went ashore, and was presented to an old chief who ruled the country for many miles inland. The skipper gave him rich presents, guns, powder, beads and ribbons, for the privilege of capturing any natives he could catch outside of a certain boundary. The chief and skipper shook hands on the bargain and parted-"

SIMMS. You don't forget this is a temperance meeting? THORTON. Not I. "Well," said Backstay Smith, "the skipper, after he left the chief, scoured the country until he had captured a hundred poor black men and women. He then started back to the ship, but before he had gone far he came up with the finest specimen of an African he had ever seen, a young man, tall, muscular and graceful. The skipper ordered him handcuffed, and with his sailors and slaves boarded the vessel. The next morning as the ship was slowly moving down the stream, the old chief, followed by his tribe, ran along the shore, crying out and gesticulating wildly. 'What's the matter!' shouted the skipper The old chief, who could speak English, answered back, 'The young man you captured last is my son, give him back to me and I will return all your gifts!' 'No, you don't,' yelled the skipper, 'I paid you your price for enslaving people, and your son must take the consequences along with the rest!'"

SIMMS.

What on earth has the old chief's son to do with the sale of rum?

THORTON. Everything; listen:- Each county, town and city has its official appointed by law; he is the one who must look after the alcoholic spiritual dispensation of his jurisdiction; well, we will call him the chief. Along comes a man, too lazy to work, devoid of conscience, who visits the chief. Says the lazy man, "I want permission to wreck homes and to enslave men, soul and body-how much does the license cost?" "So much," replies the chief. "All right, here's your cash!" Presently the legal chief's son is enslaved by rum, is a helpless drunkard, perhaps a condemned murderer on the scaffold. The legal chief cries out in agony, he charges the lazy rumseller with being the direct cause of the crime, of his son's awful slavery to rum-"No, you don't!" says the rumseller, "I paid you your price for the privilege of enslaving people, and your son must take the conse

quences along with the rest!" (All clap hands and cry, Bravo! Good! etc.)

SIMMS (rising). I see the parallel. The fault of rumselling lies with our legislators. (A boy enters and stands beside Simms.) If it is so wrong to sell liquor that only a bribe to the government can keep from fine and imprisonment the man who sells it, then the government is a paid conspirator, an accessory to all the horrors born of rum.

Boy. A strange man desires to see some one connected with the management

Boy. In the vestibule, without.

SIMMS. Friend Thorton, go bring the stranger in, bring him in. (Exit Thorton.) Be seated, my lad. (Re-enter Thorton followed by a man with heavy whiskers and bushy hair.)

SIMMS. Welcome, sir, thrice welcome to our meeting. STRANGER. I will not occupy your valuable time with idle apologies; I desire to say something to relieve my breast of a weight.

MISS. L. (rising, aside.) I have soraewhere heard that voice before! where could it have been? (Resumes her seat.) THORTON. You have our hearty permission to make any statement that will relieve you, and benefit our noble cause. (Motions stranger to platform.)

STRANGER (stepping on platform and pointing to sign). This is a queer sign, or a queer place for such a sign.

SIMMS True, but it serves to show our victory; it hangs there a trophy captured from our common foe.

STRANGER (bowing his head). Ah, yes, to be sure. (Stands erect.) What I wish to say can be told briefly. A young man, years ago, inherited from his parents a small farm, but disliking the honest, independent life of a farmer, he sold the old homestead and built a tavern. It was the first tavern the village ever had, and by many it was considered an improvement. The young man was a good talker and always alert; the life seemed to him an easy one, and for a long time he thrived and made money

THORTON. Excuse me, sir; I hope you are not going to describe the advantages of rumselling?

SIMMS. No, no! something in his manner convinces me he is not going to do that. 8

STRANGER. Not I; be patient. This man did all in his power to allure men to visit his bar-room; fathers were led off from their families, young men were estranged from their homes, and the poor working man was hailed on his way to his waiting wife that the tavern-keeper's gains might be increased. Take, for instance, this for the bar-room. There stood the bar (pointing to front of platform). The stove stood in the center, and the chairs and tables were ranged about the walls. A royal, hearty, jolly welcome awaited every one who had a dime in his pocket; but the instant a poor fellow's cash was spent, and he could no longer reciprocate the invitations to take a drink, out he was thrust, perhaps in the dead of night, out into the howling winter storm to perish! THORTON. Whales and porpoises! how I'd like to have that tavern-keeper in tow for a day!

