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Extracts from an Address upon the Effects of Ardent Spirits, 
deliveredfin the Town Hall of Lime, JV. H. By Jona- 
than Kittredge, Esq. 
« When we look abroad and examine into the state of 
society, we find the number of those, who are in the 
constant and habitual practice of an excessive use of ar- 
dent spirits, to be alarming. We see the effects, that 
they produce among our friends and our neighbors, hut 
the evil is so common, and it is so fashionable to drink, 
and 1 had almost said, to drink to excess, that the sight 
of it has lost half its terror, and we look upon an intem- 
perate man without those feelings of disgust and abhor- 
rence, which his real situation and character are calcu- 
lated to produce. This is the natural result of things. 
The mind becomes familiar with the contemplation, the 
eye accustomed to the sight, we pay but little attention 
to the object, he passes on, we laugh at the exhibition, 
and grow callous and indifferent to the guilt. Our pity 
is not excited, our hearts do not ache at the scenes of 
intoxication, that are almost daily exhibited around us. 
But, if for a moment we seriously reflect upon the real 
situation of the habitually intemperate, if we cast our 
eyes to the future, and realize, what in a few years they 
will be, if we go further, and examine into the state of 
their families, of their wives and children, we shall dis- 
cover a scene of misery and wretchedness, that will not 
long suffer us to remain cold and indifferent, and unfeel- 
ing. 
This examination we can all make for ourselves. We 
can call to mind the case of some individual, whom we 2 
have known for years, perhaps from his infancy, who is 
now a poor, miserable drunkard. In early life, his hopes 
and prospects were as fair as ours. His family was re- 
spectable, and he received all the advantages, which 
were necessary, and which were calculated to make him 
an useful and respectable member of society. Perhaps 
he was our school fellow, and our boyhood may have 
been passed in his company. We witnessed the first 
buildings of his mental powers, and know that he pos- 
sessed an active, enterprising mind. He grew up into 
life with every prospect of usefulness. He entered into 
business, and for a while he did well. His parents look- 
ed to him for support in old age, and he was capable of 
affording it. He accumulated property, and in a few 
years, with ordinary prudence and industry, would have 
been independent. He married, and became the head of 
a family, and the father of children, and all was prosper- 
ous and happy around him. Had he continued as he 
began, he would have been a comfort to his friends, and 
an honor to the community. But the scene quickly 
changed. He grew fond of ardent spirits. He was seen 
at the store and at the tavern. By degrees he became in- 
temperate. He neglected his business, and his affairs 
went to a gradual decay. He is now a drunkard. His 
property is wasted, his parents have died with broken 
hearts, his wife is pale and emaciated, his children rag- 
ged, and squalid, and ignorant. He is the tenant of some 
little cabin, that poverty has erected to house him from 
the storm and the tempest. He is useless, and worse 
than useless, he is a pest to all around him. All the 
feelings of his nature are blunted ; he has lost all shame ; 
he procures his accustomed supply of the poison that 
consumes him ; he staggers through mud and through 
filth to his hut; he meets a weeping wife, and starving 
children, he abuses them, he tumbles into his straw, and 
he rolls and foams like a mad brute, till he is able to go 
again. He calls for more rum, he repeats the scene 
from time to time, and from day to day, till his nature 
faints, and he becomes sober in death. 
This is no picture of the imagination. It is a common 
and sober reality. It is what we see almost every day 
of our lives, and we live in the midst of such scenes, and 
events. 3 
Shops as nurseries are established in every town, and 
neighborhood, and drunkards are raised up by the score. 
They are made, they are formed, for no man was ever 
born a drunkard, and, 1 may say, no man was ever born 
with a taste for ardent spirits. They are not the food 
which nature has provided. The infant may cry for its 
mother’s milk, and for nourishing food, but no one was 
ever heard to cry for ardent spirits. The taste is crea- 
ted, and in some instances created so young, that, per- 
haps, many cannot remember the time when they were 
not fond of them. 
I will begin with the infant, and, I may say, that he is 
born unto rum. At his birth, according to custom, a 
quantity of ardent spirits are provided, they are thought 
to be as necessary as any thing else. They are consi- 
dered as indispensable, as if the child could not be born 
without them. The father treats his friends, and his 
household, and the mother partakes with the rest. The 
infant is fed with them, as if he could not know the good 
things he is heir to, without a taste of ardent spirits. 
