The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1869-02-05
NARROWING TALE.
How Family was Broken Up.
From the Detroit Post.

From the Detroit Post
The applicants for relief at Poor
Master " lizard Office could tell many
romantic, yet true, tale of their Own lives,
if they wished. But in the absence OF
their confessions, it is quite as good to
have their histories narrated by person
knowing them. This appeared from the
facts related regarding an almost crazy
woman, who was in the Office on Saturday
last asking for help. The poor creature
was thinly clad and with the highest notes
q shIill, hard voice, poured out in unn-
terupted flow of confused French and
English, the story Of her misfortunes and
her needs, her complaints against real and
fancied wrongs, and the fantastic fancies
OF her disordered brain. Word followed
word without accent or infection, So that
the sounds seemed like the rafting noise
of parrot. Yet it is not many years since
this gathering, foolish thing, was woman,
happy with husband and children in her
own home. The family owned the house
they occupied, had comfortable income,
and were enjoying unalloyed prosperity,
until suddenly the husband and father
died. Lett widow, with two little
daughters and smaller son to care for, the
woman was still easily able to keep beyond
the reach Of want. But her girls were
possessed of the fatal gift Of beauty, and
as they rlpened to maturity, were beset
with many suitoIs, some moving in higher
! social circles than themselves, and actuated
only by the basest passions After time
the older sister yielded to the wiles of a
man OF position. a person now prominent
III business the younger girl suspected the
| fall OF virtue OF her sister, and, becoming
| inspired with passion for the same man,
| allowed her jealousy toward her quandom
| playmate TO go SO far as to yield herself to
the seducer. Thus the two sisters entered
the path OF lntlmy almost together, and
at last the mother discovered the reason OF
! their fine clothes. When she learned the
| shame of her daughters she would have
! turned them out Of her house had they not
with weapons in hand threatened her that
! she must say nothing il she would live
Then she permitted them to stay in the
! house, which, with all the other property,
was gradually absolved by the cunning
lovers Of the girls. The daughters gradu>
ally went down the road sure to be trod-
den by the outcast, although it was very
many years before drink and debauchery
could destroy their beauty. Yet it has
| finally gone, and now they haunt the lowest
sinks of sin in this city, scarcely SEM
! dances of their former selves, when their
graceful figures, their finely featured faces,
their every characteristic united in giving
them the title Of 1.-THE handsomest women
in Detroit" The mother bore the shame
| Of her daughters patiently, and as their
paramours forced her into further poverty,
she uncomplainingly wearicd herself in
hard work to earn her daily bread. Bat
at last evil companions got hold of her
! boy younger than his sisters, and led him
| from bad to worse, until finally he was con
yicted Of robbery and sent to the peniten>
tiary. The mother long suffering brain
and heart o Id not stand the last blow.
and ever since that time her reason has
| been becloudcd. She Is not always insane,
yet at times the unfortunate being grows
very fancilul; and conyerses with the Del
ty, and with her husband, dead this many
year Especially does her brain conjure
! up visions about her absent son, who is
now in the army, but is imagined to have
| been killed, and to come and tell his
mother about his murder. Her daughters,
she lancies, are kept away flom her, while
she believes that everybody despises and
ridicules her. Yet the principal mover in
| breaking up this family and destroying Its
temporal and spiritual happiness, is count
ed leading man in the world Of wealth
| and position.