Death by Measure; or, Poisons and Their Effects, Found in Intoxicating Liquors. [Machine readable transcription] Hunt Poage Thomas Michigan State University Libraries, Digital Sources Center.The Library of Congress/Ameritech National Digital Library Competition.Michael Seadle, Michigan State University Libraries, Digital Sources Center. Conversion to TEI.2 conformant markup: Ruth Ann Jones, Michigan State University Libraries, Digital Sources Center. Amy Vance. Creation of machine-readable version: Mary Phillips. Ruth Ann Jones. Nitin Periera. Byung-Woo Yoon. ca. 86 kilobytes Michigan State University Libraries, Digital Sources Center. 2001 East Lansing, Michigan Michigan State University Libraries, Digital Sources Center. 32527453 Publicly accessible. URL: http://digital.lib.msu.edu/deathbymeasure/deat.htm The text this electronic edition is based on was published before 1923 and is therefore in the public domain according to U.S. copyright law. Death by Measure; or, Poisons and their Effects, Found in Intoxicating Liquors. ThomasPoage Hunt 91 p. Griffith & Simon, Philadelphia; George G. Jones, Cincinnati; Saxton & Miles, New York 1845 This work is part of the collection "Shaping the Values of Youth: Sunday School Books in 19th Century America." The copies consulted in the creation of the electronic editions are owned by the Michigan State University Libraries and the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University. The works have been encoded in Tei.2 conformant markup. They are being made publicly accessible as an educational resource. Line breaks have not been retained. All unambiguous end-of-line hyphens have been removed. In the case of unambiguous end-of-line hyphens which divide a word between two pages, the hyphen has been removed and the trailing part of the word has been joined to the last line of the preceding page. Library of Congress Subject Headings. Temperance. Sunday school literature. date of changes corrector who made the changes what was done DEATH Two angels pull back a curtain revealing a skeleton at a liquor counter, holding a drink in its hand. A serpent's coils are seen at the bottom of the illustration and the its head appears at the top, fangs bared, as though it were encircling the scene. BY MEASURE. DEATH BY MEASURE: OR, POISONS, AND THEIR EFFECTS, FOUND IN INTOXICATING LIQUORS. BY THOMAS P. HUNT, THE DRUNKARDS'S FRIEND. PHILADELPHIA: GRIFFITH & SIMON,114 NORTH THIRD STREET. CINCINNATI--GEORGE G. JONES. NEW YORK--SAXTON & MILES. 1846. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845, by GRIFFITH & SIMON, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. DEATH BY MEASURE. LIQUOR selling is an awfully wicked business in its best estate. There are men engaged in it, possessed of too many excellent qualities to adorn, and to give standing and reputation to a calling which well deserves the title of DEATH BY MEASURE. It is true that they sell by honest measure, and try to trade in a pure article. "I take great pains to obtain the best in the market, and sell none but the purest stuff," said a liquor seller to me. I asked him, what difference did it make whether he sold pure arsenic, or pure alcohol? A traffic in either is a traffic in poisons; is Death by Measure. Hear what Dubrunfaut, the best writer on distillation, says about it. I quote from the London 4th edition. "Pure alcohol coagulates all the fluids of animal bodies, except urine, and hardens the solid parts; applied externally, it instantly contracts the extremities of the nerve it touches, and deprives them of sense and motion, by these means easing them of pain, but at the same time destroying their use. Hence employing spirituous liquors in fomentations, may sometimes, (notwithstanding the specious titles of vivifying, heating, &c. usually attributed to them) be attended with unhappy consequences. These liquors received undiluted in the stomach produce the same effects, thickening the fluids, and contracting all the solid parts they touch, and destroying, at least for a time, their use and office: if the quantity be considerable, a palsy or apoplexy follows, which ends in death. Taken in a small quantity, and duly diluted, they brace up the fibres, raise the spirits, and promote agility; if further continued, the senses are disordered, voluntary motion destroyed, and at length the same inconveniences brought on as before. Vinous spirits, therefore, in small quantities, and properly diluted, may be applied to useful purposes in the cure of diseases; whilst in larger ones, or if their use (in small quantities) be long continued, they act as a poison of a particular kind." Hear what Christison, the greatest writer on poisons, says. I use his work condensed by Dr. Ducatre. Baltimore, 1833, p. 311. "Alcohol has generally been believed to act on the brain through the medium of the nerves.--It enters the blood; the breath has a strong smell of spirits for a considerable time after they are swallowed. When injected into the cellular tissue it acts as a violent poison; and it produces through that channel the same effects as when taken into the stomach. When injected into the cavity of the chest, it acts with great rapidity. Three degrees in the immediate effects of alcohol have been distinguished. "When the dose is small, much excitement, and little subsequent depression are produced. "When the effect is sufficiently great to receive the designation of poisoning, the symptoms are, more violent excitement, flushed face, giddiness, confusion of thought, delirium, and various mental affections; soon followed by dozing and gradually increasing somnolency, which may become so deep as not easily to be broken. This state gradually ceases, and is followed by giddiness, weakness, stupidity, headache, sickness and vomiting. "This degree of injury may prove fatal, either in itself, by the coma becoming deeper and deeper, or more frequently from the previously excited state of the circulation causing true apoplexy in a predisposed habit; or still more frequently, from the occurrence of some trifling accident, which, in his torpid state, the individual cannot avoid or remedy; such as, exposure to the cold, falling into the water, suffocation from vomited matter getting into the windpipe, and the like. "Sometimes sudden lethargy, without the intoxication being very high, supervenes at once, and may prove fatal with singular rapidity. "Occasionally a sudden supervention of deep unsurmountable stupor, without the usual precursory signs, takes place, yet not till after a considerable interval subsequently to drinking. "In ordinary cases of this form of poisoning, death takes place in from twelve to eighteen hours. "Another degree of poisoning, is, when greater quantities of pure spirit are swallowed than is usually taken in other fatal cases. In such quantities there is scarcely any preliminary excitement: coma comes on at once, and soon becomes profound, as in apoplexy. The face is, sometimes, livid, more generally ghastly pale; the breathing stentorous, and of a spirituous odor; the pupils sometimes much contracted, more commonly dilated and insensible. If relief is not speedily procured, death takes place in a few hours, sometimes immediately. "Alcohol acts as an irritant. After its ordinary narcotic effect passes off, another set of symptoms occasionally appear, which indicate inflammation of the alimentary canal. Shivering, nausea, feverishness, pain in the stomach, vomiting, thirst, hiccup, delirium, jaundice, and convulsions and death result from this state of poisoning. The stomach becomes gangrenous over the whole villous coat; the colon much inflamed, and the small intestines red. "Besides these effects of poisoning from alcoholic drinks, there is another more common than any yet mentioned, and constituting a peculiar disease. The persons in the habit of using intoxicating liquors, after remaining in a state of drunkenness for several days, are often attacked with a singular maniacal affection, which is accompanied with tremor of the limbs, particularly of the hands, ending at last in coma. When the delirium is not violent, the disease may be cured. But often after the delirium and tremor have continued mildly for some time, they increase, and the delirium becomes furious, or coma rapidly supervenes; in either case the disease commonly proves fatal in a few days. "Other diseases, besides delirium tremens, are slowly induced by the habitual use of spirituous liquors; generally the habit of intoxication acts, however, in inducing those diseases only as a predisposing cause. Indurated pancreas (fever cake,) indurated mesenteric glands, piles, catarrh of the bladder, inflammation, induration and supuration of the kidneys, incontinence of urine, aneurism of the heart and great vessels, apoplexy of the lungs, varicose veins, mania, epilepsy, tendency to gangrene of wounds, spontaneous combustion, &c. &c." Having thus given, on good authority, the deaths caused by pure, unadulterated liquors, I again ask any man who revolts at the idea of making his living by selling adulterated liquors and poisons, what matters it, whether you sell arsenic or alcohol? It is Death by Measure in either case. Indeed there is no poison more powerful and fatal in excessive doses. There is but few more injurious and fatal in their effects from proportionate doses. The symptoms, the effects, the deaths from alcohol, are as certain, tremendous, awful, horrific, as from any other poison. Why then should any man quiet his conscience by saying I deal in death by pure liquors? But the truth is, that there are but very few men engaged in the liquor business, who hesitate to put into market adulterated liquors, made through the agency of deadly poisons. He who is willing to trade in pure spirits, knowing their