VIII: TORONTO AND MONTREAL
VIII.
TORONTO AND MONTREAL
MARGOT TELLS A MARK TWAIN STORY—CAPTURES TORONTO AUDIENCE; KISSES CHARWOMAN—MONTREAL LADIES QUELLING AND CRITICAL
THAT evening we arrived at Toronto and I lectured on the 29th. My chairman, the Rev. Byron Stauffer, made a wonderful speech, and I was listened to by an attentive and intelligent audience.
I find Prohibition a fruitful topic of discussion.
For the information of anyone who may think, as I did, that drink has decreased, and that in consequence everyone over here is wise, sober and happy, I can only say the reverse is the truth.
I cannot write of the poorer classes, on whom, in any case, the law is hard, but among the rich I do not suppose there was ever so much alcohol concealed and enjoyed as at the present moment in America. Young men and maidens, who before this exaggerated interference would have been content with the lightest of wines, think it smart to break the law every day and night of their lives. I related to my audience that Mr. Clemens, (better known as Mark Twain), had taken me in to dinner many years ago at the house of a namesake of mine (Mrs. Charles Tennant, whose daughter Dorothy married Stanley) and had told me of a great American temperance orator who, having exercised his voice too much, had asked the chairman to provide milk instead of water at his meeting. Turning to the Rev. Byron Stauffer, who is a great temperance preacher—of which I was unaware—I said,
"The chairman—probably a kind man like my own—put rum into the milk, and when the orator, pausing in one of his most dramatic periods, stopped to clear his throat, he drained the glass, and putting it down, exclaimed,
"Gosh! what cows!"