The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1876-12-21
a Victim To Opium.

\ GREAT city covers in its bosom
many sad and peculiar case of suffer
ing. The world lives on its daily life,
men come and go, and we are none the
wiser. The mere announcement of
death may contain more tragedy than
the world is willing to admit.
One of the saddest cases-nOt only
sad, but unusually tragic-is that of
Mrs. Isaac c. Perkins, thrice married,
thrice divorced, and finally pauper
corpse, and all owing to L love for the
fatal drug-Opium. Her history is an
eventful one, with more romance and
trouble than human lives generally
can claim. To add to the strange
fascination which hangs over her
career and its finale. she was wo-
man who could claim kinShip to Guilt
waited and well-to-do people. We can
read the terrible details of the life and
death of poor unfortunate without
much emotion but no one can divest
the subject of Il strong interest III d a
glamour of romance where the unfOr-
tunate belongs to Il higher social grade.
This woman was the daughter of Mr..
VIM. G. BOggs, who is now the manager
of the advertising department of the
New York Erening Post. She was a
girl with a sweet disposition and win
ming ways. At fourteen she was Wooed
and won by the son of a man whose
name has become very prominent IN
the annals of the NatiOn-lohn ii.
Ramsey, son of eX-GOy. Ramsey, of
Minnesota. Their life was happy
one. Under the influences of pleas
ant home she developed into I'LL at
tractive woman. And if it had not
been for one of those circumstances,
inevitable and Superhuman, one which
comes to all in the course of their
lives, and makes us believe that
There is a divinity that shapes our lives,
Rough hcw them how We VIII,
PERHAPS to-day she would still have
been happy woman. Forsome phys
! ical difficulty which occurred some
time after marriage, her physician
prescribed morphine as a remedy. An
| excessive dose was administered, and
| that caused all her subsequent difficult
ties. She gradually acquired taste
| for opium-an appetite which eXerted
| too much influence to resist. She sue
| cumbpd wholly to the drug, and 50
completely did it enthral her that soon
after this her husband was compelled
! to procure a divorce from her. Not
| long period elapsed ere she was again
united in marriage, and this time to
Mr.. Gnippen, of Springfield, Ill. lie
and his wife removed to Burlington,
Iowa. and while living at that place
her husband became so enraged at her
persistencv in the use of the drug that
he attempted to do her violence, and
one dav almost strangled her III car
rying out his scheme to punish her.
She escaped, and procured another dl-
vorce. Again she married.
Her last husband was Mr.. Isaac
C. Perkins, of Hyde Park. During
all these years she continued the use
of this paralyZing substance. she
sank lower and lower, and became Il
hopeless slave to it. She dragged the
husband down with herin her descent.
This terrible habit stripped him OF
money and property and plunged him
into a life of misery and poverty.
Little by little his effects have been
surrendered. Year after year he saw
his wife gradually assimilating TO a
thing unnatural, until the exhausted
and drugged nature yielded up It's me-
and its spirit took its flight.
What is the result? The husband
pepniless, ruined and half-crazed, has
made an appeal to the authorities OF
HYDE Park for the paltry sum of thirty
dollars with which to give his VIE s
body decent burial. The sum was
, given, thanks to the generosity OF the
, BOARD of Trustees. What fall!
From responsibility and happiness to
opium and a pauper's grave.--Checago
Inter- Ocean.