nature and effects, must have a peculiar kind of conscience to shrink from selling other articles, not one whit more dangerous and fatal. It is admitted that there may be men who are ignorant of the nature and the ingredients both of pure and adulterated liquors; who, if they were acquainted with the subject, would abandon the traffic at once. No intelligent, good man can follow it for one moment, with an easy mind. I have met with many, who burnt up their liquor, or poured in out on the ground, as soon as ever they were informed correctly on this topic. It is under the hope that others may be induced to follow their example, that I now give to the world, Death by Measure. That the business of adulterating liquor is extensively carried on, needs no proof. One of the wealthiest men in New York, made a great fortune in adulterating rum. There are large establishments in most of our cities carrying on the business; and I can name many men, who claim to be respectable, who do not hesitate to sell on commission, "New York spirits," as these adulterations are commonly called. And I have rarely been into a grocery, hotel, or grogshop, either in country, village, or city, in which these doubly poisonous drinks were not sold. It is no evidence that liquor is pure, because it is bought out of the custom house. The adulteration of liquor is carried on in Europe, as well as in this country. The man mean enough to do such roguish villany, are mean enough to deny it. Witness, the trial of Edward C. Delavan, by the brewers. How respectable they proved themselves to be! How innocent they declared themselves to be! What a liar, what a villian, for whom justice had no cell deep enough, nor gallows high enough, the said Delavan was, for publishing to the world, facts which they denied, and HE PROVED, before the courts of his country! No, no. It will not do for liquor sellers to deny, that, if the traffic in pure liquors is, Death by Measure, they make death doubly sure, by the mode and articles which they now measure out to the community. At considerable expense of time and money, I have procured many receipts for the adulteration and mixing of liquors. In some cases, men convinced by my lectures, have abandoned the business, and given me the receipts, being before ignorant that they were selling Death by Measure. The more usual way first practised in adulteration of liquors, was to mix an inferior article with one of a better quality. One part of rum, and two parts of whiskey, &c., and sell the whole for rum, was --- ---y's honest way of growing rich. Some supposed, that aside from the dishonesty of the transaction, there is no harm in the affair. But the experience of all drinkers confirms the declaration of the best writers on the subject, "that by mixing liquors, they become more obnoxious and powerful." A glass of two different kinds of liquors will affect more speedily and injuriously, than the same quantity unmixed. Another mode is, to reduce the proof with water. Then, by certain ingredients to give it a bead, with mineral acids, and, in order that it may appear to have a better body, as well as to produce intoxication, other poisonous, narcotic ingredients are employed. Another mode is, to rectify whiskey, then by certain articles to give it the colour and taste of any desired liquor. Wines, ales, porter, cider, beers, cordials, all go through a similar process. It is needless to say that the quantity of ingredients used, must necessarily be as condensed, or concentrated as possible, to avoid detection, and that, therefore, the most potent drugs are employed. In giving the effects produced by these poisons, I know that many a reformed man, and many a sufferer, will recognise symptoms there they have suffered; while those who have witnessed the pains, diseases and deaths of the intemperate, will see that alcohol alone, with all its terrors, never inflicted all the sufferings of those dying, nor all the unmeasured woes of afflicted friends, who have no pleasure in the lives, and no hope in the deaths of the unnumbered victims of the liquor traffic. This is Death by double Measure. Some years ago, I was compelled to stop a night in Schenectady, New York. Whether there was an understanding or not between the Rail Road Company and the liquor sellers in that place, I do not know. But so it was, that a very large company of travellers started from Albany, not one of whom expected to tarry that night at Schenectady. They all had to do so; no mode of conveyance being ready to leave that place until next morning. I wandered up and down the streets of that town, searching for a decent place for a traveller to stay. Every place stunk of liquor, and every place was full of those who were pleased with the smell. I had at last to content myself with one of those places licensed for the accommodation of strangers and travellers, the keeper of which seemed more anxious to attend to those who drank, than to such as desired to eat and sleep. The landlord was as accommodating to me as he was to others. He said he was crowded, but would do his best. So far as a dirty room, and a dirtier bed would make a man comfortable, I had no right to complain. The landlord had said that his rooms were crowded; but I seldom ever saw a bed-room more thickly tenanted than mine. I suppose that there were hundreds of lodgers in my bed, who had no disposition to sleep themselves, and none to let me sleep. They amused themselves all night by biting me, as though they were determined to have my life's blood. I rang the bell; I called for light, for help; but rang and called in vain. Not being able to sleep, and tired of the bed cords and the incessant attacks of the enemy, I arose early. But there were those who were up before me. Where they had lodged was none of my business. They were patiently waiting for the landlord, who presently came in slip shod, in his shirt sleeves, hitching up his pants, and bowing and smirking and apologizing to his customers. One of them asked for gin. A bottle was placed upon the counter, said to contain that liquid. "Landlord," said I, "you have made a mistake; the gentleman asked for gin; that is not gin." "I bought it for gin." "That may be so; but you know it is not gin." "I know it is not the pure stuff. I could The Wink.A bartender holds a bottle of liquor and a tray with two glasses on it; he appears to be handing the bottle to two men sitting at a table. A third man approaches the bartender from the left with his hand outstretched, as though requesting something. not retail that at a living profit. But it is first rate, such as it is." "Yes; but do you know what it is made of?" He quickly interrupted me, and tipping me the wink to be silent, took me aside, and requested me to let him into the secret. "He knew that the man he bought it of, made it at a great profit. How he made it he knew not; he wished he did." "But suppose it requires deadly poisons to do it, how then?" "That is no business of mine. The work is going, and will be done. I have my living to get in the world as well as others." Truly the love of money is the root of all evil. And many a man, besides this miserable wretch, ought to solve the question, "What is a man profited if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" To make false gin, rectified whiskey, and the oil of turpentine and of juniper virginiana, or sabine, are used. Drinkers of this liquor, have often times violent hypercatharsis, suffering much in the urinary organs, affecting the brain something like alcohol, (to produce which effect it is used,) followed by long continual trances. Sometimes very large doses of these poisons produce but little effect; at others, small doses are accompanied by serious consequences. As one object, besides imparting the flavour of gin, in using these oils, is, the intoxicating effect, the public may form an idea of the danger of using these liquors. Oil of vitriol, blue vitriol, muriatic and other mineral acids, also, acetate of lead, salts of tartar, &c., are extensively used in adulterating various spirits and wines. Sometimes, they are unavoidably used, sometimes designedly. The effects of these mineral acids are dreadful. Their action is independent of the function of absorption. They act by the conveyance along the nerves of an impression produced by the irritation or destruction of the part to which they are applied. When introduced directly into a vein, they cause death by coagulating the blood. If they are introduced into the stomach, the blood, as usual, remains fluid for some time after death; the symptoms are referable almost solely to the abdomen; in the dead body the stomach is found extensively disorganized, and the other abdominal viscera sometimes inflamed. If the dose be large, and the person fasting (take care ye morning dram drinkers,) death may take place in a few hours. The symptoms in man, followed by death from the violent corrosion and inflammation of these poisonous liquors, are, all the symptoms of the most violent gastritis, accompanied with a burning in the throat; eruptions, proceeding from the gases evolved in the stomach by its chemical decomposition; and an excruciating pain in the stomach, such as no natural inflammation can excite. The lips become shriveled, at first whitish afterwards yellowish or brownish, according to the acids used. Occasionally, the tongue and inside of the cheeks become white and polished; the teeth brown; great difficulty in swallowing; the matter vomited, brownish or black, mixed sometimes, with shreds of membrane, which sometimes actually consists of the disorganized coats of the stomach; but are generally nothing more than coagulated mucus. The bowels are costive, the urine scanty, and tenesmus frequently very distressing. The countenance glazed, and