In the spring of 1867 I went to Connersville, and began the study of law with the Hon. John S. Reid.  Unfortunately, and I fear designedly, I made my acquaintances among, and selected my companions from, the most dissolute, idle, and intemperate class of young men in the town.  Connersville then had and still has among its citizens some very wealthy men, who suffered their boys to grow up without much care, mostly in idleness.  As might be expected the indifference of the fathers, joined to the natural inclinations of the sons, has proved the ruin of the latter.  I now call to mind several of those young men who are hopeless and complete wrecks.  Idleness and dissipation have done their terrible work in every case which I call to mind.

I read a little law, and drank a great deal of whisky, and as a natural consequence the time then passing was for the most part worse than lost.  Up to this period the duration of my sprees was not longer than a day and night.  They now were not confined to one day, for when I went out on what is called a “regular spree,” it was liable to be two or three days, as it has since been two or three weeks, before I got back.  Got back!  Where from?  The reader knows too well.

Out on a spree!  These are melancholy and heart-breaking words.  Out on a spree!  Oh, how much of misery is implied!  Out on a spree!  Readers, every one, I hope you will never have it said that you are out on a spree.  To go out on a spree is to throw away strength, without which the battle of life can not be fought; it is to squander money which you may need badly for the necessaries of life, which had better be thrown into the fire and burnt up than spent in such a way; it is to quench the light of ambition, to crush hope, entomb joy, lay waste the powers of the mind, neglect duty, desert the family, and commit in the end suicide.  Arson may have walked by your side while out on a spree, red murder may have grinned, dagger in hand, upon you, and death stalked within your shadow, ready in a thousand ways to strike you down.  Don’t go out on sprees.  Think of the pity of them, the wrong, the disgrace, the remorse, the misery.  Going on an occasional spree only will not do.  Some men will keep sober for weeks, and even months, but a birthday, or a wedding, or a national holiday, or a fit of the blues, or a streak of good luck, starts them off, and habit, like a smouldering flame, breaks out, and for a time all is over.  Such men scotch, but they do not kill the cobra of intemperance, and soon or late the other result will follow, the snake will kill them.  The reptile is tenacious of life, and so long as the life remains there is danger from the deadly venom of its tooth.  Those who have never formed the habit of drinking had better die at once than live to form it.  Those who have formed the habit should subdue it and never enter into a compromise with it.  The good effects of months of abstinence may be swept away in an hour.  Open the flood-gates of indulgence