Reg. 3. This society shall meet once a month for the transaction of business, and at each meeting, addresses may be made, or articles of intelligence read. Reg. 4. It shall be the duty of the Secretary to provide for carrying into full effect the preceding regulation.

Reg. 5. At each meeting the constitution, agreement, and regulations shall be read, and an invitation given to any who may choose to join the society, by signing their names.

Reg. 6. This society shall be auxiliary to the town Temperance Society, and shall annually report to it,-1st, of the names of the officers of the society; 2d, of the number of male members; 3d, of the number of female members; 4th, of the increase or decrease during the year; 5th, of such general facts as may be interesting or useful to be known.

Reg. 7. If any member is reported to have violated his agreement, the Executive committee shall, by personal application to the individual, endeavor to ascertain the truth of the allegation; and if true, and the accused person refuse to make satisfaction to the society, the committee shall report the case at the next monthly meeting, when the offender shall be suspended; and if, at the next meeting, he still refuse satisfaction, his name shall be erased from the list of members: provided, that nothing in this regulation shall prevent a restoration to membership, whenever acknowledgment for the offence shall be made. Reg. 8. When any member removes, permanently, from one district or town to another, he or she shall be expected to unite with a similar society in the place to which they remove.

E-(Page 118th.)

Of the Judges of our Judicial Courts, the inquiry has been made in regard to the proportion of crimes committed in consequence of intoxication. In answer to the inquiry, Chief Justice Mellen of the S. J. Court, says; "I can only state some cases of homicide with any distinctness of recollection, and express some general opinion or impression as to minor offences. You are acquainted with the horrors of the case of Elliot, convicted and executed at Castine. In the case of Murphy, convicted of the murder of his wife-she was drunk to stu pidity, when the mortal wound was given, by burning her side-and he was also intoxicated, and in the habit of being so. In another case of murder, where there was an acquittal, intemperance was mingled with the transaction. In four cases of manslaughter tried by me, in Cumberland county, it appeared on trial that the deceased, or the accused and convicted, was more or less intoxicated, and acting under the influence of passions inflamed by ardent spirits. In all those cases, the fatal quarrel appeared to have been occasioned by this disgraceful cause. I have, in many counties, tried persons for felonious, aggravated and common assaults; and in almost all of them, the curse of rum was evidently a powerful agent in leading the parties on to abuse, passion and violence. Indeed, I believe I may say with truth, that in three-fourths of those cases, where the crime charged was one of those arising from viudictive passions, and ending in personal violence, it appeared that the persons engaged had been too freely indulging themselves in drinking to such a degree as to produce an undue excitement of the passions. In cases of divorce, and trials for adultery and lascivious behavior, we have too often found that the same pernicious influence had been producing its accustomed effects-that wives had been deserted by worthless husbands, who had, by intemperance, rendered themselves unable to maintain them. With regard to

crimes such as theft, fraud, perjury, forgery, &c. which do not have their origin in the angry and turbulent passions, we have not had the means of ascertaining how far habits of intemperance were the immediate cause of the offences charged; but generally, it has appeared that vicious company and idleness had been operating to produce loss of character, and bring on poverty, depravity and crime; and we all know that vicious company and idleness are seldom unaccompanied by a love of ardent spirits, and a criminal indulgence in the use of them. The idea you have suggested is a good one, respecting the importance of an inquiry in all cases of crime, as to the habits of the accused, and the influence of the poison in question, in producing in some way or other, the offence charged. To my brethren who have more than twenty years of judicial life before them, your suggestion may be interesting, and may lead to useful results."

Mr. Justice Weston says: "It is not in my power to answer with precision the inquiry made, how far in trials for crimes where I have presided, it has been made to appear, or has been rendered probable, that their commission has been induced by intemperance. In cases of homicide, of felonious assaults, of riots, affrays and batteries, the influence of intemperance has very uniformly appeared. Those convicted of other offences have, I should think, in a majority of cases, been persons addicted to the excessive use of ardent spirits. It is my sincere wish that the great movement now making for the suppres sion of intemperance, may be crowned with success. I am persuaded that entire abstinence from the use of intoxicating liquors, would remove the cause of three-fourths of the crimes, which are prosecuted in courts of justice. In future, I will endeavor to be more particular in my inquiries upon this point, and will apprise you of the result, as often as you may think it useful to the cause, in which you are so laudably, and so efficiently engaged."

