I don't think there was ever a choir like ours but one, and that was
conducted by a butcher from Dolphinholm in the Anglican Church at
Garstang. One Sunday he started a hymn with a new tune. Three times
his men broke down, and three times they were heard by the whole
congregation whispering ferociously at one another. At length the
parson tried to proceed with the service, and said: "Let us pray."
But the bold butcher retorted: "Pray be hanged. Let us try again,
lads; I know we can do it." He then started the hymn for the fourth
time, and they did it. After the service the parson demanded
satisfaction of the butcher, and got it in a neighbouring pasture.

The cholera came, and we soon grew very serious. The young man from
Vermont walked with me after school hours, and we tried to be
cheerful, but it was of no use. Our talk always reverted to the
plague, and the best way to cure it or to avoid it. The doctors
disagreed. Every theory was soon contradicted by facts; all kinds of
people were attacked and died; the young and the old, the weak and
the strong, the drunken and the sober. Every man adopted a special
diet or a favourite liquor--brandy, whiskey, bitters, cherry-bounce,
sarsaparilla. My own particular preventive was hot tea, sweetened
with molasses and seasoned with cayenne pepper. I survived, but that
does not prove anything in particular.

The two papers, the 'Joliet Signal' and the 'True Democrat', scarcely
ever mentioned the cholera. It would have been bad policy, tending
to scare away the citizens and to injure trade.

Many men suddenly found that they had urgent business to look after
elsewhere, and sneaked away, leaving their wives and families behind