the extremities cold and clammy. The breathing laborious, and the movement of the chest increasing the pain in the stomach, independently of the pulmonary inflammation which is also at times present; occasionally, fits of suffocation from the shreds of thick mucus sticking in the throat. Sometimes, when the dose is very large, instead of these excruciating tortures, there is a deceitful tranquility and an absence of all uneasiness. A second variety of symptoms belong to a peculiar modification of disease, which brings about a slow death from an organic disease of the stomach, and intestines. It begins with the symptoms already mentioned, but these soon abate in violence. Then ensue general fever, dry skin, spasms, and pains in the limbs, difficulty of breathing, tension of the belly, salivation, and occasional vomiting, particularly of food and drink. Membranous flake, and dead worms are voided. Digestion deranged; functions of the body languid, a state of marasmus reducing it to a skeleton, and bringing it to the grave. Another variety of symptoms, differing from the others only in mildness of the first attack, includes cases of imperfect recovery, and continuing for life liable to pains in the stomach, vomiting of food, and general disorder of the digestive organs. What horrid deaths and wretched lives, liquor drinkers, many of whom would hate to be called drunkards, purchase of those who make their living by Death by Measure! What heaven-provoking sin the liquor seller commits, and yet desires to have it considered that it is honourable to sell Death by Measure! Sugar (acetate) of lead, is often used by liquor sellers, especially in doctoring and imitating wines, and ales, and ciders, &c. Frequently, when not designedly employed, carbonate of lead is formed in many articles sold by the distiller, brewer, confectioner, and cordial maker. The symptoms observed from poisoning by lead, are of three kinds. One class indicate inflammation of the alimentary canal. (Not common to drinkers of fermented liquors.) Another class, spasms of the alimentary muscles. A third, injury of the nervous system, sometimes apoplexy, more commonly, palsy. (Not unusual among cider drinkers.) Each of these classes may exist independently of the other two; but the two last are more commonly combined. In over doses, acetate of lead will produce immediate and violent effects. Used continuously and insiduously in minute, very small quantities, the disease induced may be divided into two classes. The first stage is an affection of the alimentary canal; the leading feature of which is, violent and obstinate colic. It sometimes begins suddenly in sound health; but usually commences with a deranged state of the stomach, something like dyspepsia, not severe enough to cause alarm. (Broadway, Tremont, Chestnut, and other fashionable streets in our large cities, are full of these cases in this stage. By and by the uneasiness, which was confined to the stomach, stretches through the whole abdomen. The stomach becomes irritable; cramps in the pit of it, extending to the rest of the belly, until a complete paroxysm of colic is formed. Most generally the pains are remissions rather than intermissions; sometimes they are very constant. The belly is hard and muscles contracted; bowels costive, and much straining pain. Sometimes severe looseness of bowels take the place of this. After a few days, the limbs are racked with cutting pains; the countenance dull, anxious and gloomy, more so than in almost any other disease. Skin hot, cadaverous and bedewed with irregular, cold, clammy perspiration. From this stage the patient may recover, but great precaution is necessary, to avoid its return. What under other circumstances, would produce in him only common colic, or diarrh�a, is certain to bring on a relapse of this terrible disease. And then, the sufferer may recover from it, never completely, and be always subject to another more alarming and dangerous disease, either apoplexy, most fatal, or partial palsy! Even in cases not mistaken nor neglected, this partial palsy often succeeds the debility ensuing on the departure of the colic. This palsy is peculiar. The upper extremities are chiefly affected, attended with great muscular emaciation, especially of the extensors. The hands are constantly bent, except when the arms hang straight down by the side. They dangle loose when the patient moves; great, racking pains in the limbs; digestion feeble, and trivial causes renew the colic. He may recover; but the greatest caution is necessary. (The higher circles furnish abundant materials to make a poor man bless God that he is not able to buy splendid wines.) In whatever form lead is habitually and minutely used, or applied to the system, it will be apt to bring on this disease. Inhalation of its fumes, the habitual contact of any of its compounds to the skin, the prolonged use of them as a medicine, externally or internally, may sooner or later, and generally doses, bring on this dreadful disease; sooner in some temperaments than in others. Surely the influence of the habit of moderate drinking must be overwhelming, when every moderate drinker knows, or ought to know, that, in almost every glass of fermented, and many of the spirituous liquors, he drinks, he is incurring the danger of this disease! Remember, it is the minute, insidious quantity that does the business. Dr. Carrol, while president of a southern college, informed me that he had detected sugar of lead more than enough, in one bottle of wine, to kill a man. Adlum, a celebrated wine maker, died under the belief, no doubt correct, that he was poisoned by adulterated wine. I was lecturing once in Delaware. A tavern keeper, who had abused me very much in public, came to hear me one evening. I was lecturing on the adulteration of liquor. When my lecture was over, he publicly apologized for his conduct; and as an evidence of his sincerity, invited me home with him. He there declared to me that he had been drinking freely, though not to intoxication, of fermented drinks, and that he was labouring under the very symptoms I described. He was very solicitous to know if there was no remedy for him. I prescribed for him, as well as I could. He recovered from the first attack, but imprudently exposed himself, and took wrong remedies, and died in three weeks. When I was lecturing in Rhode Island, a gentleman who heard me, came privately to inquire of me if I could cure him; declaring that he drank very moderately of wine every day, and was labouring under the first symptoms of this disease. I inquired for him years afterwards. He had refused to follow total abstinence from all danger, and had furnished another victim to Death by Measure. I have a paragraph taken from a paper in Charleston, South Carolina, giving an account of the sudden death of three men, who, on examination of their stomachs, were evidently poisoned by the wine they had drank. Let any man read the brewer's Moderate Wine Drinker.A man standing next to an empty chair is apparently speaking to another man on his right. The second man is sitting in a chair and leaning on the table behind him. own works, the liquor seller's own recipes, and use his own eyes, and doubt if he dare. Let him read Ocua Orfilea, Christison, the Domestic Chemist, (second vol. Polytechnic Library,) or any other good authority, and then if he will patronise the use and traffic of intoxicating liquors, he will know that he is sustaining a trade that is mildly termed Death by Measure. Almost all the sweet wines, and many of the rough, besides the beers, ales, &c. now used, have more or less preparations of lead in them. And there are more wines of a certain kind sold in these United States, than are exported from all the wine growing regions. And other foreign spirits are produced more abundantly from the wooden distilleries in America, than from the parts from which they are said to come. Powerful caustic alkalies are used in the imitation and manufacture of liquors. Potash pearl ash, salts of tartar, (carbonate of potassa) lunar caustic, aqua fortis, blue vitriol, white vitriol, oil of vitriol, muriatic acid, &c. The effects of the caustic alkalies are powerfully irritant, and generally corrodes the coats of the stomach. The symptoms prevails, sometimes, for several days; but upon these subsiding, the patient seems to be restored to perfect health. In animals, however, strangled for the purpose of examination several weeks after they took these poisons, especially carbonate of potassa, although they seemed to have recovered perfectly, the villous coat was found extensively removed, end even the muscular and peritoneal coats were here and there destroyed and cicatrized. The carbonate is only inferior in degree to the caustic potash; and even this is used by liquor sellers and wine merchants. It produces, among other symptoms, violent vomiting, acute pain in the stomach, tenderness of the whole belly, cold sweats, excessive weakness, hiccup, tremens and twitches of the extremities; violent colic pains; sometimes pain in the gullet, much anguish, restlessness and death; burning pain; the alimentary canal becomes incapable of assimilating food; and the patient dies of starvation, and incessant discharges from the bowels. Sometimes, and just as fatal, the disease commences with violent irritation in the mouth, gullet and stomach, but the bowels are not affected, and the stomach but little injured. The case becomes one of stricture of the �sophagus, with or without ulceration. The patient eventually dies of starvation, it may be, combined with exhausting fever. Did the poor drunkard always know, and could moderate drinkers always see the cause of their sufferings and death, surely if they would not avoid, yet they would cease the traffic