The Story of a Dark Plot | Page 6

be made to discover the perpetrator. The woollen cap and slung-shot
should give a clever detective a good clue to work upon. Some time
ago, at the public meeting called to discuss the liquor question, Mr.
Dyer, M. P. for the county, said that the authorities had been twitted by
the liquor men for not enforcing the Scott Act. That reproach might
have been justified in a measure at least, as there was some doubt as to
the opinion of the people in its favor. But in 1893 the liquor men had
appealed--and perhaps it was well they did so--to the county, to decide
whether that law should be enforced or not. The county had declared
against the liquor men. Now the time had come when this majority
should stand at the back of the officials, and all should endeavor to
enforce the law. Mr. Dyer's remarks at the time were taken to represent
the desire of the law-abiding people of Brome County. In carrying out
this idea, Mr. Smith, they contend, was simply doing his duty, and it is
expected that in doing it he had the majority of the people of the county
with him."
This brutal assault, made upon a law-abiding citizen by one whom he
had never injured in any way is a fair sample of the fruits of
intemperance wherever found. There are those who have seemed loath
to believe that Mr. Smith's strong temperance convictions and his
activity in carrying them out were the real causes which led to the bitter
hatred that inspired this fiendish act. They seem to think it impossible
that "respectable (?)" citizens of a temperance county should attempt in
such a reckless, lawless way to prevent opposition to their traffic in
strong drink. But what is there incredible in this? When we consider
that traffic in strong drink means a trade in the souls of men, women
and children, and in innocence, virtue and hope; when we remember
that the bartender daily takes from his customers the price of food,

clothes, health, respectability and all that he has of real value in the
world, and gives him in return nothing but liquid ruin; when we know
that the rumseller's business is a sort of wholesale murder continually,
inasmuch as by it millions of lost souls are sent into eternity annually;
in view of all these facts, why should we be surprised when the liquor
sellers of a community plan together to rid themselves of one who has
vigorously opposed their dangerous work? It is only another form of
the same business.
The disclosures following the assault upon Mr. Smith convinced many
people of the evils of the liquor traffic, and some who had favored and
pitied the hotel keepers when they had been fined for lawbreaking now
turned against them, feeling that they could no longer uphold their
deeds. Meantime, some of the hotel keepers of the vicinity gave
evidence of their guilt by disappearing from the locality very soon after
the assault took place.
The investigation of the affair was placed in the hands of S. H.
Carpenter, Superintendent of the Canadian Secret Service, and
detectives were at once set at work upon the case. Either Mr. Carpenter
or one of the men under his direction was constantly in the vicinity,
seeking to obtain clues by which to determine the guilty party. One
man, who lived near the mountain pass between Sutton and Glen
Sutton, declared that, early on the morning of July 8th, he had seen two
men pass his house driving very rapidly and going in the direction of
the latter village, one of the men having no hat, but wearing a cloth
around his head. Of course this story had an air of significance
inasmuch as the assailant of the previous night had left his hat at Sutton
Junction, but it did not prove to be of much importance. It was soon
settled in the minds of many that the stranger whom we have
mentioned as having been frequenting the hotels at Sutton and
Abercorn had been the wielder of the lead pipe on July 8th, but his
name and whereabouts were not to be obtained, as he had been sailing
under false colors during his stay in the country, and those who were
initiated into the secrets of the case, of course, kept silence.
At length, Mr. Smith received a letter from a woman in Vermont, who

had formerly been employed at one of the hotels in the vicinity of the
assault, and soon after he met this same woman at Sutton, and her
evidence was a great aid towards locating the assailant. She knew
nothing about the pretended Boston horse-buyer, who had apparently
forgotten the object of his northward journey and disappeared without
having purchased