Temperance > Autobiography and personal recollections of John B. Gough

338 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN B. GOUGH.
never given, and is cast aside. The lectures on London
being continually called for, I combined portions of the
first three in one—“London,”—which, by varying every
year, I have given one hundred and twenty-seven times
since 1862. In 1861 I prepared, “Here and There in
Britain,” which I have discarded, after presenting it
seventy-two times; 1862, “Eloquence and Orators,” one
hundred and thirty-seven times; 1863, “Peculiar People,”
one hundred and ninety times; 1864, “Pact and Fiction,”
eighty-six times; 1865, “Habit,” one hundred and twenty
times; 1866, “ Curiosity,” eighty-eight times; and in 1868,
“Circumstances,” sixty-four times.
I have received letters remonstrating with me for
“leaving the temperance field;” and a small pamphlet was
published accusing me of “deserting the cause” that had
saved me. I would state here that I am as much at¬
tached to that movement now as 1 have ever been. In
every lecture I introduce the theme of temperance pro¬
minently, and am ever ready and glad to give a lecture on
that 'purely, and do, whenever it is called for; and often
urge societies I serve, as far as it is courteous, to select
that subject.
Please remember, I do not apologize for my course, for
I hold I have a perfect right to select the themes on which
I may choose to speak; but simply correcting the state¬
ment, that I am indifferent to the welfare and success of
the temperance movement.
In 1862 applications were so numerous, involving so
large an amount of correspondence, that Mr. John G.
North of New Haven, my old and valued friend, under¬
took the task of making my routes. For two years he
conducted the correspondence as my agent; but, feeling
the inconvenience of the distance between us,—he in New
Haven, and I in Worcester,—I attempted the labour my-