Speeches, poems, and miscellaneous writings on subjects connected with temperance and the liquor traffic / by Charles Jewett.

  • Jewett, Charles, 1807-1879.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Speeches, poems, and miscellaneous writings on subjects connected with temperance and the liquor traffic / by Charles Jewett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    of the absence of that husband and father. They will be filled with deep anxiety, and, to save that family a night of painful suspense and watchfulness, and to save him, perhaps, from the disgrace of a night in the watch-house, or a death in the street,!' undertake to get him home. To put him into the coach in com- pany with ladies and gentlemen will not answer, and so I take him on outside, if I can get him up. There he is a source of continual vexation. To keep him from tumbling off, often requires much care; and where there is no particular danger of that, he will be almost constantly whistling or screaming at my horses, even while I am endeavoring to guide them safely and slowly down some steep hill, or over a rough and dangerous part of the road. Not long since, I was thus plagued with an intoxicated man, whom I was trying to con- vey to his home in Plymouth county. All my scolding and threats would scarcely keep him quiet for three minutes at a time. At length, however, he bent his drunken head and shoulders over the iron railing which surrounds the top of the coach : he was sitting on the upper seat, and I began to comfort myself with the notion that I should have no further trouble with him. But I was mistaken. True, he kept quiet until we reached the place where he was to stop, and then I dis- covered what had happened during his period of quietness. He had, in reclining on the top of the coach, thrust his elbow through the cover of a bandbox, which contained a new and costly bonnet, and, over the last few miles of our ride, at every jolt, that elbow was grinding the beautiful bonnet to shreds. It was completely spoiled. I saw at once what must be done. I made the lady who owned the bonnet acquainted with the disaster, inquired its price, and paid over my hard- earned money to repair the damages done by that drunken booby. The grog-seller in the city had made his shilling, per- haps, by setting the cause in operation. It cost me much vexa- tion and more than five dollars cash to repair the damages. Well driver, said I, when I charge the rum traffic with waging a warfare on all useful occupations, I shall make no exception of your business.