"The liquor selling ruffians will descend to any warfare however
dastardly and mean when forced by law to a standstill. There is
something in the sad business that degrades every one in it. This
time it is liquor sellers in Brome County that are indicted. Mr.
W. W. Smith, President of the Brome County Branch of the Dominion
Alliance, is also the station agent at Sutton Junction for the
Canadian Pacific Railway Company. As president of the Alliance he
represents the temperance element of course, and that is the
element determined to carry out the law against liquor selling.
Mr. Smith represents them in this. In doing so he is certain to
make enemies. He has been assiduous in his duty, and has been
threatened several times. These threats did not keep him from
actively participating in efforts to secure the conviction
recently of several lawbreaking liquor sellers in Brome, some of
whom were convicted, and have had sentence suspended over them
pending their good behavior. On Saturday night, Mr. Smith took
the night operator's place, arranging that the latter should take
his place on Sunday. After securing everything for the night, Mr.
Smith lay down on the sofa, never dreaming that any evil was to
come to him."

Instead of copying the account of the assault which follows the above,
we will describe the facts as nearly as possible as they have been
related by the victim himself.

[Illustration: Station at Sutton Junction, Place of the midnight assault.]

It was between one and two o'clock on Sunday morning, July 8th, when
Mr. Smith was attacked by the cowardly miscreant who has thus made
himself notorious. We say "cowardly," because when a large, strong man
who carries arms and is a professional fighter, as he appears to have
been, attacks a man who is weaponless and not more than two-thirds his
size by giving him a stunning blow upon the head while he is asleep,
there is clearly no evidence of heroism on the part of the man who
makes the assault. Yet this was what Mr. Smith's brave assailant did!

After receiving the first blow, Mr. Smith felt a strange sensation as
though he were taking a long, happy journey, and he thinks he was
aroused by his assailant attempting to drag him from the settee. As a
train was going by before daylight, it is the opinion of many that his
intention may have been to leave his victim stunned