They are kept on hand, and often given to him, as medi- 
cine, especially where the parents are fond of them 
themselves. By this practice, even in the cradle, his 
disrelish for ardent spirits are gone away. He grows up, 
and during the first months or years of his existence, his 
taste and his appetite are formed. As he runs about, and 
begins to take notice of passing events, he sees his fa- 
ther and his friends drink. He partakes and grows fond 
of them. In most families, ardent spirits are introduced 
and used on every extraordinary occasion. Without 
mentioning many, that the knowledge and experience of 
man can supply, I will instance only the case of visitors. 
A gentleman’s friends and acquaintances call upon him. 
He is glad to see them, and fashion and custom make it 
necessary for him to invite them to the sideboard. This 
is all in his best style, in his most easy and affable man- 
ner. The best set of drinking vessels are brought for- 
ward, and make quite a display. The children of the 
family notice this, they are delighted with the sight, and 
the exhibition ; they are pleased with the manners, and 
gratified with the conversation of the visitors on the oc- 
casion. As soon as they go abroad, they associate the 
idea of drinking together with all that is manly and gen- 4 
teel. They fall into the custom, and imitate the exam- 
ple that is set them. 
But have not ardent spirits one good quality, one re- 
deeming virtue ? None. I say none. There is nothing, 
not even the shadow of a virtue, to rescue them from 
universal, and everlasting execration. But they are good 
as a medicine ? No, not as a medicine. There is no phy- 
sician that does not love them, that requires them in his 
practice. There is no disease, that they cure, or re- 
lieve, that cannot be cured or relieved without them. 
They add to no man’s health, they save no man’s life. 
It is impossible to name a single good thing that they do. 
Give them to the Divine. Do they add to his piety, to 
his zeal, to his faithfulness, to his love of God, or man ? 
No, they destroy them all. Give them to the Physician. 
Do they increase his skill, his power to discriminate 
amid the symptoms of disease, his judgment to apply the 
appropriate remedies, his kind and affectionate solicitude ? 
Nay, verily, they destroy them all. Give them to the 
legal advocate. Do they increase his knowledge, his 
perceptions to discover the points of his case, his readi- 
ness to apply the evidence, his ability to persuade a 
court and jury ? No, they destroy them all. Give them 
to the mechanic. Do they assist his ingenuity, his judg- 
ment, or his taste ? No, they destroy them all. Give 
them to the labourer. Do they add to his strength ? Do 
they enable him to bear fatigue, to endure heat and cold ? 
Can he do more work, or do it better ? No, they are the 
ruin of the whole. They reduce his strength, weaken 
his frame, make him more susceptible to the heat, and 
cold, and disorganize the whole system of his labour. 
But there are some men, you say, who use ardent 
spirits, and who get along very well. Admitted. They 
endure it. So there are some men who get along very 
well, with poor health, and feeble constitutions. Are 
poor health, and feeble constitutions, therefore, no evils ? 
Is the prosperity of such to be attributed to them ? As 
much, as is that of the former to the use of ardent spirits. 
Was ever a man made rich by the use of ardent spirits ? 
Never, but millions have been made beggars by it. 
But some say, they feel better by drinking ardent spi- 
rits. Let us examine this excuse. It is nothing but an 
excuse, and he, who loves rum, and is ashamed to own it, 5 
says, he feels better to drink it. Let us inquire how. 
Are they conducive to health? On this subject, let the 
Physician decide. One, as great as the country has pro- 
duced, Dr. Rush, says, that the habitual use of ardent 
spirits, usually produces the following diseases : A loss of 
appetite ; sickness at the stomach ; obstructions of the 
liver; jaundice, and dropsy ; hoarseness, and a husky 
cough ; which often ends in consumption ; diabetis ; red- 
ness, and eruptions of the skin ; a feiid breath ; frequent 
and disgusting belchings; epilepsy ; gout, and madness. 
This is the train of diseases, produced by the use of ar- 
dent spirits, and they are the usual, natural, and legiti- 
mate consequences of their use. And now I ask, can 
that, which, of its own nature, produces these diseases, 
make a man feel better? Reason might answer; and 
were she on her throne, uninfluenced, and unbiassed by 
the love of ardent spirits, she would unequivocally, an- 
swer no. And we find, that those who say they feel 
better to drink ardent spirits, are those who are in per- 
fect health, but love rum, and it gratifies their appetite, 
and this is what they mean by feeling better. 