Mr. Justice Perham, of the Court of Common Pleas, says: "I have not the means of answering your inquiry with accuracy, but I am satisfied, the proportion of crimes (produced by intoxication) has been large since the cause of temperance has received a general attention. I have perceived that the number of criminal prosecutions has been diminishing, while the number of people has been rapidly increasing. I have just returned from laborious terms of the court in the counties of Kennebec and Lincoln. There were two State trials in the former, and none in the latter. If to the number of crimes caused or excited by the intemperate use of ardent spirits, we add those of vending them without license, they would, in my opinion, constitute seven-eighths of the criminal trials; and the evil does not end here, but is sufficiently manifested in the litigation of suits, small and trifling, though oftentimes ruinous in their consequences, which are numbered among civil actions; I have frequently thought of the powerful agency intemperance has in the commission of crimes, but I have never kept a register of them, with a view of ascertaining the numerical proportion; but I will endeavor to profit by your hint for the ensuing year."

The Prison-keepers in the several Counties in the State were requested to inform your Cor. Sec. what portion of the prisoners, who

had been committed for debt or crime, were intemperate, but not an answer has been received from either of them. The Secretary of one of the temperance societies in Bangor, in answer to the inquiry how many debtors and how many criminals were committed to prison in 1833, and how many of them intemperate?' states, "the commitment to the jail in this town for debt, were 290, the number of intemperate is not known. Number of criminals committed, 32; of whom 27 were decidedly intemperate."

The Cor. Sec. of the Society in Alfred, in answer to the same question, says; "Number of persons committed to the County gaol for the county of York, 35; intemperate 16, temperate 4, the habits of 15 not known. Number of criminals committed to same jail, 45; intemperate 31, temperate 4, and the habits of 10 not known."

F.-(Page 92d.)

Our Canaan correspondent had not probably seen the letter of Gerrit Smith, Esq. of Peterboro', in the State of New-York, to Mr. Delavan, when he made his communication. We ought not to despair or be discouraged in our attempts in reforming drunkards, after being informed of the success that has attended the efforts of Mr. Smith and others in the small village, and circle of two or three miles around it, in which they reside.

Mr. Smith remarks, "It often occurs, that the designs of men take a much wider scope in their accomplishment than is contemplated by their narrow sighted framers. This remark is eminently verified in the case of the Temperance Reformation. It did not enter into the minds of its happy pioneers, that the reformation had good in store for poor drunkards; and had they foreseen how full it is of blessings and salvation to these most wretched and hitherto most hopeless of all prisoners, and how it would so soon fill the minds of thousands of them with songs of deliverance---cheering indeed would have been the vision amidst the difficult and discouraging beginnings of the work.

"To save the sober from becoming drunken was the exclusive original object of the Temperance Reformation; and therefore do they discover their ignorance of the original character of our enterprize, who pronounce it a failure, because it has not reformed all,or a great proportion of the drunkards of the country. If it has reformed one drunkard, it has done what it did not promise, and what it did not expect to do. The adage, that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," had as much credit with the originators of this enterprize, as with others; and perfectly did they accord with the public sentiment, that the drunkard is beyond cure. We all remember, that this was the public sentiment of that period. Formerly, when a man became a drunkard, we excluded him from the pale of our sympathies. Vain, we thought it, to do for him, and almost no crime not to feel for him. The vice, to which he had yielded himself, stamped him in our eyes, with incurableness; and we abandoned him to a fate from which escape seemed well nigh impossible. There was hope for our friend, if the yellow fever or even the plague was upon him: but none if he became a drunkard. Now, however, under the health

ful influences of the Temperance Reformation, the Recovery of the drunkard is not only possible, but even probable; and when I look at the reformation, and see its illimitable and surpassingly varied beneficence reaching even to the countless multitude of drunkards, and holding out a prospect of deliverance even to these lost wretches, I must believe, and I would believe, though it were a hundred fold more neglected, derided and reproached than it is, that it has come down to us from heaven, and that it is owned and blest of that good Being, who himself came into our guilty, ruined world "to seek and to save that which was lost."

"We find that wherever the principles of the Temperance Reformation have obtained, there drunkards are reclaimed; and that too, even if no special efforts are made to reclaim them. In an atmosphere of total abstinence, the drunkard can come to life again. When rum has been banished from a neighborhood, and the sober in it have ceased to present temptations, in their example and practices, to the master appetite of the drunkard; when the state of society, instead of presenting constant and fatal hindrances to his reformation, has become so changed, as to invite and assist it; then the instance is common of the drunkard's becoming sober. And when we consider, that there are more than 300,000 drunkards in our nation, and that of these the Bible declares, they shall not inherit the kingdom of God ;" and that, of even their earthly woes, and those of their family connexions, the mind can form no adequate conception-it would seem that every sober man, in whose breast there remains any thing of good-will to his fellow men, must consent to the little and certainly harmless self-denial of discontinuing his use of strong drink, and of so far making his example and practices favorable to their recovery.

