Once in these whirlpools of sin

Like a furnace to devour its victims, the drinking saloon first opens its gorgeous doors, and when the burning liquid has inflamed the mental and physical man, soon hurries him onward into those fascinating habitations where vice and voluptuousness mingle their degrading powers. Once in these whirlpools of sin, the young man finds himself borne away by every species of vicious allurement-his feelings become unrestrained, until at length that last spark of filial advice which had hovered round his consciousness dies out. When this is gone, vice becomes the great charmer, and with its thousand snares and resplendent workers never fails to hold out a hope with each temptation; but while the victim now and then asks hope to be his guardian, he seldom thinks how surely he is sinking faster and faster to an irretrievable depth. Through this combination of snares-all having their life-springs in slavery-Lorenzo brought ruin upon his father, and involved his uncle. With an excellent education, a fine person, frank and gentle demeanour, he made his way into the city, and soon attracted the attention of those who affect to grace polished society. Had society laid its restraints upon character and personal worth, it would have been well for Lorenzo; but the neglect to found this moral conservator only serves to increase the avenues to vice, and to bring men from high places into the lowest moral scale. This is the lamentable fault of southern society; and through the want of that moral bulwark, so protective of society in the New England States-personal worth-estates are squandered, families brought to poverty, young men degraded, and persons once happy driven from those homes they can only look back upon with pain and regret. The associations of birth, education, and polished society-so much valued by the southerner-all become as nothing when poverty sets its seal upon the victim. And yet, among some classes in the south there exists a religious sentiment apparently grateful; but what credit for sincerity shall we accord to it when the result proves that no part of the organisation itself works for the elevation of a degraded class? How much this is to be regretted we leave to the reader's discrimination.