it on the plea that the use of porter and ale was allowed by the pledge. To this it was replied by the writer that "the sooner the pledge was altered the better, and he for one was prepared for such alteration, if any other members of the society were willing to join him." A member of the Society of Friends here asked that the last words be repeated.

On the following day this "friend" sent a request to the proposer of the alteration of the pledge (Mr. Davice) to call on him that evening, and on going to his house he found a few members of the society collected; and at this meeting the following pledge was adopted, and signed by four or five of those present:-" We, the subscribers, influenced by the conviction that Temperance is best promoted by Total Abstinence from all intoxicating liquors, do voluntarily consent to relinquish entirely their use, and neither to give nor receive them upon any save medical cases, smallbeer excepted, and wine on sacramental occasions. We likewise agree to give no encouragement or support to any coffee-house established for the sale of intoxicating liquors. Upon these principles we form ourselves into a society, to be called 'The Dunfermline Association for the Promotion of Temperance by the Relinquishment of all Intoxicating Liquors.""*

The small-beer thus excepted was such as the workpeople were in the habit of using with their porridge in winter, instead of milk, and was retailed at a halfpenny the quart bottle.

The members of the Temperance Society denounced the new pledge as calculated to injure the movement, though the members of the new society did not withdraw from the old. In a few years they obtained a majority of members at one of their annual meetings; but at the request of a clergyman, who pleaded not to be put out of the society, no less than four forms of pledge were adopted, with a view to retain him and some other influential members. With few exceptions the Abstainers belonged to the working classes. The four pledges were the long and short pledges of the old Temperance Society, and the long and short pledge of Abstinence. This plan did not work well, for whenever Total Abstinence was advocated from all intoxicants offence was the result to the adherents of the other views.

The second Abstinence Society is said to have been formed at Paisley, on the 14th of January, 1862, by Mr. Daniel Richmond, then a student in medicine, at Glasgow. The society was called "The Paisley Youths' Association for the Prevention and Cure of Intemperance," and had a pledge of Abstinence "from all liquors containing any quantity of alcohol, except when absolutely necessary"-the exception being understood by the originators of the society in the same sense as the generally prevailing clause, "except as a medicine." On the next day was instituted in Glasgow "The Tradeston Total Abstinence Society," the principal promoters being Mr. Richmond and Mr. James MacNair, of Glasgow.

The third society seems to date from the 19th January, 1832, at Greenlaw, Berwickshire, after addresses by Mr. George Clazy, of Eccles,

* The original manuscript, with signatures adhibited, is still in the possession of Mr. Davie, and has been examined by Mr. Robert Rae, Dr. Lees, and others.-Ed.

and Mr. John Parker, divinity student, the author of the following pledge, which was additional to the old one:- "We do resolve that, so long as we are members of this association, we shall abstain from the use of distilled spirits, wines, and all other intoxicating liquors, except for medicinal and sacramental purposes."

The Rev. Mr. Parker (now of Sunderland) shows how exceptional was the feeling, and strange the doctrine, which had thus been embraced by himself, from the teachings of Mr. Cruikshank, of Dundee.

"Then and there I insisted upon a second horn to the altar, which was only allowed out of deference to a well-meaning but weak brother, and generally laughed at. My own name stood at it alone for some weeks, and then my sisters adhibited theirs. Greatful do I, at the distance of upwards of thirty years, look at that star which I prefixed to my name, now brighter than ever, and which, I have no doubt, will shine brighter and brighter till my country be freed from the curse of intemperance." John Fraser, Esq., of Johnstone, thus speaks of the succeeding period:

The first stage of the movement soon passed away. The celebrated John Finch, of Liverpool, visited Scotland to proclaim the thorough doctrine of Total Abstinence. He lectured in Edinburgh. At the close, some half dozen formed an Abstinence Society. My own name, I think, was the seventh on the list. This is the origin of the Edinburgh Society. They formed a committee, of which I was a member for years. Few were the lecturers at that period. In fact we were terrified to face the public with our stringent, novel Abstinence doctrine. A lecture on the subject was given. The committee induced me to perform the ticklish task. The place was the Cowgate Chapel. A large posse of policemen were engaged in case of disturbance. The audience was large. I lectured on the physiology of the question, and well do I remember stating, even then, that law, in due time, would have to put down the Traffic. Our committee held the same opinion. I shortly afterwards started a newspaper (The True Scotsman). One of its avowed objects was to advance Total Abstinence, and Ì did so in every paper. I was occasionally honoured with communications on this subject from Dr. Lees, a name never to be mentioned without admiration and gratitude. That paper, started in the capital of Scotland, was the first stamped paper in Great Britain that advocated, as a matter of principle, the Abstinence principle."

