“It cannot,” they say, “be doubted that whilst the arts and manufactures of the place prove in some instances injurious to health, and in a few possibly destructive to life, these evil consequences, as well as hereditary predisposition to disease, are promoted by intemperance, not that intemperance is an infinitely more frequent cause of disease and death amongst the artisans than all the various employments of all the manufactories combined. “In the expenditure of their weekly earnings, improvidence and thoughtless extravagance prevail to a lamentable degree. The observations upon which this opinion is formed are made upon the habits of the people themselves, confirmed by extensive and recent inquiries among the shopkeepers with whom they deal. Tea, coffee, sugar, butter, cheese, bacon, (of which a great deal is consumed in this town,) and other articles, the working people purchase in small quantities from the hucksters, who charge an enormous profit upon them, being, as they state, compelled to do so to cover the losses which they frequently sustain by bad debts. Huckster dealing is a most extravagant mode of dealing; there were in this town, in 1834, 717 of these shops, and the number has greatly increased since that time. Meat is purchased in the same improvident manner; the working men generally contrive to have a good joint of meat upon the Sunday; the dinner on the other days of the week is made from steaks or chops, which is the most extravagant mode either of purchasing or cooking meat.