News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1883-12-13
HORRORS OF DRUNKENNESS
SOME OF THE PHENOMENA OF ALCOHOL
lied BRAINS

sOME It THE PHENOMENA OF ALCOHOL
lied BRAINS
We were four. We sat talking in the
lobby of a Denver hotel. 1t was II p.
m. The talk was languishing, when the
wide doors opening to the street were
thrown apart violently, and a tall, heav-
lily built man walked in. His soft hat
was tilted backward on his head. His
step was uncertain. He was drunk.
We recognized him as Dalton, n miner
from the Snowy Range. Seeing the
group sitting around a table, he came
toward US, and with a drunken smile,
said, " Howda, boys ?" Then, before we,
could greet him, he turned away, saying
carelessly, cit is cat night for me- I
may as well go see the creature" En-
tering the elevator. he disappeared.
Wondering what Dalton meant by
cat night" I asked one of my COM
panions the meaning of the phrase. He
replied. " A phantom cat comes to Dal-
ton during the night following his third
day of hard drinking. 1t is a warning
to him to put on the brakes"
"Tell me of it. I said.
Complying, he said: "Dalton sprees.
He drinks at long intervals, and never
in moderation. When the wild desire
for alcohol assails him, resistance is
seemingly impossible. He turns his
mines over to his foreman and comes to
Denver. He drinks excessively the first
day, still more the second, and he turns
himself loose on the third. He is a
heavy and very powerful man, and can
drink an enormous quantity Of whiskey
before succumbing to it. I have known
him to drink forty glasses of liquor in
one day, six of them before breakfast.
By the end of the third day Dalton is
very nervous. Soon after he fails into
his first drunken sleep on the third night
he always dreams that he comes into
mis- room fllat 1l~isso, though so-zs--.
thing scratching on the carpet under his
bed, attracts his attention that looking
under the bed, he sees q large yellow
tomcat, with bristlIng tail as big as a
rolling pin. The cat IS tearing the car
pet with its sharp claws. Indifferent to
cats, or dogs, or any animal that walks
on earth, he undresses and gets into bed.
Instantly he is smitten with paralysis.
He cannot move. His brain works
without friction and is wonderfully clear
His vision is penetrative. He can see
through the bed, and sees the cat on the
floor in the corner. His clear sight
pierces through the disguise Of the crea-
ture and he realizes that it is an eye-de-
stroying, fiesh-eating devil. He knows
that the fend will come out from under
the bed and jump upon the footboard.
Standing there with arched back and
swelling tail, the creature will utter
frightful cries preparatory to leaping, with
distended claws, on his face and tearing
the cat He tries to call for help He
strives to move His efforts are vain.
The cat leaps to the footboard. and
glares at him with distended fiery eyes.
Again he struggles to throw off the par
alysis. He cannot move. The cat,
with horrid cry, springs ON his upturn-
turned face. Under the spur of this su-
preme horror he rallies, and, with an
exhaustive effort he awakens. He is un-
nerved. He trembles like timid woman.
His heart beats quickly. 1t takes
three or four days of perfect rest and
solitude to restore his nervous system.
He drinks no more for months"
"Does he know, while suffering from
this alcoholic nightmare that it is a
nightmare ?"
Eyes, my companion answered, che
knows it. But he also knows that if he
does not awaken, and so prevent the yeI-
low tomcat from getting in his work the
cat will kill him. He is in deadly fear
of this cat, though he knows it is but an
alcoholic phantom. And underneath
his dread of the cat lies the fear of
death resulting from alcoholism. The
cat is only q faint shadow cast by the
approaching IumJams, that stalk spectre
like in the vestibule of his brain"
''The warnings some drinking men re-
ceive are very strange" said the oldest
of our party. 81 know several men who
are spreers, who have warnings, gener-
ally visions more or less horrible, but in
variably the same, when they approach
the wall behind which the jimjams lurk.
Probably the most striking case is that
of a gentleman who inherited his dis
eased craving for alcohol He will not
drink, it may be, for a year. Then he
will put his business into such n shape
that he can leave it for few days and
deliberately get drunk. For two days
he devotes his energies to getting drunk
and staying drunk. He IS not of the
least trOnble to any one when he is
drinking. He shuts himself up in his
room, and drinks alone. In two days he
will drink gallon of the best sour mash
Bourbon whisky money can buy. He
always begins drinking in the evening.
The third evening he goes to bed in a
beastly state of intoxicaton. AT about
midnight his vision comes TO him. He
dreams that he went to bed, and slept
soundly until awakened by a hard,
white, Pickering light. He lies awake
wondering what causes the light, and
hears loud knock on his bedroom door.
Come inr he cries. The door is
thrown wide open and a man who has
been freshly layed stalks in. The
flayed man smiles in a CHASTITY manner,
and mods in friendly recognition. The
flesh is gone from his mouth. His teeth
grin mockingly. He stations himself
opposite the bed and leans against the
wall, his shoulders making bloody