It is a common practice in the West of Scotland to send persons who are excessively addicted to drunkenness, to rusticate and learn sobriety on the islands of Loch Lomond. There are, I believe, two islands appropriated for the purpose, where the convicts meet with due attention, and whatever indulgences their friends choose to extend towards them. Whether such a proceeding is consistent with law, or well adapted to answer the end in view, may be reasonably doubted; but of its severity, as a punishment, there can be no question. It is indeed impossible to inflict any penalty upon drunkards so great as that of absolutely debarring them from indulging in liquor. In the next Chapter, I shall consider the method of curing and preventing drunkenness by means of Temperance Societies. CHAPTER XV TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES. Much has been said and written of late concerning Temperance Societies. They have been represented by their friends as powerful engines for effecting a total reformation from drunkenness, and improving the whole face of society, by introducing a purer morality, and banishing the hundred-headed monster, intemperance, and all its accompanying vices, from the world. By their opponents, they have been ridiculed as visionary and impracticable—as, at best, but temporary in their influence—as erroneous in many of their leading views—as tyrannical, unsocial, and hypocritical. Their members are represented as enthusiasts and fanatics; and the more active portion of them—those who lecture on the subject, and go about founding Societies—traduced as fools or impostors. Such are the various views entertained by different minds of Temperance Societies; but, leaving it to others to argue the point, for or against, according to their inclinations, I shall simply state what I think myself of these institutions—how far they do good or harm—and under what circumstances they ought to be thought favourably of, or the reverse. Truth generally lies _in mediis rebus_, and I suspect they will not form an exception to the rule.