"In my opinion, Mr. Brown, they were afraid to act. They said important business called them away; but I am almost certain they made business in order to escape the duty. I understand they have been subjected to a species of bull-dozing. Being both of them merchants, they were threatened by the liquor party with a loss of custom if they acted, and they had not enough backbone to stand the pressure. I have also been informed that their wives, who were in abject terror, met and had a consultation, and concluded it would not be safe for their husbands to act, as there had been threats of personal violence and of injury to property; so, under these influences, 'important' business was manufactured for the occasion. They have thus escaped the responsibility!" "Yes," said Mr. Brown, "and left those two non-entities to be gulled by Sealy and bullied by Murdon. I must again express my surprise that such incompetents should have been appointed to their positions." "They are specimen bricks of the big batch the Government turned out a year or two ago. Why, do you not know that they manufactured magistrates by the wholesale? Many of them were appointed--not because of their qualifications, for they were notoriously ignorant--but because they wished to reward them for services to the party, and to insure their loyalty in the future." "I am afraid," said Mr. Brown, "when you have to depend upon such broken reeds, and have so many other obstacles to meet, you will find it difficult to successfully work the Act." "Yes, we will have to meet and overcome difficulties; but we have anticipated this from the first. I must confess, however, that I was disappointed at the attitude of some who, I thought, would be its strongest supporters. I find they are craven-hearted, weak-kneed, and afraid to give active assistance. They say it will injure their business; so it is a matter of selfishness with them. If it fails, it will be because of the half-hearted support we receive from so-called respectable temperance men and moderate drinkers. I know the Act is far from perfect, because the liquor party in Parliament succeeded in introducing clauses that somewhat weaken its effectiveness, and they now attack it because of these very defects. But with all its defects, we would succeed in working it if we had the sympathy and hearty support of all its professed friends; without this, though it came forth with the stamp of the Infinite, it would fail." "You think we have too many of the genus mollusk in the temperance ranks, Mr. Gurney? These creatures, with, no backbone, infest and curse the Churches of to-day, and I have no doubt they will prove the greatest curse to the temperance cause. A half-hearted friend in the citadel is more to be dreaded than a foe without." "Yes, Mr. Brown; more to be dreaded, and generally more to be despised."