The Athens post. [volume] (Athens, Tenn.) 1848-1917, 1854-09-08
JOHN N. TUCKER-A WARNING
"oh, that men shold put an enemy In their mouths,
To steal away their brains"

''On, that men snOlu enemy IN tnelr NOUNS,
| To steal away their brains"
The subject of this sketch, says the Utica
Telegraph, is now incarcerated in the city jail
of Brooklyn, waiting his trial for murder
the murder of his own child with razor
The same dispatch which details these par.
ticulars also chronicles the narrow escape Of
his wife, at the same time, from the same in.
strument, and leaves little doubt that this
was the result of delirium tremens! We
knew John N. Tucker first as a reputed cler.
gyman-then as editor of the Syracuse Star
afterwards as assistantan: editor of a Troy
paper, during which time he attained the
honorable post of Clerk of the Senate of this
State-and finally as editor of the Brooklyn
Daily Advertiser. In all,these capacities, he
exhibited profundity of talents (particular.
ly of literary characterD rarely excelled by
editors of the present day, and his pen was
as versatile in style as it was prolific in pro-
duction. The columns of the Syracuse Star
especially tecmed with his glowing ictions,
and the tables of literary depots largely dis
pensed his graphic sketches and life pictures.
But the demon rum was pursuing him at
the same time, and he roamed from city to
city to escape his old associates, and accom-
plish his purposes of reformation. But his
liberal and impulsive nature here gathered
around the same social and hilarious elements
he left at Syracuse, and after brief and fitful
seasons of returning judgment and sobrety,
he sunk to this awful depth of demented
genius-the victim of delirium tremens, and
the slayer of his own child.
1t is a common failing of the brightest
minds to rush into the vortex of social enjoy
ment, relying upon their superior gifts or
ntelects to extricate them from its destruc-
tive influence. But how scarcely do their
"good Angels"come to their rescue. Indeed,
in such cases, many of the best elements of
human nature and human learning frequently
conspire to accelerate their downfall. Their
sparkling wit-thei stores of literary gems
their attractive colloquial powers, and the
temporarily inspiring qualities of alcoholic
drinks, make them the more desirable and
ready victims Of inebriation, until habit be.
comes second nature, and what was first
merely voluntary, generous and valuable
exhilaration becomes necessary recuperative
of its stupefactions, until genius, no more
than ignorance is proof against its persua-
sions and its devastations. H '..
We would not undervalue the gifts of So
ciety, nor radically innoyate the rights of its
membors. But NC would hold that man as
worse than "the brutes that PERISH" who
would aid to drag down a friend from high
position of social excellence to the lowest
depth of dementia. We would not debar
temperate citizens from those indulgencies
which "cheer but not inebriate," but we
would visit them with the utmost penalty of
the law, those who, seeing confding, gen.
erous soul already on the brink of ruin,
sefishly lure him to their side, and remorse-
lessly hurl him from the precipice. Yet such
has been the life, and alas such has be.
come the fate of poor Tucker!