i hardly think,though,they'd be allowed out without any better escort than these boys.and yet the place is a place where every one comes,as you see.they may be little immoralities--in which case they wouldn't be so hopelessly overcome with two glasses of wine.they may be--"whatever they were they got indubitably drunk--there in that lovely hall,surrounded by the best of buffalo society.one could do nothing except invoke the judgment of heaven on the two boys,themselves half sick with liquor.at the close of the performance the quieter maiden laughed vacantly and protested she couldn't keep her feet.the four linked arms,and staggering,flickered out into the street--drunk,gentlemen and ladies,as davy's swine,drunk as lords!they disappeared down a side avenue,but i could hear their laughter long after they were out of sight.
and they were all four children of sixteen and seventeen.then,recanting previous opinions,i became a prohibitionist.better it is that a man should go without his beer in public places,and content himself with swearing at the narrow-mindedness of the majority;better it is to poison the inside with very vile temperance drinks,and to buy lager furtively at back-doors,than to bring temptation to the lips of young fools such as the four i had seen.i understand now why the preachers rage against drink.
i have said:"there is no harm in it,taken moderately;"and yet my own demand for beer helped directly to send those two girls reeling down the dark street to--god alone knows what end.
if liquor is worth drinking,it is worth taking a little trouble to come at--such trouble as a man will undergo to compass his own desires.it is not good that we should let it lie before the eyes of children,and i have been a fool in writing to the contrary.very sorry for myself,i sought a hotel,and found in the hall a reporter who wished to know what i thought of the country.him i lured into conversation about his own profession,and from him gained much that confirmed me in my views of the grinding tyranny of that thing which they call the press here.