The daily gazette., 1877-12-06
HOW THEY DRINK IN THE
HILLS.
Terrible Scenes IN Mining To,on-
Three Men Mad u,th Rum.

AHce 1utb JhUU UUH huW
From the Idaho City World.
Al an early hour one morning last
week William Paxton, City Marshal,
who bad just retired. was aroused by
wild, haggard looking man, hatIess
coatless, bootless with hair disheveled
and eyes rolling mad frenzy. He was
armed with revolver, and said that q
party of four men and two women
had driven to his house in q wagon
and had attempted to rob him, and
that in self defence he killed one of
! the men, when the others tumbled
the dead body into the wagon and
rapidly drove away. His object WAS,
he said, to give himself up to the au-
thorities for the killing. Paxton
soon discovered the the unfortunate
man was in the mental storm and suf-
ferlng the full torments of that most
Eisssssible of all diseases, the delirium
tre mans, and to pacify him went
with him to the soene of the conflict
to see the tracks left by the wagon. 1t
Is almost needless to say that the said
tracks were in the red hot imagination
Of the horror racked man, and Of course
the City Marshal failed to see them.
Paxton then went home, and soon the
man haa another paroxysm and went
careerlng down Main street, shouting,
"Murder!" at every leap, and rushed
into Bill James meat market in NOR.
tai fear, with an unseen foe close al
his heels. Bob Handy, who was at
tending shop, seeing the crazed condi.
ton OF the man, very cody and prop.
erly disarmed him to prevent his do
Ing harm. The little cabin where
this man lived, and whence he emerg-
ed in his delirium, had contained two
others, also in the agony of mania-a'
potu. The last seen of one of these
he was running down the valley road,
bare footed and hair on end, the night
previous, yelling like demon, with q
pack Of grining, Kissing blue devils
close in his wake. A man galloping
past on horse was hailed by the af.
tiicted one, who requested to be allow
ed the privilege of grasp,ng the horses
tail saying that he could not travel
fast enough to get out of the way of
the pursuing fiends. He is no doubt
lying dead somewhere down the val
ley, If he did not find a watery grave
in the Boise. Whilst hell was thue
holding back its lurid curtain to give
these two fitful elimpses of its horrid
panorama, the third and last remain
ing man in the house, too weak to es-
cape the frightful picture by flight,
struggled against the imaginary pande
moniHm as he lay between the blan-
kets of his humble couch, and as the
candle flickered out in its socket at
about o'clock yesterday morning, so
too, went his life, for in one or the
many fearful convulsions with which
he had wrestled during the night he
died-died victim to an uncontroll-
able appetite for alcohol. And he
died a most horrible death. Meeting
him in the street ten days since, we
we asked him how long, should he
persist in his present course, he ex-
pected to live. He replied that it mat
tered not when his end came, that he
had no desire to live. We whispered
words OF cheer and hope, but he was
lost, utterly lost, In the depths of
black despair, lost beyond reformation
on this earth. Thus perished one who
possessed the warmest and most gener
GUS of hearts, and who, for the one
thing, was a useful and respected
member of society.
Since writing the above we are in
formed that the dead body of Michael
Murray, one of the three occupants of
the cabin in back alley, who were
afflicted with the delirium tremens,
and who was last seen running down
the valley for dear life, has been found
in the Payette Valley, Whether the
report is true we do not know, but it
is highly probable.