a love for tea in early life. Three or four dishes drunk in an afternoon carried off the fatigue of a whole day's labour in his school. This gentleman lived to be seventy-one years of age, and afterwards died of an acute disease, in the full exercise of all the faculties of his mind.

To every class of my readers, I beg leave to suggest a caution against the use of TODDY. I acknowledged that I have known some men who, by limiting its strength constantly, by measuring the spirit and water, and who by drinking it only with their meals have drunk toddy for many years without suffering in any degree from it; but I have known many more who have been insensibly led from drinking toddy for their constant drink, to take drams in the morning, and have afterward paid their lives as the price of their folly. I shall select one case from among many that have come within the compass of my knowledge, to shew the ordinary progress of intemperance in the use of spirituous liquors. A gentleman, once of a fair and sober character, in the city of Philadelphia, for many years drank toddy as his constant drink. From this he proceeded to drink grogafter awhile nothing would satisfy him but slings, made of equal parts of rum and water, with a little sugar. From slings he advanced to raw rum-and from common rum to Jamaica spirits. Here he rested for a few months; but at last he found even Jamaica spirits were not strong enough to warm his stomach, and he made it a constant practice to throw a table-spoonful of ground pepper into each glass of his spirits (in order, to use his own expressions,)" to take off their coldness." It is hardly necessary to add, that he soon afterwards died a martyr to his intemperance.

I shall conclude what has been said of the effects of spirituous liquors with two observations. 1. A people corrupted by strong drink cannot long be a free people. The rulers of such a community will soon partake of the vices of that mass from which they are secreted, and all our laws and governments will sooner or later bear the same marks of the effects of spirituous liquors which were described formerly upon individuals. I submit it, therefore, to the consideration of the Legislature of Pennsylvania, whether more laws should not be made to increase the expence and lessen the consumption of spirituous liquors, and whether some mark of public infamy should not be inflicted by law upon every man convicted, before a common magistrate, of drunkenness.

The second and last observation I shall offer is of a serious nature. It has been remarked, that the Indians have diminished every where in America since their connection

with the Europeans. This has been justly ascribed to the Europeans having introduced spirituous liquors among them. Let those men, who are every day turning their backs upon all the benefits of cultivated society, to seek habitations in the neighbourhood of Indians, consider how far this wandering mode of life is produced by the same cause which has scattered and annihilated so many Indian tribes. Long life, and the secure possession of property in the land of their ancestors, were looked upon as a blessing among the ancient Jews. For a son to mingle his dust with the dust of his father, was to act worthy of his inheritance; and the prospect of this honour often afforded a consolation even in death. However exalted, my countrymen, your ideas of liberty may be, while you expose yourselves by the use of spirituous liquors to this consequence of them, you are nothing more than the pioneers, or, in more slavish terms, the "hewers of wood" of your more industrious neighbours.

If the facts that have been stated have produced in any of my readers, who have suffered from the use of spirituous liquors, a resolution to abstain from them hereafter, I must beg leave to inform them, they must leave them off suddenly and entirely. No man was ever gradually reformed from drinking spirits. He must not only avoid tasting, but even smelling them, until long habits of abstinence have subdued his affection for them. To prevent his feeling any inconveniences from the sudden loss of their stimulus upon his stomach, he should drink plentifully of camomile or of any other bitter tea, or a few glasses of sound old wine every day. I have great pleasure in adding, that I have seen a number of people who have been effectually restored to health-to character, and to usefulness to their families and to society, by following this advice.

1785, Sept.

B. RUSH.

LXXVI. On the Ventilation of Prisons. MR. URBAN, Manchester, June 22. THE erection of a new gaol for the division of Ipswich, and of a house of correction for that of St. Edmund's-bury, having engaged the attention of the inhabitants of Suffolk, Capel Loft, Esq. an able and active magistrate of that county, consulted Dr. John Jebb, concerning their polity and construction. The answer returned by him was printed in 1785; and I was honoured by Mr. Loft with a copy of the

tract, which is now inserted in the 2d vol. of the doctor's works. It is written in the true spirit of philanthropy, and contains many judicious and important observations. But differing in opinion from the amiable and respectable author on one essential point, I availed myself of the privilege granted me, and transmitted my sentiments to Mr. Loft, without reserve, trusting they would be communicated to Dr. Jebb, whose friendly correspondence I sometimes enjoyed. But the melancholy event of his death occurred about the time when my letter arrived; and it was delivered to Lord Chedworth, as chairman, for the consideration of the justices at the quarter session. If you think such a mite towards the general stock of public information, on a subject which now happily interests the physician, the philosopher, and the statesman, in almost every country of Europe, will be an acceptable contribution, the publication of it in your Repository will oblige your constant reader,

T. P..

Copy of a letter from Dr. Percival to Capel Loft, Esq. of Treston Hall, near Bury, in Suffolk, on the subject of Prisons.

SIR,

Manchester, Jan. 26, 1786.

