EDITORIAL AND GENERAL 



?9i 



What More was Expected? 



I have somewhere read the amusing 

 account of the substitution of an un- 

 know temperance lecturer in place of 

 the expected and famous humorist. A 

 great audience had assembled and was 

 waiting anxiously and in risible spirits 

 for the professional laugh inducer. 

 Eight o'clock arrived but no humorist, 

 and the committee began to be worried. 

 The chairman was as solemn as if it 

 were to be a funeral instead of a gather- 

 ing for fun making. Eight-thirty and 

 still no speaker. There must have been 

 an accident. Just then a messenger 

 rushed into the committee room with 

 a telegram. The humorist had taken 

 the wrong train and gone to Milton 

 instead of New Milton, and Milton was 

 eighty-four miles from the audience. 



There was a hurried consultation. A 

 famous temperance lecturer was 

 spending a day or two in the vicinity. 

 He was interviewed. He accepted the 

 invitation. The audience would not be 

 disappointed and, as both lecturers 

 were equally talented in their respec- 

 tive specialties, no money would need 

 to be refunded. The temperance lec- 

 turer and the humorist were strangers 

 to the audience, but the temperance lec- 

 turer could be regarded as represented 

 by the portraits on the placards posted 

 about the town with no more stretch of 

 imagination than could be the humorist, 

 or, by the way, with no more difficulty 

 to see the resemblance than is usually 

 required between any public speaker 

 and his advertised portrait. 



The audience was ready to laugh ; 

 they had come for that purpose. On 

 account of their eagerness to greet him 

 whom they supposed to be the delayed 

 humorist, they for the most part failed 

 to hear the chairman's explanation, and 

 supposed that the humorist was to give 

 them a parody on a temperance lec- 

 ture. The lecturer stepped forward 

 and began, with the wide, embracing, 

 text-like statement: "Ladies and gen- 

 tlemen, rum is the greatest curse of 

 the American nation." 



Tremendous applause and laughter. 



When the noise had somewhat sub- 

 sided, the famed apostle of Gough 

 again started in : 



"Rum causes more crimes than any 

 other . ." 



But this was lost in the applause and 

 increased laughter. 



The lecturer appealed to the chair- 

 man. But he was powerless. The 

 audience was determined to laugh. ' 



The lecturer started again : 



"The one great topic that our voters 

 must bravely meet and down, or be 

 downed by it, is rum." 



This brought the climax. The state- 

 ment that voters must "down" rum or 

 be "downed" by it, was too much. The 

 uproarious laughter was loud and long. 



The lecturer then lost control of his 

 temper, and yelled at the top of his 

 voice : 



"I was invited to address what I sup- 

 posed would be courteous and intelli- 

 gent persons. I have had no experi- 



