Page:The War on the Webfoot Saloon.djvu/3

 gale of windy oratory. On March io the Reverend Mr. Medbury, seconded by five brother parsons—Atkinson, Izer, Eaton, Lindsley and Eliot—called a meeting at the First Baptist Church. Fifty ladies attended and were harangued, agitated and up-lifted until the ministerial team had talked itself hoarse. Meetings were held on succeeding days, each one larger and more fevered than the one preceding. Ladies were encouraged to "exchange experiences," that is, to recite, without paltering over details, the drunken depravities of sons and husbands. Heated by these pious flames, the new movement quickly raised a formidable head of steam. On the sixteenth the Women's Temperance Prayer League was formally organized. Headquarters were set up in the Taylor Street Methodist Church and plans were made to hold afternoon and evening meetings daily from that moment forward. On March 18 the League issued a public appeal to saloon-keepers, urging them to shut up shop. The same day an abstinence pledge was drawn up and put into circulation. By the