And how much has Strong Drink to answer for?
It is strong drink that helps to fill the gaols—the hulks—the asylums for the wretched, the diseased, and the insane. It is strong drink that calls forth so many sighs and such bitter tears—shortens existence—perpetuates family disease—and fosters maladies of all species and of all kinds. Strong drink often places the criminal in the condemned cell, and reduces the beautiful girl to barter her charms for bread. Strong drink strews the land with old rags and bleaching bones.
Let Temperance and Moderation be the guides of all:—for what are the results of Intemperance and habitual Drunkenness? Behold them in all the poor and low neighbourhoods of London! And if you ask, reader, by what signs you are to recognise them, we will tell you:—by the leaden eyes—the tottering steps—the shaking limbs—the haggard countenances—the feverish brows—the parched lips—the dry and furred tongue—the hot and pestilential breath—and the tremulous voices, of the confirmed votaries of strong drink. Apoplexy—palsy—delirium tremens—enlarged liver—ossified heart—impaired digestion—yellow jaundice—cancerous stomach—and dropsy,—all these attend upon strong drink. And the hideous catalogue of evils includes, also, broken limbs—fearful accidents and gushing wounds,—as well as many of those hereditary maladies which are handed down from father unto son!
In an earlier chapter we ridiculed the phrase of "Merry England." Oh! is it merry to see so much misery—so much crime—so much oppression—so much sorrow—so much absence of sympathy? If all this be joyous, then, of a surety, is England the merriest country, and London the merriest city, on the face of the earth. If a man can find music in the cries that issue from our crowded prisons and the wails that flow from our barbarous workhouses, then may he dance long and heartily to that melody—for it never ceases. If poverty can excite felicitous sensations within him, heaven knows he need never be sad. If crime can bring smiles to his lips, his countenance need never wear a melancholy aspect. And if he can slake his thirst in the heart-wrung tears of human agony, he need never step out of his way to look for a fountain or a spring!
In this light, England is indeed merry; for the observer of human nature, as he walks through the crowded streets of London, is jostled and hemmed in by all the gaunt and hideous forms that bear the denominations and wear the characteristics of Crime—Poverty—Disease—Sorrow—and Despair!
Old Death knocked at the door of No. 23, Castle Street, and was instantly admitted by a tall, pale, and rather handsome girl, who exclaimed, "Ah! my fine fellow—I thought you would come."
"Is it you, Mutton-Face?" said Bones, with a grim smile.
"Me—and no one else," answered the girl. "But walk in."
Old Death accepted the invitation, and followed Mutton-Face Sal into a room where about two dozen persons, male and female, were crowded round a large fire.
One was a young man, of the name of Quin, and who obtained a handsome income by means of imposture. He was accustomed to appear in the streets as a wretched-looking, deplorable old man, bent double with age and infirmity, supporting himself on a stick, and crawling along in a painful manner at the slowest possible rate. He used to swallow a dose of some strong acid every morning to make himself look ghastly pale; and he succeeded so well in counterfeiting an aspect of the most lamentable nature, that he seldom returned to Castle Street at night with less than ten shillings in his pocket. He had now thrown off his disguise, and was whiling away the time, after a good supper, with a quart of egg-hot.