PERMIT me to return my grateful acknowledgments for your very obliging letter; which, though dated Sept. 22, 1785, arrived only three weeks ago, together with an interesting tract on the construction and polity of prisons. I admire the ability, and honour the patriotic zeal, which this little work displays; and perhaps I shall but evince my respect for the editor, by offering to him such comments or remarks as the perusal of it has suggested to my mind.

Though under the form of a query, it seems to be laid down as a postulatum, that, when infection has once taken place in a prison inclosed by high walls, it will continue to exert its baneful powers with various degrees of malignity, notwithstanding all the cautions which may be employed to counteract its influence and it is therefore recommended, as essential to salubrity, that a dry moat, with shelving sides, like a line of circumvallation, should surround, at a proper distance, the place of confinement; that from the bottom of this moat a wall should be raised, twenty-five feet in height; but that the top of it should not exceed the level of the soil. I apprehend that this mode of inclosure is impracticable in large towns, where an extent of land adequate to it, with a

proper drainage, can seldom be obtained; that it would diminish the terrors of imprisonment to the spectators without, and to the malefactors within; that it might afford means of dangerous communication between them; that it is in no situation indispensably necessary; and that the forcible manner in which it is urged, by such respectable authorities, may render the visitation of most gaols, on their present unalterable construction, too alarming to be undertaken by any honorary inspectors, whether delegated in rotation from the magistracy, as Mr. Howard recommends, or appointed by authority of parliament. I shall not trespass either on your time, or my own, by engaging in the discussion of each of these topics: but I feel it incumbent on me to submit to your candid consideration the reasons which lead me to controvert the opinion," that walls above the level of the inhabited surface are incompatible with the necessary ventilation of a prison."

Ever since the receipt of your letter, I have paid particular attention to the action of the wind in the court-yard at the back of my dwelling-house, which is a quadrangular area of about 3240 square feet, in the centre of which are planted a few trees and shrubs. On the north side it is screened by the house, which is three stories high, and eighteen yards in length. The south side is occupied by a stable, coach-house, &c. On each of the other sides, lower offices are erected; but behind these, considerable buildings rise, the property of my neighbours. This area, therefore, is as much secluded from ventilation as the courtyards in many of our prisons; yet I have uniformly observed, that a very gentle wind suffices to give motion to the shrubs, and even to blow about the straw and other light bodies on the flagged pavement, with which it is environed. The sunshine also, on the calmest day, cannot fail, by the beat which it communicates, to dissipate the noxious vapours, and renovate the air. And every shower of rain performs the same salutary office.

The means of obviating contagion, or the antidotes to it, where it subsists, seem to be three-fold. 1st, Such as weaken its energy by dilution, or by a minute division of its particles. 2dly, Such as operate solely on the human body, by counteracting its susceptibility of infection. 3dly, Such as affect the poison itself, rendering it innoxious, by producing some chemical or other change in its nature. A familiar analogy may at once illustrate and confirm this proposition. It is well known, that a grain of tartar emetic will excite vomiting. But if this antimonial preparation be

dissolved in a very large portion of water, the emetic power which it possessed will be destroyed. The same loss of power will ensue if a dose of opium be administered either previously or in conjunction with it, by which the stomach will become insensible to its action. And lastly, if an alkaline salt be added to it, the decomposition thus produced will render it inert. A knowledge of these several correctives of contagion is interesting to the magistrate as well as to the physician. But the most important of them, and what is now chiefly to be considered, is dilution, which may, I trust, be accomplished, so as to obviate the communication of infection, by smaller supplies of fresh air, than you seem to apprehend.

Contagion, like all other poisons, must subsist in some definite quantity, or degree of concentration, to be capable of producing its deleterious effects. And though the minimum, or least point of activity, under which, when reduced by diffusion, it becomes innoxious, hath not, and perhaps cannot, be precisely ascertained; yet we have sufficient evidence to satisfy us that this subsists at no great distance from its source. Dr. Mackenzie, who practised physic thirty years in the cities of Smyrna, and Constantinople, assures us, that he was never afraid to go into a large house wherein a person lay under the plague, provided the patient was confined to one room. And the Rev. Thomas Dawes, chaplain to the British factory at Aleppo, in his account of a dreadful pestilence which raged with such violence in that place in the years 1761, and 1762, that from two to three hundred persons were buried daily, relates that the plague twice broke out in two houses adjoining to that in which the British Consul lived: but although, according to the custom of the East, they constantly slept during the months of July and August, in the open air on the house-top, and a Franciscan friar, whose bed was only six yards distant from that of Mr. Dawes, (both being placed near a wall eight feet high, by which the terraces of the two houses were separated,) died of the disease after two days illness, yet he and all the family escaped infection. I shall recite a more remarkable fact from the authority of my late honoured friend, Sir John Pringle, which still further illustrates what has been advanced. In the year 1750, on the 7th of May, the sessions commenced at the Old Bailey, and continued several days, during which time more criminals were tried, and a greater multitude was present, than usual. This court is only thirty feet square; and the corruption of the air was aggravated by the foul steams of the bail-dock, and