The Life of George Cruikshank in Two Epochs, Vol. 2. (of 2)Jerrold, Blanchard
History
The Life of George Cruikshank in Two Epochs, Vol. 2. (of 2)
Jerrold, Blanchard
Cruikshank, George, 1792-1878
Addressing, on one occasion, a Temperance oration to a Bristol audience,
he appealed to his female hearers not to believe that “nourishing
stout” was necessary to nursing-mothers; and he pointed to himself as a
melancholy example, saying, “My mother first lifted the poisoned chalice
to my lips.” His aged mother read this in the morning paper. Her wrath
was violent. “What!” she cried, “am I to be told publicly, at eighty
years of age, that I, who always begged and prayed him to be sober,
taught him to drink?” Her son did not return home for several days; but
he heard of his speech in no uncertain tones when he presented himself
to the old lady, who had, in his youth, often physically chastised him
for his excesses.
Perhaps the best specimen of his manner of laying his subject before an
audience is the speech which he delivered at the Grand Demonstration of
the National Temperance League, in the Guildhall, on the 19th of
November, 1864. It wants his by-play, his dramatic delivery, his
grotesque movements, and then the solemn sounds of his voice, to be
completely understood; but it is sufficiently original and suggestive as
reported:--
“My Lord Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,---My worthy friend the doctor
has given you a very excellent discourse upon his own profession. It So
happens that as I was coming to this meeting I met with a gentleman who
had just been to consult his medical man; and finding I was coming to
this meeting, he laughed at all idea of abstaining from intoxicating
drinks. He told me he had been to see a very eminent member of the
medical profession. I asked him what was the result.
“He said the physician told him he wanted a stimulant and prescribed one.
I said, ‘What did you give him:’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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