Such was the disposition of Tom Blacke. When his child died, the whole of his better nature seemed to have followed the infant to the grave. He had nothing now to care for in the world; and it is needless to enlarge upon the danger of such a state. His wife’s misconduct--for she, poor woman, maddened by despair, had but followed her husband’s example, in drowning sorrow with drunkenness--added fuel to the flames; and Tom was descending, just as gradually and as surely as one who walks step by step into a cellar, down into the lowest abyss of infamy and crime. The gradations are imperceptible, there are many windings in the path, but it never fails to terminate in the black gulf. At first the wayfarer may be easily checked and turned aside; but every onward step increases his velocity and his helplessness (the laws of gravitation are no less true in the moral than the physical world), and though a gossamer might have held him at starting, a chain of iron shall not break his fall as he nears the bottom. The beginning, too, is as insidious as it is effectual. The cheerful glass, the harbinger of good fellowship and kindliness, who would be such a churl as to deny a man the harmless pleasure of indulging in moderation with a friend? But one cheerful glass creates a craving for another, and ere long the liquor begins to have a charm of its own independent of the company. Then the dose must be increased, or it loses its power, and nightly indulgence begins to be followed by daily reaction; so a trifling stimulant is taken in the morning, just to steady the nerves and keep the cold out--a salutary precaution in this damp climate! Then the pleasure becomes a necessity, and partial intoxication begins to be the normal condition of the man. Meanwhile the habit is expensive, but who can doubt that the moral sense becomes blunted in so unnatural a state? and the drain on his means is supplied by the toper’s application of his wages or other resources to his own brutal gratification. Self-indulgence soon destroys the sense of self-respect, and the temptation to procure money is irresistible, for without money how can he purchase drink? So the man first begins to lie, then to cheat, and lastly to steal. He has now arrived at the second stage in his downward journey. He has enlisted in a profession which has its rules, its customs, its triumphs--nay, to a certain extent, its pleasures--but from which there is no release. The drunkard is now a thief, and, to deaden the stings of conscience, no less a drunkard still. Then comes madness, for a state of habitual excitement can but be called madness, and visions of daring recklessness rise in the brandy-sodden brain--perhaps a sort of false ambition to triumph amongst his fellow-ruffians impels him to crimes of deeper dye than any he has yet contemplated, perhaps a vague longing for peril, perhaps a morbid thirst for blood. The wretch plots under the inspiration of brandy, and spurs himself to action with the