In 1837 the Rev. Robert Gray Mason visited Dunfermline, and applied to a bookseller for information as to the leaders in the Temperance movement. He was directed to the author of the Abstinence pledge, but on comparing notes it was discovered that Mr. Mason only advocated the old pledge, and he was referred to the president of the Temperance Society. Mr. Mason, at the meeting that night, pleaded for the old pledge, telling, among other anecdotes, the now well known one of the Friend who hired the coachman that drove furthest from the precipice of danger. Next day Mr. Mason called on the writer, in company with the president of the Temperance Society and a clergyman, urging the abandonment of the Total Abstinence pledge, the breaking up of the Temperance Society, and the re-forming of all on the single basis of the old pledge, intimating that a meeting for that purpose would be held that evening. The writer [Mr. Davie] intimated that evening that, like the Friend, he preferred a basis that would keep the members as far from danger as possible. That night a separation of the Abstinence and original Temperance men took place, and a new impulse was given to our movement.

At a public meeting held some time after this occurrence, Mr. Mason appeared in lieu of the president of the Edinburgh Society, and then

Temperance Legislative Agitation in Scotland.

75

stated that the chairman was his Teetotal father, and that owing to the way in which his own anecdote had been turned against him.

The movement in this its first locality in Scotland was rapid, and seemed at one time likely to finish the Traffic. But, alas! reaction took place, and the Traffic continued to raise up new subjects for cure, and pulled back many who were, for a time, reformed.

Ere 1838 societies had been formed in the chief towns of Scotland, as well as many of its villages; the Paisley Abstinence Society in 1832, the Glasgow and Edinburgh Societies in 1836.

What has been the social effect of the movement in Scotland? We reply, great and happy changes have taken place among all grades of society; it is no longer necessary that an entertainer make his guests drunk ere they leave his table; liquor is not nearly so commonly offered to callers or to workmen. Soirées, in connection with churches and other institutions, have, in a great measure, taken the place of dinners, attended with drinking; funerals are now generally conducted without the use of intoxicants. Some may be curious to learn something of the few individuals who signed the pledge of Abstinence on the 21st September, 1830. One, a reformed character, continued a few years while the excitement lasted, and broke his pledge at last by taking it as a medicine; for a wonder he never went to excess. Another of the same class continued a consistant and active Abstainer until his death, a few years after, brought on by his previous intemperate habits. Two left the district, and nothing is known of their history. A fifth continues to keep his pledge to this day, but being of a retiring nature withdrew from public work. A sixth, the author of the pledge, continues to this day, having been actively engaged ever since that date in promoting the cause in its varied phases. He was for many years a moral suasionist, but looking back at the work that had been done, and forward to the work which the Traffic continued to provide, he was thoroughly prepared to join the Alliance at its formation.

History of

A

Temperance Legislative Agitation in Scotland.
By DAVID LEWIS, Edinburgh.

SKETCH of the origin and progress of the Temperance movement in Scotland necessitates a brief reference to the movement in its elementary stage. It is sufficient for our present purpose that we take a retrospective glance so far back as 1840, when a few of our more intelligent advocates were beginning to discover that mere moral suasion was inadequate for the suppression of national intemperance; and that, if success was ever to be achieved, recourse must be had to legislative interference with the Traffic. Among the foremost of those was the late agent of the United Kingdom Alliance, Mr. James Mitchell, whose herculean labours in connection with the cause, extending over a quarter of a century, are unrivalled in the annals of Temperance Reform in Scotland. In 1845 we find him, in the "National Temperance Magazine," writing as follows:

"The time has come, in the providence of God all things are ready, and we will certainly fail in our duty if we do not petition, petition, petition calmly, temperately, showing to the whole world that while we have no wish to urge Government to interfere-violently to put a stop to evils by the strong arm of law, when society is not prepared for such interferenceyet that we wish them to understand what is their duty when society has advanced a sufficient length, in preventing practices which are obviously injurious to the vital interests of the community over which they are placed."

Shortly after Mr. Mitchell had given utterance to these sentiments, the legislative movement may be said to have been inaugurated by the illustrious Dr. Chalmers. While this great and gifted divine was engaged in working out his territorial scheme, he found the public-house system a formidable barrier to the satisfactory solution of that great social problem which, in the language of his biographer, for "more than thirty years was the ruling passion of his life." No sooner did he discover the real character of the Traffic than he commenced an agitatation for its immediate legislative repression. Joined in his agitation by Dr. George Bell, Dr. Guthrie, Sheriff Spiers, Bailie Duncan, and others, the work of aggression soon told upon the country.

