With all these inducements to excessive indulgence in drink, it is not surprising that drunkenness was widespread; and the chief sinners and sufferers were the emigrants and the aboriginal races. The custom already existed at that time of drinking what may be called slang mixtures, “mint-juleps,” “sherry-cobblers,” &c., at bars; and although the habits of the people of the United States have since reformed, that still appears to be the characteristic form of intemperance, at least in large cities. Of the temperance societies which were started to counteract the terrible plague, we shall speak in the next chapter, but in proof of the condition of the people at that time it will suffice to mention two or three facts. In 1821, a law was passed which placed the property of habitual drunkards on the same footing as that of lunatics, handing it over to a committee of the Court of Chancery. What a blessing it would be to thousands of suffering wives and children, and to society generally, not excepting the unfortunate “habitual drunkards” themselves, if such a law existed and were strictly enforced in England to-day. Would it not? Again, from a report of the trustees of the almshouse for the city and county of Baltimore in 1827, it appears that of 623 adults admitted during the year 1826, it was positively ascertained that 554 had been placed there on account of the poverty to which they were reduced by excessive drunkenness. As to crime, in a report presented by Dr. Francis Lieber to the Philadelphia Society, he attributed nearly all the crime of the country to drunkenness, for which the chief remedy proposed by him was “education.” Moreover, the chaplain of the state prison at Sing-Sing, who was acquainted with the whole of the prison system of the United States at that time, said that of the prisoners who had been under his care, 75 in 100 acknowledged themselves to be habitual drunkards, and 44 in 100 confessed that they had committed their crimes under the influence of liquor.[330] And in regard to disease, it is stated that in the summer of 1832, during a cholera epidemic in Albany, out of 336 deaths, “138 were foreigners; that 140 of the victims were hard drinkers, and 55 drank freely.”[331]