d become
a great political engine?

Sometimes very ludicrous scenes occur at temperance meetings. A few
years ago, when this question was first agitated in Canada, a meeting
was held in a school-house on the English line, in the township of
Dummer. The lecturer, on that occasion, was an itinerant preacher of
the Methodist persuasion. After descanting some time in a very fluent
manner, on the evils arising from intemperance, and the great numbers
who had lost their lives by violent means, "for my part," said the
lecturer, "I have known nearly three hundred cases of this kind
myself."

This broad assertion was too much for one of the audience, an old
Wiltshire man, who exclaimed, in his peculiar dialect, "Now, I know
that 'ere be a lie. Can you swear that you did ever see three out of
them three hundred violent deaths you speak on?"

"Well, I have heard and read of them in books and newspapers; and I
once saw a man lying dead on the road, and a jar, half full of whiskey,
beside him, which, I think, you will allow is proof enough."

"I thought your three hundred cases would turn out like the boy's cats
in his grandmother's garden. Now, I will tell thee, that I did know
three men that did kill themselves by drinking of cold water. There was
John H-----, that over-heated hisself, walking from Cobourg, and drank
so much water at the cold springs, that he fell down and died in a few
minutes. Then there was that workman of Elliott's, in Smith, who
dropped in the harvest-field, from the same cause; and the Irishman
from Asphodel, whose name I forget. So, you see, that more people do
die from drinking cold water than whiskey." Then he turned round to a
neighbour, who, like himself, was not over-fond of cold water, and
said, "I say, Jerome, which would you rather have, a glass of cold
water, or a drap of good beer?"

"I know which I would take," exclaimed Jerome; "I would like a drap of
good beer best, I do know."

This dialogue raised such a laugh against the apostle of temperance,
that the meeting was fairly broken up, leaving the Wiltshire man
triumphing in his victory over cold water and oratory, in the person of
the lecturer. The dryness of his arguments prevailed against the
refreshing and copious draughts of the pure element recommended by his
discomfited opponent.

A good joke is not, however, a good argument, though it stood for one
at this meeting. Total abstinence is the best plan to be adopted by
habitual dru