Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1879-02-12
A MiLE-END MYSTERY.

Mile-end was small country town
but such a town The houses wer,
packed and pressed and crowded to
gether, making them look AS though
they would sutfocate for want of air
Then they were so dilapidated and fadee
and tumble-down. Itseemed a wonder
they kept up at all. To look at them a
a distance you would think, from the
queer way the roofs all slanted anC
leaned toward each other, and trick
some of the houses had of poking I'll
inquisitlve-looking dormer gables and
windows in quite unexpected places
that they had some important secre,
that they were whispering about and
hobnobblng over. Ard then the narrow
crooked streets, with their seas of mud
filthy cutters and debris-littered side
walks, the very stones Of which had a
dis slpated, raklsh air, as if, instead oil
lying quietly in their places and doing
their duty, they could do nothing better
with their time than go knocking about
IN dlsreputable fashion to trip up un-
wary passengers. And then the odors
Surely Cologne itself never boasted a
at least. for the sake of Its luckless in
habitants, let us hope so.
A more unhealthy, undersized, dirty
gosslp1ng, miserable, worthless set OF
human beings scarcely never existed
anywhere. The men were mostly Out
OF work and drunk, the women lean
and ragged and unwomanly, and the
children little and weird and wolf-eyed
Many was the drunken brawi and scene
OF brutal violence that awoke the mid
night echoes of the streets, and fever
and malaria, unmolested, staIked
abroad. Within the houses were as I'M
inviting as WlthOut-with a separate
family on every foor-sometimes with
IN every room. What wonder that the
health and morals of the place should
be at a terribly low ebb
And what seemed to make all more
painful and pitiful Was the loneliness oil
the valley IN whose lap lay this pesti
lent little town. The green, flower.
gemmed meadows were so fresh and
tar, the air SO fragrant and balmv, the
birds sang SO sweetly, the little flowers
were SO brilliantly hued and so daintilv
formed, the river and its many shady
back-Waters and tributary streamlets
were SO fresh, and bright, and sparkling
and the murmuring music that thew
made blended in such sweet harmony
with the tinkling of the sheep-bells, the
lowing of the cattle and the clear, ring
ing note Of the sky-lark, whose bit of q
body seemed a mere speck far away
against the blue. It lay, this lovely val
ley, like glorious picture, nobly franz
ed by purple, shadow-swept hills, and
overarched by heavens cloud-fecked
blue.
But, though rich in beauty and health.
tul with heavens breezes, it yet clasped
a canker-spot Of corruption to its breast
IKE beautiful woman whose soul is
worthless and diseased. Very few OF
the miserable inhabitants of Mile-end
not even the children, ever found their
way out of the noisome atmosphere OF
the streets into the purity and beauty OF
the fields beyond. Like the grub that
tastes OF the nut 1t feeds and fattens on,
the dirt and squalor and poverty of the
place seemed to grow into the hearts
and minds and natures of its people,
and to rub out all capacity for enjoying
what was better and purer than them
selves.
And yet, even here brutal and degrad-
ed as were the many, i'll the few, terribly
slnail as that minority WAS, might be
found high and noble instincts that
pushed themselves up through the poi
sonous soil and groped painfully up
ward and onward to the light Even
here, as everywhere, might be found
instances (rare, perhaps, but still there
OF brave patience, endurance and hero
ISM under great stress of suffering and
wrong. Then, too, although IN most
OF tnose poor, semi-savage breasts vice
ana SIN had nearly elbowed out any vir-
Tue That nature might have originally
pl2nted; 1t must not be OverlO Jked that,
great as the SIN was, as great was the
suffering: and who shall say, if these
poor souls had been born into the clover
OF this life as regarded their physical
and moral surroundings, what fair and
delicate and beautiful blossoms might
not have expanded and doomed in their
natures
Mlle-end was very old as well as a
very dirty place, and one particular
house IN its principal street stood for
ward into the road several feet beyond
It's neIghbors; It's upper story quite over
hanging the basement. THIS nouse was
SO old that 1t almost tottered when the
wind blew-as it often did at Mile-end-
even IN spite of the wooden props, them
selves rotten now, with which it had
been buttressed up. But In spite, or 0 n
account of Its age and discomfort and
general dilapidation, it was beautifully