midnight
We can only regret that their efforts have been crowned with so little success . It was our fortune to be familiarly acquainted with one of these worthies , who never lost an opportunity of declaiming , above all , against the infamy of the particular practice to which we have just alluded . Indeed , so broad was the ground he took , that he held it to be not only immoral , but , what was far worse , ungenteel , to swallow any thing stronger than small beer , before the hour allotted to dinner . After that important period , it was not only permitted to assuage the previous mortifications of the flesh , but , so liberal did he show himself in the orthodox indulgence , that he was regularly carried to his bed at midnight , from which he as regularly issued , in the course of the following morning , to discourse again on the thousand deformities of premature drink . And here we would take occasion to say , that , as to our own insignificant person , we eschew the abomination altogether ; and only regret that those of the two nations , who find pleasure in the practice , could not come to some amicable understanding as to the precise period , of the twenty-four hours , when it is permitted to such Christian gentlemen as talk English to get drunk . That the negotiators who framed the last treaty of amity should have overlooked this important moral topic , is another evidence that both parties were so tired of an unprofitable war as to patch up a peace in a hurry . It is not too late to name a commission for this purpose ; and , in order that the question may be fairly treated on its merits , we presume to suggest to the Executive the propriety of nominating , as our commissioner , some confirmed advocate of the system of `` juleps . ''