runkards become so
from justifying causes?" asked the lecturer.

"No, sir," replied Joe Digg, "but I do mean to say that after you leave
out them that takes liquor to help 'em do a full day's work, an' them
that commence drinkin' 'cos they re at the tavern, an' ain't got no
where's else to go, you've made a mighty big hole in the crowd of
drinkin'-men--bigger'n temperance meetins' ever begin to make yit"

"But how are they to be 'left out'?" asked the lecturer.

"By temp'rance folks doin' somethin' beside talkin'," replied the
drunkard. "For twenty year I've been lectured and scolded, an' some good
men's come to me with tears in their eyes, and put their arms 'roun' my
neck, an' begged me to stop drinkin'. An' I've wanted to, an' tried to,
but when all the encouragement a man gits is in words, an' no matter how
he commenced drinkin', now ev'ry bone an' muscle in him is a beggin' fur
drink ez soon as he leaves off, an' his mind's dull, an' he ain't fit
fur much, an' needs takin' care of as p'tic'ler ez a mighty sick man,
talk's jist as good ez wasted. Ther's been times when ef I'd been ahead
on flour an' meat an' sich, I could a' stopped drinkin', but when a
man's hungry, an' ragged, an' weak, and half-crazy, knowin' how his
family's fixed an he can't do nothin' fur 'em, an' then don't get
nothin' but words to reform on, he'll go back to the tavern ev'ry time,
an' he'll drink till he's comfortable an' till he forgits. I want the
people here, one an' all, to understand that though I'm past helpin'
now, ther's been fifty times in the last twenty year when I might hed
been stopped short, ef any body'd been sensible enough and good-hearted
enough to give me a lift."

Joe Digg sat down, and there was a long pause. The Chairman whispered to
the leader of the Glee Club, and the club sang a song, but somehow it
failed to awaken the usual enthusiasm. After the singing had ended, the
Chairman himself took the floor and moved the appointment of a permanent
committee to look after the intemperate, and to collect funds when the
use of money seemed necessary, and the village doctor created a
sensation by moving that Mr. Joe Digg should be a member of the
committee. Deacon Towser, who was the richest man in the village, and
who dreaded subscription papers, started an insidious opposition by
eloquently vaunting the value of earnest prayer and of determined will,
in such cases, but the new member of the committee (though manifestly
o