THE following facts preach a more impressive sermon against strong drink than can be drawn from the most powerful reasoning. When men fall and the waves go over them, the world rushes on, and they are soon forgotten. But let these cases be held up to view; let the terrible gulf be seen which intemperance has opened between their former position of honor and prosperity, and their present degradation and poverty, and a more startling warning is given than can be expressed in words. There they see intemperance in its true incarnation. The Hartford Times publishes a suggestive letter headed, “Distinguished Drunkards,” from its Washington correspondent “Mac,” who obtained the material for it during a ramble through the Washington poor-house. One of the first men he met there had been at one time Attorney General of Virginia. In his office a number of now distinguished lawyers were students, and they owe much to his advice. His father had been Attorney General of the United States, and left his son wealth. But he drank and sacrificed distinction, fortune, and everything to his love of drink. Another distinguished pauper was an ex-Judge of the Supreme Court of California, and had been esteemed one of the most eloquent men of his time. He came to Washington expecting to get an office, was disappointed, took to drink, and drank himself out of pocket, mind, and friends, and into the poor-house. In his company, the correspondent found a once wealthy newspaper editor and proprietor of New York—a man of great ability and political influence. This man also sank all he possessed in whisky, and has been for three years in the almshouse. Sometimes his friends take him out, but, says the correspondent, “he drinks so much that he lies about the streets, and is returned by the police.” A fourth pauper had been only a few years ago a political power, special agent of the Post Office Department, and owner of much property in Washington and Arkansas. At one time he was a United States detective, but while drunk he “gave away” the details of a case that would have resulted in the capture of two or three hundred thousand dollars in counterfeit money, presses, plates, etc. For this he was ruined. When sober he was capable of doing remarkable work. In fact, fortune and fame were his if he had not allowed the taste for liquor to grow on him. In another branch of the institution the correspondent found an ex-Attorney General of North Carolina. He made many friends, drank much whisky, neglected his business and everything else, and drifted to the poor-house. Says the correspondent, “The principal reason for his being put where he now is, is that he stole a friend’s vest, and sold it for whisky.” To such depths of degradation will whisky bring the strongest and ablest of us. A man who was Stephen A. Douglass’ intimate friend, and who used to speak from the same platforms with him, is also a Washington pauper. When fortune smiled on him he used liquor as a relish, and when her smiles turned to frowns, he took it as an antidote for sorrow. It brought him temporary relief and permanent ruin. Coming into the almshouse in the “Black Maria,” as the correspondent left it, was an old, white-haired man, “who was at one time one of the leading men of the Michigan bar. He is the man who backed Zach Chandler, and made him, politically speaking, what he is to-day. And this man of great legal ability, political influence sufficient to make and unmake men, and much wealth, is now a pauper. Why? Because he allowed whisky to obtain the mastery over him, as did all the others herein referred to. Do not you, young man, find this record very suggestive?”