Editors were
there who had that morning written long "leaders" about the
oppression of the poor by the rich, and longer ones about the
inconsistencies of their contemporaries, who ate and drank, and
dreamt not of inconsistency in themselves, though they guided the
press with temperance reins, and harnessed themselves with those who
tarried long at the wine.
James drank quite often, and George as often admonished him of his
danger. But the admonitions of a young man had but little if any
influence, counteracted as they were by the example of the rich and
the great about him. There was Alderman Zemp, who was a temperance
man in the world, but a wine-drinker in a ship's cabin. He had
voted for stringent laws against the sale of liquors, and had had
his name emblazoned on the pages of every professedly temperance
paper as a philanthropist and a righteous man; and on the pages of
every anti-temperance publication, as a foe to freedom, and an enemy
to the rights of humanity. But he drank; yes, he had asked James to
take a glass of the water of Italy, as he called it. Clergymen, so
called, disgraced themselves, and gave the scoffers food for
merriment.
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