By the enduring perseverance of the lovers of cold water, laws have been passed in most of the Western States forbidding the sale of those beverages which make men rich, happy, dizzy, and drunk, all in the space of half an hour; so that now a good horn is not, as formerly, to be purchased at every corner grocery, and travellers are forced to carry a couple of "drunks" in a willow-covered flask in their overcoat pocket.

The usual "bitters" are not forthcoming in the morning, and old topers who have for years regularly paid their morning devotions to the decanter or the black bottle, must now perforce become votaries of the hydrant and the rain water barrel.

Not a few men have, within the last four months, drunk more water than for years before, to the great astonishment of their stomachs, which would, at first, almost rebel against the unusual visitor.

Many an habitual guzzler whose convivial habits have generally sent him to bed at five o'clock every afternoon, has been amazed to discover what a difference the new drink makes in the stability of the village constituents; and it will be a matter of wonder to find that at four in the afternoon the town is in comparatively the same situation it was in the morning; that the tavern sign is not over the shoe-maker's shop, nor the horse-trough in the front-parlor; that the pump is in the street instead of the church belfry, the confectioner's shop not in the livery stable, the livery horses not in the bakery, the bakery not a hardware store, the hardware store not full of shingles and building stuff; that the poplar-trees in front of the minister's house are right end up, and the flower-garden of the minister's wife is in a state of ordinary propriety, with no snow-balls growing on the strawberry vines, or strawberries on the lilacs; no blue-bells on the locust-trees, violets on the currant bushes, or lilies in the onion-beds; that there are no tulips on the pickets, and no moss-rose buds springing from the shed,—and that the boy who waters the stage-coach horses every afternoon as the clock strikes quarter to five, does not lead them tail first up the church lightning rod, and make them drink from the ridge-pole, as he had always thought.

In short he finds a serious and sudden change in the world around him, and that all the curious phenomena before mentioned and which formerly were always present in the afternoon to his confused vision, immediately after imbibing his seventeenth glass of rum and water, have ceased to occur, and that every thing is now right side up, and front end foremost to his ever before bewildered optics.

And not a few men who would be ashamed to own that they really care anything for the drop of spirits which they occasionally take for the "stomach's sake" will be seriously incommoded by this new stringency in temperance principles; and the deacon or elder who in the privacy of his closet kept a spiritual comforter of half pint dimension will miss, more seriously than he would like to own, even to himself, this pious dram.

Longer faces and sourer tempers will be the result, and many a young aspirant to church membership will be found deficient in necessary Christian graces, which the charitable eyes of his thirsty examiners might have found in abundance, had not the Maine Law interfered with the generosity of their judgment, and made their vision less clear than usual.

But these are things it will not do to speak of; only the gross appetites of the three cent drinker should be made matters of common conversation.

Travelling lately through the thirsty State of Ohio, I had many opportunities of observing how they get round and over the letter of the Law.

In that state the framers of the law, with a commendable regard for the commercial welfare of their constituents, many of whom are large vine-growers, inserted a special clause allowing the traffic in beer and native wine to remain unmolested.

Travellers will therefore find in this State now a greater variety of wine than is grown in any other one country in the world.

Liquors which he, in another place, would recognise as brandy, rum, or gin, are partially disguised under transparent cognomens as native wine.

Brandy-"smashes," rum-punches, gin-cock-tails, sherry-cobblers, mint-juleps, and every kind of desirable potable, are all manufactured from "Longworth's Sparkling"—old corn-whiskey is known as "Still Catawba"—and a vast deal of the "lager-beer" is put up in brandy casks, and tastes exceedingly like the genuine article.

Being in the vicinity of the Pork city (where they have a ham on the top of the tallest church spire in the place, pointing with the knuckle end to Heaven,) I had an opportunity to visit a large wine-cellar which belonged to Damphool's uncle, who was to accompany us, and had also from him permission to taste the different vintages.

Got to the place, went down cellar, boy gave each of us a long stick with a tallow candle on the end; got down; wine everywhere, in big casks, in long bottles, in small bottles, in tin dippers, in glass vials, and in little puddles on the floor.

Bottles ranged in regiments all wrong side up with cobwebs on the corks.

Every one had the year of the vintage painted on the bottom, as if it was a British baby and its age had to be registered by the parish.

One cask was big enough to float a scow-boat or hold a common-sized church if the steeple wasn't too tall.

Damphool senior wanted to get in and swim—was afraid he'd get corned and couldn't get out, wouldn't let him try.

He would insist on getting on top of the reservoir—had a glass pump in his hand—pumped up wine for every body—put the spout into his mouth, and pumped into himself for an hour,—first fifteen minutes made him rich; second quarter of an hour made him tearful; at the end of forty-five minutes he was helpless but happy; and when the hour was up he tumbled off the top of the machine and we stowed him away in a corner, where he lay until he revived sufficiently to be able to partake of some bread and butter which the Dutch housekeeper gave us, and which he insisted was lobster salad, and kept calling for boiled eggs, olive oil, and mustard to dress it with.

At last he was taken violently sick, and we took him out doors, set him on top of a basswood stump, when he looked like "Patience on a monument smiling"—although he tried to convince us that he was D. Webster, Esq., and insisted on making a speech to convince us that he "still lived."

Never before had I seen wine of such tremendous power. One of our party was addressing a number of pint bottles alternately as "Fellow citizens," "Gentlemen of the Jury," and "Ladies of the Committee."

Another had seated himself in a small puddle of Still Catawba on the brick floor, and was calling out for soap, towels, and a black boy to scrub his shoulders.

A third had emptied four bottles of "sparkling" into his vest-pockets to take home to the children, and put the fragments of the glass into his hat under the impression that they were hickory nuts, which he tried to crack with the carriage lamps, evidently supposing them to be nut-crackers.

My most intimate friend was trying to feed the horse some oats, by which appellation he called a three-cornered harrow and a breaking-up plough, and had filled the buggy with wild flowers, as he supposed, but which were, in reality, two year old grape vines, which he had pulled up by the roots.

Did not allow myself to become affected in like manner, as I had to spend the evening with the family of one of the "solid men" of Porkopolis, an ardent supporter of the Maine Law, who always keeps a large variety of liquors in his cellars, and insists, whenever his friends spend an evening with him, on making them pass their time drinking whiskey-punch, with seven whiskeys to one water. Passed a delightful evening, called the children by French names, mistook the piano for the hat-rack, hung my hat on the harp-pedal, and laid my gloves on the key-board. Met Damphool's uncle as I was going to the hotel; he had brought home the glass-pump, thinking it was our carriage-whip, but was otherwise sensible.

Is going to sell his vineyard, and turn teetotaler.