But probably no individual has done more, within living memory, to educate and stimulate the national conscience than the late George Cruikshank. From the first (says Mr. Thompson Cooper)[248] he had shown a strong tendency to administer reproof in his treatment of intoxication and its accompanying vices. Instances of this tendency are to be found in his _Sunday in London_, _The Gin Trap_, _The Gin Juggernaut_, and more especially in his series of eight prints entitled _The Bottle_; the latter of which had eminent success, and was dramatised at eight theatres in London at one time. It brought the author into direct personal connection with the leaders of the temperance movement. As he, moreover, became a convert himself to their doctrines, he was one of the ablest advocates of the temperance cause. Of late years, Mr. Cruikshank turned his attention to oil-painting, a branch of art in which he so far educated himself as to make his pictures sought after by connoisseurs. The great work by which this Hogarth of the nineteenth century will be remembered in the present connection is a large picture entitled _The Worship of Bacchus_, which he exhibited to the Queen at Windsor in 1863. An engraving of this picture has been published in which all the figures are outlined by the painter, and finished by Mr. H. Mottram. The painting itself is now the property of the nation.[249] In addition to individual endeavour, countless societies, national, provincial, and local, have been formed throughout the country to stem the evil; prominent among these are the Church of England Temperance Society, with her Majesty the Queen as patron, and the entire bench of bishops with numerous other leaders of society as its vice-presidents; the National Temperance League; the United Kingdom Alliance; the United Kingdom Band of Hope; the League of the Holy Cross, with many other denominational societies; the Order of Good Templars; the Rechabites; whilst the neophytes of Blue Ribbonism are legion. Further than these, every species of counter-attraction is being furthered.[250] Education is made possible, nay, compulsory, almost to all. Better dwellings are being provided for the poor, and solid security for their savings. Recreations are being provided for the masses; and a vastly improved system of sanitation. The medical world[251] is giving the subject its close attention, and as the result of its labours of close observation and analysis, the fallacies of a past and less scientific age are being dethroned; and as a tangible outcome, temperance hospitals and homes are being erected. And whilst philanthropy is engaged in one direction in reforming the drunkards, in another it is busy in reforming the drinks. Thus, Mr. Edward Bradbury writes in _Time_:--