South Carolina Temperance Advocate

ONE WAY OF REFORMING A DISSIPATED HUSBAND.

A few years ago, a female who resides in a village in Ayrshire (we do not choose to be more particular) had the misfortune to be married to a Scottish husband. Every night his professional labors over, he repaired to a certain tavern, where he met a set of companions, as drouthy as himself, and devoted the whole evening to drinking, and singing such outrageous catches as the following:

And bod the Flood been liquor good,
And Noah's sons such lads as I.
They'd drink the Deluge where it stood,
And left the ark and Noah dry.

His wife saw the brink on which he was standing, and, prompted by parental and connubial affection, was unceasing in her efforts to wean him from the tavern, and reconcile him to the comforts of his own quiet domicile.

But the labor of love was entirely thrown away; in place of becoming better, he grew gradually worse: seldom went to bed before one or two in the morning, rose late, neglected his business, and in short, was on the high road to ruin. His temper too, became frightfully irascible. and in place of soothing his broken hearted wife, he found fault with everything: and rarely approached her but with abuse on his lips. and a frown on his brow.

The poor woman's looks to those who could read them, told a very dismal tale, and in her despair she hit on the following expedient, which. we understand, has been attended with the happiest effects—One night, after dark, she repaired to the tavern her husband frequented. persuaded a knot of tradesmen to accompany her, ordered in a huge bowl of toddy. compounded the materials secundum artem, sent the glasses round, got one man to sing, a second to laugh, and a third to joke; and, in short, acted her part so well, that she looked the very picture of a female toper.—

When the charm was thus far wound, she sent for her husband, and invited him to take a seat and taste her toddy. At first the man stared as if he had seen a ghost, and it was observed that his color went and came when he heard his spouse declare that, judging from the example of some of her friends, she had come to the conclusion that a tavern must be the happiest place in the world, and was determined for the future to share its pleasures. Frequently she stirred the bowl and replenished the glasses, and when the vessel became dry. rang the bell, and commissioned materials for a fresh brewst. But here the husband who had been silently forecasting the shape of future evils, remonstrated so earnestly, that the lady consented to abridge her revels and accompany him home. By the way, they conversed long and seriously; certain promises were voluntarily made; promises which have been kept to the very letter; and the result of the wife's stratagem is that her husband has become one of the soberest men in the parish, and is indebted for his reformation less to a temperance than an intemperate society.—

Dumfries Courier.