I vvill examine, for a moment, the effect, the immedi- 
ate effect, of ardent spirits upon the man. I will take 
a man in health, and give him a glass of ardent spirits. 
The effect is to produce derangement, and false notions, 
and conceptions. But one glass will not have much ef- 
fect. 1 will give him another, and, if he loves rum, he 
feels better ; another, and he feels better ; another, bet- 
ter yet. By this time, he has got to feel pretty well, 
quite happy. He has no fear or shame. He can curse, 
and swear, and break things. u He is fit for treason, 
stratagems, and spoils.” He fears no consequences, and 
can accomplish impossibilities. If he is a cripple, he 
fancies he can dance like a Satyr; if he is slow and un- 
wieldy, he can run like a hart; if he is weak, and feeble 
in strength, he can lift like Samson, and fight like Her- 
cules ; if he is poor, and pennyless, he is rich as Croesus 
on his throne, and has money to let. This is all a correct 
representation. It is what happens universally with the 
drunkard. 1 know one man, who is intemperate, who is 
poor, and never known to have five dollars at a time, who, 
when he is intoxicated, has often, and does usually offer 
to lend me a thousand dollars. Poor, miserable, and de- 6 
luded man. But he feels well, he is one of those, who 
feel better to drink. He is deranged, his imagination is 
disordered. He fancies bliss, and felicity, and plenty, 
and abundance, which do not exist, and he awakes to mi- 
sery, and poverty, and shame, and contempt. Yet this 
is the exact feeling of all those who feel better to drink 
spirits. He who drinks but a glass, has not the same de- 
gree, but precisely the same kind of feeling, with the 
one I have described. 
And this is all—this is all, that rum does, to make a 
man feel better. If his wife and children are starving, 
he feels it not. He feels better. If his affairs are going 
to ruin, or are already plunged into ruin, he is not sen- 
sible to his condition. If his house is on fire, he sings 
the maniac’s song, and regards it not. He feels better. 
Let him, who likes this better feeling, enjoy it. En- 
joy it, did I say ? No ; reclaim him, if possible. Con- 
vince him, that he labours under a delusion. Restore 
him to truth, and to reason ; banish the cup from his 
mouth, and change the brute into the man. 
If, then, ardent spirits are not necessary in sickness; 
if they do not prevent the effects of heat and cold ; if 
they do not add to our strength, and enable us to per- 
form more labour : when are they necessary ? Why, 
people in health say, they want to drink them now and 
then; they do them good. What good? If they are 
well, why do they need them ? For nothing, but to 
gratify the taste, and to produce a feeling of intoxication, 
and derangement, slight in its degree, when moderately 
used, as they are by such people, but the character of 
the feeling is no less certain. It is the same feeling, that 
induces the drunkard to drink. One man takes a glass 
to do him good, to make him feel better; another wants 
two ; another three ; another six ; and by this time he 
is intoxicated, and he never feels well till he is so. He 
has the same feeling with the man, who drinks but one 
glass, but more of it ; and that man, who, in health, 
drinks one glass to make him feel better, is just so much 
of a drunkard ; one sixth, if it takes six glasses to intox- 
icate him. He has one sixth of the materials of a drunk- 
ard in his constitution. 
But it is this moderate use of ardent spirits, that pro- 
duces all the excess. It is this, which paves the way to downright and brutal intoxication. Abolish the ordinary, 
and temperate use of ardent spirits, and there would not 
be a drunkard in the country. He, who advises men 
not to drink to excess, may lop off the branches ; he 
who advises them to drink only on certain occasions, 
may fell the trunk; but he who tells them not to drink 
at all, strikes and digs deep for the root of the hideous 
vice of intemperance. And this is the only course to 
pursue. It is this temperate use of ardent spirits, that 
must be discontinued. They must be no longer neces- 
sary when friends call, when we go to a store or to a 
tavern to transact business, when we travel on the road, 
on public days,—in fact, they must cease to be fashion- 
able, and customary drinks. Do away the fashion and 
custom, that attend their use, and change the tone of 
public feeling, so that it will be thought disgraceful to 
use them, as they are now used by the most temperate 
and respectable men ; and an end is forever put to the 
beastly disease of intoxication. Let those, who cannot 
be reclaimed from intemperance, go to ruin, and the 
quicker the better. 1 speak of the public good ; but 
save the rest of our population ; save yourselves; save 
your children. Raise not up an army of drunkards to 
supply their places. Purify your houses. They contain 
the plague of death ; the poison that in a few years will 
render some of your little ones, what the miserable 
wretches that you see staggering the streets, are now. 
