TEMPERANCE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 867, 12 October 1888, Page 7

TEMPERANCE.

WHY GENERAL NEAL DOW BECAME A PROHIBITIONIST.

The following is taken from the report of an interview with Neal Dow ia the New York World

‘I asked General Dow how long he had been identified with the temperance move* ment. He said over forty years—ever since 1840.

‘ How did you come to get in to it?’ ‘I will tell you,’said he, ‘My wife had a brother. He was employed in the Post Office in Portland. He was a most efficient official, and on account of his ability was greatly valued. But he was a hard drinker, and every now and then would go off on a spree for a week at a time. He had a large family of interesting children dependent upon him.. I knew that, however good an officer he was when sober, his drinking habits would soon cause him to lose his place. I fnuud out that there was only one place in Portland where he could go to drink. Some of his friends told me that if I could get that rum-seller to refuse to sell liquor to him he would not get drunk. I went to this rumseller and told him the story. I explained to him how it was necessary for the salva. tion of this man and his family that he should stop giving him liquor. He replied, ‘lt is my business'to sell rum. I, too, have a family dependent upon me. I cannot re. fuse to sell to any one that comes along, and I do not want any advice from you as to how I shall conduct my business.’ ‘Then,’said General Dow, ‘ I turned on him and replied, “So you support your family by destroying other families ? Well, so help me God, I intend to live lone enough to put your traffic down.” ’ From that moment General Dow has devoted the greater part of the energies of his life to putting what he calls the grog shops down.

If any of your readers know a moderate drinker who never gets drunk and abuses his wife, and who has sense .enough to appreciate a good thing yma he sees it, we suggest the proprietary of laying before him in sober earnest the following plan for a retail trade, which we clip from an exchange : ‘W J. Florence, the comedian, in a letter to a"Louisville subject, wrotothis suggestion: ‘One gallon of whisky costs about three dollars and contains about sixty-five drinks. Now, if yon. must drink, buy a gallon and make your wife the bar-keeper. When you are dry give her fifteen cents for a drmk and when the whisky is gone, she will have after paying for it, six dollars and seventy, five cents left, and every gallon thereafter will yield the same profit. This money she would put away, so that when you have become an inebriate, unable to support yourself, and shunned by every respectable man, your wife may have money enough to keep you until your time comes to fill a drunkard’s grave.” 1

A purgative medicine should possess tonic and curative, as well as cathartic, properties. This combination of ingredients may be found in Ayer’s Pill . They strengthen and stimulate the bowels, causing natural action.