the opening plea to the jury. And to the consternation of the liquor fraternity, for it was a test case, she won the suit. It created a sensation and the press sent the news over the country. Thereafter Mrs. Stewart was known to the drunkard's wives, if not as attorney, at least as a true friend and sympathizer in their sorrows and they sought her aid and counsel. Her next case in court was on the sixteenth of October, 1873, and a large number of the prominent women accompanied her to the courtroom. She made the opening charge to the jury, helped examine the witnesses, made the opening plea, and again won her case amid great excitement and rejoicing. Next, in order that the intensity of interest already awakened should not die down, Mrs. Stewart, with the co-operation of the ministers of the city, held a series of weekly mass meetings which succeeded in keeping, the interest at white heat. On the second of December, 1873, she
organized a woman's league that was the first organization ever formed in what came to be known as the Woman's Christian Temperance Union work. Soon after she went to a saloon in disguise on Sunday, bought a glass of wine and had the proprietor prosecuted and fined for violating Sunday ordinance. That was an important move because of the attention it called to the open saloon on the Sabbath. Then the world was startled by an uprising of women all over the state in a crusade against the saloons, and Mother Stewart was kept busy in addressing immense audiences and organizing and leading out bands through her own and other states. She was made president of the first local union of Springfield, formed January 7, 1874. The first county union ever formed was organized in Springfield in 1874 with Mother Stewart as president. In June, 1874, the first state union was organized in her state, her enthusiastic labors throughout the state contributing duly to that result. In the beginning of the work Mrs. Stewart declared for legal prohibition and took her stand with the party which was working for that end. In 1876 she visited Great Britain by invitation of the Good Templars. There she spent five months in almost incessant work, lecturing and organizing associations. A great interest was awakened throughout the kingdom, her work resulting in the organization of the British Woman's Temperance Association. In 1878 she was called to Virginia and there introduced the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the blue ribbon work. Two years later she again visited the South and introduced Woman's Christian Temperance Union work in several of the Southern states organizing unions among both the white and the colored people. Age and overwork necessitating rest, she wrote, "Memories of the Crusade," a valuable and interesting history, also "A Crusader in Great Britain," an account of her work in that country. Her long work finished, though still young of heart, she passed her last years in Springfield, Ohio.
Mrs. Anna Elizabeth Stoddard going South in 1883 to engage in Christian work she stayed for several years, laboring in various parts of that country along lines of reform. Always an advocate of temperance she had united at an early age with the Good Templars in Massachusetts, and had occupied every chair given a woman in that association, but feeling a desire for more practical aggressive work against the liquor traffic she severed her connection with the order and gave her energies to the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, just then coming to the front. It was this reform that she actively espoused in the South, organiz-