And who, 1 ask, would not do it ? What father, who 
knew that one of his sons, that he loves, was in a few 
years to be what hundreds, you can name, are now, 
would hesitate to save him, to banish rum from his pre- 
mises forever ? 
And, if ardent spirits are the parent of all the poverty, 
and disease, and crime, and madness, that l have named, 
and, if they produce no good, what rational man will use 
them ? If he loves himself, he will not; if he loves his 
children, he will not; and as Hamilcar brought Hanni- 
bal to the altar at eight years of age, and made him 
swear eternal hatred to the Romans ; so every parent 
should bring his children to the altar, and make them 
swear eternal hatred to ardent spirits. He should teach 
them by precept and example. He should instil into his 
children a hatred of ardent spirits, as much as he does 8 
of falsehood and of theft. He should no more suffer hi* 
children to drink a little, than he does to lie a little, 
and to steal a little. 
Then cease. No longer use that, which is the source 
of infinite mischief, without one redeeming benefit ; 
which has entailed upon you, upon your children, and 
upon society, woes unnumbered and unutterable. Ba- 
nish it from your houses. It can be done. You have 
only to will, and it is effected. Use it not at home. Let 
it never be found to pollute your dwelling. Give it not 
to your friends, or to your workmen. Touch it not 
yourselves, and suffer not your children to touch it, and 
let it be a part of your morning and evening prayer, 
that you, and your children, may be saved from intem- 
perance, as much as from famine, from sickness, and 
from death.” 
APPALLING FACTS. 
30 millions of Dollars are annually expended 
for Ardent Spirits in the United Slates. 
10 millions of Dollars are expended yearly 
for the support of Paupers, caused by in- 
temperance. 
It is ascertained that there are 100,000 
Drunkards in the United States. 
10,000 Drunkards die annually—and let 
it be remembered, that no Drunkard shall 
enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. 9 
Would you be happy in the bosom of your family?— 
Banish ardent spirits from your cupboard, for intem- 
perance is the cause of about all the domestic strife 
and misery which exists. 
Would you live to a good old age ? Banish the Rum 
Bottle from your house, for the Drunkard does not 
live out half his days. 
Would you live in peace, free from the perplexities and 
gripings of the Law ?—Banish ardent spirits from your 
house—for most of the civil, and about all of the cri- 
minal prosecutions in our Courts, have their origin 
in Intemperance. 
Would you escape the miseries of poverty, and the dis- 
grace of the Almshouse ?—Banish ardent spirits from 
your premises. 
Vice and the Almshouse. The subjoined document 
is brief but interesting. 
u Seven hundred and thirty-nine persons were received 
into the almshouse at Baltimore, within the year ending 
April 30, 1826. Of these five hundred and fifty-four 
owed their misery to the following causes. 
Debility from intemperance, 235 
Mania from drunkenness, 54 
Venereal, every individual of these being 
addicted to intemperance, 85 
Ulcers, the effect of drunkenness, 34 
Fractures and wounds, which in every case 
were received whilst the parties were in 
a state of intoxication, 28 
Various diseases, all traced to drunkenness, 104 
Crippled whilst the parties were in a state 
of intoxication, 7 
Old age, all habitual drunkards, 7 
554.” 
The history of the inmates of any other Almshouse 
would give the same melancholy result. 
Some old topers are afraid to leave oft' drinking, and “ taste not, touch 
not, handle not,” lest the consequences should be immediately fatal. It is 
all a deception ; for you cannot find many instances where a persen quits 
the use of ardent spirits altogether, but his health is immediately convales- 
cent To such 1 say be not afraid—dash the cup. Cheerfulness, strength, and nourishment, when taken only in 
small quantities, and at meals. 
A MORAL AND PHYSICAL THERMOMETER. 
A scale of the progress of Temperance and Intemperance.-—Liquors with effects in their usual order. 
c Serenity of mind, reputation, long life, and happiness. 
TEMPERANCE. 
Health and wealth. 