In 1846 a select committee was obtained in the House of Commons for investigating the subject. Although nothing very definite resulted, the work of agitation was continued, encountering considerable opposition from the public-house interest, and, strange to say, from the directors of of the Scottish Temperance League. In 1850 the Scottish Association for the Suppression of Drunkenness was formed, which at once gave point and power to the agitation. While seeking the suppression of drunkenness by a variety of ways, the executive, with the Duke of Argyle at its head, directed special attention to the evils of the Sunday Traffic, and through means of the pulpit, the platform, and the press, demanded its total and instant prohibition. With a singleness and determination of aim they prosecuted the work of popular enlightenment. With a perfect knowledge of the character and position of the enemy they employed means skilfully adapted to their end.

Regarding the Sunday Traffic as a huge system of desecration and profanity, shielded and sustained by law, they impeached it as a great social nuisance, and called upon Parliament to suppress it. Though confronted by the opposition of the Traffic, and subjected to the hostile attacks of the misguided officials of Abstinence in the rear, they faltered not; but, rising above all party and sectarian divisions, assumed the broad ground of citizenship, and refused to listen either to the grievances of the Traffic, or to the desponding cry of "impractical" from Temperance officials. So signal was the success which crowned the early labours of the association, that in the year following a bill was introduced into the House of Commons by Lord Kinnaird, preferring a heavy indictment against the traffic, and embodying a clause demanding the total and immediate abolition of the Sunday sale. Although unsuccessful, the defeat was only regarded as a call to further duty, and the agitation was again resumed. After two additional years of effort, during which the Witness, the Scottish

Press, and the Christian News rendered eminent service, the bill was re-introduced by Mr. Forbes Mackenzie, and supported by numerous petitions from municipal boards and Church courts, with a number of general petitions, including one from Edinburgh, bearing upwards of 20,000 signatures.

After a fierce conflict with the representatives of the Traffic, who disputed clause after clause with a tenacity rarely equalled in parliamentary debate, it was finally carried, and in due time its enforcement delivered Scotland from one of the most gross and outrageous forms of Sunday desecration. While the new public-houses act was eminently successful in accomplishing its chief object, it must be admitted that it gave breadth and depth to a current of illicit sale, which in the large centres of population still prevails to an alarming extent, baffling the utmost vigilance of the police. To these students of Temperance philosophy this was no matter of surprise, knowing, as they did, that wherever there is a license law to foster the appetite of the drunkard during six days of the week, so certainly will appetite seek to overleap the legal obstacle on the seventh. While publicans have sought to depreciate the beneficial results of the act, some of those loudest in its support have foolishly shut their eyes to the fact that it has fostered the illicit Traffic. It is no rare thing to find those, whose means of correct information are most ample, ascribing exclusively to the public-houses act the great diminution in the consumption of spirits which took place after 1854, the year in which the act came into operation. Now, we venture to affirm, that if the effect of the increased duty which immediately followed the operation of the act be allowed due consideration, it will furnish a more complete explanation of the marked decrease which happily took place. No cause can in the end be benefited by exaggerated statements, which indeed must sooner or later recoil to its disadvantage.

In support of the position indicated, I submit the following facts: From 1796 to 1806 the tax upon foreign brandy was from 7s. 6d. to 148. per gallon, and the annual consumption averaged 700,000 gallons. In the year 1841 the population had increased nearly one-half, and the duty was increased to 22s. 6d. per gallon, when the consumption fell to 23,000 gallons only. Or let us compare two periods closer together. In the year 1814 the duty on brandy was 14s. per gallon, and the consumption was 1,820,000 gallons. The next year the duty was increased to 18s. 10d. per gallon, when the consumption fell to 720,000 gallons. The same results have always attended the increasing of the whiskey duties. In Ireland, in the year 1811, the whiskey duty was 2s. 6d. per gallon, and the annual consumption was nearly 6,500,000 gallons. Two years afterwards the duty was increased to 5s. 74d. per gallon, and the consumption fell to less than 2,000,000 gallons, and continued below 3,000,000 gallons yearly, until a fatal policy reduced the duty to 28. 4ąd., when the consumption immediately rose to 6,000,000 gallons, and continued to increase with such rapidity that in 1838 it amounted to the enormous quantity of 12,276,342 gallons.

Let it now be kept in mind that prior to the new public-house act coming into operation, in 1854, the duty on spirits was 4s. 8d. per gallon,