A LIVELY SCENE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6003, 12 February 1881, Page 7

A LIVELY SCENE.

From an American paper we clip the following story -The inhabitants of a thriving town in Pennsylvania assembled to decide what number of spirit licenses the town should petition from the county court. A magistrate presided, and on the platform were the pastor, one of his deacons, and the physician. A respectable citizen, after a short speech, moved that the meeting petition for the usual number of licenses tor the ensuing year: he thought it was not best to get up an excitement for refusing to grant licenses ; they had been licensed to good men and let them sell. The proposition seemed to meet with almost universal favour. As the president was about to put the question au object rose in a distant part of the building, and alt eyes were instantly turned in that direction. It was an old woman, poorly clad, and whose careworn countenance was the painful index of no light suffering, and yet there was something in the flash of her bright eye that told she had once been what she then was not. She addressed the chairman, and said that she had come hearing that they were to decide the license question. " Vou all know who lam ; you onco knew me mistress of the best estates in the borough ; I once had a husband and five sons, and woman never had a kiuder husband, mother never had five better or more affectionate sons—but where are they now ? Doctor, I ask where are they now ? In yonder burying-ground there are six graves filled by that husband and these five sons, and, oh, they are all drunkards' tpraves. Doctor, how came they to be drunkards? You would come and drink with them, and you told them that temperate drinking would do them good. And you, too, sir (addressing the parson), would comc and drink with my husband, and my sons thought they might drink with safety and follow your religious example. Deacon, you sold them rum which made them drunkards ; you have now got my farm and all my property, and you got it all' by rum. And now I have done my errand, I go back to the poor-house, for that is my home. You, reverend sir, you doctor, and you, deacon, I will never meet again until I meet yon at the bar of God, where you too will meet my ruined husband and these five sons who, through your means and influences, fill the drunkards* graves." The old woman sat down ; perfect silence prevailed until broken by the president, who rose to put the question to the meeting, "Shall we petition the court to issue licenses to this borough for the ensuing year ? M and the one unbroken "No," which made the very Avails re-echo with the sound, told the result of the old woman's appeal. There were no moie licenses granted.