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Moore advised the Milton paper 'to blow from its own nose the gathered mucus of just three years, and give us some sound and logical arguments in favour of its pet theory.' During each of the first two years of operation, there were 33 convictions under the Scott Act in the county. (6) Newspapers across the province watched Halton to see the effects of the act. As hotel-keepers continued to challenge it, or threatened to go out of business, interest focused on the area. A Scott Act Association was formed to defend the victory. One of its leaders, the Reverend D.L. Brethour of Milton, received a letter threatening assassination, and found his church steps smeared with filth. Petitions, organized by the licensed victuallers', and brewers' and maltsters', associations, led to a second referendum in 1884. On July 20th, each minister in the county was asked to preach on the topic. A monster camp-meeting in aid of the cause was held in Milton. Moore editorialized in the Acton Free Press, 'A consistent christian will support his principles and his prayers at the polls', and opened the correspondence columns of his paper to supporters of the cause. When the Act was upheld, by a majority of 180 with 3114 votes cast, one of his headlines rejoiced, 'Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow!'; and he noted that the coffins prepared in Milton to bury the Act--and the Reverend Mr Brethour--in effigy could not be put to use. (7) A thanksgiving service was held in the Methodist church. The hoteliers had heavily subsidized the campaign in Halton: one figure suggested was $75,000. The leading spokesman against the cause, King Dodd, attributed his defeat to 'clerical bulldozing', to preachers who presented their congregations with a choice of voting for Christ or the Devil. (8) Not all the clergy were ranked on the same side. The Presbyterian minister in Acton, D.B. Cameron, had published his Thoughts on Prohibition about 1881, denouncing the pledge of the Good Templars as immoral, their ritual as unscriptural, and prohibition, which deprives people of their God-given liberties, as tyrannical and contrary to the teachings of Holy Writ. The hotel-keepers had their clerical supporter's pamphlet printed in the thousands, to distribute when