FURIOUS WOMEN.

Gisborne Times, Volume V, Issue 56, 7 March 1901, Page 4

FURIOUS WOMEN.

GALLANT ATTACK UPON THE SALOONS. (Per R.M.S. Ventura at Auckland.) San Francisco, Feb. 15. A curious drama, inspired by temperance sentiment, has just been enacted in the State of Kansas. Kansas has prohibition laws, which have not been very well enforced. Announcing that she had a mission from Heaven to destroy the liquor traffic, Mrs Carry Nation began the business of “saloon smashing.” At first she entered the saloons quite alone, and proceeded to wreck the furnishings and supplies with the aid of a hatchet. Soon she had organised

A LEAGUE 01' SALOON WJRECKEES, and thousands of women have joined the organisation within the past month. These women have destroyed more than one hundred thousand pounds’ worth of property in Wichesa, Topeka, and other towns of Kansas. They were arrested, but sang and prayed in the prisons, and turned the court-rooms into praise meetings. A sort of frenzy seizedupon Mrs Nation’s followers, hut the leader remained calm always, and declared everywhere she was wielding the right arm of God. The woman solemnly avers the consecration of her life to the work of destruction of the liquor-selling vice, and is filled with the spirit of the martyrs. After some weeks of “smasl.ing” however, she has yielded to the temptation of giving some 1 etures for pay in Chicago and other large cities, and the work of wreckh g has languished for a time. Mrs Nati< n declares , she is ready to give up In r life for the good of the cause she li; s taken up, and even avers that the evil needs the shedding of the blood of atonement.

MEN APPEARED TO BE HELPLESS before ber determination, and although she often went to prison, she was jdways promptly released again. She'compares the evil of the saloon to that of a hundred infuriated beasts in pursuit of helpless children, and believes it to be the rightful task of mothers to put an end to dangers that threaten. A revival of temperance sentiment has followed on the woman’s work, and at Topeka mass meetings of citizens roused by the woman’s enthusiasm have ordered all the saloons of the town permanently to be closed before February 15th. The ultimatum to the liquor dealers commands the officers of the city and county to do their duty, and divekeepers and others engaged in illicit traffic are warned that if the cleansing of the city is not complete by the date mentioned, an army of a thousand men will remove saloons by force. A vigilance committee of twelve hundred men is pledged to take action in the matter whenever called uppn. Other Kansas towns have taken similar steps, and public sentiment is in a remarkable condition. The Government of Kansas has

BEEN GIVEN A TONGUE-LASHING ™ by Mrs Nation, who fear 3 no man. Much interest has been roused whenever the woman has appeared or spoken, and the result of her destructive inspiration, which has left in its wake broken plate-glass fronts, burned mirrors, and sidewalks red with liquor, has been an astonishing revival of temperance sentiment,