Note 55 — Of the Streets of London. (continued 9)

The Great Exhibition, I am informed, produced a very small effect on the consumption of porter; and, according to the official returns, 160,000 gallons less spirits were consumed in the first nine months of the present year, than in the corresponding months of the last: thus showing that any occupation of mind or body is incompatible with intemperate habits, for drunkenness is essentially the vice of idleness, or want of something better to do.