I am not a pledged abstainer: I have used both tobacco and alcohol in various forms. Neither is at all necessary to my vigour of either body or mind. My use of tobacco has been but slight. I have never Used alcohol for years. I could never think deeply after the use of tobacco; I have felt a quickening of thought at times after a slight use of good wine; but I know, from physiological evidence, what practice has certainly proved, that no permanent benefit to either body or mind must be sought from its use. I have employed it with great benefit at times—that is, where it was better to afford the exhaustion following a mere stimulant, than to submit to an exhaustion which the stimulant could for the moment counteract. This is the only advantage, save to the palate, that I have known to be derived personally from the use of alcohol.

W. H. DALLINGER.
February 11, 1882.