newspapers with complaints. It isn't our whisky being seized that riles us,' wrote one sufferer from the spirit taboo, 'but it's the seeing of it staggering about afterwards with shoulder straps on. That's what makes us mad.' And that is where, indeed, the shoe pinches. The officers seem to be able to procure as much wine, as much brandy, and as much whisky as ever they choose. They may have to smuggle it, but they do manage to smuggle it somehow. There are teetotal officers, no doubt, and there are hundreds of temperate ones; but there are, on the other hand, numbers of wearers of shoulder straps who are neither teetotal nor temperate, and these are the topers who 'rile' the soldiers. As to allowing the latter even to purchase the very mild form of swipes known as lager beer, I was informed that it was simply impossible. So long as the demon of drink could be kept from the men, the army was all right; but once allow them so much as a dram of liquor, and violence, anarchy, rapine, confusion, and ruin must be the result." That some of the teetotal officers of whom Mr. Sala writes did heroic service the annals of the War abundantly testify. It will be sufficient to name Rutherford B. Hayes, who has lived to practise his total abstinence principles as a President of the States too, and the famous General "Stonewall " Jackson. Of the latter it is related, that upon one occasion, when very much exhausted, he was asked by a brother officer to join him in a glass of brandyand-water, "No," said he; I never use it: I am more afraid of it than of Yankee bullets!" Lincoln's friendly feeling towards General Grant was shown in a characteristic manner during the campaign. The General had many detractors, and some of them accused him of habits of intemperance. To one of these, endeavouring to thus injure the credit of the General, President Lincoln said, "Does Grant get drunk?" "They say so," was the reply. "Are you quite sure he gets drunk?" "Quite." There was a pause, which the President broke by gravely exclaiming, "I wonder where he buys his whisky!" "And why do you want to know?" was the astonished answer. "Because if I did," replied Mr. Lincoln, "I'd send a barrel or two of it round to some other Generals I know of." As a set-off to this anecdote, it may be well to remember, that only a few months ago the General, in one of his terse addresses, stated that before setting out upon his recent tour round the world, he decided upon making total abstinence from intoxicating liquors a rule of the journey: and he added that he had carried out the resolution to the letter. Lincoln was riding one day on the top of a stagecoach in Illinois, when the driver asked him to "treat." "I never use liquor," was Lincoln's reply, "and I cannot induce others to do so." "Don't you chew, neither?" said the driver. "No, sir." "Nor smoke?" "No, sir; I never use tobacco in any form." form." "Well," remarked the disgusted John, "I hain't got much. opinion of those fellows with no small vices; they usually make it up in big ones." Lincoln, who was fond of a racy anecdote, used often to repeat this one with great glee. Upon another occasion he was dining with the presidential party at Erie, when a certain gentleman offered him some wine, and rather rudely tried to force it upon him. Lincoln bravely replied, "I have lived fifty years without the use of intoxicating liquors, and I do not think it worth while to change my habits now." When the news of Lincoln's assassination reached England, many of the leading public bodies placed upon record their sense of the great calamity which had befallen the American nation. The Executive of the United Kingdom Alliance, whilst sharing most earnestly the sentiments of deep sympathy entertained by all parties, ranks, and classes, fittingly added, it "feels very keenly the death, by the hand of a murderer nerved by drink, of a man whose long adhesion to the principles of total abstinence and prohibition, and whose faithful adherence to them even during the War, have proved that to these, as to all forms of enlightened philanthropy, the late President of the United States of America devoted his high intelligence, and his noble heart." |