Does like a smoking Etna seem; Thou through such a mist dost show us And, for those allowed features Due to reasonable creatures, -Charles Lamb. TRA Tramp, Tramp, Tramp. RAMP, tramp, the boys are marching; how many of them? Sixty thousand! Sixty full regiments, every man of which will, before twelve months shall have completed their course, lie down in the grave of a drunkard! Every year during the past decade has witnessed the same sacrifice; and sixty regiments stand behind this army ready to take its place. It is to be recruited from our children and our children's children. Tramp, tramp, tramp the sounds come to us in the echoes of the army just expired; tramp, tramp, tramp— the earth shakes with the tread of the host now passing; tramp, tramp, tramp-comes to us from the camp of the recruits. A great tide of life flows resistlessly to its death. What in God's name are they fighting for? The privilege of pleasing an appetite, of conforming to a social usage, of filling sixty thousand homes with shame and sorrow, of loading the public with the burden of pauperism, of crowding our prison houses with felons, of detracting from the productive industries of the country, of ruining fortunes and breaking hopes, of breeding disease and wretchedness, of destroying both body and soul in hell before their time. The prosperity of the liquor interest, covering every department of it, depends entirely on the maintenance of this army. It cannot live without it. It never did live without it. So long as the liquor interest maintains its present prosperous condition, it will cost America the sacrifice of sixty thousand men every year. The effect is inseparable from the cause. The cost to the country of the liquor traffic is a sum so stupendous that any figures which we should dare to give would convict us of trifling. The amount of life absolutely destroyed, the amount of industry sacrificed, the amount of bread transformed into poison, the shame, the unavailing sorrow, the crime, the poverty, the pauperism, the brutality, the wild waste of vital and financial resources, make an aggregate so vast--so incalculably vast,—that the only wonder is that the American people do not rise as one man and declare that this great curse shall exist no longer. -F. G. Holland. Go, Feel What I have Felt. [By a young lady, who was told that she was a monomaniac in her hatred of alcoholic liquors.] OO, feel what I have felt, G Go, bear what I have borne ; And the cold, proud world's scorn; Go, weep as I have wept O'er a loved father's fall; See every cherished promise swept, Youth's sweetness turned to gall; Hope's faded flowers strewn all the way That led me up to woman's day. Go, kneel as I have knelt; Implore, beseech, and pray, Go, stand where I have stood, And see the strong man bow; With gnashing teeth. lips bathed in blood, Go, catch his wandering glance, and see Go to a mother's side, And her crushed spirit cheer; Wipe from her cheek the tear; And led her down from love and light, Had he the drunkard's fate foreseen. -Anonymous. AT The Drunkard's Death. T last, one bitter night, he sank down on the doorstep, faint and ill. The premature decay of vice and profligacy had worn him to the bone. His cheeks were hollow and livid; his eyes were sunken, and their sight was dim. His legs trembled beneath his weight, and a cold shiver ran through every limb. And now the long-forgotten scenes of a misspent life crowded thick and fast upon him. He thought of the time when he had a home-a cheerful, happy home-and of those who peopled it, and flocked about him then. Looks that he had forgotten were fixed upon him once more; voices long since hushed in death sounded in his ears like the music of village beils. But it was only for an instant. The rain beat heavily upon him; and cold and hunger were gnawing at his heart again. He rose, and dragged his feeble limbs a few paces further. The street was silent and empty; the few passengers who passed by, at that late hour, hurried quickly on, and his tremulous voice was lost in the violence of the storm. Again that heavy chill struck through his frame, and his blood seemed to stagnate beneath it. self up in a projecting doorway, and tried to sleep. He coiled him But sleep had fled from his dull and glazed eyes. His mind wandered strangely, but he was awake and conscious. The well-known shout of drunken mirth sounded in his ear, the glass was at his lips, the board was covered with choice rich food-they were before him; he could see them all, he had but to reach out his hand, and take them-and though the illusion was reality itself, he knew that he was sitting alone in the deserted street, watching the raindrops as they pattered on the stones; that death was coming upon him by inches-and that there were none to care for or help him. Suddenly he started up in the extremity of terror. He had heard his own voice shouting in the night air, he knew not what or why. Hark! A groan !