The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1882-10-17
DOWNED BY DRINK.
Some Of the Regular Contributors
to our Oity Treasury.


duties, has many unpleasant tasks to per
more of total deprAvity than any one else
except the officers of the law.
There is, ever has been, and, doubtless
ever will be, . morbid curiosity on TIT
part of the average boy or man to see th'
inside of prison and gaze upon the scene
of human misery and degradation Their
presented.
Whenever eur calaboose door is thrown
open for the reception of some un.
fortunate, curious crowd presses
up to the doorway, and the officers are oft
times compelled to use forcible measures
to prevent the motley crowd from overrun
ming the prison.
The news gatherer, in his efforts to keeE
the public informed of all that is transpir.
ing, is compelled to visit the city bastiie al
fNquent intervals, and it is scarcely more
than might be expected, il he becomes
more or less impervious to the scenes OF
wretchedness and vice to which his atten-
tion is daily snd nightly called.
OF course, every city is more or less Attic
ted with terrible and hopeless victims to the
curse of drink and vice. Every city has
its common drunkasds, its petty thieves
and its sluggers, thumpers and rOwdies OF
high and low degree. Sedalia is no ex.
ceptiOn to the rule, as will be Shown by an
inspection of our police records.
The writer of this article, whose duty ii
is to dish up the criminal news for the
readers of the BAZoo, few days since,
after visiting the cooler and noting several
cases of aggravated cussedness, on his re-
FL
to what should be done in the cases OF
several parties who spend a por-
tion of nearly every week OF
their lives behind the bars of
the city prison. While no, an advocate
of prohibition himself. he could not avoid
thinking that it would be a God-send tn
the families of some of these poor wretches
and hopeless slaves to strong drink, if not
to them individually, if every drop of
liquor could be banished from the land.
Day after day, month after month and
year after year, the long-suffering wife and
children, battlin4,against all the miseries
of poverty, and suffering humiliation and
disgrace, the agony of which can never be
known, except to those who have expe-
rienced it, hope against hope,
feeling that they live simply
because they cannot die, all of the bright
ness of life for them swallowed mp in their
one great sorrow, vet never entirely aban-
don hope or ceasing to love him who causes
all their woes
There are a number of men we'll known
i'm this city, who have es,imable families
and are themselves not naturally bad men,
who devote every dollar they can earn to
81 IS II
lower than the brutes and beggars their
wives and children
Their names appear on the police record
so often that the recorder never has to
inquire what the charge is He knows that
it is the same old drunk and the usual
fine is assessed without much formality or
talk about it. An investigation would re-
veal the fact that these uDfOrtunates have
more to the city revenue than
The wealthiest real estate owners i'm the
while, at home. misery, de-
'pair and poverty gaunt and terrible reign
supreme. The money that should be de-
voted to he purchase of the necessities of
life, has to go to liberate the husband
and father from prison. And thus the
weary months and years roll on, bringing
caught but impenetrable gloom to the
wife and children What
he remedy is. God in his infinite wisdom,
,nlv knows. Ii would be better, far better,
terrible as il may seem and heartIess AS
nay appear the assertion, for the families
q these abandoned drunkards, If they
should break their necks. be run over by q
'ailroad train, or meet death speedy and
ure in some form.