PART II.
But it may be said, if we reject spirits from being a part of our drinks, what liquors shall we substitute in their room? I answer, in the first place,
1. Simple Water. I have known many instances of persons who have followed the most laborious employments for many years in the open air, and in warm and cold weather, who never drank any thing but water, and enjoyed uninterrupted good health. Dr. Moseley, who resided many years in the West-Indies, confirms this remark. “I aver (says the doctor), from my own knowledge and custom, as well as the custom and observations of many other people, that those who drink nothing but water, or make it their principal drink, are but little affected by the climate, and can undergo the greatest fatigue without inconvenience, and are never subject to troublesome or dangerous diseases.”
Persons who are unable to relish this simple beverage of nature, may drink some one, or of all the following liquors, in preference to ardent spirits.
2. Cyder. This excellent liquor contains a small quantity of spirit, but so diluted, and blunted by being combined with a large quantity of saccharine matter, and water, as to be perfectly wholesome. It sometimes disagrees with persons subject to the rheumatism, but it may be made inoffensive to such people, by extinguishing a red hot iron in it, or by mixing it with water. It is to be lamented, that the late frosts in the spring so often deprive us of the fruit which affords this liquor. The effects of these frosts have been in some measure obviated by giving an orchard a north-west exposure, so as to check too early vegetation, and by kindling two or three large fires of brush or straw, to the windward of the orchard, the evening before we expect a night of frost. This last expedient has in many instances preserved the fruit of an orchard, to the great joy and emolument of the ingenious husbandman.
3. Malt Liquors. The grain from which these liquors are obtained, is not liable, like the apple, to be affected by frost, and therefore they can be procured at all times, and at a moderate price. They contain a good deal of nourishment; hence we find many of the poor people in Great-Britain endure hard labour with no other food than a quart or three pints of beer, with a few pounds of bread in a day. As it will be difficult to prevent small beer from becoming sour in warm weather, an excellent substitute may be made for it by mixing bottled porter, ale, or strong beer with an equal quantity of water; or a pleasant beer may be made by adding to a bottle of porter, ten quarts of water, and a pound of brown sugar, or a pint of molasses. After they have been well mixed, pour the liquor into bottles, and place them, loosely corked, in a cool cellar. In two or three days, it will be fit for use. A spoonful of ginger added to the mixture, renders it more lively, and agreeable to the taste.
3. Wines. These fermented liquors are composed of the same ingredients as cyder, and are both cordial and nourishing. The peasants of France, who drink them in large quantities, are a sober and healthy body of people. Unlike ardent spirits, which render the temper irritable, wines generally inspire cheerfulness and good humour. It is to be lamented that the grape has not as yet been sufficiently cultivated in our country, to afford wine to our citizens; but many excellent substitutes may be made for it, from the native fruits of all the states. If two barrels of cyder fresh from the press, are boiled into one, and afterwards fermented, and kept for two or three years in a dry cellar, it affords a liquor which, according to the quality of the apple from which the cyder is made, has the taste of Malaga, or Rhenish wine. It affords when mixed with water, a most agreeable drink in summer. I have taken the liberty of calling it Pomona wine. There is another method of making a pleasant wine from the apple, by adding four and twenty gallons of new cyder to three gallons of syrup made from the expressed juice of sweet apples. When thoroughly fermented, and kept for a few years, it becomes fit for use. The blackberry of our fields, and the raspberry and currant of our gardens, afford likewise an agreeable and wholesome wine, when pressed and mixed with certain proportions of sugar and water, and a little spirit, to counteract their disposition to an excessive fermentation. It is no objection to these cheap and home-made wines, that they are unfit for use until they are two or three years old. The foreign wines in common use in our country, require not only a much longer time to bring them to perfection, but to prevent their being disagreeable, even to the taste.
4. Molasses and WATER, also VINEGAR and WATER, sweetened with sugar or molasses, form an agreeable drink in warm weather. It is pleasant and cooling, and tends to keep up those gentle and uniform sweats, on which health and life often depend. Vinegar and water constituted the only drink of the soldiers of the Roman republic, and it is well known they marched and fought in a warm climate, and beneath a load of arms which weighed sixty pounds. Boaz, a wealthy farmer in Palestine, we find treated his reapers with nothing but bread dipped in vinegar. To such persons as object to the taste of vinegar, sour milk, or butter-milk, or sweet milk diluted with water, may be given in its stead. I have known the labour of the longest and hottest days in summer supported, by means of these pleasant and wholesome drinks, with great firmness, and ended, with scarcely a complaint of fatigue.
