A TEETOTAL FAMILY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1051, 4 January 1883, Page 3

A TEETOTAL FAMILY.

The following is told in the London Daily Telegraph “That even so stern an institution as Total Abstinence has its humorous side is demonstrated by the recent experience of a young Palatinate Norman who emigrated in order to j-'dn his nude, aunt and cousins, prosperous seHlera near Lancaster, in the State of Pennayivaria. During his 6r-t meal at his kinsman’s table, he observed that wine and beer were conspicuous by their absence, while teeming water-battles were, so to speak, visible to the naked eye. An attempt on his part to comment upon this unconvivial circumstance was cut short by the remark, ‘We are all temperance folk here; no spirituous liquors enter this honso !’ After dinner the ‘old man’ want upstairs to take a snooze, the girls started off to Sunday school, and the boys lounged away to smoke in the stable. As soon as ‘aunty’ found herself alone in the kitchen, she summoned her youthful nephew thither, extracted a bottle of cherry-bounce from one of the cupboards, and held it cut to him, saying, * Here, sonny, take a drink ; ray old man is such a strict teetotaller that 1 .don’t dare to let him know I keep a drop of the right sort to use medicinally,’ A few minutes later the head of the family called his nephew up to his bedroom, where he produced a gallon-jar of whisky from a portmanteau under the bed, and pouring out a handsome dram, observed, ‘ Teetotalling don’t prevent me from keeping some decent stuff in case of illness ; but mind you don’t let on to the old woman.’ Strolling into the stable shortly after the second surprise, his cousins invited the ingenuous emigrant into a barn, where, after fumbling about in the straw for a few seconds, they handed him a black bottle with the encouraging words, ‘ Take a pull at that, cousin ; right good Bourbon it is ; but not a word te the old folks, for two more infatuated teetotallers don’t lire.’