of Death by Measure. Many labour under the error that whiskey is not adulterated. This is a great mistake. It is often adulterated, and that too with potent poisons. Creosote is used to give it the appearance of age. There are but few ingredients which act more fatally than creosote on the nervous system. Dentists employ it, very carefully, in destroying the nerves of the teeth. But it is very dangerous. Many recollect the death of Dr. Boardman, dentist, of Hartford, Conn., from this cause. But aside from the poisons designedly put into whiskey, it is of itself, especially as distilled in this country, among the most dangerous of drinks. The grain is distilled without being kiln-dried, and as much is run from the bushel as possible. The consequence is, that much empyreumatic oil comes out in distillation, of an exceedingly acrid, pungent nature, so much so that one drop of it, communicates to many gallons, its pollution. If any doubt this, let them go into a rectifying establishment, of into the manufactory of alcohol, and get a view of the regidium from a barrel of whiskey. But this is not all. Diseased, spoiled grain, unfit to be used by man or beast, is sold to distillers, and contains much that is unfriendly to health. But even this is not all. What is usually called the ergot, or spurred rye, grows on rye, barley, oats and corn. It is a most powerful, and active poison. Its effects are various. One form of it, the asmagome, acts differently from the other, the ergotine. The general effects are, giddiness, headache, flushed face, pains and spasms in the stomach, nausea, vomiting, colic, purging, and a sense of weakness and weight in the limbs. Let any one accustomed to drink whiskey in countries where the excise is severe and more pains taken in the manufacture of it, compare the effects of the different drinks on their system, in this country, and answer to the difference. I have been reminded by foreigners of this difference. It is owing to the various empyreumatic oils, ergot among the rest, found in American whiskey. The foreign does the work of death in one form, the native in two. The disease, called among the French, "convulsive ergotism," produced from ergot, is described as commencing suddenly with dimness of sight; giddiness; loss of sensibility; soon followed by dreadful cramps and convulsions of the whole body; the sardonic laugh; excessive thirst and excruciating pains in the limbs and back. In the milder effects of ergotism, strange feelings, as though insects were crawling over the legs, and arms, and face, with weakness and weight of limbs, constitute the main symptoms. How often have I been painfully amused at the poor drunkard's vain attempt to drive away these insects, which I thought existed only in his imagination; but the sensations of which is really caused by the poison of the Death he bought by Measure, operating upon his body! In Germany, the ergot produces what is called, creeping sickness. It commences with weariness and weakness, and a sensation as though insects were creeping all over you; the extremities cold, white, stiff, insensible; the fingers, the toes, the arms, the legs, shrivel and dry up, and sometimes drop off by joints. Such is one of the ingredients of the boasted Monongahela! Little do the inconsiderate think how sad, yet true, is the term, Death by Measure, when applied even to those liquors which have not designedly been rendered, as most of them are, doubly poisonous. New England rum, vile as the stuff is in its own native essence, is nevertheless often adulterated. Like the brandy and whiskey, and wine and ale, Measures of Death, each has his own secret nostrum, by which he increases the profits of his business, without regard to the life and happiness of his customers. Brandy is one of the favourite liquors on which the Death Measurer tries his nicest skill in the use of the most potent poisons. The extent of the fraud in French brandies has become so great, that an association has been formed by the chief vineyard proprietors of the district of La Rochelle and Cognac, within which, pretty much all the French brandies are manufactured, for self protection. They state, that the practice of diluting and adulterating brandies, by the excessive competition which it endured, was driving all the "best dealers" into a similar practice. (If the "best dealers" can be driven into dishonesty, fraud, and corruption, what is to be expected of the most of those called the "worst?") They also tell us, that although the penalty for adulterating is relentlessly enforced, as they happen to know, yet still it takes place in some pretty serious instances. See the Boston Courier (from the New York Courier and Enquirer,) March 6, 1845. They, no doubt, wish the public to believe that they are among "all of the best dealers," who were driven by competition to adulterating brandies. Now, if they were not good enough to resist the temptation of making money as others make it, it will require strong faith to believe that they are better now than they used to be. For they admit that in some "pretty serious instances, as they happen to know, that the adulteration goes on in France." John Bull has not joined the celebrated association of Cognac. And Brother Jonathan is as keen witted as any of them. In spite of the "serious penalty," brandies are still counterfeited. So the "best of them," when the competition demands, may be driven into the same business. They have "expelled" some of the "best of them," who loved money more than honour, but have not stopped them in their work of Death by Measure. Besides, pure French brandy has nothing in it that humanity calls for. It does its work of death and cursing just like alcohol by another name, when it is not adulterated. Wines are much adulterated even in France. Our countryman Walsh, writing to the editor of the National Intelligencer, states that in France, there are a set of officers called Tastareurs, whose duty it is to taste and test the wines sold by retail, and that they nearly all resigned, giving as their reason, that they found the wines so much adulterated and poisoned, that they were afraid of loosing their lives by poison. Ale, porter and beer, are doctored and adulterated. Childs, one of the best writers on Brewing, declares that certain kinds of ales cannot be made without using certain kinds of drugs. And all the receipts I have, recommend such drugs, under certain circumstances. Indeed, it is an ascertained fact, as any man may know by inquiring of Doctor Jackson, or my excellent and personal friend, John Tappan, of Boston, or of Professor Mapes, of New York, that pure beer cannot be made and sold at a profit in the present state of the trade; and that the "best of them," like the dealers in Cognac, must be driven into similar practices with the adulterators, if they will continue in the market. Cordials, also, constitute a very large Measure of Death. Many of the veriest poisons on earth constitute the excellency of cordials. Take, for instance, rectified, "bruised cherries, with their stones infused into alcohol, boiled and filtered, flavoured, when cold, with spirits of nayua, made by distilling bitter apricots, peach or almond nuts, and mixing it with alcohol. Syrup of bay laurel and galanga, also added." Now alcohol itself is a potent poison. The article procured from the cherry, peach, apricot, and almond nut, is prussic acid. The galanga is the plant the Indians use to poison their arrow points. The laurel tribe are far from being innocent. This receipt I give from Ure's Dictionary. There is no drink provided for him who is dissatisfied with water, and who thinks it a duty to encourage the traffic of Death by Measure, that is safe for any being, who dreads committing the sin of suicide, to use. Beer makers, for instance, boast of making beers of pure malt, without stating that the malt itself, often contains ergot and darnel, and that the oils of decaying vegetables contain powerful poisons. They talk of pure hops, without stating that the safety of hops themselves depend on climate, soil and cultivation, and that the bitter principle of hops, frequently produces sudden death, on those who habitually use it. Beers, ales, &c., unadulterated, are but milder forms of poison. But the adulteration, and curing, and refining of them and other fermented drinks, are done by grains and acids, and salts and drugs, death-bearing in their nature. Rotten flesh contains animal poisons. It is used in refining beers, wine, and cider. Many of the inhabitants of Philadelphia remember the Irishman that was brewed up in that city, and what fine ale it made. One of the best pipes of wine ever used in Philadelphia, was so foul, when first received from Bordeaux, that it could not be used. It laid awhile in the warehouse, became refined, and was so superior, that the merchant kept it for his own particular use, and sent some of it as a present to a certain ----- of the church, who thought it must be like the wine of Cana of Gallilee. When the pipe was empty, a rattling in it led to inspection, and a skeleton found in it, accounted for its original stench, and its final excellence. A merchant in New York told me, that on finishing one of the best casks of wine he ever drank, he found the skeleton of a number of rats in it. Nauseating as the thought is, yet is it true, that there is nothing like decaying flesh, except eggs suffered to go through the same process, for refining fermented drinks. But this is mere matter of taste, about which it is said, "there is no disputing." Having already mentioned some of the poisonous ingredients used, and as the most of them are used in a great variety of drinks, I will proceed with others. Prussic acid, greatly used, mostly in the form of oil of bitter almonds, and