Genius of Health! thy grateful taste Rivals the cup of Jove, And warms each English generous breast With liberty and love. Look now at the noisome slum where the demon Gin reigns triumphant. Squalor, poverty, hunger, wretchedness and sin are depicted on all sides. _Here_ flourish the pawnbroker and the keeper of the gin-palace—but the picture is too speaking a one to need comment. GIN. Gin! cursed fiend with fury fraught, Makes human race a prey, It enters by a deadly draught, And steals our life away. Virtue and truth, driven to despair, Its rage compels to fly, But cherishes with hellish care, Theft, murder, perjury. {18} Damn’d cup that on the vitals preys, That liquid fire contains, Which madness to the heart conveys, And rolls it through the veins. [Illustration: GIN LANE.] A medical writer of some thirty years ago says:— “There are well-meaning persons who wish now-a-days to rob, not only the poor, but the rich man of his beer. I am content to remember that Mary, Queen of Scots, was solaced in her dreary captivity at Fotheringay by the brown beer of Burton-on-Trent; that holy Hugh {19} Latimer drank a goblet of spiced ale with his supper the night before he was burned alive; that Sir Walter Raleigh took a cool tankard with his pipe, the last pipe of tobacco, on the very morning of his execution; and that one of the prettiest ladies with whom I have the honour to be acquainted, when escorting her on an opera Saturday to the Crystal Palace I falteringly suggested chocolate, lemonade and vanilla ices for her refreshment, sternly replied, ‘Nonsense, sir! Get me a pint of stout immediately.’ If the ladies only knew how much better they would be for their beer, there would be fewer cases of consumption for quacks to demonstrate the curability of.” The question of beer drinking as opposed to total abstinence, is one intimately connected with the welfare of the agricultural labourer. The lives of the majority of these persons are, it is to be feared, somewhat dull and cheerless. From early morn to dewy eve—work; the only prospect in old age—the workhouse. Weary in mind and body, the labourer returns to his cottage at nightfall. At supper he takes his glass of mild ale. It nourishes him, and the alcohol it contains, of so small a quantity as to be absolutely harmless, invigorates him and causes the too often miserable surroundings to appear bright and cheerful. Contentedly he smokes his pipe, chats sociably with his wife, and forgets for awhile the many long days of hard work in store for him. Soon the soporific influence of the hop begins to take effect, and the toiler retires to rest, to sleep soundly, forgetful of the cares of life.