wasted, is a sum as great as was spent in seven years upon all the
railways of the kingdom--in the very heyday of railway projects; a sum
so vast, that if saved annually, for seven years, would blot out the
national debt!" Another writer says, "that in the year 1865, over
£6,000,000, or a tenth part of the whole national revenue, was required
to support her paupers." Dr. Lees, of London, in speaking of Ireland,
says: "Ireland has been a poor nation from want of capital, and has
wanted capital chiefly because the people have preferred swallowing it
to saving it." The Rev. G. Holt, chaplain of the Birmingham Workhouse,
says: "From my own experience, I am convinced of the accuracy of a
statement made by the late governor, that of every one hundred persons
admitted, ninety-nine were reduced to this state of humiliation and
dependence, either directly or indirectly, through the prevalent and
ruinous drinking usages."

[Illustration: HEAPING BURDENS UPON POVERTY.]

Mr. Charles Buxton, M.P., in his pamphlet, "How to Stop Drunkenness,"
says: "It would not be too much to say that if all drinking of fermented
liquors could be done away, crime of every kind would fall to a fourth
of its present amount, and the whole tone of moral feeling in the lower
order might be indefinitely raised. Not only does this vice produce all
kinds of wanton mischief, but it has also a negative effect of great
importance. It is the mightiest of all the forces that clog the progress
of good. * * * The struggle of the school, the library and the church,
all united against the beer-shop and the gin-palace, is but one
development of the war between Heaven and hell. It is, in short,
intoxication that fills our jails; it is intoxication that fills our
lunatic asylums; it is intoxication that fills our work-houses with
poor. Were it not for this one cause, pauperism would be nearly