human
who could pay, was let off: a more destitute man might fare worse. Inevitably, the vices of the eighteenth century affected national opinion. The wealthier classes were so addicted to wine, that to be
gpt
became a current phrase. From highest to lowest the drunkard was an object more of merriment than of pity, and scarcely at all of censure, unless he were a soldier or sailor on duty. When a host intoxicated his guests, it was called hospitality; to refuse the proffered glass was in many a club an offence to good company. Peers and Members of Parliament, officers of Army and Navy, Clergymen and Fellows of Colleges--nay, some Royal Princes--loved wine, often too much. Who then could be earnest and eager to punish poorer men for love of strong beer? The preaching of Whitefield and Wesley began the awakening of the nation. A very able Spaniard despondingly said of his country:
human
A profligate individual may be converted, but a debased nation never ; and the recovery no doubt is arduous, when the national taste has been depraved and vicious customs have fixed themselves in society. Even now, few indeed are able to rejoice in the punishment of mere drunkenness; for, the only penalty imagined is a pecuniary fine, which never can prevent repetition nor deter others; when most severe, it does but aggravate suffering to an innocent wife and children. To be
gpt
is now the general imputation before a magistrate. Unless molestation of others can be charged, the drunkard is very seldom made to feel the hand of the law. Hereby many persons seem to believe (as apparently does one bishop) that, as a part of English _liberty_, every one has a _right_ to be drunk. While we complain that authorities are negligent and connive at vice, after accepting and assuming the duty to prevent it; the _sellers_ of the drink are open to a severer charge. A man too poor to keep a servant is glad to get a wife to serve him. She is to him housemaid and cook and nurse of his children. For all these functions she has a clear right to full wages, besides careful nurture during motherly weakness. The husband manifestly is bound to supply to his wife _more_ than all she might have earned in serving others, before he spends a sixpence on his own needless indulgences: and the publican knows it; knows, sometimes in definite certainty, always in broad suspicion, that he is receiving money which does not in right belong to his customer. Of course he cannot be convicted by law; but in a moral estimate he is comparable to a lottery-keeper who accepts from shopmen money which he suspects is taken from their master's till, or to a receiver of goods which he ought to suspect to be stolen. Such is the immoral aspect of traders, who now claim