CONCLUSION.
Six years have passed since the events narrated in the last
chapter transpired. Judge McGullet, Sheriff Bottlesby and Old Joe
Porter, have in the interval been summoned to attend the last
assize. The latter died of delirium tremens, and it was whispered
around that his family were afraid to bring a physician, because
he raved so of the treacherous slaying of Richard Ashton. The
judge was said to have died of brain fever, and the sheriff of
inflammation; yet it is an open secret that drink was the real
agent in their destruction.
Rivers, Ben Tims, and the others whom we have mentioned, are still
plying their nefarious trade, which will in all probability
ultimately involve themselves and their unfortunate customers in a
common ruin.
The temperance men are not disheartened, but intend ere long to
try and pass the Scott Act, which has more grip to it than the
Dunkin Act, in King's County; for in every county the friends of
temperance can apply to Government for the appointment of a
stipendiary magistrate, from whose decisions there can be no
appeal. So the antis, as they have found to their cost in several
counties where it has been tried, cannot trifle with it as they
did with the latter. The liquor party know this to be the case,
and so they have lately held a monster meeting, which was presided
over by the chief distiller in the Dominion--a man who has become
a millionaire by the manufacture of that which, no doubt, has
destroyed thousands of men, caused untold misery in thousands of
homes, and sent, God only knows the number, to a drunkard's hell.
What he has manufactured has, no doubt, prepared many men to
murder their wives; mothers to neglect, starve, and even destroy
their children; and, I have no hesitancy in saying, I believe has
caused more wide-spread devastation and ruin in this Dominion
since its establishment than what has been caused in the same
period by those two destructive agencies--flood and fire combined.
The meeting was convened for the purpose of taking steps to fight
the Scott Act in every county where it was submitted, and it was
there resolved to employ the "Dodger" to again take the stump as
the champion of their life-destroying traffic.
"I can assure you, gentlemen," said one present, who had lately
come from a county where the Scott Act was in force, and who had
been fined until he was forced to give up the business, "you are
not fighting the Dunkin Act this time, for it was a thing without
vertebrae or claws; but the present Act has both; yes, and teeth,
too, as I have found to my cost. What we have to do is to resort
to every means to defeat it; for if it once becomes law in a
county then we are done."
Before the meeting closed forty thousand dollars were subscribed
by those present to stubbornly contest every inch of ground, and
if possible still to keep, this fair province under the demon rule
of "Old King Alcohol."
The liquor party in King's County are not so confident as they
endeavor to lead people to think they are, as may be gathered from
the following conversation between Rivers and Capt. McWriggler,
M.P. He has gained the coveted position; but it is the opinion of
the most intelligent men in the riding that the whiskey-horse,
which carried him to victory this time will utterly fail him in
the next campaign.
"I hear," said Rivers, "that old Gurney and his set are determined
to pass the Scott Act in this county, and Murden says it is a much
more perfect bill than the Dunkin Act was."
"Yes, I believe they are," said McWriggler, "and, as far as I can
learn, it is about as perfect as any sumptuary law can be; but
Toper says they will have that fixed all right. George Maltby,
M.P., member for Eastmorland, is going to introduce a clause next
session, if possible, which will utterly destroy it. The clause
stipulates that there must be a majority of all the legal voters;
and as there are hundreds who cannot be induced to go to the
polls, you can easily see, if this amendment carries, it will make
the Act as good as nil. Maltby could not have been elected had it
not been for the help he received from the association, and he
will do anything to retain their good will; for it is only by
their favor he can hope to win again."
"But supposing he does not succeed," said Rivers, "what will you
do then?"
"I don't think there is much danger of that in the present house.
In fact we have calculated pretty closely, and have every reason
to be satisfied with the conclusion at which we have arrived; but
if he fails we hold another trump card. Allsot, in the senate,
will introduce a rider to it, which will be so heavy as to break
its back."
McWriggler laughed at his play upon words, manifesting the fact
that one person, at least, could enjoy his attempt at wit.
We will now bid a final farewell to these worthies. Their plots
have so far been successful, but the end is not yet. The untimely
death of the majority of those who were their associates in
iniquity should, one would think, be to them as the handwriting
upon the wall, to warn them, what would be their fate if they
still persisted in their course. But such men seem to forget that
God's word, which is certain of fulfilment, says:
"The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with
his teeth.