5. The SUGAR MAPLE affords a thin juice, which has long been used by the farmers in Connecticut, as a cool and refreshing drink, in the time of harvest. The settlers in the western counties of the middle states will do well to let a few of the trees which yield this pleasant juice remain in all their fields. They may prove the means, not only of saving their children and grand-children many hundred pounds, but of saving their bodies from disease and death, and their souls from misery beyond the grave.
6. Coffee possesses agreeable and exhilarating qualities, and might be used with great advantage to obviate the painful effects of heat, cold, and fatigue upon the body. I once knew a country physician, who made it a practice to drink a pint of strong coffee previously to his taking a long or cold ride. It was more cordial to him than spirits, in any of the forms in which they are commonly used.
The use of the cold bath in the morning, and of the warm bath in the evening, are happily calculated to strengthen the body in the former part of the day, and to restore it in the latter, from the languor and fatigue which are induced by heat and labour.
Let it not be said, ardent spirits have become necessary from habit in harvest, and in other seasons of uncommon and arduous labour. The habit is a bad one, and may be easily broken. Let but half a dozen farmers in a neighbourhood combine to allow higher wages to their labourers than are common, and a sufficient quantity of any of the pleasant and wholesome liquors I have recommended, and they may soon, by their example, abolish the practice of giving them spirits. In a little while they will be delighted with the good effects of their association. Their grain and hay will be gathered into their barns in less time, and in a better condition than formerly, and of course at a less expense, and a hundred disagreeable scenes from sickness, contention, and accidents will be avoided, all of which follow in a greater or less degree the use of ardent spirits.
Nearly all diseases have their predisposing causes. The same thing may be said of the intemperate use of distilled spirits. It will, therefore, be useful to point out the different employments, situations, and conditions of the body and mind, which predispose to the love of those liquors, and to accompany them with directions to prevent persons being ignorantly and undesignedly seduced into the habitual and destructive use of them.
1. Labourers bear with great difficulty, long intervals between their meals. To enable them to support the waste of their strength, their stomachs should be constantly, but moderately stimulated by aliment, and this is best done by their eating four or five times in a day during the seasons of great bodily exertion. The food at this time should be solid, consisting chiefly of salted meat. The vegetables used with it, should possess some activity, or they should be made savoury by a mixture of spices. Onions and garlic are of a most cordial nature. They composed a part of the diet which enabled the Israelites to endure, in a warm climate, the heavy tasks imposed upon them by their Egyptian masters; and they were eaten, Horace and Virgil tell us, by the Roman farmers, to repair the waste of their strength, by the toils of harvest. There are likewise certain sweet substances, which support the body under the pressure of labour. The negroes in the West-Indies become strong, and even fat, by drinking the juice of the sugar cane, in the season of grinding it. The Jewish soldiers were invigorated by occasionally eating raisins and figs. A bread composed of wheat flour, molasses, and ginger (commonly called gingerbread), taken in small quantities during the day, is happily calculated to obviate the debility induced upon the body by constant labour. All these substances, whether of an animal or vegetable nature, lessen the desire, as well as the necessity, for cordial drinks, and impart equable and durable strength to every part of the system.
2. Valetudinarians, especially those who are afflicted with diseases of the stomach and bowels, are very apt to seek relief from ardent spirits. Let such people be cautious how they make use of this dangerous remedy. I have known many men and women of excellent characters and principles, who have been betrayed, by occasional doses of gin and brandy, into a love of those liquors, and have afterwards fallen sacrifices to their fatal effects. The different preparations of opium are much more safe and efficacious than distilled cordials of any kind, in flatulent or spasmodic affections of the stomach and bowels. So great is the danger of contracting a love for distilled liquors, by accustoming the stomach to their stimulus, that as few medicines as possible should be given in spiritous vehicles, in chronic diseases. A physician, of great eminence and uncommon worth, who died towards the close of the last century, in London, in taking leave of a young physician of this city, who had finished his studies under his patronage, impressed this caution with peculiar force upon him, and lamented at the same time, in pathetic terms, that he had innocently made many sots, by prescribing brandy and water in stomach complaints. It is difficult to tell how many persons have been destroyed by those physicians who have adopted Dr. Brown's indiscriminate practice in the use of stimulating remedies, the most popular of which is ardent spirits, but, it is well known, several of them have died of intemperance in this city, since the year 1790. They were probably led to it, by drinking brandy and water, to relieve themselves from the frequent attacks of debility and indisposition, to which the labours of a physician expose him, and for which rest, fasting, a gentle purge, or weak diluting drinks would have been safe and more certain cures.
