Patron—His Honor C. J. Latrobe. Secretary and Treasurer—Rev. James Forbes, M.A. Committee—Rev. W . Waterfield, Messrs. Robert Reeves, John Gardiner, Robert Campbell, W m . Robertson, W m . Kerr, T h o m a s Jennings, Henry Kettle, Geo. Lilly, E. M . Sayers, John Thomas Smith, and Robt. Wilson. O f this dozen m e n some of them afterwards turned out the opposite of total abstainers, and one of them at least did well in pushing the sale of ardent spirits for other than medicinal purposes. In 1841 the Committee of Management was reduced to ten, viz.:—The Revs. A. C. Thomson, W . Waterfield and Samuel Wilkinson; Messrs. William Kerr, J. A. Marsden, Thomas Napier, Robert Reeves, Abel Thorpe, R. Wilson, and W . B. Wilmot, M . D . Of these two teams only one is (in 1888) alive, viz., Mr. J. A. Marsden. T h e Society passed into a state of coma, and the cause slept for a couple of years, when it was woke up on the evening of the 22nd October, 1842, by a public meeting in the Scots' School, the outcome of which was the establishment of a TOTAL ABSTINENCE SOCIETY,
On the motion of Mr. Robert Knox, seconded by Mr. John Wade, the following working staff were elected :— President—Mr. R. Knox. Secretary and Treasurer—Mr. Wade. Committee—Messrs. Webster, Allan, R. Heales, Senr., and R. Heales, Junr., Stewart, Hendforth, Chambers, Mason, M'Lennan, Dunn, Willoughby, Dredge, Hinton, Wilkinson, Gallagher, Watson, and Kesterson. O n the 12th April, 1843, the members did not exceed thirty. T h e Society, however, continued to meet at the Scots' School, and to gradually increase its numbers, until the secession of the Rev. J. Forbes from the Scots' Church rendered it necessary to look out for some other place of Assembly. This originated the idea of purchasing a site, and erecting a Temperance Hall. A n active movement was initiated to collect the necessary funds, which eventuated in the buying of an allotment in Russell Street and building a Hall thereon. S o m e vitality was infused into the Society during the year 1843, frequent meetings were held, and adherents flocked in numbers to the banner of Temperance or Teetotalism; and here it may not be out of place to refer etymologically to the meaning of Teetotalism, of which several derivations are given. Some trace it to the transition from alcohol to tea-drinking, through which total abstainers pass, and that therefore it is a compression of lea-totaism. Others refer its origin to the slang phrase "to suit to a T " (fit to a nicety), an old idea borrowed from the T-square by which a carpenter tests the accuracy of his work; and thus " tee-total " would imply a thorough and precise totality or completeness of abstinence; but the commonly accepted definition is that there was an ardent Total Abstinence spouter in America, who, from the pressure of the tongue against the root of the upper teeth, the process by which a T is pronounced, was unable from a natural stammer to apply a sufficient break-power to prevent a duplication of the T, and as he could never master the word "total," he jerked away with his T — t — t until delivered of his T — t — t — o t a l — s o "teetotal" it became, and as it happened to hit the public taste it so remained, and is now regularly enrolled as a duly naturalized denizen of the grand old English tongue. MRS. DALGARNO.
An unexpected fillip was given to the Temperance agitation the following year by the advent of a lecturess of considerable energy and no inconsiderable talent. She was a Mrs. Dalgarno, the wife of a sea captain of that name, the master of the barque "Arab," which brought a cargo from England to Melbourne. By a strange incongruity, though the lady was an abhorrer of grog in every shape and form, her husband's ship was well freighted with the "fire-water,"and when it was announced that Mrs. Dalgarno meditated an onslaught upon the practice of brandy-drinking, and all its aiders and abettors, the Melbourne publicans waxed furious, and some of the newspapers inveighed bitterly. At length, on the evening of 1
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