"When I returned, fourteen years ago, to reside in this village, more than every other man in it was a drunkard; and, at that time, it contained some sixty or seventy families. This unusually large proportion of drunkenness was doubtless owing, in a great measure, to its extensive manufacture of window glass. For firemen, as you are aware, formerly felt it to be necessary to drink up a large part of their wages; and thence the fact, that half the blacksmiths in our country, ten years ago, were drunkards. Two-thirds of all the men, who were buried in our village cemetery from the year 1820 until the beginning of the Temperance Reformation (I speak from personal knowledge) were drunkards. The vice of intemperance had impoverished the village. The sober could not make head way in the midst of such waste of time and property. There were half a dozen places in the village where rum was sold. There was a distillery in it, owned by a prominent member of the Presbyterian church, and which, until the dawn of the reformation, myself and others were blind and wicked enough to stock with grain. There were six other distilleries within the limits of the town, in which the village is situated. But the scene is greatly changed. The fires of the seven distilleries have all gone out-never again to be rekindled. The last chapter in the history of the village distillery is peculiarly interesting. It was purchased nearly a year ago by one of my neighbors, who from about the time of his purchase has been entirely reclaimed from habits of intemperance and idleness; and now, in the place of the tubs and the worm and the other apparatus of death, may be seen his

anvil, his bellows, and the cheerful and useful business of a sober, industrious, and worthy blacksmith. Only one place is left in our village, where the drunkard's drink can be obtained, and, for weeks together, an intoxicated man is not seen in our streets. Only one drunkard remains in the village. Of him we have very little hope, as his dwelling is hard by the house that supplies him with the "liquid death and distilled damnation." It is supposed that he is the only person in the village who drinks ardent spirit. For the young man who vends it, (respectable but for his occupation,) has too much sense to drink it. Would that he had too much benevolence to tempt others to drink it! Surprising change since the time, when more than every other man in the village was a drunkard!"

Mr. Smith then narrates the "important changes that have taken place in most of the drunkards" there, to the number of thirty eight. He refers to them by numbers from 1 to 38. We have only space for a description of three of them. Of the 7th, he says, "He is about 40 years of age, and has a family. Has more than a common education. For many years a loathsome drunkard. I have seen him lying in the street so drunk, as to be entirely insensible to his condition. Became miserably poor. About two years since, relinquished the use of ardent spirit, and joined the temperance society and church. With the exception of one week in these two years, he has appeared well the whole time. During that week he was so imprudent, and, I may add, so sinful, as to go unnecessarily into that only house in our village, where the poison is vended. He drank strong beer there until he became intoxicated. It was suspected, that his fellow drinkers mingled spirituous liquor with the beer, that they might, in the fall of the poor man, have an occasion for exulting over the temperance cause. His fit of drunkenness lasted several days: but when he recovered from it, he manifested the penitence of a child of GOD, and abjured even cider and beer for ever."

"Another of them," he says, "Is Elder Truman Beeman. I mention his name, because he has given me liberty to do so; and because the mention of it will, in many parts of New-England and this state, where he is known, increase the interest in the account I give of him. He is about 73 years of age; and, though his body is feeble, his superior mind remains perfectly sound. From twenty to thirty years he was a preacher of the gospel. A portion of that time, be resided in Rensselaerville and Catskill, in this state. He removed to this village upwards of twenty years ago. He was fond of liquor then, and had left the ministry shortly before. Soon he became a drunkard and a gambler; and the lips which had taught others the way of truth and life, were now eminently profane and obscene. No other man amongst us has ever done half so much to corrupt our youth, as Elder Beeman has done. His wit and remarkably ready talent at rhyming were his most powerful auxiliaries in this work. He became very poor, after having possessed a handsome property, and, but for the industry and good management of his wife, they would both have suffered the want of food and clothing. It was observed several years ago, that the Elder's habits were improving under the general reformation that was going on amongst us. But, never until a year ago, did he come to the resolution to abstain entirely and forever from the use of ardent spirit. Early in the winter, he attended a temperance meeting, which was addressed by Mr. Turner, the agent of the New York State Temperance Society, and there joined the society. From that day to this, he has not tasted of the poison, and, I believe, that the offer of a world would be insufficient to bribe him to taste it. Last winter he received from the War Department the welcome news, that his name was placed upon the pension list, and that he was entitled to one hundred and sixty dollars back pay. His old companions now flocked around him for a treat. They trusted, that the Elder's temperance was not yet firm enough to withstand so great and sudden prosperity. They had, perhaps, flattered themselves, that his temperance was owing, in some measure, to his inability to procure liquor. But they were disappointed. They found him to be an incorrigible cold water man. The Elder went to work in paying his debts and supplying his family with comforts; and left his old companions to purchase the whiskey they would have begged from