cherry laurel, wild cherry, peach stones, leaves, &c. There is no chemical combination of it, but what is poisonous. When the dose is large, death is almost instantaneous. A death suddenly produced by strong nayua cordial, is not unfrequent. The effects of a dose not large enough to kill, usually are, confusion in the head, with difficulty of breathing, small pulse, dilated, insensible pupils, locked jaw, and sometimes violent fits of tetanus! What dangers men will run for a momentary gratification; and what injuries men are willing to inflict on their fellow-men for a few pennies, may be ascertained by those who will make themselves acquainted with the mysteries and iniquities of the traffic in Death by Measure. Strychnia, usually obtained from nux vomica, (wolf's bone) Coculus Indicus, (fish berry) and St. Ignatius bean, is the next most powerful poison used by liquor sellers. Childs, declares that it is and must be used in ales, &c. It induces violent nervous action, without impairing the sensibility. Hence it is the most awful of poisons in its effects on the poor sufferer. It causes death by a fit. The dose required to prove fatal, is exceedingly small. The organ chiefly affected, is, the spinal cord, sometimes the heart. The attack commences with agitation and trembling; then with a starting and stiffness of the limbs. These symptoms increase to a fit of violent general spasm, in which the head is bent back, the spine stiffened, the limbs extended and rigid, and the respiration checked by the fixing of the chest. The fit is then succeeded by a calm, during which the senses are entire, and exceedingly and unnaturally acute. Soon another spasm sets in, and then another, and another paroxysm; till at length one more violent, hurries, in inexpressible sufferings, the poor victim to the grave. I was conversant with a death of this kind, so remarkable, that I must mention it. In the early stages of the temperance reformation, although it was the original intention of its first promoters to occupy the ground of totalism, as the preamble to the original pledge proves, yet, by some unaccountable providence, the pledge itself, was only against "ardent spirits." The inconsistency of fighting the enemy under one name, and defending him under another, was not as plainly seen then as it is now, although it was more generally exhibited. Indeed, many of the warmest friends of temperance became advocates for the establishment of vineyards and breweries. And some, at no little sacrifice, devoted their time and money to turn the drinking current from one measure of death into another. I fell into the snare (1828) and sided in placing a poor, but pious and worthy family, into an ale house, under the delusive expectation of benefiting not only him, but also the public. I soon discovered my error; but not before it had done serious mischief. But to return to my narrative. A physician of my acquaintance, an intimate friend of mine, a skilful practitioner, and an amiable man, much beloved by all, and respected by many, died of mania-a-potu. I had seen many die of this disease. But there were peculiarities in his case, that I never could comprehend until I became acquainted with the ingredients used in adulterating with the ingredients used in adulterating beer and ale, and that strychnia was one of them. All the symptoms above mentioned, were alarmingly and fearfully developed in his case. His limbs trembled as though he would shake to pieces. His head would be drawn almost entirely back, and his spine stiffen almost into a curve. Sometimes his whole body, spinal column, limbs and all, would be as rigid as a box of iron. There was no bending, no yielding in any of them. His chest would heave as though he would burst every rib. Pains and burnings most severe and excruciating would pass over him. "O, throw me into that fire, it is cold compared with the fire within me; place me in pullies, and tear me asunder in parts, it will be gentle to the tugs and drawings I endure." But why attempt to describe this death more cruel than was ever inflicted by fanaticism, or despotism, or savage, fell revenge? Great, unsupportable, indescribable as they were, they were nothing to the sufferings of his mind. Had his tongue been stiff and silent, and his eyes closed, and inexpressive, still none could have witnessed his dying struggles without shuddering. But when the paroxysm of bodily pain passed off, and the tongue spake, and the eye became eloquent, in cries for mercy!--When memory became unnaturally faithful in arraying all his sins before him in sad review; when conscience, with biting, gnawing energy, applied its stings; and he gave utterance to his remorse for his wanderings, neglects, follies and sins; followed by moanings deep and pitiful for forgiveness; the hardest hearted had to melt. His earnest plea for mercy and for pardon from God, from man; his tender expostulations with his young friends; his faithful admonitions and warnings to his companions in dissipation; his heart-moving mode as he parted from what he called his beggared wife and babes; "beggared," as he said, "of even the consolation of mourning for him as a husband, and a father, by his cruel, unkind course of self-indulgence!" "I know," said he, "that I never denied you aught that my money could bestow--that I never struck you--was never unkind in words, nor feelings. But, wife! can you forgive the hours of anxious, lonely suffering I have caused you to endure, while your too late repentant husband, was worse than wasting his time with those, who like him, forgot all but self around the deceiving cup? Children! it is hard for a father to humble himself and to beg for pardon from his babes. But you must forget all about your degraded father, except his dying repentance; and learn the way to happiness and heaven, not from his example, but from his death. Oh! even now he might have been well, respected, happy, and you around him protected, blessed, instead of soon being wandering orphans cursed with the memory of a drunken father's name. Even now, I might be dying praising God, and blessing all around me, instead of spending my fleeting, fast failing moments, in unavailing supplications for unprovoked, unjustifiable neglect, of every duty I owed to my God, my family, and myself." Poor, suffering sinner! he had bought Death by Measure, full, overflowing Measure. The only consolation connected with his end is, the hope that he was as truly forgiven of God, as he was by the friends, who, weeping sorrowing around him, united in the testimony that he was no man's enemy but his own. He professed to find peace, through the peace speaking blood of the Lamb. His last act was, to dedicate his children to God. That solemn scene, when he offered them to God, then handed them over amidst smiles of hope, and tears of penitence to his wife, and said: "Raise them for God, that we may meet in Heaven!" His dying request was, "Let this be put on my tomb: Here lies --- --- ---, a guilty wanderer, who through grace, has returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of his soul." Belladonna, (night shade) stramonium, (Jamestown weed, prickly devil's pear) opium, cantharides, (Spanish blister flies) tobacco; indeed many other of the most active and virulent mineral, vegetable and animal poisons, are used for purposes of imitation and deception, in the traffic of intoxicating liquors. Enough of their effects have already been described. My authority for stating that these articles are used, I gave at length, giving names and editions and pages of the authors, in a series of numbers in the Journal of the American Temperance Union, under the caption, "LIQUOR-SELLING, a system of fraud, " 1838. I have never yet met with an individual who denied the correctness of my statements, as a whole. All the liquor sellers deny their personal guilt in the matter. Some plead guilty to the fraudulent part of the business; and justify themselves with the same argument with which they and all others engaged in the calling, defend the business of Death by Measure. But few are hardy enough to justify the business of doubling the measure. While many, very many, do not hesitate to buy and sell by wholesale and retail, on their own account, or on commission, what they have no reason to believe to be pure, and every reason to think, is poisonously fraudulent. He who sells pure alcoholic liquors to men in health, as a beverage, can claim from its known, necessary, natural results, no higher honour from it, than can be claimed with equal propriety, for any other unnecessary, dangerous act that affects the safety, happiness and salvation of men. Let any liquor seller endeavour to establish his character from the known effects of his business, relying upon that alone, and he would soon almost envy any penitentiary convict, even if the crime for which he stood convicted, was the murder, in the second degree, of his own father. Let not this assertion be regarded in the light of denunciation. It is not so. It is solemn truth, painfully, though truthfully spoken. If the business were generally conducted on honest principles, still it could be abated, and ought to be, as a nuisance. Not a word can be said in its favour, founded on any argument drawn from political economy, or moral constituents. It is at war with every natural, every social, every moral condition and claim of man. But the general character of the business is not one of the honesty. Scarcely an advertisement appears, without indicating that purchasers and users are only safe in purchasing from the subscriber, or at least liable to be deceived every where else. Almost every brand is counterfeited. Every liquor certainly is. Watering, showing liquor out of one hogshed, and selling it out of another. Baskets