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quick; our life an eager and unsleeping chase When we work, we work hard; when we drink, we drink deep.
It is natural that when we abstain, we should abstain with rigour.”
“Are there no protests on the part of moderate men?
”
“None, or next to none.
As year and year go by, more persons come to see the benefits of our rule.
The men who formerly drank the most, are now the staunchest friends of our reform.
These men, who used to dress in rags, are growing rich.
Many of them live in their own houses.
They all attend church, and send their boys and girls to school.”
Such facts are not to be suppressed by shrugs and sneers.
It is an easy thing to sneer, and some unconscious comedy turns up at every corner to provoke a laugh.
“Oblige me,” I entreat the sober successor of Captain Barney, when going to bed, “ with a glass of soda-water.”
“ Sorry, Sir, we have no soda water in the house.”
“Then a glass of Selzer-water or Congress-water?”
1875.
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