XX. _Premature Old Age._—Drunkenness has a dreadful effect in anticipating the effects of age. It causes time to pace on with giant strides—chases youth from the constitution of its victims—and clothes them prematurely with the grey garniture of years. How often do we see the sunken eye, the shrivelled cheek, the feeble, tottering step, and hoary head, in men who have scarcely entered into the autumn of their existence. To witness this distressing picture, we have only to walk out early in the mornings, and see those gaunt, melancholy shadows of mortality, betaking themselves to the gin-shops, as to the altar of some dreadful demon, and quaffing the poisoned cup to his honour, as the Carthagenians propitiated the deity of their worship, by flinging their children into the fire which burned within his brazen image. Most of these unhappy persons are young, or middle-aged men; and though some drunkards attain a green old age, they are few in number compared with those who sink untimely into the grave ere the days of their youth have well passed by.[33] Nothing is more common than to see a man of fifty as hoary, emaciated, and wrinkled, as if he stood on the borders of fourscore. The effect of intemperance in shortening life is strikingly exemplified in the contrast afforded by other classes of society to the Quakers, a set of people of whom I must again speak favourably. It appears from accurate calculation, that in London only one person in forty attains the age of fourscore, while among the Quakers, whose sobriety is proverbial, and who have long set themselves against the use of ardent spirits, not less than one in ten reaches that age—a most striking difference, and one which carries its own inference along with it. It is remarked by an eminent practitioner, that of more than a hundred men in a glass-manufactory, three drank nothing but water, and these three appeared to be of their proper age, while the rest who indulged in strong drinks seemed ten or twelve years older than they proved to be. This is conclusive.[34] XXI. _Ulcers._—Ulcers often break out on the bodies of drunkards. Sometimes they are fiery and irritable, but in general they possess an indolent character. Of whatever kind they may be, they are always aggravated in such constitutions. A slight cause gives rise to them; and a cut or bruise which, in health, would have healed in a few days, frequently degenerates into a foul sloughy sore. When drunkards are affected with scrofula, scurvy, or any cutaneous disease whatever, they always, _cæteris paribus_, suffer more than other people.