"The Lord shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his day is
coming....
"I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like
a green-bay tree.
"Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but
he could not be found."
Mr. and Mrs. Gurney still reside in Bayton, and his business is
the most prosperous in the town. They have not grown weary in
well-doing, but are now actively engaged agitating the public mind
for the submission of the Scott Act in King's County, and they
ardently hope they will live to see the day when a prohibitory law
shall be passed in our Dominion, and the liquor curse shall be
banished forever.
Mrs. Holman is still actively engaged in helping on, with pen and
voice, the good cause of temperance, and has deservedly won for
herself a continental fame.
Eddy Ashton, who is a fine specimen of handsome, intellectual
manhood, has, by his business tact and energy, so engratiated
himself into the good will of his employer that he has now for
over a year occupied the position in Mr. Gurney's establishment
which was formerly held by his father. He removed with his mother
and sister to the house which was their home the first happy year
they spent in Bayton, and it is as beautiful and cosy as ever.
Allie developed into a beautiful and cultured woman, and shortly
after they were again settled in their old home, desisted from
giving music lessons; there were, however, for some time those
mysterious preparations which are the certain precursors of a
wedding. And a wedding, my dear young friends, in due time there
was. Allie was the happy bride, the bridegroom being Frank
Congdon, the young man who so chivalrously came to her rescue when
she was so grossly insulted by the brutal Joe Porter. Congdon's
father, who was a retired merchant, had had extensive business
transactions with some of the Bayton establishments. It was to
settle some old standing accounts that Frank first went there,
and, while taking a stroll for the purpose of viewing the town and
its surroundings, he went into Joe Porter's to make certain
enquiries, and met with the adventure which we have already
narrated to the reader.
He had at that time formed such a liking for Bayton that he
resolved, with his father's consent, to purchase a partnership in
one of the leading dry goods firms in the town, of which he is at
the present sole proprietor, and doing a flourishing business.
He had not been long there when he sought out Allie, who had made
such an impression upon him that it was a case of love at first
sight. Closer acquaintance served to deepen that impression; for
he, who was himself a noble, intelligent young fellow, when he
became more intimate loved her, not only from a mere passing
impulse or fancy, but from a deep and ever deepening respect for
her intelligent, womanly, self-sacrificing nature. In fact, they
became affianced lovers, and the wedding day came as such days do.
Mrs. Gurney insisted upon furnishing the trouseau, and there was a
small but select company at the wedding.
As Allie stood by her husband a fair young bride, her mother, in
memory, went back to a wedding that took place over twenty-five
years before in the dear home land, and she prayed that the
daughter might not have to "pass under the rod" as she had done.
Eddie is still unmarried, and lives with his mother. And Ruth is
now happy, though that happiness is mellowed by the sorrows
through which she has passed, and the memories of the loved ones
she has lost; but the hope of meeting them again is the rainbow
that spans the sky of her existence, shining out radiantly in her
hours of mist and gloom, enabling her to say, even when most cast
down: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the
name of the Lord."
Friends, we will now say farewell. The sad tale which you have
read but faintly conveys an idea of the misery, degradation, and
sin which is caused in thousands of homes by this blighting;
withering traffic.
Oh, rum! cursed rum! I hate it with intensest hatred: for it dims
the brightest intellects; it sullies and makes impure the most
spotless and the best; it spares neither frail and unprotected
womanhood, innocent childhood, nor hoary age; it enters like a
serpent the Eden called home and seduces its inmates to their
fall, thus turning this paradise of love into a hell of fiercest
passions and intensest hate; it entails upon the drunkard's
children in their very existence a patrimony of depraved appetites
and unholy passions; and it supplies the prisons and lunatic
asylums with a large percentage of their inmates, the gallows with
its victims, and hell with lost souls. If what he has written will
be effective in winning any from the ranks of the indifferent, or
from the ranks of those who oppose prohibitory laws, to become
active, energetic workers in the cause of temperance, and what he
is convinced is the cause of God, it will amply repay
THE AUTHOR.