WHISKEY v. BRAIN.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 113, 7 April 1870, Page 7

WHISKEY v. BRAIN.

An American temperance lecturer gave the following hard hit at " moderate drinkers :"

" All who in youth acquire a habit of drinking, at forty years of ago will be total abstainers or drunkards. No one can use whiskey for years with moderation. If there is a person in this audience whose experience disputes this, let him make it known, and I will account for it, or acknowledge that I am mistaken." A. tall, large man arose, and, folding his arms across his breast, said, " I offer myself as one whose experience contradicts your statement." "Are you a moderate drinker?" asked the judge. "I am." " How long have you drank in moderation?" "Forty years." "And were you never intoxicated 1" " Never." " "Well," remarked the judge, scanning his subject closely from head to foot, " yours is a singular case, yet I think it easily accounted for. lam reminded by it of a little story: — A coloured man, with a loaf of bread and some whiskey, sat down on the bank of a clear stream to dine. In breaking the bread he dropped some of the crumbs into the water. These were eagerly seized and eaten by the fish. That circumstance suggested to the negro the idea of dipping the bread into the whiskey and feeding it to them. He tried it. It worked well. Some of the fish ate of it, became drunk, and floated helpless on the suiface. ,In this way he easily caught a large number. But in the stream was a large fish, very unlike the rest. It partook freely of the bread and whiskey, with no perceptible effect. It was shy of every effort of the negro to take it. He resolved to have it at all hazards that he might learn its name and nature. He procured a net, and after much effort caught it, carried it to a coloured neighbour, and asked his opinion in the matter. The other surveyed the wonder a moment, and then said, ' Sambo, I understand this case. Dis fish is a mullet head ; it aint got any brains ! •' In other words," added the judge, " alcohol affects only the brains, and those having none may drink without injury." The storm of laughter which followed drove the "moderate drinker " suddenly from the hxmse.

Eichard Heber's Libbabt. — The greatest book-sale, probable, that ever took place in the world was that of the collection of Eichard Heber, in 1834. The catalogue was bound up in five thick octavo volumes. Tet -this magnificent collection had but a small beginning — one small chance voulme, picked up at a stall, entitled the " Vallie of Varietie,' about which he was for a time in doubt whether "to buy or not to buy." Hebsr lived to think nothing of going hundreds of miles any time in search of a book not in his collection. Nor would one copy suffice him. "No man," he used to say, "can comfortably do without three copies of a book — one for a show copy, at his country house ; a second for his own use and reference ; and a third to lend to his friends."

It is probable that a large portion of the stocks of California, which are said to reach 20,000,000 bushels, in place 'of being sent to London, will be precipitated upon the markets of Australia.