

THE DEVIL-DRINK

FAM LY.

knows it; and, moreover, the man cannot escape from it. The worst of all
desolation is that which a man carries
about with him. Drink is perhaps,
next to Death, the great desolator. In
one respect it is a much worse desolator
than Death, for Death may and does
leave many pleasant memories in the
heart; and the heart can become stored
again with scenes and persons passed
away indeed, but leaving a fragrance
behind them; but Drink has no pleasant
memories, and the sights and sounds
which it leaves in the heart are such as
that heart in the hour of its misery
loathes.
DESTITUTION ! What is drunkenness
but, as it were, the history of destitution ? Read the trials before the magistrates, and what do they say? Here
comes a prisoner to be committed for
trial for murder, who has killed his
wife. Driven to desperation,-which

to the man with whom the Devil-Drink
family have had to do. To them it
comes not as God-sent,-not to remove
them hence to the presence of God, and
to where they will be better off than
ever they ceald have been here,-but it
comes through their own evil. They
have drurnk out with liquor the very
essence ,)f life; they have poisoned its
fountains; they have knocked down its
walls. Death comes to them in this life
only the forerunner of that terrible
death, which is to come when this
world's life has come to an end.
The drunkard can look forward to no
calm departure hence, with the promises
of God to cheer him; for he has the
direct threat that drunkards, such as he,
shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven.
For him there is nothing but the judgment seat, and the condemnation that
belongs to it. He lived dishonoured,
and useless, he must die unlamented,
and disgraced. The best that people
DESPERATION is, by the way, another of
the Devil-Drinks,-he has just knocked can say of him is that " he has been his
her down; and when his rage was up, own enemy; " and if one thinks of it,
has so kicked her about the head, that what worse can be said of a man than
she has been picked up dead. His this? And, last of all, comes the Devilexcuse is that, every penny he gave Drink for which all the others work, and
her for food went in drink, and this is DAMNATION. They all head up
that, every bit of furniture he bought to this; this is the terrible end; this is
was made away with; and that, the the last prospect of the drunkard. To
shilling he had given her that morning this he goes when he dies. He made
had gone in liquor; and if that will himself unfit for the kingdom of heaven;
not be a case for the hangman, it he destroyed all within him on which
certainly will be one for penal servitude the Gospel might have taken hold; he
for life; and some say that one might has put the clear water of life away
as well be hanged as be sentenced to that. from himself, for the sake of the mudBut one has not to go far to find the dling pleasure of drink.
Of this terrible future we know but
Devil-Drink DESTITUTION. The wretched
thing is everywhere. It has filled the little; we only know that it is full of
workhouses. If there were no such terror, and distress. It is set forth in
thing as drink, more than three-fourths Holy Scripture by all that can appal the
of the people now in workhouses would imagination and alarm. The abode of
never have found their way there. the drunkard is described as "a place of
Drink prevents people laying anything torment."
And into this misery are the Devilby. Drink prevents their accumulating
any little capital, with which to get on. Drink family hurrying prodigious numDrink keeps the house dirty, and the bers every year. Down, down they go,
children unfed, and so brings in disease, sunk into ruin, for such wretched
which, in its turn, brings in the doctor; pleasure as can be got out of beer, and
and the doctor's bill must follow the gin, and drink of any kind; and of the
place into which they are cast we are
doctor himself.
And, at last, comes DEATH. Death told that there is not a drop of water to
must come to all; but death is by no assuage their thirst, or cool their tongue.
means the same to all. And what is it
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Adovrtising Ofices, 17 & 18, Arundel Street, Strand, W.C.

This book is a preservation facsimile produced for
the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
It is made in compliance with copyright law
and produced on acid-free archival
60# book weight paper
which meets the requirements of
ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (permanence of paper).
Preservation facsimile printing and binding
by
Northern Micrographics
Brookhaven Bindery
La Crosse, Wisconsin
2012