WHY HE STOPPED DRINKING.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3165, 20 August 1881, Page 4

WHY HE STOPPED DRINKING.

I may tell a new story of Senator Garland, of Arkansas, says the Washington correspondent of the Philadelphia Times. He is a great lawyer—one of the two or three really big lawyers in the Senate. He has always been a modest man, but whatever he has had to say he has said it as well as Edmunds, Thurman, or even Don Cameron could say it. However, that has nothing to do with the story. Garland has always been a liberal drinker. That is why (or at least one reason why) he is so popular in Arkansas, where people would rather drink with a man than shoot him, although not at all averse to the latter on certain occasions. Coming to the Senate, Garland iept up his habits, and became personally one of the most popular and lovable men men on the floor. Everybody likes him, and everybody respects his integrity, no less than his great ability. So he took his drinks with Vest, Thurman, Edmunds, Voorhees, Bayard, and the others, and became also famous as a story-teller. When he came to Washington last fall, he surprised the jolly senators by refusing to take a drink in one of the committee rooms. At once he had half a dozen senators upon him, guying him and begging him for his reasons for stopping. One asked: " Kidneys, Garland ? " And others said : "Bad 'em, Garland ? " Still another : " Stomach gone back on you, Garland ? " And others asked if the doctor had made him let up. He finally answered them : " No, gentlemen," said he, " there's nothing the matter with me, but I've stopped. You know we had a pretty hot canvass in Arkansas this summer, and I Trent all over the State stumping. Well, I saw the graves of a good many good fellows •who began with me and who are now in the dark valley or the light one, whichever it may be. I saw the wreck of other a-ten who started with me to be jolly good fellows. 'I he graves and the wrecks set me thinking. Erom thinking I began to calculate. Well, on a rough calculation, I found that I had already dranfc about a barrel and a half of

whisky moro than I was entitled to. Then I said to myself that if I drank any more I should be drinking some other fellow's .vhisky ; and as 1 did't want to do that, I stopped. There, you have the whole story."