Many were half drunk, or nearly so.
"Smoke, if you want to," was lettered on a conspicuous sign, and most
of this audience wanted to. In the midst of the exercises, an interlude
occurred, in which the audience was invited to a saloon down stairs, where
they could proceed still farther in the liquid burning out of their bodies.
On the same stage of this same vaudeville theatre, John L. Sullivan, the
retired prize fighter, had, only a week before, appeared "in monologue,"
and had sometimes been so drunk that he could not go through with his
part.
In the midst of all this, Carry Nation was announced, and she stepped
upon the stage, unattended by any glare of colored lights or fanfare
of music. A quiet, motherly looking woman, plainly dressed, with a Bible
in her hand, she commanded almost immediately the respect of that large
crowd--from the men in the orchestra stalls to the gallery gods. One
half intoxicated fellow began to scoff at her, but was almost immediately
hushed by the scarcely less drunken ones around him. It was a sight
that hushed them all into respectful silence, for a respectable, earnest
woman, with the Holy Book in her hand, will have a subduing effect upon
almost any company of people.
Mrs. Nation announced her text, and preached a sermon, and delivered
a temperance lecture, both within the half-hour. (The latter she calls
a "prohibition lecture"--hating the word temperance, as applied to drink.
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