TEETOTALISM A PLEBEIAN VIRTUE.
ATE, so it is. For although Lord STANHOPE and other distinguished persons are used as decoy-birds to lure humbler flocks, the mass of Teetotallers are plebeian. Moreover, they are especially exhorted to the virtue at the very time that others celebrate the opposite amenity. At Mullaghmast, Mr. O'CoxNELL asked out of doors, "Have I any Teetotallers here ? " but he did not ask it at the dinner. Perhaps, because he did not expect to find them ; which seems likely enough. Thirteen toasts are specified : now, allowing a bumper to each toast—" no daylight and no heeltaps "that made a clear bottle apiece after dinner, to take no account of insidious pledges at dinner. Were all these convivialists Teetotallers in disguise ? was there a wholesale resort to the decanter of toast-and-water, as a polite evasion ? If so, why prolong the distasteful and tedious form ? But it is incredible : vinous enthusiasm and eloquence are not so easily simulated. What then is the ground of the distinction ? It must be in the difference of the liquors—it is desirable for whisky-drinkers to be Teetotallers, but not for wine-drinkers, Or is it that whisky-drinkers will forego their scanty indulgence, but that wine-drinkers would revolt from Repeal annexed to total abstinence ? So, Milesian O'CoNxELL sticks to a truly Saxon alliance with the bottle.
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