THREE days into the New Year and there is still time to dwell on how one can mend the errors of one's ways.

One look at this picture should do the trick.

It is entitled The Doings of Drink, or The Publican Versus The People and was drawn in 1894 by a railway fitter known as Darlington's Hogarth.

It was a mammoth work, 5ft by 3ft in size, and when it was displayed in William Dodds' art shop window in Tubwell Row it brought the traffic to a halt as crowds gathered to peer at it.

It had a similar effect in London a month later.

"Several copies have been exhibited in Fleet Street during the week, and it is no exaggeration to say that from daylight till dusk there is a crowd, without a moment's intermission, round each of them," reported the Methodist Times in April 1894.

The artist was Robert Summers, a 27-year-old Methodist who worked as an engine fitter in North Road Shops. Because he worked from 6am to 5pm with 30 minutes off for breakfast and an hour for dinner, it is little wonder it took him three years to complete.

He had been taught art at the Bondgate Wesleyan School when a boy and now specialised in very large works with allegorical messages, as befitted a devotee of the Temperance Movement which abhorred alcohol. He had done 6ft by 4ft versions of Belshazzar's Feast, The Seventh Plague of Egypt and The Wreck of the Medusa.

But it was The Doings of Drink that caught the mood of the nation. At the time, the Local Veto Bill was going through Parliament - as the placard carried by a man in front of the Rule Britannia pub in the picture shows. Doubtlessly very important then, today's history books do not bother with the Local Veto Bill, although presumably it would have given local councils the powers to limit pub opening times if the Temperance Movement in their vicinity was vociferous enough.

Summers' work was given rave reviews in newspapers all around the country, and colour copies (19in by 31in) were sold at a shilling a time. The copies came complete with a key and a vivid description of the characters' failings.

At the bar of the pub stand Sunken Sue, Dan Drunkoft, Miss C Fillpot, Jack Jolly, Bob Beery and Sir Oracle.

Standing above them on the balcony is the pub landlord, Mr Drinksell Carenot, and his wife, Mrs Heartless Carenot, who are the evil peddlars of the demon drink who care not about their customers.

Behind the pub, the Honourable Whippingholme Wastrel, fresh from a day of gambling and drinking at the races, runs over poor Father Careworn.

A little further down the street - Gin Lane - is the police station where Felix Fuddle is being helped into a cell. Next is the county jail where a black flag is flying to show that Badend has just been hanged for his drink-related crimes.

In the centre of the picture is a lodging house with Bill Bully punching his girlfriend at the top of the stairs, while Mrs Longwed pulls up jugs of alcohol from her daughter.

Under the stairs, Lushy Liza shrieks in horror as she's just opened up the coalhouse door and found her husband has hanged himself because of drink.

Her shrieks distract attention from the street-auction where the belongings of a debt-ridden drunk are being sold off.

All of this attention to detail earned Summers the nickname Darlington's Hogarth, after William Hogarth (1697-1764). Hogarth was best known for A Rake's Progress, which was eight scenes showing the punishment of vice.

A year after finishing his tour promoting The Doings of Drink, Robert Summers produced another giant allegory called Town and Turf. It showed a huge crowd gathered at a racecourse, the woe and misery of gambling etched into their faces.

Behind them, a line of factory chimneys with no smoke coming out, showing how the whole industrial empire has come to a grinding halt because of gambling. And beside the chimneys are the Houses of Parliament where MPs and lords own horses and directly contribute to the downfall of the working classes.

But this is all we know of Robert Summers, Darlington's Hogarth.

And we don't know what became of his works, either.

The Doings of Drink was in the possession of the Reverend Frederick Naylor, who was Summers' Wesleyan minister in North Road in 1894.

But we know no more of Mr Naylor.

The original - all 5ft by 3ft of it - couldn't be rolled up in your attic, could it?

Beamish Museum has a colour print of The Doings of Drink.

"It is a fascinating piece of folk art with a message," says researcher Andy Guy.

"But what happened to the original of Darlington's Hogarth? Beamish would love to know and we wonder if the readers of Echo Memories can help."

If you have any information about Summers, Naylor or the existence of any original paintings, please write to Echo Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF, or phone (01325) 505062 or e-mail clloyd$>He ha