Page:The Story of the House of Cassell (book).djvu/30

 speech and infectious earnestness. It was characteristic of his curious, acquisitive mind that when in Wales he picked up enough Welsh to wind up his addresses with something in that language.

Not infrequently the publicans organized opposition to temperance speakers. Mr. Arthur Humphreys, in the Manchester Guardian (January 23, 1917), recalled a lively meeting held by Cassell at Shaftesbury.

"Amidst the row I was the first to sign the pledge," said Charles Garrett, then a boy of thirteen, who lived to become president of the Wesley an Conference, and was one of the founders of the cocoa-house movement—the first effort to provide "counter-attractions" to the public-house. Another of Cassell's converts was the late T. H. Barker, who became secretary of the United Kingdom Alliance.

The character and quality of this earliest phase of the teetotal movement may be summed up in a few sentences from a letter written by Richard Cobden to Livesey. Cobden was personally one of the "moderates," but his words show the tendency of the temperance man to become a teetotaller. Temperance reform, he said, lay at the root of all social and political progression in this country. English people were in many respects the most reliable of all earthly beings; but he had often been struck by the superiority that foreigners enjoyed because of their greater sobriety, which gave them higher advantages of civilization even when they were far behind us in the average of education and in political institutions:

"If you could convert us into a nation of water-drinkers, I see no reason why, in addition to our being the most energetic, we should not be the most polished people, for we are inferior to none in the inherent qualities of the gentleman—truthfulness and benevolence.

"With these sentiments, I need not say how much I reverence your efforts in the cause of teetotalism, and how gratified I was to find that my note (written privately, by the way, to Mr. Cassell) should have afforded you any satisfaction.