weed_ as he termed it, was a physician, who had been forced to give up
chewing on account of the state of his heart, after years of indulgence.
We have seen many such instances, and, in one case, the abandonment of
the habit entirely cured a dyspepsia of twenty-eight years' standing.




CHAPTER XI.

THE WOMAN'S CRUSADE.


For every one saved through the agency of inebriate asylums and
reformatory homes, hundreds are lost and hundreds added yearly to the
great army of drunkards. Good and useful as such institutions are, they
do not meet the desperate exigencies of the case. Something of wider
reach and quicker application is demanded. What shall it be? In
prohibition many look for the means by which the curse of drunkenness is
to be abated. But, while we wait for a public sentiment strong enough to
determine legislation, sixty thousand unhappy beings are yearly
consigned to drunkards' graves.

What have temperance men accomplished in the fifty years during which
they have so earnestly opposed the drinking usages of society and the
traffic in alcoholic drinks? And what have they done for the prevention
and cure of drunkenness? In limiting the use of intoxicants, in
restricting the liquor traffic and in giving a right direction to public
sentiment, they have done a great and good work; but their efforts to
reclaim the fallen drunkard have met with sad discouragements. In the