“As to the revenue, it certainly may be replaced by taxes upon the necessaries of life, even upon the bread we eat, or, in other words, upon the land, which is the great source of supply to the public, and to individuals.  Nor can I persuade myself, but that the people may be weaned from the habit of poisoning themselves.  The difficulty of smuggling a bulky liquid, joined to the severity which ought to be exercised towards smugglers, whose illegal commerce is of so infernal a nature, must, in time, produce the effect desired.  Spirituous liquors being abolished, instead of having the most undisciplined and abandoned poor, we might soon boast a race of men, temperate, religious, and industrious, even to a proverb.  We should soon see the ponderous burden of the poor’s rate decrease, and the beauty and strength of the land rejuvenate.  Schools, workhouses, and hospitals, might then be sufficient to clear our streets of distress and misery, which never will be the case, whilst the love of poison prevails, and the means of ruin is sold in above one thousand houses in the city of London, in two thousand two hundred in Westminster, and one thousand nine hundred and thirty in Holborn and St. Giles’s.

“But if other uses still demand liquid fire, I would really propose, that it should be sold only in quart bottles, sealed up, with the king’s seal, with a very high duty, and none sold without being mixed with a strong emetic.

“Many become objects of charity by their intemperance, and this excludes others, who are such by the unavoidable accidents of life, or who cannot, by any means, support themselves.  Hence it appears, that the introducing new habits of life, is the most substantial charity; and that the regulation of charity-schools, hospitals, and workhouses, not the augmentation of their number, can make them answer the wise ends, for which they were instituted.

“The children of beggars should be also taken from them, and bred up to labour, as children of the public.  Thus the distressed might be relieved, at a sixth part of the present expense; the idle be compelled to work or starve; and the mad be sent to Bedlam.  We should not see human nature disgraced by the aged, the maimed, the sickly, and young children, begging their bread; nor would compassion be abused by those, who have reduced it to an art to catch the unwary.  Nothing is wanting but common sense and honesty in the execution of laws.

“To prevent such abuse in the streets, seems more practicable than to abolish bad habits within doors, where greater numbers perish.  We see, in many familiar instances, the fatal effects of example.  The careless spending of time among servants, who are charged with the care of infants, is often fatal:  the nurse frequently destroys the child! the poor infant, being left neglected, expires whilst she is sipping her tea!  This may appear to you as rank prejudice, or jest; but, I am assured, from the most indubitable evidence, that many very extraordinary cases of this kind have really happened, among those whose duty does not permit of such kind of habits.