'This excessive use of whisky has impoverished many families, and has demoralised many men. It has caused many quarrels, and given rise to many lawsuits. The evil caused by whisky is apparent to all, but custom requires that friends should be honoured by being offered whisky, business should be transacted over whisky, and the general saying is that without whisky nothing can be done. A farmer, for example, adding a few rooms to his buildings must supply his masons and joiners with whisky. Thus in universal use, the quantity consumed is immense. The quantity of grain used in the distilleries is almost beyond computation, and I don't remember ever meeting a Chinaman who did not admit that to distil whisky was to do evil. They ask me how to get good harvests. I tell them; "Give up abusing the grain you have got, before you ask for more. If heaven sees you taking a large part of your superior land for raising the useless tobacco, and taking a very large proportion of the grain sent you as food, and using it not to eat, nor to feed animals, but distilling it into the hurtful whisky, do you think heaven, seeing all this waste going on, is likely to hear your petitions and increase the supply of what you now waste so large a proportion? If you bought food for your child, and he ate only half and threw the other half to the pig, would you be likely to buy him more just then, even though he might say he was hungry?" This reasoning seems quite satisfactory and convincing to them, and never fails to secure their expressed assent.