The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1876-05-05
HIS ONLY FAULT"

Scarcely week passes but our eyes
are greeted by the above words tackled
Oh to tale of suffering, or closing the
recital of wasted life ended mercifuIly
by a premature death. "His only
fault" but it kept his family for years
in abject poverty; caused the tears of
care to "fret channels in the cheeks" of
his wife; drove the rosy bloom of child
hood from the faces of his children, and
established in its stead the nervous pal
lOr of fear; brought the resolves and as
pirations of his young manhood under
groveling subsection to his appetite,
and finally obliterated them; consigned
the gray hairs of his mother to the
grave, and laid the hopes of his father
low. "His only fault" but itself the
progenitor of cruelty and sorrow and
want and woe to all who loved him.
Only few days ago we heard it re-
marked concerning a man who, for
decade, has lain in a, drunkard's grave
beneath the soil of an adjacent county,
that "he was the best one of the family,
if he had only let liquor alone"
II. All, but that little word, with its
subsequent sentence, tells why his chill
dren have, during all the years of their
bOyhood, been deprived, of their right
ful heritage-a fathers love-and left
to run like colts about the waste, while
their mother, broken in health and
spirit, has toiled now at the wasb-tub,
now at the needle, and now over the
cOOk-stove for their maintenance. But
we need not go even to an adjoining
county for examples of what this
''only fault" can do. Hearken to a re-
cital taken from one of the daily papers
of our city few days since. After re-
hearsing as a matter of news the fact
that a woman had attempted to drown
q herself by jumping into the river at Al
bina, her rescue by the captain of the
ferry-bOat, who fortunately, or un-
fortunately, happened to be near, her
conveyance to the city Jail by the po-
lice, her chilled, despairing and des-
perate condition, and her plea to return
home, the recital concludes with these
words:
We are informed that on last Sunday
evening, sullivan, the husband Of the woman,
got drunk and whipped her shamefully, and
that they had family trouble again yesterday
when she left home, and, running down to the
river, leaped in. The people live in AIbina,
and the husband and father is blacksmith 10y
trade. He is said to he a very industrious
man, his only fault being love for strong
drink.
Thousands of women suffer through
lives devoid of every blessing not only
the untold agonies of body and mind
that no pen can portray, but bear in
addition to these, the taunt which al
most universally assails 4 drunkard's
wife-"she does not make his home
pleasant" How, in the name of char
ity and common sense, can a woman
render pleasant a home where this
'only fault' is pampered and INDUCED
by her husband, and pitied and con-
doned by his friends? It is easy
enough to theorize, but when a woman
attempts to reduce these theories to
practice with only poverty and a
drunken husband for aids, she finds it
different matter. We have seen it
tried often enough to be convinced that
loving kindness, patience, and forgive
ness, though heavenly trio, are, in
nine cases out of ten, powerless to Grad
icate, or even, in many instances, to
render endurable "his only FAULT