The anti-saccharine fête commenced with a splendid dinner, as Mr. Forester thought to make luxury on this occasion subservient to morality, by showing what culinary art could effect without the intervention of West Indian produce; and the preparers of the feast, under the superintendence of Miss Evergreen, had succeeded so well, that the company testified very general satisfaction, except that a worthy Alderman and Baronet from London (who had been studying the picturesque at Low-wood Inn, and had given several manifestations of exquisite taste that had completely won the hearts of Mr. O’Scarum and Major O’Dogskin) having just helped himself to a slice of venison, fell back aghast against the back of his chair, and dropped the knife and fork from his nerveless hands, on finding that currant-jelly was prohibited: but being recovered by an application of the Honourable Mrs. Pinmoney’s vinaigrette, he proceeded to revenge himself on a very fine pheasant, which he washed down with floods of Madeira, being never at a loss for some one to take wine with him, as he had the good fortune to sit opposite to the Reverend Mr. Portpipe, who was _toujours prêt_ on the occasion, and a _coup-d’œil_ between them arranged the whole preliminary of the compotatory ceremonial. After dinner Mr. Forester addressed the company. They had seen, he said, that culinary luxury could be carried to a great degree of refinement without the intervention of West Indian produce: and though he himself deprecated luxury altogether, yet he would waive that point for the present, and concede a certain degree of it to those who fancied they could not do without it, if they would only in return make so very slight a concession to philanthropy, to justice, to liberty, to every feeling of human sympathy, as to abstain from an indulgence which was obtained by the most atrocious violation of them all, an indulgence of which the foundations were tyranny, robbery, and murder, and every form of evil, anguish, and oppression, at which humanity shudders; all which were comprehended in the single name of SLAVERY. ‘Sugar,’ said he, ‘is economically superfluous, nay, worse than superfluous: in the middling classes of life it is a formidable addition to the expenses of a large family, and for no benefit, for no addition to the stock of domestic comfort, which is often sacrificed in more essential points to this frivolous and wanton indulgence. It is physically pernicious, as its destruction of the teeth, and its effects on the health of children much pampered with sweetmeats, sufficiently demonstrate. It is morally atrocious, from being the primary cause of the most complicated corporeal suffering and the most abject mental degradation that ever outraged the form and polluted the spirit of man. It is politically abominable, for covering with every variety of wretchedness some of the fairest portions of the earth, which, if the inhabitants of free