'Milk and Water, 
:j Cider and Perry, 
Small Beer, 
! Strong Beer, 
, Water, 
Wine. 
I Porter, PUNISH- 
MENTS, 
Debt. 
Jail. 
Black eyes, 
and rags. 
Hospital, or 
Poor House. 
Bridewell. 
State prison. 
do. for life. 
GALLOWS. 
DISEASES. 
Sickness. 
Tremors of the hands 
in the morning, puking, 
bloatedness. 
Inflamed eyes, red nose 
and face. 
Sore and swelled legs, 
jaundice. 
Pains in the hands, burn- 
ing in the hands and feet, 
Dropsy, Epilepsy. 
Melancholy, palsy, ap- 
oplexy. 
Madness, despair. 
INTEMPERANCE. 
VICES. 1 
Idleness. 
Gaming, peevish- 
ness, quarrelling. 
Fighting, horse 
racing. 
Lying and swear- 
ing. 
Stealing and 
swindling. 
Perjury. 
Burglary. 
Murder. 
Punch, 
Toddy and Egg Rum, 
Grog—Brandy and Water, 
Flip and Shrub, 
Bitters infused in Spirits and 
Cordials. 
Drams of Gin, Brandy, and 
Rum, in the morning, 
The same morning and evening, 
The seme during day and night, 12 
SCENE BETWEEN A SELECTMAN AND A POSTED TXPLEP.. 
Selectman. Well, you see that you have compelled us to the performance 
of this unpleasant duty.—I trust we have acted from motives of compassion 
to your family, and to yourself too. 
7'ipler. Ah, sir, I feel that I am now destroyed. Before this posting, 
a gleam of hope would sometimes visit me, and encourage me that I should 
be lifted out of the mire ; that I should break the fetters that bind me, and 
crawl into life again ; but you have sealed my destruction ; your compassion 
comes too late. Had you, and your predecessors, done your duty faithfully, 
I had been a sober man—a comfort to my parents, a support to my family, 
a useful citizen, perhaps an humble Christian :—but the Trader came into our 
village, and the Selectmen, whose duty it was to protect the morals of their 
young townsmen, gave him a license to retail :—he invited me to his coun- 
ter—he tempted me and I did drink ; and encouraged by the occasional ex- 
ample of the Fathers of the town, and even of professors of religion, I have 
continued to drink, till health, reputation, property, all are gone, and now 
gone forever.—But I forgive you ; yes, I forgive you, for you did it igno- 
rantly—but remember that you cannot be ignorant any longer, I am lost, 
eternally lost—leave me, then, and hasten to those who need the interposi- 
tion of your power to preserve them from the same ruin in which I am 
involved :—do away this retailing, and no longer suffer our Stores to be 
nurseries of Drunkards. 
When I see a boy at the counter, drinking a glass of Rum, because the 
vessel will not hold it, I could weep for him :—there is much danger of his 
becoming a Drunkard. Let him spill it on the ground, and take a glass of 
pure water. 
For one hundred years after the settlement of this country, ardent spirits 
were not used ; and yet the world never saw a race of beings more robust, 
healthy, and lion-hearted than our ancestors were. If ardent spirits were 
ever necessary, for the preservation and sustenance of man, they were par- 
ticularly so for the Pilgrims. They could, with great sincerity, adopt the 
language of St. Paul—“ In perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by 
the heathen, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea ;—in weariness 
and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, 
in cold and nakedness.”—Yet they surmounted every obstacle, and perform- 
ed feats of valour, which to their degenerate New-England-Rum-drinking 
descendants, appear super-human. Away with the Rum Bottle. 
If you are going to work in very cold water—rafting for instance—use 
hot broth, soup, chocolate, milk porridge, and you will be supported 
against the cold most astonishingly.—Don’t touch any spirits. 
Reader, are you a disciple of Him who went about 
doing good ? Do you earnestly desire the prosperity of 
the Redeemer’s Kingdom ? Do you wish that your chil- 
dren should grow up in the fear of the Lord and become 
“ lively stones,”—“ temples of the Holy Ghost” ?—Let 
me intreat you to refrain entirely from the use of ardent 
spirits.—•“ Put away the unclean thing,” and show to 
the world around you that you will no longer, by your 
example, encourage and strengthen the votaries of in- 
temperance. Assist, by your whole influence, those 
persons who are making a stand against the sweeping 
desolations of this fell destroyer.