out these vermin, who, like the frogs of Egypt, have come up over the land and crept into the very kneading troughs of the people.

Probably some reader, whose blood is within three degrees of the freezing point, will exclaim, "Jewett is wild. He is enthusiastic, and the opinions he expresses are not the result of sober judgment. Like a timid boy, who walks abroad in the dark, he whistles to keep his courage up." But, sir, I know the people of Massachusetts. I have labored with and for them constantly for these seven years. I have, met them in council on this subject, from Berkshire Hills to Cape Cod. I have sat by their hearth-sides, and I know them as well as any living man; and I tell you, sir, and I tell the world, and would fain do it in the hearing of the wine-bibbers of Beacon Street, and of the distillers and rum-dealers of Boston, of the retailers scattered up and down through the state, who stand at the end of the hose, and direct the streams of death into the mouths of gaping thousands, that an overwhelming majority of the men of Massachusetts have in their inmost souls decreed, that the traffic in intoxicating drinks, within her borders, shall come to an end. Read those words, thou wretched wife of the wretched drunkard, sitting by your desolate hearth, and shedding bitter tears, as busy memory calls up the now blasted hopes of other days! Read them! They were not written to mock you with deceitful hopes. If you dwell within the bounds of old Massachusetts, and death does not speedily put a period to your woes, or the life of your infatuated husband, you shall yet be the happy wife of a sober man. Reform in this matter shall come, whethe he will or no. If, in a lucid and happy moment, he may be influenced to dash the cup from his lips, it is well. If not, the touch of a magic wand, wrought by the wisdom and power of Massachusetts, shall palsy the hand which may be stretched to reach him the cup of poison, whether that hand belong to an aristocratic millionaire of the city of Boston, or the presiding genius of the dog-hole from which the very whelps of hell now yelp out their contempt of mercy and their defiance of law.

Read those words, ye abused and ragged children, who tremble in the presence of your crazed and infuriated father, and shrink away to your couches of straw. Better days are in store for you. The monster who has poisoned your father and stolen away your bread, shall die. The sons of those who fell on Bunker Hill, at Lexington and Concord, have sworn it before high Heaven, and it will be done.

BOSTON RUM IN THE COUNTRY, AND COUNTRY RUM-SELLERS IN BOSTON.

FRIEND KIMBALL : —

HOLDEN, Dec. 30, 1845.

In passing through a portion of Worcester county recently, I came into the possession of certain facts which in my judgment are too important to be kept from the friends of temperance generally, and of the citizens of Boston in particular. My route lay through Leicester, Spencer, the Brookfields, Warren, and one town in Hampshire county, Ware. Short as was this tour, it carried me through three places where the rum-sellers had been driven out by public opinion and the law, within the last three months; and where, my dear sir, do you suppose they have gone? What favored portion of our state approximates to a paradise through their blessed influence? Boston! I can almost fancy that I see our good Deacon Grant, as with the help of his glasses he reads this statement, knit his brow, and shake his head grown gray in the service of temperance and humanity, and in his quick, emphatic way, exclaim, "Too bad! too bad!" Yes, deacon, it is too bad, that the metropolis of the state, our modern Athens, your own beloved Boston, should be cursed with evil influences that are driven from the country. But so it is. Those rum-sellers have gone to resume their work of death in Boston. The country towns are being swept, and Boston catches the dust. They are casting out devils, and Boston is at present the herd into which they are permitted to enter. How and why permitted? A few words will suffice to explain.

In Boston, vile fellows, who are disposed to sell strong drink, are kept in countenance by some very reputable citizens, who prosecute the same business on a larger scale. In Boston, the law is not enforced, as in the country towns, and the impunity with which men there have been permitted to trample on the statutes of the commonwealth, acts as a bounty to encourage the emigration thither of every scapegrace, who, by a more healthy public opinion, and a more vigorous enforcement of law, is driven from the country towns.

