Saint Paul weekly Minnesotian. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1858-1859, 1858-11-20

On one of the corners of Mercer Street is
low drinking house. All around the BARRON,
there are arranged small tables, on who" r,s +.
e eyer! seme 5 Ct tmore are shuing half
worn cards. There is no name over the door,
nor any number upon it ; it seems to be no
part of the keepers plan to attract transient
patronage, but rather to depend upon "aregg-
ular line O. customers" dozen of whom
were assembled some time after eleven one
night last week, where they might have real
lied as much as Swedenborg's evil spirits III
the delights of their cordfire, but for most
abrupt interruption just as our reporter chanc-
ed to be crossing into Broadway.
g" want Andrew O'Neil 2" The men at
the bar and the sitters by the tables looked
towards the door, where stood young wo-
man, poorly but not shabbily dressed in whose
unspotted face hope and desire were strug-
Cling with despair. 81 want Andrew O'Ncil p
There was an energy behind the almost calm
voice of the woman, and at this second sum-
mons, middle aged man with a pock-marfk-
ed face, in whose mixed blood the Scotch
seemed to predominant, got up heavily and
moved to the door.
"What are you here for, and away from
home again, Mrs ~
spending your money, and me washing the
long day.
{" Go about your business-you might be
ashamed here among the Mercer Street wo-
men, I'm not going with you; so start off,
and the sooner the better"
Will you say that to me ? Come here,
now"
And saying this, the woman caught at her
husbands cap with one hand, and pulled him
by the arm with the other, when the brute
pushed her in the face, and tried to excite
his fellows against her by vile epithets but
the first jeer he raised made the woman fran
tic, and snatching an oyster knife, she rushed
upon him with such wild fury that he was res
cued with difficulty by the bar-keeper of the
house and one or two bystanders.
Is this the way you talH to me, you red
faced villain Is this what you promised me
when left my good home ? Look me in tn
face, and speak, if you saw ever or heard
aught against me as maid or wife ? " not
in the house what's comfortable, and you here
drinking and playing away the money should
have for the boys. How dare you look at
me ?'
The crazed woman shrieked this rather
than spoke it, and the landlord ANNOYED by
the crowd gathering at his door, interfered to
get her off. He told her to 60 about her bus!-
ness that if she was decent woman, she
would mt be disturbing the town, and intimat-
ed where the door was out of which she must
go"
Do you tell me to go? do you say any
thing of me that's indecent? I'm O'Niel' S
lawful wife. Pm the mother of his boys
stepping close to him, and drawing herself
unconsciously up to an attitude of graceful
power) do you dare to strike me, or say
wrong of me? You steal away my joy; you
steal away honest peoples earnings, you SER
pent Yes, hold on to that post /; you can't
look an honest womanike Mary O'Niel in the
face; no more can any man here, no more can
this pitiful husband of mine drinking with
harlots and skulking here, look at mel"
"This burst of invective subdued all about
her. Her face was radiant with indignant
passion. She stood on that miserable floor a
revelation of unconcious eloquence and orig
inal power, before which covered the inferior
people around her. There was revealing in
the st. Nicholas near by. The gilded bar
room and its supper-tables thronged with
fair women in costly silks; but was there in
any one of all that brilliant assemblage SC
much of that native power, force of charac-
ter and capacity for self assertion?