The right hand of fellowship extended through the aperture of the cell door, is the means of conveying a phial of brandy carefully deposited in the ample sleeve, and the affectionate friend that comes to sympathize with her incarcerated companion, exposes as she reaches forward to reciprocate a kiss, the forbidden bottle hidden in the bosom of her dress. It is then not only the appetite for whiskey against which opposition is to be made at our prison, but the deep sympathy which is manifested for those who suffer for a want of means and place to gratify that appetite. Undoubtedly an immense saving in city expenditures would be made, to the relief of the tax-payer, if such an abuse of humanity could be corrected. And while we know that society would recognize at once any successful effort to suppress drunkenness, we feel that a moral desolation would be removed, could we cut down root and branch, the terrible Bahan Upas of our country, whose pestiferous branches destroy all vegetation beneath their ample shade, and spread misery and ruin throughout the circle of influences. We dare not say however that, because almost all who are brought to the County Prison are habitual drunkards, that the entire _abolition_ of intoxicating drinks would depopulate our prisons. The experience of the world is different. In Great Britain, Ireland and Germany, the frequenter of the prison is usually a drunkard. In Italy, especially in the South of Italy, drunkenness is almost unknown among the natives. Three years’ residence in the city of Naples failed to present to the narrator a single instance of a drunken Neapolitan, high or low, rich or poor; while frequent visitations to the prisons showed them amply populous. Perhaps there is in Italy some prevailing vice as productive of evil as drunkenness—perhaps drunkenness is in other countries the resort of the bad—of men and women who seek the gratification of a diseased appetite, not as a consequence or means of crime, but only to enjoy such gratifications as are consistent with and are punished by crime. The destruction of the Bahan Upas then may not restore herbage to the field; nay, to find a comparison nearer home, the stately pine is often cut down that culture and care may ensure a profitable crop for the soil which it has overshadowed, but a single season’s neglect shows that in the same earth there lies concealed the germ of other trees and shrubbery, and instead of the single overshadowing object, fifty smaller ones spring up to occupy the ground and prevent the growth of herbage. So the avoidance of a great leading vice does not without watchful care insure with certainty a growth of gentle virtues, some lesser passions, some yet uncultivated appetites that lie latent in the heart, spring into active growth, and become as dominant by their multitude as the ruling one did by its single power.