“I’ve been thinking about it this long time, and have been gradually brought to see that it was gaining ground, and getting hold of the young ones; that it was killing people, and making poverty and misery, and have thought something ought to be done. As long ago as when this house of Ben’s was building, I found old Mr. Yelf in a slough, bruised, dirty, and bloody. Ever since that I’ve been thinking about it; it has kept me awake nights. But when I saw the poor old man, whom I had known so well to do, dead among the swine, I felt the time had come. I meant to have begun with older people, and should not have thought of you; but when I heard that you were all on here together, it seemed to me that the road was pinted out; that you had no bad habits to break off, and that it would be beginning at the root of the tree; for if there were no young folks growing up to drink, there would be no old ones to die drunkards.”