'The channels of commerce,'* they'll clear From our wharves to the poor drunkard's throat. "Ha ha! clear the track, boys-we come; We'll give them hot Hell's irrigation.† "It shall flow where the waters now flow, "Ha! ha! it shall flow, boys, away, Through every township and village, And the Devil will look to the tillage. "Come, ye who can stand, join the ring, Shout, all! and exultingly sing, Long life to our treaty with France!" GLORIOUS NEWS. THE decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in favor of the constitutionality of the license laws was made public during the month of March, 1847. The author was at * Mr. W——————— used the following language in his plea before the Supreme Court: "The right to import implies the right to sell, to the unrestricted use of all the channels of commerce, even the most minute, to the consumer." † Mr. W—————————, in speaking of the diffusion of imported articles through the community, said, "They flow through a multitude of channels, like irrigation." It is to be regretted that he had not illustrated his view of the diffusion of imported articles, especially rum and brandy, by reference to some other process than that by which our fields and gardens are supplied with pure water, and rendered green and fruitful. that time editing a paper entitled the Temperance Banner, which was published at Concord, N. H., as the organ of the N. H. State Temperance Society. The following is part of an editorial article, written on the receipt of the news from Washington: Certain passages in human life contain more poetry than has ever yet been expressed. We encountered one of them a short time since, and with the circumstances we must make our readers acquainted. On our way to this place (Concord) from Boston on the morning of the last Monday, and before we had reached the city of Lowell, a little pedler of papers entered the car. "Morning papers, gentlemen! Mail, Bee, Times, Chronotype!" Two or three coppers were soon exchanged for the morning news, and we ran our eye over the columns with a double purpose, one for the latest intelligence, and another to stop a too busy memory from further labor in pulling over her budget of items. But what have we here? "TELEGRAPHIC DESPATCH FROM WASHINGTON;" and in the brief list of items the following in. capitals: "THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE LICENSE LAWS OF MASSACHUSETTS, NEW HAMP. SHIRE, AND RHODE ISLAND DECLARED BY THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. OPINION OF THE COURT UNANIMOUS." First love, and strawberries and cream, are delicious, doubtless. Food to the hungry, and water to the thirsty soul, is not only a necessity but a joy which has not been and cannot be expressed. But what are all these to being permitted to see the final and fatal wound inflicted on a giant vampire, hell-born, and nurtured on the heart's blood of humanity itself? -to see the very consolidation and personification of all conceivable mischief and misery, the genuine spawn of the pit, whose very pastime it is to tread with iron heel on human hearts, and trample on all that is dear, lovely, and sacred in the estimation and hopes of men; the mystery of iniquity, who makes his provender of God's most glorious work, and when his daily task of murder is done, bathes himself in an ocean of tears, and laughs at the wreck he has made ; — to see this monster driven from one refuge to another, by man, on whom he had trampled, and the providence of an incensed God, and at last compelled to lay his scaly neck under the axe of the guillotine, and then-to see it fall and shorten him the length of a head! —O, it was something more than a necessity, a joy boundless and unspeakable· it was a glory! a ; but there is no word to express it. For years we had, in companionship with good men, battled with this monster. The fight had been long, earnest, and for a time doubtful; but now a fatal blow had been given, and although like a struck whale he might flounder and make the waters boil around him like a pot, yet we had the infinite satisfaction of believing that, in the whaleman's phrase, "his chimneys were on fire," and that every time he spouted, his heart's blood would redden the ascending current. Our little anxieties and regrets were for a time forgotten. We felt as though we could address to Massachusetts the language of one of old: "Now let thy servant depart in peace.” What had been wanting to give force and effect to the blow ? Nothing. Delay of two years had partially interrupted the judicial operations of four states, at least. It had tried men's souls, encouraged the vile to continue in their vileness, increased the plague, produced discussion every where, and turned all eyes upon the subject; and to crown all, the great man of the country, the giant intellect, had planned and had pleaded for them. They had become bold, reckless, and impudent. "But how have the mighty fallen!" They may take up the lamentation of titled but fallen greatness in " Christopher Caustic: " "From heaven, where throned like Jove I sat, I'm fallen, fallen, fallen down, flat, flat, flat ! ! ! " Yes, sing for joy, ye drunkards' wives, worse than widows, scattered over the land by thousands; sitting by deserted hearths, and shedding bitter tears over the grave which the fiend dug for your fondest hopes and most cherished expectations, be comforted, dry your tears and sing! and ye, poor young things, who have been made to hide your heads with shame for the dishonor of a parent, to fly from the face of your own father in dread, and seek at the hearths of strangers the food, shelter, and safety which home denied, -shout for gladness! Shake your scanty and tattered garments in a joyous dance! The day of your redemption is nigh. Among her sister states, and in this long and severe contest, Massachusetts has led the van; in that ancient commonwealth, the friends and supporters of the rotten and infamous system we are laboring to pull down, have, since the year '40, leaned successively on three props. Their dogged obstinacy and the treason of some of our friends, added to the imbecility and cowardice of many more, had sacrificed the law of '38, which was intended to cut the system up, root and branch. The state had fallen back on the law, leaving the matter of granting or refusing licenses to the discretion of county commissioners. The friends of temperance, having their way hedged up in one direction, turned their efforts in another, and elected commissioners who would not license, and thus gave to the rum-sellers and their abettors all the benefits of prohibition. They felt the earth crumbling beneath, and cast about them for support and relief. Their first expedient was to get the law repealed, as they had done the law of '38. This they tried for two sessions, and signally failed. Their next hope was in the disagreement of juries. This succeeded for a time; but the terrible rebuke administered to recreant jurors by their fellow-citizens, when they returned to their homes, soon checked that operation, and their second prop went by the board. They had one hope left one shot in their locker appeal to the Supreme Court; and the decision, which fee-loving lawyers had encouraged them to hope for, viz., the unconstitutionality of our state laws. That shot has at length been discharged, and with a terrible rebound has fallen with crushing weight upon their own heads. They may now howl forth their doleful lamentation, an While troubles thronged on every side, we, as a last resort, But we must rein up our quill which joy and exultation have driven upon the gallop over this fruitful theme. The way is now fairly open for the states to rid themselves by efficient laws of the giant curse of the civilized world. We offer our hearty congratulations to every friend of temperance, truth, and man. BETTER TOOLS WANTED. FRIEND KIMBALL: LOWELL, July 26, 1845. I HAVE just returned to my lodgings, having addressed a large congregation of the people of this city, in the Rev. Mr. Miner's church. I am to speak to-morrow in the great hall near the depot, which will constitute my fourth, and probably my last, public exercise in this city for the present. If I am not altogether mistaken in my present view of the state of the temperance cause in this city, it is by no means discouraging. True, drunkenness is on the increase, and has been for some months. But why? There are at present, in the estimation of the people, insurmountable obstacles to the successful employment of the only instrumentality in which they place ANY confidence as a means of suppressing that vice. The great mass of the men of Lowell are mechanics, and can shrewdly calculate the comparative strength of impelling and reacting forces. You cannot persuade them to attempt filing away the rough surface of a piece of cast steel with a leaden file, or even a brass one. They know it will not cut. You cannot induce them by any art to attempt hewing a stick of timber with a stone sledge or a hammer. Experience has taught them wisdom, and however.desirable it may be to square a round stick of timber, they will not work unless you give them an instrument that will cut. They must see the chips fly at every stroke, or they will give up the job. So in the matter of temperance. The people will not work with inefficient instruments. They declare that |