REPORT.

THE Council of the Massachusetts Temperance Society, respectfully offer the following Report for the year ending May, 27, 1836.

In reviewing the events of the past year, the Council have the melancholy duty to record the deaths of two members of the society, who have sustained important offices in this board. The Rev. Hosea Hildreth died suddenly the last summer, while in the office, and performing the arduous duties of Corresponding Secretary, and Agent of the society. Mr. Hildreth entered early into the public service of the temperance cause. For some time he continued his pastoral connection with his congregation in Gloucester, while engagedin the agency; but at length relinquished that connection, and devoted the most of his time to the society. Mr. Hildreth's reports testify to his zeal in the cause, and at the same time show his success. The report of the last year is particularly interesting. Mr. Hildreth collected for that report a great number of facts, which bear directly on the important question, how far the continued possession of real property may be affected by intemperance, or what changes of ownership in such property intemperance may produce. The report shows how numerous and how melancholy these changes have been in our own State. Had its author lived, he would doubtless have continued his researches,

and presented the public with results of startling moment, and calculated to produce most salutary effects. The Council regard the facts bearing on this subject, contained in the last annual report, so momentous that they here present them again to the society and to the public.

"Since the last annual meeting, the corresponding secretary has made many inquiries concerning the number of estates, which in different towns have gone from the hands of their owners, in consequence of the use of ardent spirit, within the last thirty or thirty-five years. From motives of delicacy, or other causes, the answers to inquiries have not been so numerous as it was hoped they would be; but they have been sufficient to show that the temperance reformation was hardly less needed in the country, than on the seaboard.

"In a town in the interior, containing, at the last census, less than twelve hundred inhabitants, twenty farms have been lost to the owners, since the year 1800, through intemperance; and the owners of twenty more have been reduced from the same cause, sold their farms, moved out of town, and come to poverty. This town is now remarkable for temperance. An elderly inhabitant remarked that twenty years ago three families in five were becoming poorer; 'but now,' said he, 'the town is highly prosperous, and if any family among us is becoming poorer, it is because there is a drunkard in it.'

"From an aged and respectable inhabitant of another town, the following has been received: 'As I promised, I have cast my eye over the parish to which I belong, containing a population of about thirteen hundred, and I find, that within thirty-five years past, at least thirty-five farms and tenements have gone out of the owners' hands, in consequence of the use of ardent spirit; and, in a short time, five more may be safely added.'

"In another town, containing less than nine hundred inhabitants, and about one hundred farms, and, at present, greatly distinguished for temperance and prosperity, it has been found that thirty farms within the same period, have been lost in the same way, and in some instances the same farm has been twice lost.

"A correspondent from another town, of about thirteen hundred inhabitants, says, 'I have submitted your inquiries to two gentlemen, who have been conversant with the affairs of this town for forty or fifty years, and they have informed me, that twenty-two farms have passed from the hands of the owners, in consequence of the use of ardent spitit, within the last twenty years.'

"Another correspondent from a town of about the same number of inhabitants, says, 'I have consulted with some other individuals, and we find the subject rather difficult; but have counted thirty-seven cases in which farms have changed owners, in consequence of spirit, since 1800. I expect this is too low, and it is but a fraction of the whole number of persons, who have ruined themselves, and spent what little property they had, in that time.' 'In this town,' he adds, 'are small cider distilleries, and the owners are in the habit of selling cider-brandy by the gallon or quart.'

"In the region of cider distilleries, two or three years ago, in a single school district of twenty-eight families, eighteen of the heads were intemperate, and eleven of the husbands in the habit of beating their wives.

"From a highly respectable citizen of a large and flourishing town, containing, at the last census, about two thousand five hundred inhabitants, the following has been received:-'I have ascertained, as well as I could, the number of farms that have been lost, or their value been exhausted, so that they were obliged to be sold, and little or nothing remained, by reason of the too great use of ardent spirit, in this town, within thirty years last past, and find the number to be one hundred and two.'

"In other towns the results have been similar to those above given.

"A respectable physician in the country thus writes:-There is one other item in the statistics of intemperance, which it seems to me demands more attention than has hitherto been given to it; I mean the proportional number of premature deaths caused by alcohol. There are very many, who are reputed temperate,

sober and steady men, who, perhaps, never got drunk in their lives, but who come to an untimely end, in consequence of using small quantities daily. I have known many instances of the kind, when the cause was not dreamed of by their neighbors and most intimate friends. I have been in this town about ten years, and I think I speak within bounds, when I say, that during that time three-fourths of all deaths of adult males between the ages of twenty and fifty years, have been caused directly or indirectly by alcohol.'

"In a respectable town, where good progress has been made in the temperance reform, of eighteen men over twenty-one years of age, who died within the period of four years previous to December 1834, ten were intemperate.

"A correspondent from a town in the county of Berkshire, says, 'I cannot state the number of farms that have passed from their owners within the time you name. There have been several persons within my recollection, who have lost their estates wholly, or become so embarrassed as to be obliged to sell, principally from the too free use of spirit. Indeed, I think the embarrassment and consequent loss of property of which threefifths of our farmers and mechanics complain in this county, can fairly be traced to this source. When we see that six and a quarter cents only per day, spent in this form, amounts to twenty-two dollars and eighty-one cents, in a year, we can easily see, why a man, a hard working man, who has a small farm, worth from twelve to fifteen hundred dollars, is obliged to sell at fortyfive years of age, his whole estate, to pay from six hundred to one thousand dollars, that he finds himself indebted for. Whereas, had even this small sum been secured, and put on interest yearly, he would have found himself at the same age, a man in prosperous circumstances, and wholly free from the danger of intemperance.' The death of such a man, as Mr. Hildreth, in the midst of such labors, is a public loss. His name will be long remembered by the friends of temperance, and it has a permanent place in the recordsof the society.

Dr. J. G. Stevenson resigned his office of Recording Secre