2-913-706 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Mr. J.B. Gough - from a daguerreotype by Mayall, 1854. Portrait of American temperance orator John Bartholomew Gough. 'He is a spare, thin man, with premature age stamped upon his face, with a stature by no means imposing. Dressed in ordinary black, you would take him for a very ordinary man, and the first few sentences that fall from his lips strike you as little better than commonplace. Wait awhile, and the orator will warm; the mass before him will respond, and it will beat as with one pulse, while he convulses it with laughter, or melts it into tears. The effect is striking. The scoffer is touched; the drunkard is reclaimed; the most degraded feels that there is yet hope and happiness, and heaven for him...To save the drunkard - to stop the ravages of intemperance - to build up a barrier between the intoxicating cup and the unpolluted lip...such is the work of Mr. Gough'. From "Illustrated London News", 1854.