PART III.

TEMPERANCE.

A Plea to Yoters.

OME all

you noble voters,

I pray you lend an ear;

Let's have more food and clothing,

And less of rum and beer.

The brewers they have heaped their cash; The pile looms up each year,

But the wife and children have been robbed, By their sale of rum and beer.

They say their business is upright!
But that sounds very queer,
For count the graves untimely filled
By their sale of rum and beer.

And must the brewers rule the vote, Of our blood-bought country dear; While weeping mothers see their sons Cast down by rum and beer?

There's many questions that are great.
But they must take the rear,

For the vital one, to save our land
Is to crush old rum and beer.

The cry goes up on every hand,
Let the tippler have his dram,
Let him drink and run his course
As quickly as he can!

If he was the one that suffered all,
And not his children dear,

The curse would not be half so great,
That is caused by rum and beer.

We see a solid wall of shops filled
With a tempting bait,

Yet brewer's say 'tis not a crime
To tempt a man to sin.

A PLEA TO VOTERS.

157

And

yet two hundred drunkards

Die each day.

Without a sigh from the men who slew,
They're quickly tumbled in.

Men are crying, regulate, regulate the law! Why don't you regulate a well-known ague chill,

The only way to deal with both,

Just use a sure and certain pill.

For years they tried to compromise,
And regulate the law,

But then as now, there was a curse,
A great and crushing flaw.

Till Abram took his pen and said,
"No more you'll see

Our glorious flag a-floating o'er,
The bondman and the free!"

If there's any truth or justice,
Hovering o'er this hemisphere,
Shield the wan and weeping mothers,
That are crushed by rum and beer.