Windham County Democrat. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1836-1853, 1853-10-05

and ever as we shall through all years to come we
thought of that little girl and her drunken mother,
and the "bad man" at the corner grocery, and that
hers was the best, the strongest Maine Law argu-
ment which had ever fallen upon our listening
ear.
! Again, as we turned the corner of Spring ST.,
the glare and splendor of thousand gas lights,
and the glittering cut glass of that for the first
! time lighted-up bar-room of the Prescott House,
so lauded by the Press for its magnifcence, dash
ed our eyes and almost blinded our senses TO
degree of imagination that first class Hotels must
have such Five Point denizen-making appurtcn
ances this gttering room, shamelessly inviting,
open to the street when that watch-word cry,
like the pbroch's startling peal, came up from the
near vicinity wailing like a lost spirit on the mid
night air-"Hot corn, hot corn--heres your nice
hot corn-smoking hot-hot-hot corn"
ayes, yes!" l hear you cry-it is a watchword-
"A glorious word, that bids us do or die-untl
the smoking hot, fiery-furnace-like gates Of hell,
like this yawning before us, shall cease
to be licensed by Christian people, to send deli
cate little girls at midnight through the streets,
crying "IIot corn," to support drunken mother,
whose first glass was taken in a fashionable saloon
or frst-cass liquor selling hotel
"IIot com," then, be the watchword of all who
would rather see the grain fed to the drunkard's
wife and children, than into the Unsuitable nav of
iilC NHIShtl StiIs
Let your resolutions grow hot and strong every
time you hear this midnight cry, that you will de-
vote, if nothing MORE
"Three grains of corn, mother,
Only three grains Of corn
toward the salvation of the thousand equally pitt
able objects as the little girl whose wailng cry
has been the melting cause Of the present dish of
"llot Con-smokng hot!'
The next night after the interview with that
l;tt1,
cry of "IIot corn, hot corn, here is your nice hot
corn," came up through our open window, on the
midnight air, while the rain came dripping down
from the ovcrcharged clouds in Just sufficient guam
titles to the single thin garment of the owner
of that sweet young voice, without giving her an
acceptable excuse for leaving her post before her
hard task was completed.
At length the voice grew faint, and then ceased,
and then we knew that exhausted nature slept
that q tender house plant was exposed to the chill
ling influence of night rain-that an innocent
little girl had the curb-sone for bed, and an iron
post for plow-that by and by she would ava
ken, not invigorated with refreshing slumber but
poisoned with the deep-inhaled miasma of the
fth-reekng gutter at her feet, which may be
breathed with impunty awake, but is death to the
sleeper. Not sOothed by dreamy consciousness
of hearing mothers voice. tuning the sweet lul-
LADY Of
FLUSH my child, lie still and sumber,'
but starting like sentinel upon savage frontier
post, with alarm at having slept; shiverng with
night air and fear, and finally compelled to 90
home trembling like culprit, to hear the hard
words of a mother-yes, u mother-but oh what
a understanding her for not performing an i'm
possibility, because exhausted nature slept-be-
cause her child had not made profit which wo'd
have enabled her more freely to indulge in the
soul and body destroying vice of drunkenness, to
which she had fallen from an estate when 'my
carnage, was one of the household words which
used to greet the young of that pUor liIrc
death-strcken neglected street sufferer.
1t was past midnight when she awoke, and
found herself with desperate effort Just able to
reach the bottom Of the ricketty stairs which led
to her home. We shall not 90 up now. In lit
tie while, reader you shall see where live the city
poor.
Tred-wom with the daily toil-for such is
the work Of an editor who caters for the appetites
of his morning readers-we were not present the
next night to note the absence of that cry from its
accustomed spot but the next, and next, and still
on, we listened in vain for that accustomed cry
True, the same hot corn cry came floating the
evening breeze across the park, or wormed its
way from some cracked fiddle voice down the
street, up and around the corner or out of some
dark alley with broken English accent, that
sounded almost as much like 'lager-bier' as it did
like the commodity the immigrant, struggling to
exc out his precarous existence, wished to sell.
All over this great poverty burdened, and wicked
waste extravagant city, at this season, that cry
goes up, nightly proclaiming one of the habits of
this late supper eating people
Yes, we miss the cry. Slot Corn was no lon
ger like the music Of a stringed instrument to a
weary man, for the treble string was broken, and
to us, the harmony spoiled.
What was that voice to us? 1t was but one of
ten thousand, just miserable, which may be
daily heard where human misery has its abode
That voice. as some others have, did not haunt us
but its Absence in spite of all reasoning, made us
feel uneasy. We do not believe in spirit nantes
tations half as strongly as some of the nincom-
poops of this world would have their long-eared
listeners think, yet we do believe there is spirit
in man, not yet made manifest, which makes us
yearn after co-existing spirits in this sphere and
in this life, and that there is need of going beyond
it, seeking after strange idols.
We shall not stop to inquire whether it was a
spirit of 'the first, third, or sixth sphere" that
prompted us as we left our desk one evening, to
go down among the abodes of the poor with feel
ing OF certainty we should hear or see something
OF the lost voice. for that spirit led us on perhaps
it was the spirit of curiosity; no matter, it led,
we followed IN the route we had seen that little
one 60 before-t was our only cue-we knew no
name-had no number, nor knew any one that
knew her whom we were going to find Yes, we
knew that good Missionary and she had told us
of the good words which he had spoken, but wo'd
he know her from the hundred just like her p
Perhaps. 1t will cost nothing TO inquire. We
went down Centre street with light heart we
turned into Cross street with a step buoyed by
nope; we stood at the corner of little water street.