Grand River times. [volume] (Grand Haven, Mich.) 1851-18??, 1857-07-15

night proclaimed Biakely to be the victorious
candidate. Political victories were then (as
is too often the case now), celebrated by
drunken carousels. That night the newly
elected representative was carried to his
pleasant home in state of beastly intoxica-
ton. He had fallen-that solemn VOW was
broken!
Reader! picture to your mind the heart
felt agony of that gentle wife, as she sat by
the side of her husband whose faculties were
benumbed by the poison he had slipped. She
was proud of the honor conferred upon him
yet would she have willingly given them
all to obliterate the present blight from her
husbands character.
Morning came, and with it return of his
sensibility. He listened with tears to the
fond admonition of his wife, who kindly en-
deavored to win him back, striving to elicit
from him pledge of total abstinence for the
future. He replied, that he had "already
broken one pledge, another he could not
make"
o! the agony that crept over the heart of
his young companion! Nothing but dark
ness was visible upon the sky of her future
existence that sky which but a short peri
cd before was crimsoned with high hopes,
was now enshrouded in gloom. Far in the
gloomy future she cast her anxious gaze, and
fancied that she beheld herself standing be-
side the death bed of an inebriate husband,
and dropping tear into a drunkard's grave
Blakely continued the use of intoxicating
drink, and the period which should have been
the dawning of a glorious career, was but the
beginning of after wo. Useless would it be
to trace him through the vicisitudes of years,
for his history was but the history of thous-
ands who have fallen from like cause
Blighted hopes, lost confidence, wretched
home, squallid poverty, and in fact, all the
long list of evils that cluster around those
who worship at the shrine of perverted ap-
petite, were visited upon him. Once, he rode
high upon the wave Of popular favor, and the
tongue of flattery was eloquent in his praise
now, the vilest beggar that walked the
streets was more honorable than he.
Such is thy work, o, rum! such, the de-
vastation, with which thou art delugeing the
land thy most ardent worshipers are those
whom thou debasest the lowest!
In the outskirts of one of our fourishing
villages, in a low and desolate hovel, upon
bed of straw, lay the emaciated form of
man, over whom stood female in the merid-
ian of life. Ruin and decay were pictured
upon every object within sight, the last
sparks of fire had long since expired, and the
cold bleak wind of November evening, as it
came whistling through the dilapidated dwell
ling, sounded like requiem to the expiring
mortal. No light illuminated the gloomy
apartment save the cold pale moonbeams as
they came struggling through the openings
of the decayed hovel. Yet, this miserable
abode is the home of the living and the hab
itation of the dying!
Reader, that poor wreck of humanity up
on whose forehead is gathering the death
sweat, is all that is left of the once proud,
ambitious, and talented David Blakely.-
The frenzied agony that flashes from his eye,
the piercing, heart-rending shrieks that he
utters, the fierce gesticulation, and the deep
horror with which he gazes with mad despair
upon the vacant air, which to him is alive
with hideous demons, are all evidences that
he is expiring, racked with the agonies of
that most terrible disease, that offspring of
rum, the delirium tremens. The female
bending over him is the companion of his
bosom. Once, she was the fairest of the
fair, and the gayest of the gay; now, she is
clad in tattered vesture; a thin, torn shawl
thrown over her shoulders is insufficient to
protect her from the cold rude blast. Thus
transformed, she stands gazing upon the form
of her dying delirious husband, who was the
cause of all her wretchedness and wo! Sud-
denly he springs into sitting posture upon
his couch, he is convulsed with the most agon-
izing terror fearful forms float before his WIS.,
ion, death in every hue surrounds him, and
ten thousand demons howl in his ears-his
fevered imagination pictures it all-he utters
an awful oath, falls back upon his couch, and
is dead! His soul has gone to the eternal
world his body is fitted for the drunkard's
grave yet this was the work of an honor
able trafic-clothed with the sanctity of law
"a traffic which annually drags thousands
of our most promising sons from the high pc
destal of manhood, forcing them to drink the
very dregs of human misery and degrada-
tion--a traffic which blasts fond hopes and
pure aspirations, which transforms man from
an angel of light to demon incarnate-a
traffic which hurles desolation into the fire.
side circle, prostrates the family altar, and
lays waste the domestic affectons--in short,