dead babes as high as Helicon upon the altar of the dreadful "Rum Demon." He loaded himself to the muzzle with statistics by which he proved that Methuselah, Joyce Heth and George Washington's body-servant were slain by booze. He railed at the saloon as a "plague-spot" and branded the broad-beamed barkeeper as a Moloch with springs in his jaws and a triple row of teeth. Men are but children of a larger growth, and it is natural for children to follow a noise. The uncanny yodel of the "reformer" was heeded, and the people voted to "pulverize the rum power." Then they began to spit cotton. "De men who invented t'irst," declined to pool issues with the localoptionists. The fact that it was hard to get made a drink the more desirable. Men who seldom touched liquor, when it was under their very nose, began to dream of mint juleps and little brown jugs. The ghosts of longforgotten cocktails came trooping back to haunt the waking hours of men, and the tinkle of cracked ice in cutglass reminded them of the days that were dead. Casks and jugs began to drift in from Dallas, labeled paregoric, or soothing syrup and the "Rum Demon" to do a little password business in back rooms. Those who had howled for Prohibition the hardest became his best patrons. When one man bribes another to break the law he is morally bound to protect him as far as possible. Like Sir Launcelot,

"His honor rooted in dishonor stands,

And faith unfaithful keeps him falsely true."

Thus was contempt of law fostered and immunity secured. Soon men, who never before dreamed of selling booze, finding the trade both profitable and safe, added a little mean liquor to their stock-in-trade " for the benefit of their customers." Habitual law-breaking makes de

scent from the zenith of commercial pride to the disreputable doggery both rapid and easy, and the associations of such a place soon complete the moral degradation of its master. The legitimate fruits of such conditions are terrible to contemplate. When men, whom the youth have been taught to regard as examples, disregard the laws, practice deceit, suborn witnesses and pander to the debased appetites of drunken bums to make a dollar, that community is dangerously near the devil-only a special interposition of Providence or an anti-Prohibition victory can pull it through. I am more addicted to work than prayer; but I do here petition that good God Who made of man a responsible entity, to rescue the city of Hillsboro from the damning blight of sumptuary law, which in every decade does more to corrupt the morals of mankind than have all the publicans from the dawn of history to the present day. The oak was not intended for the hothouse nor grown men for a moral kindergarten. The first, to develop its full strength, must breast the storm and take its chances of being blasted by the writhen bolt; the latter, to grow in grace, must contend manfully with the world, the flesh and the devil. In such a struggle some must fall-the weak will go to the wall; but the fittest will survive, and one man who has been tried by fire and proven true gold, is worth more to the world than a thousand little microbes whose battle of life has been made a holidaymarch-moral dudes brought up on a bottle by a political step-dame.

***

SALMAGUNDI.

THE Galveston-Dallas News loves England and adores Cleveland. Since the latter blossomed forth as chief of the despised "jingoes," our contemporary, like Desde

mona, finds "a divided duty." It cannot admit that it has been bowing down before an idol of clay; nor can it consent to have dear old Johnny Bull's nose rubbed in the sawdust.

Wherein Riggins' great Texas Industrial and Immigration Association consented to “take a rest until after the holidays." Good. Riggins' jaw may not require a rest, but the country does.

In a few American cities making loud pretenses to æstheticism, entertainments were given on New Year's eve, a feature of which was the sale at auction of old bachelors to ladies supposed to be hungering for husbands. And yet, we recalcitrate like a mule colt whenever foreigners comment upon the crudity and coarseness that in America marks the social relations of the sexes!

Dallas is so enthusiastically in favor of the AngloAmerican war that she may tender Uncle Sam and John Bull her big auditorium free of charge and hang up a purse.

Samivel Small declares that " Prohibition goes marching on." It sure does—with a jug in each hand.

James G. Corbett having "retired from the ring" to avoid meeting Fitzsimmons, should now have the decency to put a timelock on his gab-trap.

The Democrats and Republicans in congress now fiddling on the financial issue, are filling the treasury with political capital.

Thos. F. Bayard is one of those Anglomaniacs who have never forgiven Almighty God for suffering them to be born American sovereigns instead of British subjects. Only a mugwump administration would clothe a man ashamed of his birth with the power of an ambassador.

The St. Louis Mirror declares that " Cleveland towers above his enemies like a colossus." Col. Reedy must have caught a glimpse of the "Stuffed Prophet" when he was lying down.

In case of a war with England all hades cannot keep the Irish Catholics from going to the front; but the A.P.A.ites will remain at home to see that nothing happens to "the little red schoolhouse."

An exchange suggests that the New Woman hung up her bloomers for Christmas gifts. Um! Let us devoutly hope that she got a man in 'em.

I note with pained surprise that the Rev. Tommy Clark will not be a member of Add-Rann's faculty during the present term. Perhaps the Rev. Tommy has taken a vacation to study the French system of physical culture.

The goldbugs declare that "the silver craze is dead.” Perhaps that is why a Republican congress declines to tackle it. Even Richard Coeur D'Lion was a trifle afraid of a corpse.

Henry Clay Gray-I believe that is his name is a smart nigger now loafing about the white man's hen coop and tater-patch somewhere in South Texas. He has "writ a piece" about the "Apostle" and sent a marked copy

to his Baptist brethren in Waco. Henry is a mulatto, which argues that somewhere in his ancestry there was a white bum and a black bawd; still he is the moral equal and social superior of alleged white men who act as sewers for his intellectual offal.

The case of the State vs. Steen Morris, charged with outraging a half-grown girl under the very nose of the good Dr. Burleson of Baylor, has been continued to the next term of court because one of the defendant's three attorneys had a pain in the umbilicus. An innocent man accused of a cowardly crime is not content to lie under the stigma one hour longer than necessary; but continuances until public indignation has abated is the usual game of attorneys who have undertaken to clear a criminal.

And now it is said that Dr. Jehovah Boanerges Cranfill will run for president on the Prohibition platform. If he can only get Judge Gerald to stand at the starting-post and make a few impromptu remarks, Doc will run like a scared rabbit.

As a Napoleon of finance Ives was not in it a little bit with President Cleveland. The latter was practically a pauper when he first became president, yet was able to save enough out of a salary aggregating $200,000, to make him a millionaire. And the Morgan-Belmont syndi、 cate was then buying no bonds on private bids.

Now that Rufus Hardy has set the seal of his approval on the president's message, there is absolutely nothing more to be said.