Anyhow, take care: do not overshoot your mark. Drunkenness no longer exists in a deep-rooted, hideous form, except among the lower classes of your great towns, and this is a much better state of things than existed when Members of Parliament were called to order for putting their feet on the table in front of the Speaker. And it should be added that, thanks to education, even your lower classes are becoming more sober. As for asking for an Act of Parliament, to prevent peaceful citizens from going to buy a bottle of cognac of their grocer, it is utter folly.
Finally, John, remember that one of your bishops, not long ago, refused to sign a similar petition to the House of Commons, saying that he had rather belong to a nation of drunkards than a nation of slaves.
It was in the coquettish town of Torquay, in the month of March, 1884.
I was present at an immense tea-and-bread-and-butter-meeting, held under the auspices of the Temperance Society, and presided over by a venerable archdeacon. As I looked around me at the long Lenten-looking faces, silent and damned, to use the energetic expression of the poet Shelley, swallowing their tea in little sips, and nibbling their bread and butter with their eyes lifted heavenward, I thought to myself: Yes, I have said and will maintain it: nothing is more beautiful, nothing is more edifying, than to contemplate John as he imbibes this angelical beverage.
I had duly partaken of a slice of bread and butter, and swallowed my two cups of tea, as stoically as any of the members of this edifying congregation, when an old maid, sitting next me, who, since the proceedings began had not opened her mouth, except to yawn at regular intervals like a machine, ventured to break the solemn silence:
“Oh! sir,” she said, addressing me, “what a grand meeting this is! Ours is a glorious cause!”
——“I do not doubt it, madam,” I replied. “When this interesting tea party is over, there is to be an address, I believe?”
——“Yes; Archdeacon ... will say a few words.”
——“What is the object of this meeting? The closing of public-houses on Sundays, I presume?”
——“Oh, dear no! we want to do something better than that. The public-house is not the greatest evil we have to fight against. We want to send a petition to Parliament to get the law repealed that allows grocers and pastrycooks to sell wine, beer, and spirits.”