and brands made old by art. Old barrels and custom house manifests, bought up, and liquor that never was in the custom house, sold as though in had been. Liquors, even entered and duties paid, as though they were foreign, while they have been manufactured, or more properly counterfeited in the country in which they were sold. Selling contrary to law, and smuggling in violation of law, form but mild traits in the general feature of the liquor business. The same degree of immorality exhibited in the liquor business, would, in any other department, bring men to the fetters, and exclude them from honourable standing among honourable men. Whoever does an act with power to know its consequences, is responsible for the result. Whoever undertakes an operation, is certainly bound for all the usual, known relations and events connected with it. If, then, a man engages in an enterprise that endangers and destroys, he certainly is held accountable either as an agent, principal, or accessory, for the injury. That liquor sellers may know the result of their business, is evident. That that business, curses and destroys much, and blesses none, is known; and that they know it, and knowing, follow it still, sustained by the same principles of morals by which every violator of morals does sustain his acts, is known. Let liquor sellers listen to conversations such as I am about to record, and deny the correctness of them, or their knowledge of some like them equally true, if they are false. "Mrs. B---, (of Conn.,) how long have you been engaged in keeping public house?" "I may say all my life; for my father kept this house before I was born. He had an apple mill, and distillery also. My husband took the house before my father died." "Do you know how your father died?" "Poor, dear old man! he had much trouble in the family; things went wrong; he took to drink, and died." "Took to drink? Did he do it at once?" "Oh, no; he always drank a little. But as his troubles increased, he drank more than he had ought to." "You mean that as his drink increased, so did his troubles. But you said that your husband took the house before your father died?" "Yes; the old man got in debt, and was sold out. We bought the estate in my name." "Did you sell to your father, after you knew he drank too much?" "Well, he would have it. He had a pension, and could get it elsewhere; and we thought it best to keep him at home." "You sold it to him after you knew it was killing him. To keep the pension money, or rather to get it, you helped your father kill himself! How does the motive and the result differ from robbery and murder? But you have been married three times; do you remember how your husbands died?" "Well; they all gave me a sight of trouble. I don't think I have ever been cherkey since my first husband died. I am certain that if I thought I would have as much trouble again, I don't think I could stand it. They neglected their business, wasted things, ran in debt, and got into bad health, and liquor seemed to be the only thing that done them good; and when they died, people no better than they ought to be, said the liquor killed them." "You have a family?" "Yes; I had one daughter and three sons. Children, some how or other, are not always great comforts to their parents. Mine have caused me much sorrow. My daughter married a man that drank too much, and The HostessA man and a woman sit and talk in a room with a fireplace to the left and a table to the right. An adjoining room can be seen through an open doorframe, in which three other men are proposing a toast. treated her badly. She died, and wicked people said liquor caused it. Two of my sons are dead." "Do you not know that they died drunkards? But where is your other son?" "He is my bar keeper." "Is he steady?" "He is a fine fellow; but loves fun and frolic a little too much." "Mrs. B---, you know that your father, three husbands, your daughter, and two sons have died drunkards; and that your only son is a drunkard, and yet you sold and let them all have liquor, because if you did not do it, somebody else would. How would you feel if somebody else had thus injured you?" "You had better leave my house, you old hump back! This abusing folks, and hurting the feelings of a poor widow what is trying to get an honest living, is no part of a good man. You ought to be tarred and feathered, you old dog." "Mr. D---, (of Va.,) what do you think of the liquor business?" "I think it is a good enough business, if people will not abuse it. But if people will make fools of themselves, I cannot help it." "You mean that if people will make fools of themselves, you will make money out of their folly, even if it ruin them." "It is none of your business how I make money." "It may be so. But do you know my daughter?" "To be sure I do; she is my son's wife, and is a fine, noble woman." "You know that your son is a drunkard, and acts very badly; and that he became a drunkard in your store." "I know that he acts wrong. I will not let him have any more." "The mischief is done; he is ruined. But do you know Jane?" "Do not talk about her. Poor thing, she is deranged, she is certainly deranged. I have spent a great deal of money on her education, sent her into the best, most fashionable company, done all I could for her, dressed her finely. What a sweet, laughing girl she used to be! Poor thing! she is deranged." "You know that it is liquor that deranged her, and that you have another son that is intemperate." "I have had bad luck with my children. I have set them a good example; have never been drunk, always sober, and attentive. I have scolded at them, advised them--but it does no good. I have often thought I would not sell liquor, nor keep it in my house. But my customers will have it, and my associates offer it to me, and I hate not to do as I am done by. I do wish I could see my children doing well." "How does liquor serve your customers? You say they will have it. Did you know that K--k, killed his father last night in a drunken spree?" "No! Why I had to go there the other day, to keep him from burning the house down. He was here yesterday, and promised me that he would not get drunk any more, and left perfectly sober." "But he carried with him a jug of liquor, for which you trusted him, on which he got drunk, and which caused him to kill his father." "Well, I am sorry for it. I will not trust him any more. He owes me a good deal now, and I must see about it; for if he gets into the hands of the lawyers, they will fleece him. These lawyers will take all he has to defend him. They have no conscience." "Conscience! How much smaller sum you took from him for the jug that ruined him! Do you remember how W---, one of your customers, left the country, with his suffering wife and children, who did not play the fool as you said once he did?" "Well, I have not felt exactly easy about it. I did hate to sell them out, for the property was mostly made by his wife; and he was a fine man too, until liquor ruined him. But I could not afford to lose my debt. In fact, I had like to have been too late; for I had scarcely got my lien, before L--- came for the same purpose. L--- is a hard prince, I tell you. After W--- started for the west, with a horse and cart, and a few things the neighbours gave them, L--- took the sheriff and overtook him, and would not let him go on, until he got his wife's father to assume the debt. I would never do the like." "I do not know why. For if you did not, somebody else did. You would not have trusted him for liquor, you would not have sold it to him, you would not have sold him out, had it not have been for the reason, that if you would not do it, somebody else would. Indeed, you said you had like to have been too late, for L--- was hard upon your track for the same object. I do not see why you should hesitate to take the little cart and horse, after you had taken the plantation and house and furniture, and that too, when you knew that they belonged more to the wife and children, than they did to Mr. W---." "I tell you what, sir, this way of abusing people, and meddling with their business, does no good. You had better be off in quick time, you abolitionist, or I will make the niggers tote you to the creek--now in mind, if I don't!" "Mr. I--d, (of Pa.,) what do you think about the men engaged in the liquor business?" "I believe that they are as good as you." "That may be, and be no great things after all. But do you think that any man can be a good man, and make drunkards?" "I do not sell to drunkards. I have as good a character as any man. I was recommended to the court, by the elders of the church." "I do not doubt it. Nor do I say that you sell to drunkards. I never yet heard a liquor seller agree that he sold to the intemperate. Do you know V---?" "Yes; I have known him a good while. He boarded with me, both before and after his marriage." "Did he marry well?" "Yes; his wife was well to do in the world, of good family, disposition and habits." "Did they live happily?" "There is some trouble in the family, caused by V---'s drinking too much. All of his practice has left him; his property is gone; his disposition is soured; and he not only neglects his family, but is unkind to them." "Was he a drunkard when you first knew him?" "Certainly not. He was as sober a man and as promising as any one. He scarcely ever drank any thing." "Did you ever sell him liquor then?" "Why, at first he so seldom drank any, and that so moderately, that I did not charge him with it. But after a while he got to using it every day; and you know I do not get my liquor without money." "Do you sell to him now?" "I! no; I will not let him have it, even when he has the money." "When did you stop selling to him?" "After he became a ---. But I am not a going to stay here, and let you abuse