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and live as long as persons of their class who are engaged on farms.
“These men,” I ask, “who rake the furnaces, carry the burning metals, and stand about the crucibles-can they go on all day without beer?”
“They never taste a drop, and never ask to have a drop.
There is a can of water near them; they like the taste of water better than the fume of ale, and do their work more steadily without such fume.”
In fact, I find that these mechanics are the warmest advocates of a prohibitive liquor law. They voted for it in the outset; they have voted for it ever since.
Each year of trial makes them more fanatical.
Since the Act came into force, many new clauses have been added by the State Legislature.
Party questions turn on this liquor law, and these intelligent workmen always vote for those who promise to extend its operations.
They would gladly crush the sale of intoxicating liquors once for all, and I am led to fancy with my friend, the Good Templar of Cincinnati, that some of them would not hesitate to make the sale a capital offence.
“You see,” says Colonel Fairbanks, “we are a nervous and vehement race.
Our air is dry and ”
1875.
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