When will Bostonians understand their true policy in connection with this great question? If they would not have their pecuniary burdens increased, if they attach any importance to the morality and order of the city,- if they would not surround their children as they grow up with the very elements of pollution, if they would not have Boston a curse rather than a blessing to the state, they must awake to their duty. The present state of things in the city exerts an influence to hinder the progress of the cause elsewhere. Strangers from other states visit Boston, ‹ and, forming their opinions of the condition of the state from the condition of its metropolis, go away and declare that what has been published in relation to the glorious results of the temperance reformation in the old Bay State is not to be credited. Friends of the cause go in from the country towns, and seeing the state of things in Boston, return disheartened, and almost despair of ultimate success. Rum-sellers, hard pressed in the country, go into the city to get their supplies of poison, and witnessing the unrestrained traffic there, go home strengthened and resolved to hold out a little longer, hoping for some favorable turn of affairs which shall secure to them the impunity with which their city brethren prosecute the work of death. Tell the men of Boston these truths. Tell them to Mayor Quincy, to the aldermen and common council, to the city marshal, to the clergy of Boston, many of whom are as silent on this subject as though they had lost the power of speech altogether, tell them, that unless they more faithfully and sternly discharge their duties, Boston shall become what Texas once was, the paradise of rogues.

A QUESTION ANSWERED, RESULTS PREDICTED, MOTIVES PRESENTED, AND ADVICE GIVEN.

WHY does the cause of temperance advance so much more slowly in our large and populous towns, which are centres of trade and influence, than in the country towns around them, and the state generally? The above question is often asked, and a great variety of answers are given. The following extract of a letter to D. Kimball, Esq., in reference to the condition of one of our large towns in 1845, and which appeared in the columns of the Temperance Standard, March 13, of that year, contains a partial answer to the above questions, by the author of this volume.

What may be the precise condition of Springfield now, in 1849, so far as temperance is concerned, the writer does not know. He has heard that it has not been much improved since 1845. If such be the facts in the case, it may do the citizens of that town no material injury to read the following letter again, in a larger type than was used in its first publication.

"FRIEND KIMBALL :

"SPRINGFIELD, March 13, 1845.

"There is no town in the state where the friends of temperance have more opposing influences to contend with than in this beautiful village. The railroad trains which come thundering into the village from the east, west, north, and south, bring along, daily, with many more valuable commodities, a score or two of itinerant loafers, of every grade, high and low, rich and poor, men who have no particular business but to gratify their sensual appetites, to eat and drink, to smoke and chew, to swear and gamble, to sink themselves, and all over whom they can exert an influence, lower in the scale of being. These drones in the great hive of human society are drawn to Springfield by a variety of attractions. They cannot endure stillness and quiet, because it would leave them time to think;

and Springfield is a busy, bustling place. The men walk fast, talk fast, and transact business in a hurry; and the ladies, it is said, proceed with such rapidity in their particular department of business, that they will set a bachelor's heart on fire with the lightning of their eyes, before he is aware of his danger, or can decide on his plan of resistance. The facilities for travel in every direction, is another attraction which Springfield

presents to these unclean birds of passage and prey. They stay not long in a place, but like the canker-worm, when they have eaten the green leaves of the bough on which they rest, and marred its beauty, they move to the next place, and so on. Every town or village presenting such ready means of communication with the rest of the world, will be periodically cursed with these migrating vermin. The strongest attraction, however, for loafers, which Springfield presents, is the extensive traffic in intoxicating drinks which is here carried on. All the principal taverns, though otherwise excellent, furnish to the infatuated slave of alcohol the poison which is destroying him; and there are in the place, a number of stores where the rum jug and bottle are filled without any apparent shame or attempt at concealment.

"To combat successfully the evil influences which are by these means drawn together at Springfield, and preserve the character of the place, will require the united aid of not only the laboring classes of society, the mechanic, the merchant, and the professional man, but the capitalists- men high in official station, whose influence for good or evil is always extensive. This latter class of persons, with a few honorable exceptions, stand aloof from this great enterprise, thus manifesting not only a lamentable want of Christian benevolence, but of true policy and worldly wisdom. The class to which I refer have strong attachments to the place. The kindred of many of them sleep in its cemetery; unsurpassed for its beauty by any I have ever seen. Springfield is the charmed and charming spot they call home. There, in the delightful gardens