me, you old nigger driver. You cannot treat white people like you did slaves." He, like the others already mentioned, left in a rage, calling the exhibition and proof of the evils caused by their selling Death by Measure, "denunciation and persecution," and continued to measure out the fatal poison! "What is the cause of all this excitement and uproar?" "Did you ever hear the like? These temperance men will get --- about them, if they do not mind." "What have they done?" "A foreigner has introduced a rum distillery, and is keeping an ale house; and the temperance men say that he is making his living by ruining others. The fact is, that drunkards are dying off pretty fast and thick lately, and I don't know but what the new rum may have something to do with it. Last night somebody wrote a letter to the temperance meeting, stating the number of recent deaths from intemperance, and urging that something be done to save a good many more who were walking in their footsteps, and would soon die, and leave their families on the public. They had the audacity to publish that letter in the papers of this morning. They'll catch it now, I reckon. People may be coaxed, but won't be abused. Was it not cruel to publish to the world that men died drunkards? Don't you reckon that these families whose friends died, have some feelings? Then to think of it! it makes my blood boil! To intimate that every man who chooses to drink a little is a drunkard, and in danger of dying a drunkard. Old Father Jennet had better mind his preaching, or his church will get burnt down again. And as for that Hunt! he had better look out, or he will get a leather medal, (a cow-hide.)" Such was a true account of the cause of a most singular excitement in Wilmington, N.C., 183-. People gathered under the Court house, the Town house, at the corners, at the taverns, on the wharves, seemed as deeply interested and as highly excited as though the British were coming. Notices were posted up calling a meeting, at the foreigner's shop, on Lord's day evening, for the purpose singing the Hundredth Psalm, and of taking measures to give Hunt a leather medal. It was signed "The Glorious 38;" the number of drunkards said to be in the town. The meeting was held on Sabbath, nearly opposite the Presbyterian church. It is not necessary to speak of the doings of that meeting. The next Saturday two drunkards died suddenly, and were buried on Sunday. On the same evening "The Glorious 38" held another meeting. On the next Saturday, another drunkard died, and was buried on Sunday. I was sent for on Friday night, in an awful storm of rain and thunder and lightning, to see him. I found him in awful agonies. His throat very much swollen, the saliva flowing in streams from his mouth, his eyes prominent, inflamed, wildly staring; his nervous system greatly excited; and his mind filled with dreadful forebodings of approaching death and eternal sorrow. I endeavoured to soothe him, and partially succeeded; so that about two o'clock, A.M., he fell into a kind of sleep, if that hard, suffocating breathing, and heaving and twitching and jerking, which continued during his slumber, could be called sleep. His heart-broken "The Glorious 38" Page 72 A man lying in a four-post bed props himself up with an elbow and raises his fist to the sky. Another man standing next to the bed looks worriedly toward a woman at the foot of the bed, who is hiding her face in her hand. A small child hides behind her skirt, and a baby in her arms turns away from the man in the bed, one arm outstretched, looking distressed. wife, like a ministering angel was watching by his side. He suddenly awoke in awful horrors. His mind was wild and affrighted and wandering. Every movement in the room caused him to startle with terror. He would clinch his fists, grit his teeth, compress his lips, knit his brows; then seizing the bed-posts, would piteously beseech us "to save him from them." He was under the impression that the officers of justice were in pursuit of him, to arrest him for the commission of some infamous crime. Then he apprehended that God was gazing on him in anger. He tried in vain to avoid the gaze. Turn which way he would, close his eyes, bury his head under the clothes; still he saw those holy, piercing eyes beaming wrath upon him. He could hear the call for judgment. It seemed to him louder than any sound mortals ever heard. Useless was the effort to stop his ears; the sound rose fearfully distinct about the roaring and bursting of the storm then raging in its violence. He was certain that a legion of devils was about to dash at him, and drag, reluctant as he was, in all his sins, to met his god, and his doom. With unnatural strength and activity, he started from his bed to flee, and hide himself in death, from the indescribable torments and horrors of the moment. His wife threw her arms around him to arrest his flight. He seized her by the throat, and with unyielding grasp, and demon laugh, held her at arms length, exclaiming, off! off! Her face turned purple; her tongue lolled out; her eyes became blood-shot. But he held on, laughing and exclaiming with loud shouts, "off! off!" Violent measures had to be employed to rescue her. During this storm of elements both without and within, the affrighted children were huddled in a corner, joining their screams to the more than fearful catastrophe. He afterwards became more calm. He seemed aware of his situation; blamed himself most bitterly, for his past life. His prayers for forgiveness seemed to be sounds without hope; but still he prayed. He desired that his drinking companions should be sent for; he wished to give them a parting and a dying admonition. They refused to come; they dared not witness his death. Do the dying ever partake of the feelings of the dead? I have thought so. His anxiety to see those who had sinned with him, and to warn them, reminded me of the request of the suffering rich man: "I pray thee, therefore, father, that thou wouldst send him to my father's house: for I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come unto this place of torment." He solicited me to preach at his funeral; and at his burial to warn his companions, for him, to forsake their thoughts and ways. "They will come," he said, "to my funeral, although they are unwilling to witness the death from which I desire to warn them." Just before he died, he desired his wife to remind me of his wish, and not to fail to fulfil it. I endeavoured to do it faithfully, plainly, affectionately. they felt it; tears stood in their eyes. They thought they would heed it; but they did not. They hardened themselves against the truth. On the way to the grave, two of them were conversing about the recent, and alarming deaths and burials. "I wonder," said one, "who will die next?" "I will," said the other, "if you will agree to die the Saturday after, so that Hunt may keep his hand in of preaching temperance." Jestingly it was agreed to. They went from the grave yard into the grog shop. There was desperate darings in their feelings. That Sabbath night, however they had sinned before, they transgressed against warnings and conscience. They sinned hard. Their revel has been seldom exceeded for noise and blasphemy. The uproar was furious. During the progress of the debauch, when every subject, both sacred and profane, had for a while become exhausted, it was remarked, "that two of them had agreed to die on the succeeding Saturdays, and be buried on Sunday, for the honour of "THE GLORIOUS 38." They were called upon by acclamation to pledge themselves to their work. Their glasses were filled; one arose, and volunteered thus to die. Amidst shouts of approbation, the glasses were drained; and again filled. The second then arose, glass in hand, and gave, "Here is for the honour of the glorious 38; success to our cause, and a pledge to die the Saturday after ---." the uproar defied description. Demons might envy the laugh, and fiends be affrighted at the shrieks and stamps and yells and howls, that followed this toast. They drank, "A glorious resurrection to the drunkards--eternal infamy upon all the temperance men." They called their hellish bacchanal, "The Last Supper." The evening passed away in sin. The week ended in death. There was something peculiar in the case of the first man who volunteered to die. He had many fine qualities; but intemperance was ruining him. efforts were made to save him, but he hated total abstinence and dreaded the pledge. "He would never sign away his liberty." He made several efforts to keep sober on wine and beer; of course he did not succeed. He formed sundry resolutions that he would not drink too much again; of course he did. At last he came into the Mayor's office and requested him to administer an oath to him, to the effect that he would not get drunk again. The Mayor, Dr. Harris, (one of the best of men, and the friend of man--peace to his memory, and God's blessing on his family,) properly refused, and kindly endeavoured to persuade him not to take an oath. But he seized the Bible, opened it, and placing one hand upon it and raising the other to heaven, swore that he might be forever lost, if ever he got drunk again. Here we see him, with this imprecation of his own seeking resting over him, drunk, and volunteering to die! And he did die on Saturday, and was buried on Sunday, as he volunteered. He died of a mania-a-potu, and it was a horrid death. He imagined that thousands of devils were pursuing him. To escape them he jumped out of the window, and with unnatural speed ran to the river to drown himself. He was intercepted, and brought back. For awhile after his return, he remained quiet. Then, believing that he was riding a race with the devil, to hell, he raised himself up into the posture of a race rider, and