“If this be really so,” observed the gentleman, over whose face a shadow of concern darkened, “then Willy Hammond may not be his only victim.”

“And is not, you may rest assured.  If rumor be true, other of our promising young men are being drawn into the whirling circles that narrow toward a vortex of ruin.”

In corroboration of this, I mentioned the conversation I had held with one of the frequenters of Slade’s bar room, on this very subject; and also what I had myself observed on the previous evening.

The man, who had until now been sitting quietly in a chair, started up, exclaiming as he did so—­

“Merciful heaven!  I never dreamed of this!  Whose sons are safe?”

“No man’s,” was the answer of the gentleman in whose office we were sitting—­“No man’s—­while there are such open doors to ruin as you may find at the ‘Sickle and Sheaf.’  Did not you vote the anti-temperance ticket at the last election?”

“I did,” was the answer; “and from principle.”

“On what were your principles based?” was inquired.

“On the broad foundations of civil liberty.”

“The liberty to do good or evil, just as the individual may choose?”

“I would not like to say that.  There are certain evils against which there can be no legislation that would not do harm.  No civil power in this country has the right to say what a citizen shall eat or drink.”

“But may not the people, in any community, pass laws, through their delegated law-makers, restraining evil-minded persons from injuring the common good?”

“Oh, certainly—­certainly.”

“And are you prepared to affirm, that a drinking-shop, where young men are corrupted, aye, destroyed, body and soul—­does not work an injury to the common good?”

“Ah! but there must be houses of public entertainment.”

“No one denies this.  But can that be a really Christian community which provides for the moral debasement of strangers, at the same time that it entertains them?  Is it necessary that, in giving rest and entertainment to the traveler, we also lead him into temptation?”

“Yes—­but—­but—­it is going too far to legislate on what we are to eat and drink.  It is opening too wide a door for fanatical oppression.  We must inculcate temperance as a right principle.  We must teach our children the evils of intemperance, and send them out into the world as practical teachers of order, virtue and sobriety.  If we do this, the reform becomes radical, and in a few years there will be no bar-rooms, for none will crave the fiery poison.”