Produced by Andrea Ball, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks

and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. This filewas produced from images generously made available by theCanadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions.

FROM WEALTH TO POVERTY;

OR,

THE TRICKS OF THE TRAFFIC.

A Story of the Drink Curse

BY THE REV. AUSTIN POTTER.

"I will ask him for my place again; he shall tell me I am a drunkard.
Had I as many mouths as Hydra, such an answer would stop them all.
To be now a sensible man, by-and-bye a fool, and presently a beast"
—Othello, Act II.

TO THE FRIENDS OF PROHIBITION THE WORLD OVER THIS BOOK ISRESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

BY THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE

My reasons for writing this story were principally two. The firstwas my undying hatred of the rum traffic, which, in the days ofthe long ago, caused me and those dear to me to endure intensehardship and suffering; and the second was my desire to expose theunprincipled measures which were employed by the liquor party inorder to render the Dunkin Act non-effective, and thus bring itinto disrepute.

What I have written has been taken from personal experience andobservation; and as I have resided in three counties where the Actwas in force, and have since visited several others, the data,which served as a foundation for what follows, was not gleanedfrom any particular locality.

The picture I herein present of the plottings of the liquor party,and the cruel treachery to which they resorted in order to bringtheir conspiracy to defeat the law to a successful issue, is notoverdrawn; and, let me ask, can there be any doubt but there arein existence at the present time plots similar to the one laidbare in this book, which have for their object the obstruction ofthe Scott Act in the counties where it has been or may be carried,thus if possible to bring it into such contempt among theunthoughtful, who will not examine back of the effect for thecause, as to finally secure its repeal. Of one thing we may becertain, if an unscrupulous use of money and the resorting to"ways that are dark" will accomplish their purpose, theseconspirators will not fail of success.

It has been my aim in this book to help educate public sentiment,so that if the same tactics are resorted to as were in the placeswhere the Dunkin Act was in force, my readers will not aid theviolators of the law by joining in the senseless cry, "the ScottAct is a failure," but that they will, to the extent of theirability, assist those who are determined that it, like every lawwhich has been placed on our statute books for the protection ofthe subject, must and shall be respected, and that the violatorsof its enactments shall be brought to summary and condignpunishment: for except it is backed by public sentiment it, thoughmuch superior to the Dunkin Act, will fail just as signally.

In regard to the principal characters who appear in these pages,they are not mere creations of my imagination; for Richard andRuth Ashton were real personages, with whom I was well acquainted,as were all the prominent individuals of this story.

The descriptions given of the murders and suicides, also of Morristhrowing the tumbler at his son, and of the scene when AllieAshton was insulted by Joe Porter and the latter was knocked downby Frank Congdon, are all taken from events which really occurred.

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