contend with. There is the desire of enjoyment. Moral and
intellectual enjoyment he has none, and can have none: but not to
enjoy something is to be dead in life; and to the lowest physical
pleasures he will betake himself, and all the more fiercely
because his opportunities of enjoyment are so limited. It is a
hideous subject; I will pass it by very shortly; only asking of
you, as I have to ask daily of myself--this solemn question: We,
who have so many comforts, so many pleasures of body, soul, and
spirit, from the lowest appetite to the highest aspiration, that
we can gratify each in turn with due and wholesome moderation,
innocently and innocuously--who are we that we should judge the
poor untaught and overtempted inhabitant of Temple Street and
Lewin's Mead, if, having but one or two pleasures possible to him,
he snatches greedily, even foully, at the little which he has?

And this brings me to another, and a most fearful evil of great
cities, namely, drunkenness. I am one of those who cannot, on
scientific grounds, consider drunkenness as a cause of evil, but
as an effect. Of course it is a cause--a cause of endless crime
and misery; but I am convinced that to cure, you must inquire, not
what it causes, but what causes it? And for that we shall not
have to seek far.

The main exciting cause of drunkenness is, I believe, firmly, bad
air and bad lodging.

A man shall spend his days between a foul alley where he breathes
sulphuretted hydrogen, a close workshop where he breathes carbonic
acid, and a close and foul bedroom where he breathes both. In
neither of the three places, meanwhile, has he his fair share of