The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1886-04-23
COUGH ON COLD WATER.
A Fugitive Gem from the Great Orator
I'm Which Rum Is Severely De-
nOunced. WV

A Wooster, o., correspondent OF the
Cincinnati Commercial Gazette writes:
OF all the powerful exccrations on rum
delivered by the late John b. Cough,
the most powerful has never been pub
lished. / came across it to-day. 1t is
i'm Coughs own handwriting. and was
delivered by him twenty-six years ago.
After its delivery. u young law student
in the audience, Mr.. L. S. Shepherd,
now resident of this city, asked MIR.
Cough to favor him with his words in
writing. Mr.. Cough consented, on con-
dition that the manuscript never be pub
lished while he was on the lecture plat
form. The conditions were assented to,
and Mr.. Cough jotted down the follow
ing:
There is no poison in that cup; no
tiendish spirit dwells beneath those
crystal drops to lure you and me and all
of us to ruin; no spectral shadows play
upon its waveless surface; no widows
groans or orphans tears rise to God
from those placid fountains; misery,
crime, wretchedness, woe, want and
rags come not within the hallowed pre-
cincts where cold water reigns supreme.
Pure now us when it left its native
heaven, giving vigor TO our youth,
strength TO our manhood, and solace to
cur old age. Cold water is beautiful,
and bright, and pure everywhere. In
the moonlight fountains and the sunny
rills; in the warDling brook and the
giant river; in the deep, tangled wild
wood and the cataract's spray; in the
hand of beauty or on the lips of man
hood-cold water is beautiful every
where"
Now follows the eXecration on rum:
"Rum! There is poison in that cup.
There is serpent in that cup whose
sting is madness and whose embrace is
death. There dwells beneath that smil-
ing surface Il tiendish spirit which for
centuries has been wandering over the
earth, carrying on u war OF desolation
and destruction against mankind,
blighting and mildewing the noblest af-
fections of the heart and corrupting
with its foul breath the time of human
life, and changing the glad, green earth
into lazar-house. Gaze on it! But
shudder us you gaze! Those sparkling
drops are murder in disguisc; so quiet
now, yet widows groans and orphans
tears and maniacs' yells arc in that cup.
The worm that deth not and the fire
that is not quenched are in that cup.
"Peace and hope and love and truth
dwell not within that fiery circlewhere
dwells that desolating monster which
men call rum. Corrupt now rs when it
left its native hell, giving fire to the eye,
madness to the brain, and ruin to the
soul. Rum is vile and deadly and ac-
cursed everywhere. The poet would
likcn it in its fiery glow to the flames
that flicker around the abode of the
damned. The theologian would point
you to the drunkard's doom, while the
historian would unfold the record of the
past and point you to the fate of empires
and kingdoms lured to ruin by the siren
song of the tempter, and sleeping now
in cold obscurity, the wrecks of what
once were great, grand and glorious.
Yes,rum is corrupt and vile and deadly;
accursed everywhere. Fit type and
semblance of all earthly corruption!
'Base art thou yet as when the wise
man warned us of thy power and babe us
flee thy enchantment. Vile art thou yet
as when thou first went on thy unholy
mission-tilling earth with desolation
and madness, woe and anguish. Dead
ly. art thou yet us when thy envenomed
tooth first took fast hold on human
hearts, and thy serpent tongue first
drank up the warm life-blood. of i'm
mortal souls. Accused art thou yet as
when the bones of thy first victim rotted
in damp grave, and its shrek echoed
along the gloomy caverns of hell. Yes,
thou Internal spirit of rum, through all
past time hast thou been, as through all
coming time thou shalt be, accused
everywhere.
SIN the fiery fountains of the still; in
the seething bubbles of the caldron; in
the kingly palace and the drunkards
hovel; in the rich mans cellar and in
the poor mans closet; in the pestilentiai
vapors of foul dens, and in the blaze of
gilded saloons; in the hand of beauty
and on the lip of manhood-rum is
vile and deadly and accused every
where.
Rum, we yield not to thy unhallowed
influence, and together we have met to
plan thy destruction. And by what
new name shall we call thee, and to
what shall we liken thee when we speak
of thy attributes. Others may call thee
child of perdition, the base born pro-
geny of sin and Satan, the murderer of
mankind and the destroyer of immortal
souls; but this night will give thee
new name among men and crown thee
with new horror, and that new name
shall be the sacramental cup of the rum
power, and will say to all the sons and
daughters of earth-Dash it down. And
thou, rum, shalt be my next in my pill
grimage among men, and not alone
shall my tongue utter it, but the groans
of orphans in their agony and the cries
of widows in their desolation shall pro-
claim it the enemy of home, the traducer
of childhood, and the destroyer of man.
hood, and whose only antidote is the
sacramental cup of temperance, cold
waterp'