The First Report of the Horncastle Teetotal Society, 1843

Transcribed from the 1843 D. Cussons edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
ESTABLISHED, 1836.
HORNCASTLE: Printed by D. Cussons, Market-place. 1843. ONE PENNY.
The Committer of the Horncastle Tee-total Society have great pleasure in bringing before the public their first printed Report, and are grateful to acknowledge the success which has attended their labours, in connexion with other friends of the Temperance cause; and notwithstanding the opposition they have had to contend with, the cause is still progressing in numbers, and exercising a mighty influence on the social and domestic habits of the community at large.
The first public meeting to explain the principles of total abstinence in Horncastle, was held in the British School Room, in November, 1836, on which occasion Mr. Biscombe Agent of the British Association for the suppression of intemperance, delivered a lecture, when fifteen signed the pledge. On the first of June, John Hocking, the Birmingham Blacksmith, delivered a second lecture in the old Methodist Chapel, which produced a powerful impression on the minds of the hearers, a great number gave in their names, and the society became regularly organized; and thus six yean ago the foundation of this society was laid, and by the laborious exertions, and untiring zeal of a few individuals, who with little influence, and still less money, but with feelings of sympathy for suffering humanity, applied themselves with ardour and perseverance to propagate its principles, to improve and ameliorate the condition of those, who, through the use of strong drink, were sunk into the lowest depths of poverty and degradation, to which it was possible for human nature to arrive, and also to raise an impassable barrier, to the progress of what undoubtedly is the greatest curse that ever afflicted this or any other country. And it is owing to the valuable services of those persons, who, in the face of the most determined opposition, and the indifference of others from whom was expected better things, that this society under the approbation of providence now holds its present position and influence in the town and vicinity.