None of these remarks are intended to preclude the use of spirits in the low state of short, or what are called acute diseases, for, in such cases, they produce their effects too soon to create a habitual desire for them.
3. Some people, from living in countries subject to intermitting fevers, endeavour to fortify themselves against them, by taking two or three wine-glasses of bitters, made with spirits, every day. There is great danger of contracting habits of intemperance from this practice. Besides, this mode of preventing intermittents is far from being a certain one. A much better security against them, is a tea-spoonful of the jesuits bark, taken every morning during a sickly season. If this safe and excellent medicine cannot be had, a gill or half a pint of a strong watery infusion of centaury, camomile, wormwood, or rue, mixed with a little of the calamus of our meadows, may be taken every morning, with nearly the same advantage as the jesuits bark. Those persons who live in a sickly country, and cannot procure any of the preventives of autumnal fevers which have been mentioned, should avoid the morning and evening air; should kindle fires in their houses, on damp days, and in cool evenings, throughout the whole summer; and put on winter clothes, about the first week in September. The last part of these directions applies only to the inhabitants of the middle states.
4. Men who follow professions, which require constant exercise of the faculties of their minds, are very apt to seek relief, by the use of ardent spirits, from the fatigue which succeeds great mental exertions. To such persons, it may be a discovery to know, that TEA is a much better remedy for that purpose. By its grateful and gentle stimulus, it removes fatigue, restores the excitement of the mind, and invigorates the whole system. I am no advocate for the excessive use of tea. When taken too strong, it is hurtful, especially to the female constitution; but when taken of a moderate degree of strength, and in moderate quantities, with sugar and cream, or milk, I believe it is, in general, innoxious, and at all times to be preferred to ardent spirits, as a cordial for studious men. The late Anthony Benezet, one of the most laborious schoolmasters I ever knew, informed me, he had been prevented from the love of spiritous liquors, by acquiring a love for tea in early life. Three or four cups, taken in an afternoon, carried off the fatigue of a whole day's labour in his school. This worthy man lived to be seventy-one years of age, and died of an acute disease, with the full exercise of all the faculties of his mind. But the use of tea counteracts a desire for distilled spirits, during great bodily, as well as mental exertions. Of this, Captain Forest has furnished us with a recent and remarkable proof, in his History of a Voyage from Calcutta, to the Marqui Archipelago. “I have always observed (says this ingenious mariner) when sailors drink TEA, it weans them from the thoughts of drinking strong liquors, and pernicious grog; and with this, they are soon contented. Not so with whatever will intoxicate, be it what it will. This has always been my remark. I therefore always encourage it, without their knowing why.”
5. Women have sometimes been led to seek relief from what is called breeding sickness, by the use of ardent spirits. A little gingerbread, or biscuit, taken occasionally, so as to prevent the stomach being empty, is a much better remedy for that disease.
6. Persons under the pressure of debt, disappointments in worldly pursuits, and guilt, have sometimes sought to drown their sorrows in strong drink. The only radical cure for those evils, is to be found in religion; but where its support is not resorted to, wine and opium should always be preferred to ardent spirits. They are far less injurious to the body and mind, than spirits, and the habits of attachment to them are easily broken, after time and repentance have removed the evils they were taken to relieve.
7. The sociable and imitative nature of man, often disposes him to adopt the most odious and destructive practices from his companions. The French soldiers who conquered Holland, in the year 1794, brought back with them the love and use of brandy, and thereby corrupted the inhabitants of several of the departments of France, who had been previously distinguished for their temperate and sober manners. Many other facts might be mentioned, to show how important it is to avoid the company of persons addicted to the use of ardent spirits.
8. Smoking and chewing tobacco, by rendering water and simple liquors insipid to the taste, dispose very much to the stronger stimulus of ardent spirits. The practice of smoking cigars has, in every part of our country, been more followed by a general use of brandy and water, as a common drink, more especially by that class of citizens who have not been in the habit of drinking wine, or malt liquors. The less, therefore, tobacco is used in the above ways, the better.
