Chapter 8 - Page 2

regret that their efforts
have been crowned with so little success. It was our fortune to be
familiarly acquainted with one of these worthies, who never lost an
opportunity of declaiming, above all, against the infamy of the particular
practice to which we have just alluded. Indeed, so broad was the ground he
took, that he held it to be not only immoral, but, what was far worse,
ungenteel, to swallow any thing stronger than small beer, before the hour
allotted to dinner. After that important period, it was not only permitted
to assuage the previous mortifications of the flesh, but, so liberal did
he show himself in the orthodox indulgence, that he was regularly carried
to his bed at midnight, from which he as regularly issued, in the course
of the following morning, to discourse again on the thousand deformities
of premature drink. And here we would take occasion to say, that, as to
our own insignificant person, we eschew the abomination altogether; and
only regret that those of the two nations, who find pleasure in the
practice, could not come to some amicable understanding as to the precise
period, of the twenty-four hours, when it is permitted to such Christian
gentlemen as talk English to get drunk. That the negotiators who framed
the last treaty of amity should have overlooked this important moral
topic, is another evidence that both parties were so tired of an
unprofitable war as to patch up a peace in a hurry. It is not too late to
name a commission for this purpose; and, in order that the question may be
fairly treated on its merits, we presume to suggest to the Executive the
propriety of nominating, as our commissioner, some confirmed advocate of
the system of "juleps." It is believed our worthy and indulgent Mother can
have no difficulty in selecting a suitable opponent from the ranks of her
numerous and well-trained diplomatic corps.

With this manifestation of our personal liberality, united to so much
interest in the proper, and we hope final, disposition of this important
question, we may be permitted to resume the narrative, without being set
down as advocates for morning stimulants, or evening intoxication; which
is a very just division of the whole subject, as we believe, from no very
limited observation.

The landlord of the "Foul Anchor," then, was early a-foot, to gain an
honest penny from any of the supporters of the former system who might
chance to select his bar for their morning sacrifices to Bacchus, in
preference to that of his neighbour, he who endeavoured to entice the
lieges, by exhibiting a red-faced man, in a scarlet coat, that was called
the "Head of George the Second." It would seem that the commendable
activity of the alert publican was not to go