BUT it shall visit your limbs with palsy; it shall extinguish the pride of man; it shall make the husband hateful to the wife, and the wife loathsome to the husband; it shall annihilate the love of offspring; it shall make members of society a shame and a reproach to each other, and to all among whom they dwell. It shall steal from the virtuous and the honorable their good name, and shall make the strong and the vigorous to totter along the streets of cities. It shall pervert the law of habit, designed to strengthen you in the path of duty, and bind you in its iron chain. It shall disgrace the judge upon the bench, the minister in the sacred desk, and the senator in his exalted seat. It shall make your food tasteless, your mouth to burn as with a fever, and your stomach to tremble as with disease. It shall cause the besotted mother to overlay her newborn, unconscious that it dies beneath the pressure of her weight; the natural cravings of the infant shall make it strive to awaken her who has passed, unheeded, to her last long sleep. The son shall hide his face that he may not behold his father's depravity; and the father shall see the object of his fondest hopes turn to a foul and bloated carcass, that hurries to the grave. It shall turn the children of men into raving maniacs; and the broken ties of blood and affection shall find no relief but in the friendly coming of Death. As the seed which man commits to the earth comes forth in that which he converts into spirit, so shall this product of his own invention be as seed in his own heart, to bring forth violence, rapine, and murder. It shall cause man to shut up his fellow-man in the solitude of the grated cell. The prisoner shall turn pale and tremble, in his loneliness, at the presence of his own thoughts; he shall come forth to die, in cold blood, by the hand of his fellow, with the spectacle of religious homage on a scaffold, and amid the gaze of curious thousands. Poverty shall be made squalid and odious, even so that Charity shall turn away her face in disgust. It shall attract the pcs tilence that walks, even at noon-day, in darkness, to the very vitals of the drunkard, as carrion invites the farsighted bird of prey. The consumer of spirit shall be found dead in the highway, with the exhausted vessel by his side. Yea, the drunkard shall kindle a fire in his own bosom which shall not depart from him till he is turned to ashes. The dropsical drunkard shall die in his delirium, and the fluid which has gathered in his brain shall smell like spirit, and like spirit shall burn. A feeble frame, an imbecile mind, torturing pain and incurable madness shall be of the inheritance which drunkards bequeath, to run with their blood to innocent descendants. The wise men, who assemble in the halls of legislation, shall be blind to this ruin, desolation, and misery. Nay, they shall license the sale of this poison, and shall require of dignified magistrates to certify how much thereof shall be sold for the "PUBLIC GOOD." This minister of woe and wretchedness shall roam over the earth at pleasure. It shall be found in every country of the Christian; it shall go into every city, into every village, and into every house. But it shall not visit the country of the heathen, nor spread woe and wretchedness among them, but by the hands of Christians. The light of reason shall at length break upon the benighted and afflicted world. The truth shall be told. It shall be believed. The causes of calamity shall be unveiled. The friends of the human race shall speak and be respected. Rational man shall be ashamed of his follies and his crimes, and humbled to the dust that he was so long ignorant of their origin. Governments shall be ashamed that they so long tolerated and sustained the most costly and cruel foe that man has ever encountered. Avarice itself shall be conscience-stricken and penitent. It shall remain where nature placed it for use; and it shall be odious in the sight of Heaven and of Earth to convert the fruits of the soil into poison. JE SUIS AMERICAIN.* He got to Paris late at night, The Jehu drove him to the Grand By course circuitous, And charged a price which was—well, by No means gratuitous. The stranger paid; then registered, And to the clerk began: "I want the best room in the house, Je suis Americain." They showed him up to twenty-blank, Two candles on the mantlepiece, A gilt plate on the floor; But, ere he slept, he mused, and thus "To-morrow I'll make Paris howl,- Next day he to the summit of The Arc de Triomphe hied. "Vell, vat you zink of zis?" inquired A Frenchman at his side. "This? This is nothing," answered he; "Deny it if you can ; You ought to see our Brooklyn bridge,— Into a gilded restaurant He chanced to drop one day; The waiters' jargon fairly drove His appetite away. "Confound your dishes, cooked," said he, "On the Parisian plan! *I am an American. I want a plate of pork and beans, Je suis Americain." Where'er he went, whate'er he did, And when, once more at home, his eyes He doffed his hat, and cried, "Thank God, TICKET O' LEAVE.-GEORGE R. SIMS. Who's getting married this morning,-some o' the big folk? No! Leastways not as you'd call such as nowadays big folks go. It's only a common wedding,-old Bradley's daughter Eve Is a-saying "I will" in yonder, and the bridegroom's "Ticket o' Leave." You thought 'twas a big folks' wedding, because o' the crowd may be. Well, it's one as the whole o' the village has come to the church to see. You needn't say you're a stranger; if you wasn't you'd know their tale, For to find another as didn't you might search ten mile and fail. "Ticket o' Leave" did I call him?—I did, sir, and all round here "Ticket o' Leave" we've called him for as nigh as may be a year. For he came back here from a prison; this is his native place, And that was the jibe as his neighbors flung in his haggard face. It's ten year ago since it happened,-that as brought all the shame, That as gave decent people the right to shrink at his name. He was right-hand man to old Bradley, was Ned,—that is "Ticket o' Leave," He was more like a son to the farmer, and he loved his daughter Eve. Eve was the village beauty, with half the lads at her feet, But she only gave 'em the chaff, sir, it was Ned as got all the wheat. They were sweethearts trothed and plighted, for old Bradley was nothing loath, He had kissed the girl when she told him, and promised to help them both. But Jack, his son, was his idol,-a racketty, scapegrace lad; Though to speak e'er a word agen him was to drive the old chap mad. He worshiped the boy, God help him, the dearest to him on earth; The wife of his early manhood had died in giving him birth. And of company Jack was keeping, into which it was bad to get. Ned heard it all at the alehouse, smoking his pipe one night, And he struck his fist on the table, and gave it them left and right. He said it was lies, and dared them to breathe a word 'gen the lad; He feared it might reach the farmer, but Ned knew as the boy was bad. Old Bradley was weak and ailing, the doctor had whispered Ned That a sudden shock would kill him; that he held his life by a thread. So that made Ned more than anxious to keep the slanders back That were running rife in the village about the scapegrace Jack. One night-I shall ne'er forget it, for it came like a thunder clap The news came into the village as they'd found a peddler chap Smothered in blood, and senseless, shot and robbed on the green, And they brought Ned back here handcuffed, two constables between. At first we couldn't believe it as he could ha' been the man, But one of our chaps had caught him just as he turned and ran, |