A DISTINGUISHED RECORD.
For upwards of sixty-two years the Dublin Total Abstinence Society has perseveringly held on its way, a record not surpassed by any temperance association in the sister country. When one remembers the "storm and stress" through which Ireland has passed during this eventful period, the fact that this ancient society still survives is a tribute to the enthusiastic labours of its executive officers of which they may well be proud. The old-fashioned method of "signing the pledge" is still kept in the forefront at all the meetings of the society. It rejoices in a coffee palace with a commodious public hall, in the very heart of the city of Dublin, and from year's end to year's end there is one attractive round of lectures, entertainments, clubs, and popular festivities, variously adapted to meet the requirements of the young and old alike. It was at a meeting under the auspices of this association that the late Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson, F.R.S., made the memorable deliverance: "The sale of drink is the sale of disease; the sale of drink is the sale of poverty; the sale of drink is the sale of insanity; the sale of drink is the sale of crime; the sale of drink is the sale of death." The president of the society is a well-known Dublin physician, Dr. E. MacDowell Cosgrave, and the hon. secretary is Mr. Thomas Willson Fair, whose devotion to the cause has made his name a household word in Irish temperance circles.