—another! His senses were leaving him; half-formed and incoherent words burst from his lips; and his hands sought to tear and lacerate his flesh. He was going mad, and he shrieked for help till his voice failed him. He raised his head and looked up the long dismal street. He recollected that outcasts like himself, condemned to wander day and night in those dreadful streets, had sometimes gone distracted with their own loneliness. He remembered to have heard many years before that a homeless wretch had once been found in a solitary corner, sharpening a rusty knife to plunge into his own heart, preferring death to that endless, weary, wandering to and fro. In an instant his resolve was taken, his limbs received new life; he ran quickly from the spot, and paused not for breath until he reached the river side. He crept softly down the steep stone stairs that led from the commencement of Waterloo Bridge, down to the water's level. He crouched into a corner, and held his breath, as the patrol passed. Never did prisoner's heart throb with the hope of liberty and life, half so eagerly as did that of the wretched man at the prospect of death. The watch passed close to him, but he remained unobserved; and after waiting till the sound of footsteps had died away in the distance, he cautiously descended, and stood beneath the gloomy arch that forms the landing-place from the river. The tide was in, and the water flowed at his feet. The rain had ceased, the wind was lulled, and all was, for the moment, still and quiet-so quiet, that the slightest sound on the opposite bank, even the rippling of the water against the barges that were moored there, was distinctly audible to his ear. The stream stole languidly and sluggishly on. Strange and fantastic forms rose to the surface, and beckoned him to approach; dark gleaming eyes peered from the water, and seemed to mock his hesitation, while hollow murmurs from behind urged him onward. He retreated a few paces, took a short run, a desperate leap, and plunged into the water. Not five seconds had passed when he rose to the water's surface-but what a change had taken place in that short time, in all his thoughts and feelings! Life-life-in any form, poverty, misery, starvation-anything but death. He fought and struggled with the water that closed over his head, and screamed in agonies of terror. The curse of his own son rang in his ears. The shore-but one foot of dry ground—he could almost touch the step. One hand's breadth nearer, and he was saved-but the tide bore him onward, under the dark arches of the bridge, and he sank to the bottom. Again he rose and struggled for life. instant-for one brief instant-the buildings on the river's banks, the lights on the bridge through which the current had borne him, the black water, and the fast-flying clouds, were distinctly visible-once more he sank, and once again he rose. Bright flames of fire shot up from earth to heaven, and reeled before his eyes, while the water thundered in his ears, and stunned him with its furious roar. A week afterward the body was washed ashore, some miles down the river, a swalien and disfigured mass. Unrecognized and unpitied, it was borne to the grave; and there it has long since moldered away! The Water Drinker. WATER for me! Bright water for me! It cooleth the brow, it cooleth the brain, It comes o'er the sense like a breeze from the sea, O, water, bright water, for me, for me! Fill to the brim! Fill, fill to the brim ! O, water, bright water's a mine of wealth, Fill again to the brim! again to the brim! -Edward Johnson. TH A Warning to Young Men. HERE is a prejudice against any man engaged in the manufacture of alcohol. I believe that from the time it issues from the coiled and poisonous worm in the distillery until it empties into the hell of death, that it is demoralizing to everybody that touches it, from the source to where it ends. I do not believe that anybody can contemplate the subject without being prejudiced against the crime. All they have to do is to think of the wrecks on either side of the stream of death, of the suicides, of the insanity, of the poverty, of the destruction, of the little children tugging at the breast, of weeping and despairing wife asking for bread, of the man struggling with imaginary serpents, produced by this devilish thing; and when you think of the jails, of the almshouses, of the asylums, of the prisons, and of the scaffolds, on either bank, I do not wonder that every thoughtful man is prejudiced against the vile stuff called alcohol. Intemperance cuts down youth in its vigor, manhood in its strength, and age in its weak |