The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1858-12-15
INCIDENT AT THE FIVE
sa1aoG e POINTS.

l
There is crowd over at the corner
By the dim light of the street lamps, ant
the lesser light of two or three candle
held aloft, the faces of the miserable be
ings gathered there look very bag
gard; they are clothed in rags; they ar,
bloated in visage; they come and NOV,
around with tottering steps; they seen
to talk to each other in drunken, maud
lin tone; but shrill above all the din ma,
be heard the oath and the curse that rol
naturally, alike from old and young, il
that neighborhood. There are police
uniforms, and the light occasionally
flashes from their shields as they beal
something heavy between them dowr
the rickety stairway. Now, as they
reach the level of the sidewalk, the crowd
seems to gather closer around them, and
the light shines brighter upon each face,
revealing deeper shade of haggard awe
Soon we hear a loud-voiced boy cry out
ga dead womanp'
A dead woman But is that all
Eighteen years ago, she was the pet child
of doting parents, who loved and spoiled
her. In her childhood, as she passed
you in the street, you might have said,
"What a pretty little grip You might
have said it truly, for her features were
still regular. We cannot tell the vicis-
STUDIES through which the poor thing
passed, between that long gone day and
the present so sad an end of life. She
may have fallen an unwilling victim to
the seduccr's art; she may have been
trained to a life of prostitution-thore
are young girls trained to such ends all
around these Points to-day-taught that
it is life of mirth and case, and their
sensibilities early deadened to its shame.
To rescue little girls and boys from SO
sad an end, is the mission of the House
of Industry.
This morning, this that is now, "a dead
woman" might have been staggering a
long the street; to-day, at noon, she sat
on the sidewalk nearly opposite our house
leaning against the fence of the Park.
They saw her try to raise her hand. that
trembled like leaf in the wind, up to
her head, and then they saw both head
and hand sink down to her prawll-
up knee. Soon after, a kind policeman
came and aided her to her homc-she
called it her home in that corner.
Once inside the door, she laid herself
down along the side of the passagcway
and slept. One o'clock came, and still
she slept. Boys and girls ran in and
out, and men and woman went cursing
up and down, and still she slept. Many
akick she got from passers b.. At length,
some woman less british than the rest
wondered, as she gazed, that the drunk
en- woman slept SO long. She tries to
wake her, without success. She turns
her face up from the floor, then drops it,
and runs frightened into the street-it is
a dead woman! Lights are soon brought,
a policeman comes, q policeman's rap
brings bis partner, and with him gathers
q crowd-fit representatives of of pande-
monium. They stand and gaze and
shudder. The policeman soon place what
is left of the long since mothers pet in a
rough hand-cart, and so she is conveyed
to the Dead House. The crowd stand a
moment and gaze, then return to the ae-
customed channels, and the waves of just
such death roll on again.
Dye whom God has surrounded with
barriers that protect you from such a
fate, rejoice with trembling, and seek to
throw saving influence around some lit
tie child that plays unhurt beside the
river of death, lest it fall into, the rapids
and be hurled hopelessly over that fearful
Niagara of Intemperance and Vice t! at
left nothing but "a dead woman of what
was once beautiful flower, and sweet
child of promise.