National Republican., 1884-03-21
A TEMPERANCE TALK.
Lecture OF Mrs. j. II. Nichols at the Met
ropoIitan Church Last Night.

ropoIitan Church Last Night.
Mrs. !. r. Nichols, of Indianapolis, n super
intendent of the w. c. r. u, spoke last oven.
ing in the lecture room of the Metrop politsn
NJ. f. church. at Four.and-a-half and c
streets, upon the subject Of temperance. The
Rev. DIR. Huntlcy presided. After the reading
of Scripture, prayer, and the singing Of hymn,
Mrs. Nichols petite lady, dressed in black,
and with an impressive style of oratory, was
introduced She said she would not treat
her subject from a legal, but from social
point of view Women are the autoorats Of
8ocicty and the chief agents in the elevation
of the social circle. Women are culpable for
the popularizing Of drinking in society which
exists to such great extent at the present
time. Mrs. Nichols referred moro especially
to the amount of drinking done by fashionable
society women, and who. in many instances,
had by their example made men irreclaim.
able drunkards. If women arc not entitled
to the right Of suffrage they should at least
entertain the earnest sentiment of not re-
coiving in their drawing rooms and parlors
those who arc engaged in the liquor traffic.
Let women beware how they tamper with
such dangerous weapon as strong drink.
There Is one feature, said Mrs. Nichols,
that temperance speakers do not touch upon,
and that is women drinking among them
selves. If the drinking among mon is gen.
orally among tho middle and lower classes,
that among women is in the upper classes of
society. The speaker referred to statistics
takon in an eastern city, where 1000
women all moving in the more respectable
class Of the community, were inmates Of an
nebrate asylum. 1t was boosted of
Kentucky belle Of what q beautiful
color she could get up by drink
ing a half pint of wine at dinner and
then taking a short repose. Mrs. Nichols
said she had seen women at a New York club
dinner reel from drinking wine. She re-
fcrred TO cultured, Christian mothers, who
gave their babes toddy, aud made them drunk
with their own milk. A drunken man is a
spectacle to be abhorred but when it
comes to drunken woman the speaker
said, the angels Of Heaven hide
their faces from so revolving spectacle.
Women are also tho greatest sufferers from
intcmperance. What agony 1t is to high
spirited, sensitive woman who once looked
up with pride to her husband, to see him
dragged down to the lowest depths Of drunk
enness and degradation. There is not home
in the land that is not tainted with the foul
miasma from the liquor traffic. 1t takes the
light from the poets brain, reduces the
strength of youth to the weakness of old age,
less and withcrcd. The liquor traffic causes
woman's heart to bleed, it blasts her hopes,
and fills her soul with despair.
In closing Mrs. Nichols made an eloquent
appeal to the motherhood of the nation
women whom God exalted, and through
whom the world is to be redeemed. "Why,
in all the legislatures of the country" said
the speaker. "has not something been done
for the motherhood of the nation, in protect
ing them from the liquor traffic, which is
both the curse Of God and man--to save her
babe sacrificed upon this unholy Moloch
How can a country" she exclaimed, glory
in the renown of its warriors, tho eloquence
of its statesmen, and its wonderful prosperity,
when its foundations are cemented with the
blood of the victims of the liquor trafiic?"