Spirit of the age. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1849-1865, 1853-10-26

HuSUduu 6CtpS heI0 oWIlG W ueSGAuOCiou'
lie stood upon an awful brink and reeled
and cursed his God in his drunken mad
ness. Hunger and piteous want stood over
and taunted US. /, who had been reared
mid luxury, was forced to toll for meas
ure of meal. While my lost husband was
joining the whoop of the drunken rabble
in the low GROCERY, rattling the dice and
shuffling the cards over few pennies on
the gaming table, or sleeping off the coma
of drunkenness in the gutter, |, his bosom
companion, was toiling with aching head
and heart for pittanee to feed my perish
ing children. Oh the bondage of a drunk
ards wife.
Three years had been spent in the how
ell and then death came to that poor abode
for a victim to swell his feast. Jenny was
frozen by the icy breath of the dread mon
ster. She closed her languid eyes, lisped
= God bless thee, my mother and went
with some Angels to Heaven. My husband
was then away at his drunken revellings.
Winter, cold winter, was without and with
in. All night long had sat by the dying
child and wept over her and tried in vain
to assuage her hoarse breathings in the
death agony. The wind sighed with me
as the child lay dying in the open howell
Our children were covered up in pile of
rags in one dark corner of the miserable
abode moaning with the cold the fire had
burned low and my lamp grew dim and
feeble. No husband, no father was there
for solace and comfort, andin loneliness and
woe | saw my poor child yield its wearied
breath and go out with the morning stats
With my own fingers [ pressed the purple
lids over Jenny's eyes, and with my own
hands laid her on the old chest, and straight
ened her puny limbs for home in the
grave. They grew cold and rigid, and
sat by her and wept. And the children
came to my side and felt of poor Jenny,
and then knelt down by the old chest and
wept with me.
Morning came and | heard the slayering
song of my husband-he entered the room
with a curse and call for something to eat
my streaming eyes and significant point to-
ward the old chest somehow arrested his
attention. He approached the bier, and
lifting the miserable shroud [ had cast over
it, he gazed upon the corpse Of our Jenny
shall never forget the scene. There, stood
my drunken husband over the corpse of oul
child, clutching to the shroud, and reehno
and bowing oven the dead The fixed anC
CLASSY eyes of the dead child seemed to b
pleading an eloquent petition to the drunker
father. | watched him cIoselv-I fearec
the result. His eyes were wild with living
fire. Incipient madness CLEANED on ever,
feature. A struggle between madness anC
intellect warred in his brain. His fiery eve
and haggard men told how stern was tina
strife. His temples throbbed with the i'm
petuous rush Of blood. His intellect fel
like the shattered columns of some nobI
structure of mind and matter and with a
Internal ha ha! he tore in shreds tn
shroud Of the dead Little Jimmy screame
at the violence of his father over the corps
and clung to him, beseeching him with teal
in his eyes not to hurt his poor dead siste
James Mordant was maniac, and h
snatched up his boy, with torn shreds
the shroud and waved them aloft in ii
l triumph of madness. He swore that Jimm
was not his child, but demon sent to to
= ment him and that he should be cast OF
I He hurried with him to the door, and Il
: child screamed in the terror of his situalio
Ho thrust him out Of the hove, and Il
: child clung to his parent with one hand
Mordant cursed and howled, but the Chi
held his tightened grasp. The shutter W
Q closed on the arm of the child, while bis DO,
l. swung in the wind. Selling knife, t
3 mailman inflicted cash after cash on t
y tender arm and then staggered back. T
door opened and the child fell on the ste
IS | saw him spring to his feet and flee frc
v the howell Of woe. Alone with maGma
3r His rawlings were terrific aud piteous.
&c bowed over the chill corpse and wept. O
"a such tears as the mailman she'd He how
III like some wild beast and then grew ca
IN and qaiet. Jenny's cold clay was lain il
rough box. Jonas would not suffer her
~ be laid under the old walnut tree by the S
a flittle dead Willie, and SO she was
nd with the paupers in the Potter's field
For weeks my poor husband lay in
ne howell more dead than alive, and then
? nd awoke. He asked first for Jenny and t
ne for Jimmy. lie was told that Jenny wa
the grave, cut of poor, outcast Jimmy, n
ny knew; he was gone out alone in the W
led wide world.
os % My husband sought his cups again,
drank to vile excess. At times he W.
nd ~ struggle like brave captive for freec
~ from his fetters-lke pentent prod
who had squandered all in riotous living
..g9GG would hunger and moan for the, husk
All Then, again, he would rush in his downy
EEL cen career, curse his God and pray to die.
~, gne this way year after year passed, and I
IL fered all the physical agony and me
pay pangs Of a drunkard's WIFE
i0H Woodstock grew in population and !
edness, myself and husband grew old
'itn poverty y-stricken, and Jonas Ragan {
ong great in honor and gold Drunken
nlte abounded and it rested on the bosom o
ut village like deadly miasma shat wen
my to sicken and destroy. Like the great pI
the that scourged the shores of the Nile,
'uld was one dead in every house. TraV
ana stigmatized US village of drunkenness.
oy light had broken in; no morning star t
her bled in the moral sky to lead our wise
srea to Saviour. The strongest were EMS
BOD by the Syren, and the weak groaned
orn, bondaoo nnhroken Patriotism 60,
Tree brightest stars glimmer and set in deep
OF ness, and sighed that no eliminating
ner gave promise to I'll their deserted spl
WIN WIN Religion saw its most cherished ones
ana down in the dust and perish beneatI