9. No man ever became suddenly a drunkard. It is by gradually accustoming the taste and stomach to ardent spirits, in the forms of GROG and TODDY, that men have been led to love them in their more destructive mixtures, and in their simple state. Under the impression of this truth, were it possible for me to speak with a voice so loud as to be heard from the river St. Croix to the remotest shores of the Mississippi, which bound the territory of the United States, I would say, Friends and fellow-citizens, avoid the habitual use of those two seducing liquors, whether they be made with brandy, rum, gin, Jamaica spirits, whiskey, or what is called cherry bounce. It is true, some men, by limiting the strength of those drinks, by measuring the spirit and water, have drunken them for many years, and even during a long life, without acquiring habits of intemperance or intoxication, but many more have been insensibly led, by drinking weak toddy and grog first at their meals, to take them for their constant drink, in the intervals of their meals; afterwards to take them, of an increased strength, before breakfast in the morning; and finally to destroy themselves by drinking undiluted spirits, during every hour of the day and night. I am not singular in this remark. “The consequences of drinking rum and water, or grog, as it is called (says Dr. Moseley), is, that habit increases the desire of more spirits, and decreases its effects; and there are very few grog-drinkers who long survive the practice of debauching with it, without acquiring the odious nuisance of dram-drinkers' breath, and downright stupidity and impotence[64].” To enforce the caution against the use of those two apparently innocent and popular liquors still further, I shall select one instance, from among many, to show the ordinary manner in which they beguile and destroy their votaries. A citizen of Philadelphia, once of a fair and sober character, drank toddy for many years, as his constant drink. From this he proceeded to drink grog. After a while, nothing would satisfy him but slings made of equal parts of rum and water, with a little sugar. From slings he advanced to raw rum, and from common rum to Jamaica spirits. Here he rested for a few months, but at length, finding even Jamaica spirits were not strong enough to warm his stomach, he made it a constant practice to throw a table-spoonful of ground pepper in each glass of his spirits, in order, to use his own words, “to take off their coldness.” He soon after died a martyr to his intemperance.
Ministers of the gospel, of every denomination, in the United States! aid me with all the weight you possess in society, from the dignity and usefulness of your sacred office, to save our fellow men from being destroyed, by the great destroyer of their lives and souls. In order more successfully to effect this purpose, permit me to suggest to you to employ the same wise modes of instruction, which you use in your attempts to prevent their destruction by other vices. You expose the evils of covetousness, in order to prevent theft; you point out the sinfulness of impure desires, in order to prevent adultery; and you dissuade from anger, and malice, in order to prevent murder. In like manner, denounce, by your preaching, conversation, and examples, the seducing influence of toddy and grog, when you aim to prevent all the crimes and miseries, which are the offspring of strong drink.
We have hitherto considered the effects of ardent spirits upon individuals, and the means of preventing them. I shall close this head of our inquiry, by a few remarks on their effects upon the population and welfare of our country, and the means of obviating them.
It is highly probable, not less than 4000 people die annually, from the use of ardent spirits, in the United States. Should they continue to exert this deadly influence upon our population, where will their evils terminate? This question may be answered, by asking, where are all the Indian tribes, whose numbers and arms formerly spread terror among their civilized neighbours? I answer, in the words of the famous Mingo chief, “the blood of many of them flows not in the veins of any human creature.” They have perished, not by pestilence, nor war, but by a greater foe to human life than either of them—ardent spirits. The loss of 4000 American citizens, by the yellow fever, in a single year, awakened general sympathy and terror, and called forth all the strength and ingenuity of laws, to prevent its recurrence. Why is not the same zeal manifested in protecting our citizens from the more general and consuming ravages of distilled spirits? Should the customs of civilized life, preserve our nation from extinction, and even from an increase of mortality, by those liquors; they cannot prevent our country being governed by men, chosen by intemperate and corrupted voters. From such legislators, the republic would soon be in danger. To avert this evil, let good men of every class unite and besiege the general and state governments, with petitions to limit the number of taverns; to impose heavy duties upon ardent spirits; to inflict a mark of disgrace, or a temporary abridgment of some civil right, upon every man convicted of drunkenness; and finally to secure the property of habitual drunkards, for the benefit of their families, by placing it in the hands of trustees, appointed for that purpose, by a court of justice.
To aid the operation of these laws, would it not be extremely useful for the rulers of the different denominations of christian churches to unite, and render the sale and consumption of ardent spirits, a subject of ecclesiastical jurisdiction? The methodists, and society of friends, have, for some time past, viewed them as contraband articles, to the pure laws of the gospel, and have borne many public and private testimonies, against making them the objects of commerce. Their success in this benevolent enterprise, affords ample encouragement for all other religious societies to follow their example.