“Could not the law interfere?” sez he; “could not your great police force step in and punish these dreadful doings?”
Sez I, “It could, if it wuzn’t spendin’ its hull strength on devisin’ ways to protect the liquor traffic.
“The police might bring some on ’em up if it wuzn’t a-sneakin’ into side-doors a-partakin’ on the sly of the poison!”
Sez I, “It gits braced up in this way, so’s it’s ready to drag off to jail the poor, weak drunkards, made so by the saloons, and by the men who supply the saloons, and by the voters who make this thing possible, and by the goverment that sustains it.”
“Why does not your great nation interfere and compel them to stop it?” sez he.
“Because this great nation is in company with ’em,” sez I—“partakers in this iniquity, and takin’ part of the bloody gain.”
And my feathers drooped and my face wuz as red as blood to have to own up these things to a heathen, that wuz a-contrastin’ our ways with his own, which wuz so much more superior and riz up on the liquor question.
“Your holy church,” sez he, “why does not that, so great and powerful a force in this land, why does it not interfere and frown down these wicked ways? Why does it not pronounce its anathema on all those who commit this sin—this B.I.L., as I have heard him called, and men like him, who own saloons and supply the stuff that makes murderers?”
“This B.I.L.,” sez I, “is a piller in his meetin’-house. He sets in the highest place,” sez I.
“One of your holy men who take charge of the sacred things, permitted by your customs to carry on such iniquity? I cannot understand it,” sez he.