SIMMS. Let the stranger proceed, let us hear him through. STRANGER (pointing). Here stood the bar; there stood the stove; the tables and chairs were ranged about the walls. One night when the tavern-keeper was alone, a trembling wretch came tottering into the bar-room; it was bitter cold. He called for a drink of whisky. He paid for it and sat down by the stove. The hour was late and the gale fairly shrieked, and the snow was drifting breast high. No more customers would come that night. Approaching the poor wretch the tavern-keeper said, “Can I do anything more for you?" The poor wretch shook his head and replied, "You have got my last dime." "Get out then," cried the rumseller, "I'm going to shut up!" "Ah" said the poor wretch, "when health and honor were mine, I read the sign as it swings from the tall post outside, "Dew-Drop Inn”—" That'll do,” yelled the rumseller, now read this (picking up sign and hanging it under first one): "If you've got no money, do drop out." And with that, he took hold of the poor wretch and cast him out into the black night. When the leaden sky of the next morning made objects visible, a frozen human body was discovered lying under a neighboring shed. From that morning the rumseller could never look at the stove without beholding the poor wretch, with haggard face and pleading eyes, as he sat on that fatal stormy night. The rumseller was stricken with remorse. He closed his tavern

and secretly left the village. He had all the rum destroyed, and gave this portion of the building rent free to temperance meetings.

THORTON (jumping up). Whales and porpoises! how I'd like to shake hands with that fellow!

STRANGER (removing false whiskers and wig). And so you shall! ALL (rising). Edgar White, the landlord of the Dew-Drop Inn!

WHITE. It is I, and with God's merciful help, the rest of my days shall be devoted to the glorious work of temperance. THORTON (stepping on platform). Down with the piratical colors! (Throws signs on the floor.)

SIMMS (taking White's hand). We all forgive you.

MISS. L. We will sing one song, and then away to our homes.

SIMMS. Yes, in honor of our new recruit. Fall in!
THORTON. Heave ahead, my hearties!

All resume seats except the four principal characters, who advance to front and stand in a group while singing:

RESCUE THE WAYWARD.

Tune, "We'd better bide a wee.”

The sigh, the heartfelt, sad regrets,
The tears that silent flow;

The weary life that sin begets
The sinful only know:

Oh, brother, sister, shun the snare
That lurks within the wine,
And bid the erring youth beware,
As though his life were thine.

There's time when e'en the vilest soul
With holy love expands,

"Tis then that virtue gains control

O'er passion's base demands;

Kind words of cheer, if whispered then,

Long years of woe may spare,

By giving hope the place again
Once held by dark despair.

Curtain falls slowly while the last two lines are being sung.

DON CRAMBO.-ROBERT C. V. MEYERS.
Written expressly for this Collection.

Don Crambo once there was who had for wife
A shrewish woman who made life a pother,
And whose fair daughter, as if to make his life
More cursed, was e'en more shrewish than her mother;
So that the good Don's days were dark as night,
His nights quite brilliant with marital lightning,
And when the wifely gust passed out of sight
The daughter sped her shafts of 'lectric brightning.
For years 'twas thus, the wife toward the last
Consigning most her power to the daughter,
Content to come in with a counter-blast

When the fair maiden hinted that she'd ought to.

'Twas in Madrid where lived the pleasant three, And in Madrid there lived a young man timidSo bashful that the artist could not see

The young man's eyes when he the young man limned.

This bashful young man by decree of fate

Became enamoured of the shrewish daughter;
The father solemn looked: "Ere 'tis too late,"
Said he, "prefer a death in good cold water."

The youth replied, "Too late it is. I've seen
The lady and her playful ebullition.
Your daughter, sir, give me! I'm not so green
As you may think, nor lack I erudition."

"My daughter," quoth Don Crambo, white as snow,
"Is the prize daughter of her own prize mother.
I say no farther; but farther you should go.

Look on me! As I am, you'll be another."

"Not so," the bashful young man urged. "I'll try
My best to be unlike your own son's father.
But marry your fair daughter that will I,

By fair or other means,-the fair means, rather."
However the short wooing sped I may

Not here detail; suffice it that the maiden, Tiring of her father's subdued way

And longing for new pastures husband-laden,