Note 38 — X.

The conduct of public magistrates who are paid for serving the people, is not what it should be in respect to temperance. The city authorities allow the laws touching the sale of the great instrument of demoralization to be violated continually. There is no serious effort made to enforce these laws. Nor is this all: the shameless conduct of conspicuous men at the supper given in this city after the funeral of John Quincy Adams, and the debauchery on that occasion, are well known and will long be remembered.

At the next festival (in September, 1851), it is notorious, that the city authorities, at the expense of the citizens, provided a large quantity of intoxicating drink for the entertainment of our guests during the excursion in the harbor. It is also a matter of great notoriety, that many were drunk on that occasion. I need hardly add, that on board one of the crowded steamboats, three cheers were given for the "Fugitive Slave Law," by men who it is hoped will at length become sober enough to "forget" it. When the magistrates of Boston do such deeds, and are not even officially friends of temperance, what shall we expect of the poor and the ignorant and the miserable? "Cain, where is thy Brother?" may be asked here and now as well as in the Bible story.