'
'Poor fellows!' he said as if to himself; 'whisky is about the only
excitement they have, and they find it pretty tough to give it up; and
a lot of the men are against the total abstinence idea. It seems rot to
them.'
'It is pretty steep,' I said. 'Can't you do without it?'
'No; I fear not. There is nothing else for it. Some of them talk of
compromise. They want to quit the saloon and drink quietly in their
shacks. The moderate drinker may have his place in other countries,
though I can't see it. I haven't thought that out, but here the only
safe man is the man who quits it dead and fights it straight; anything
else is sheerest humbug and nonsense.'
I had not gone in much for total abstinence up to this time, chiefly
because its advocates seemed for the most part to be somewhat
ill-balanced; but as I listened to Craig, I began to feel that perhaps
there was a total abstinence side to the temperance question; and as to
Black Rock, I could see how it must be one thing or the other.
We found Mrs. Mavor brave and bright.
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