Asylum was a frank account of another weird region: a New York insane asylum where he was cured of dipsomania.
He had 'the lust to teacha passion apparently analogous to concupiscence or dipsomania, and, in the more extreme varieties of pedagogues, maybe quite as strong.
Young Alec, disgusted by his father's dipsomania, goes to work for a steamship company, manages to satisfy his mother's ambition by becoming captain of the company's sleekest .