New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1872-08-18
PATRICK O,FEATHERHEAD,s WATCH
DateIess story.


On that sunny morning in question,
Young Patrick O'Featherhead, who had
been but six months in London, took a
most painful resOlutiOn-he determined to
hang himself.
Now, being a lOng-headed young Irish
man, he had not arrived at this resolve
without giving the matter much thought:
but thought had only strengthened him in
his purpose instead Of dissuading him from
it. He had no money; he had applied in
vain for a loan to Peter Flint, Esq. his
fathers friend and his own ex-guardian;
some poems and tragedies which he had
written had been refused, with great deal
of unanimity, by all the editors and. man
ayers in the metropolis; and to crown all,
Milly Wood, his landlady's daughter,
whom he had proposed to marry as
soon as his unpublished writings should
have secured him settled income,
had told him categorically that she
preferred to him one Mark Quill who
had a place under government, and sealed
letters concerning the public veal at a sal
airy of ninety pounds per annum. Assur-
edly, there were reasons enough here to
twist the rope with which young Patrick
meant to put an end to his miserable exist
ence; and, in TRUTH Pat was of opinion
that no clearer case for selfsuspensiOu had
ever been made out, and yet 1t is sad to
hang ones self at twenty. Lite at that
=
point of Battersea lodging and from the
midst of rejected manuscripts, has charms
which plead most elOquently for a prOlOnga-
ton of lease: and when young Patrick had
finished and closed the two letters, which
began respectively, Cruel Milly darling,
when You read this | shall be no more" and
"StOny-hearted Mr.. Flint know, on perus-
ing these lines, that it is your inhumanity
winch has killed me, he sat down to con
slider for o moment whether there were not,
in the catalogue of willful deaths some |
less abruht and dispeasing than by the |
halter. This led him to remember that |
people who had been rescued from drown |
ing spoke favOrably of that mode Of exit |
from the world; but then there was a two |
or three minutes preliminary gargIng |
which was not delightful. Something might !
be devised exempt from gargling. In
French novel he had read of Persian herb |
called hdtchiS. which waited one to other |
spheres on the wings of dreams most opal |
lied and Intoxicating; but then there was
no Persian chemist III BatteTsea, and such |
native apOthecaTlcs as there were Obeyed |
the law most subsequently on the subject !
of poisOns refusing to sell one so much as
a thimbletul of opium without a presCrip-
ton from a doctor. Dismal irony of legis-
latiOn, that it should need a physicians aid
TO fOrsake this life Young Patrick wished
lac had studied 20 be q medical man, for
]
ly on prescription of his own; but, fail
ing that he regretted having quarreled
with MS friend, Thaddy BOles the medical
student whose candid opinion he had soil
cited on poem Of his, and with whom he
had oeeh at silent teud ever since that
candid opinion had been given In anxious
mood he dehberated "a Ia U,LntLar 6a
should insert the barrel of pistol between
his teeth and then draw the trigger Irt 10
had no pistol; then he unused on the idea of
firmly plunging dagger into his heart bJt
he had never liked daggers; finally. he
thought of the plan adopted by Tilted mil
liners, who block up all the air aperrures in
their room, light charcoal fire on port
able stove and then lie down on their beds |
to dOza off comfortably into suffoca-
ton. But to do this it would have
needed to know exactly the amount of
charcoal requisite, also the portable
stove; and when both these deSidGTata !
had been comprised, it would have further
required that young Patricks room
should have been less ventilated by
windy chinks than It was. On the whole |
after giving the matter his most Weightv |
consideration, he saw there was nothing for
it but to hang or drown; and he tossed into
the air the only coin that remained to him,
q sixpence with George Ills un-Irish face
on it, to decide which OF the two it should
be. The coin fell heads, which meant hang
ing. So Young Patrick put en- his hat, and
prepared to 60 out to buy the rope and nee
eSsary nail.
But first he proceeded to nerve himself
for his task by uneorking the last Of six
bottles of wine which his now o5durate,
but once friendly guardian, had gived him
In more liberal days The wine was of
Rhine vintage, very old and
full of aroma. 1t sparkled IN the glass like
liquid topaz, and Patrick OFeRtherheRd |
could not restrain grim smile as he noticed
on the bottles label, Elixir Of Long Lite !