A HORRIBLE IDEA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2762, 20 February 1907, Page 82

A HORRIBLE IDEA.

Not a "Light" Dhixk. An Easterner, riding on. a mail stage in. Northern Colerado, was entertained by a dialogue which was sustained unon the one side by the driver and upon the other by an elderly passenger, evidently a native of the region. " I understand you're temperance," began the driver. "Yes. I'm pretty strong against liquor," returned the other. " I've been sot against it now 35 years. ' "Scared it will ruin your health?" " Yes, but that isn't the main thing. " "Perhaps it don't agree with you?" ventured the driver. "Well, it really don't agree with anybody. But that ain't it cither. The thing that sots me against it is a horrible idea." "A horrible idea! What is it?" " Well, 35 years ago I was sitting in a hotel in Denver with a friend of mine, and 1 says, ' Let's order a bottle of something,' and he says, ' sir. I'm savine my money to buy Government land at one dollar and a-quartcr an acre. I'm goinpc to buy to-morrow, and you'd better let me fake the money you would have spent for the liouor and buy a couple of acres alonewith mine' I says, 'All right.' So we didn't drink, and he bought me two acres. " Well, sir, to-day those two acres arc right in the middle of a flourishing town ; and if I'd taken that drink, I'd have swallowed a city block, a grocery store, an apothecary's, four lawyer's- offices, and it's hard to say what else. That's the idea. Ain't it horrible?"— Light, October" 21,1905. »