The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1879-09-11
Tales OF the Jim.Jams.

L
drinking he knew It's evils far better
than one could Tell him, and nc realized
his position thoroughly, yet he clung Ia
the habit and avowed himself a drunk.
ard. Said he: have gone too far and
too long 90 this road. My stomach has
| been made over and adapted to rum,
The organ can't be revolutionized again.
It's zoo old to leave off whiskey. To
change its feed would kill me in a fort
night. 1t isn't SO good stomach as the
natural one was, but il stands a pint or
more of brandy per day. I've trained it
TO that during these many years, and you
can't teach an old stomach new tricks.
| Delirium tremsns? Snakes2 jim Jams :
Yes I've had touches of them. You
want to know how it feels? I'll tell you,
although | never did much Inore than
just pass the jim,jams frontier. You
have drank maybe week, maybe more.
You have kept extra "full" during that
period. At last liquor ceases to excite.
brace up, or trangni!ze. You drink a
half pint Of brandy and it has no more
effect than go much water. Then you
are close on the horrors. Food won't
help you. Your stomach rejects it.
Now your punishment commences.
You can't sleep. You are weary. Oh.
80 wt .Iy, but there is no rest. You are
tired of thinking, yet the tired brain will
think. You lie down, drop into a doze
for moment, and wake up with a shock
as if touched by an electric wire. You
are covered with perspiratioD. You get
up and walk the room, walk the Streets
walk, walk, walk, and then fling yourself
down, praying for ever so few minutes
sleep. All this for days with people
about you, and through nights, whose
lone, silent dreary hours drag, drag, drag,
while thus you lie down and get up, and
merely to kill the time you dress and un-
dress, while people wonder what uneasy
mortal is tussing in the next room and
forever going up and down stairs. To
stay the live-long night in that lone room
Is horrible, you are stiilcd, buried, in it..
TO get ont in the street is only TO change
the horror. Your exhausted body pep6s
for rest. Your brain pleads for rest.
i5ut no Chinese t0rturcr employed in
keeping some miserable criminal awake
I'll he ciej was ever more full of relent-
Leg icss vigilance thea your abused nerves.
They are mad. They have mutinied.
They have borne and borne the loads of
alcohol you have imposed upon them
until, frcnzied with the strain, they have
taken the bit between their teeth and run
away with your body and brain. You
realize this. You feel yourself borne on
from horror to horror by this unseen
power within you. breads indcscribable
seize upon you. Your hands have Il sen.
sation of being of an enormous SIZE
They do not look it. They feel it.
Your hend in like manner feels as if
enormously pulled out. Then your breath
comes spasm0dically, hot fushes strike
at the region of the heart, all the blood
seems at times to rush in that direction
and you fight aimlessly for life and ex,
pect to fall dead. This is the commences.
ment of the horrors. Now you are fixed
Tor seeing rats, and snakes, and vcrmin.
how many attacks can man stand :?
How many? I've known men who
weren't wholly free from the jim, jams for
months. They saw the things contin-
ually. Didn't mind them at all. Got
used to them. There was Greenwood. n
lawyer in Sonora, Tuolumne County.
Cal, he lived on whiskey rs nearly ns a
man could live on it for years. Some.
times he had the snakes very bad, and
again they'd tone down to moderation.
yet he had 'em all the same. He would
sit in his Office drawing up some legal
document as straight and correct as the
soberest legal mead in the county, and all
time curse the crows (jim-jam crows, you
know for getting on the paper. There
was French Louis, who kept saloon ut
jamestown, in tho same county, who
drank himself to death with his own
liquor. He was mass of bloat, yet he'd
serve customers to the last, and all the
time. see string of monkeys (iim-iam
monkeys) running round the cornces OF
his saloon. "Tiicy amuse me-" ho would
say, "and besides they are not SO mis-
cliievous rs real Monkeys
There's man living in that same towr.
to-day to whom phase Of mania pot,.
is OF no more Inconvenience, apparently,
than severe cold. I'll call him Don
caster, which isn't his real name, but
comes pretty near it. That man is n liv-
ing contradiction of the theory that whis.
key in excess will kill people. He has
for twenty years drank lakes of it. and
itie poorest wii;shey In the world ut TINT
After ho%ling drunk at night, he will
do hard days work and Keep up both
the work and n modified sort of spree on
more whiskey, seeing all tho time men
around him, Uim-jam men,) who talk
and threaten him. "They plagued me
some at first" said he, "but [ told 'em 10
git and they got. One night I heard n
lot of feilers under my window plotting
to rob and kill me. l thought to myself
| if that's your game I'll take hand in ii
myself. so got up, took my knife ond
six.shooter and put out. When I got out
of doors they seemed to me about one
hundred yards ahead in the darkness,
and one hundred yards ahead they kent
for two miles, nor could I get any nearer
| TO them. 80 / travelled, and they tray.
clled, out of the camp ali that distance
| until oil at once they seemed to make =
straight scoot off the road, and 1 heard
em next talking OH Graveyard Hill.
4hen saw it all and says ], Snakes, by
and ! turned about and came
home" Then there was DR.. D. of the
! same,camp. He knew for years that he
was drinking himself to death. He was
treating cases of the jim-jams all over
/ the country, yet ne knew his turn must
come; He feared it, too. For years be-
fore the resi- horrors got hold of him, he
never saw. q rat or heard cats saunll in
the dark, but he'd inquire OF those about
him IL they heard them, too, in order 10
find out whether they were real rats and
cars or iim;janl rats and cats. The bows
1 1 de teEsted lhiA dread nt lnst. and used TN
ffighten the doatof by asserting thew
hesfd nothing, while the cats wer5 sing.
ling their highe9t notes. At last the real
| article got hold of him. Not In the
| shape of cats or rats, though. Worse.
Men with clnbs aud pistols. He rot a
club himsolf and ran down the main Street
screaming eud beating the air with hnlf
the camp after him. An incident in his
\ .>ase s4a shnusa hnw, in those fita a man NAV