shouting, "I have beat him! I have won!" fell back, a corpse! He was buried on Sunday. When his companion who had volunteered to follow him, heard of his death, he was so much alarmed as to take his bed; and for a while it seemed as though he would die. By skilful treatment he revived; and on Saturday morning was in the market purchasing provisions. Some one met with him and began to joke. "What you here? Had you not better be at home? Did you not know that you had to die to day?" He replied, "It may be fun for you, but not so for me. I would give the world, if I could live through this day. I was merely jesting when I agreed to die. But so was --- ---, and he is gone." He became sad and desponding; went home, took his bed, and before sunset was a corpse! Another drunkard died on the same day, and both were buried on Sunday. This statement was published years ago. It was met with a denial on the part of some who were engaged in the celebration; but they never denied the main facts of the case. They for instance, objected to my saying that "I was an eye witness," meaning that I was conversant with the facts, as one who lived in the place would speak, and not that I saw with my eye all that passed. They also objected to the idea that any harm was meant by "The Glorious 38," in calling that debauch "The Last Supper." Be it so; but if, as said, they only meant, that it was the last meeting of the kind they intended to hold, it is admitting the fact that they did hold the meetings. The fact is, that it is possible that the reports and doings might be, in some of the minuti�, not strictly true. But the main facts, the carouse, the volunteering, the deaths, never can be denied with truth. Dr. Capers, of the Methodist Episcopal church, was living in Wilmington at the time, and preached, at least, at one of the funerals. The facts were known, were inquired into, were never denied, for months after they happened. The graves of these men are in Wilmington to this day. I saw them all opened--bodies put into them. I knew most of the men personally--preached at several of their funerals, and had in my possession a great number of certificates from the citizens of Wilmington, testifying to the reality of the occurrence. But the awful drama did not end with the death of the last-mentioned volunteer. The lawyer who wrote the articles in the papers, threatening to burn the churches, died some few months after of delirium tremens. It was said, that he had made an agreement with some of those who died, that which ever of them died first, should come for the other whenever they wanted him. Whether this was so or not, I do not know; but his delirium certainly left that impression on the minds of those who stood around his dying bed. He imagined that the two volunteers had come for him. "Oh!" he exclaimed, "not yet! not yet! I cannot go; I am not ready; let me stay awhile longer; I am in my sins; do wait; keep them off! keep them off! there they are, and will not leave me. What! must I go? Now! You will not wait?" Then with a groan, he said, "I come;" and died! A man who acted a very conspicuous part in the revels, and one of the most respectable among them, lived to become a nuisance, and was found dead under a canoe. He had been dead some time when found. How and when he died, none knew. Several others died suddenly, after a few months; yet the liquor sellers know these things, and still measure out death to their friends. Surely no other business can have worse results, or does produce more fatal effects. How them from it or in it, can men prove themselves to be honourable? The disease of mania-a-potu, of which the drunkard dies, is one that never visits the the human family in the providence of God. And it is one of unequalled terror, horror and anguish of mind; pain, torture and suffering of body. The cholera is brought by the atmosphere, it is said. But liquor sellers prepare victims for it, on which it seizes with certain, unyielding, and fatal grasp. Hell is made for sinners; but liquor sellers prepare their victims to fall an easy prey to him who goes about seeking whom he may devour, by furnishing them for money, the means which disarms their power to resist, and makes them two-fold more the children of hell, than before. Licensed according to law, men of good repute for morality and temperance, paying for the privilege; the plea, the public good; the fact, the public curse; the result, more suffering and death, and death too, in a form that never could visit dying man if it were not for the traffic in Death by Measure! Let any man look at it and show in what respect liquor sellers, thrown on the character of their business, can claim superiority over any other men who are nuisances in society, except the superiority that Satan has over sin. A respectable man to stand measuring out blackguardism by the gill or barrel! An honourable man, to engage in furnishing the instrument with which the swindler and knave mainly accomplish their ends! A beloved man, yet dealing out more than half the woes and curses that destroy domestic bliss, and hurries the loved ones of others into a dishonoured grave! A moral man, yet aiding in keeping before the public one of the main inducements for Sabbath breaking, and the violation of all the laws of God and man! A temperate man, yet manufacturing every drunkard in the land! A man of good repute, yet making and selling that which causes the death, unknown before liquor sellers came, and that will not be unknown again, until liquor sellers pass away! No! no! This Death by Measure has nothing in it to claim respect, to demand protection, to merit esteem, to confer honour. Any man, whose claims for any thing lovely and of good report, depended alone on his being engaged in selling Death by Measure, would be condemned as a nuisance without the judges giving a charge, or the jury leaving the box. If no other consideration would justify such a verdict, the fact already mentioned, that the fatal malady of which the drunkard dies, cannot be extirpated while the liquor traffic exists, is sufficient. We have a remedy for the small pox; and the government generously aids in its circulation. To prevent the cholera, days of fasting and prayer were appointed; quarantine regulations were ordained; restraining sanative measures were employed. And he who would deliberately, or knowingly, introduce either of these plagues, would be justly branded as the basest of the base, and most cursed of the cursed. No plea could save them from the contempt of the humane, and the indignation of the virtuous. They could not even calculate upon the sympathy of the vicious. And yet here is a disease, "delirium tremens," mania-a-potu, to which, all that is awful, terrific, heart-rending, in small-pox and cholera, is nothing; daily hastening into a hopeless eternity, and suspending in a lingering, suffering life without any cessation, its numerous victims; and there is but one cure for it, and but one remedy. Liquor venders are the cause. The disease cannot exist without them. There was no mania-a-potu, until liquor sellers manufactured and sold it. Let Death by Measure, be removed and treated like any other death blow, and those in it be judged by their deeds, and regarded and dealt with accordingly, and mania-a-potu no longer could exist. It is not in the power of man to deny the conclusion. The drops that first fell from the worm of the still, or that rose in the fermentation of the tub, was the sad death knell, by mania-a-potu. It has been sounding ever since, and will never cease until men abandon as unholy, sinful, the traffic in Death by Measure. What joy it would give to the world, if a certain preventive could be found for any malignant disease! He who would make money making a sensual pleasure, a plea, why, in spite of the evils that disease caused, and of the certainty of the preventive, he should be permitted to defeat the remedy, would justly be regarded as bad as the horseleech and the grave. Sellers of the Death by Measure! what do you say? Shall mania-a-potu cease, so far as you can prevent it? Yes, or no? cease your business, and you are innocent; continue it, and you are guilty. You know what the article you measure out always has done, always will do. You know that with you, in your hearts and hands, is the remedy to prevent or cure, more than half the woes that now curse, and curse most bitterly, the world. You can stop them. Will you do it? The forgiveness of an injured community will be extended to deeds of ignorance, and God, too, will forgive the repenting. But persevere, and you yet may, nay will, receive measure for measure, in retributions, if not in this world, certainly in the world to come. If you will go on selling Death by Measure, remember that the Holy One has said, "With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." It may visit you in your own families, in your own person; and must visit you in your own soul, in that day when every man shall be judged according to the deeds done in the body. Your deeds are unmeasured deaths, sold for your profits, and the earth's curse. Who among the unnumbered throng that will gather with you around the throne of judgment, will have more cause to dread the sentence, "Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity," than he (whose deeds are only partially and scantily set forth in these little pages,) who made his occupation, that of DEATH BY MEASURE.A skull and crossbones hovers menacingly between a bottle labeled "WINE" (on the left) and a bottle labeled "RUM" (on the right). A small goblet labeled "CIDER" rests below the crossbones.

Death by Measure; or, Poisons and Their Effects, Found in Intoxicating Liquors. [Machine readable transcription]

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