The Arkansaw traveler., 1884-08-02
U'rissx. foy 7ze ASkasiav 7revsisy.
 CITY OF THE UNKNOWN.
BY GEO. swARTwouI.

The Silent City ot the Cnknown-fot- ,ers Field! Bitter indeed were the lives of many who there found sad, last rest ing place. The mere mention of that lowly burial plot forces many to sweep aside from memory the veil behind which they hoped to hide, forever, recollections that are too bitter to live, and in meas ure constitute the joys of their existence.
 Mothers who gazed into the eyes ot| their innocent babes, and vove bright and fanciful dreams of their futuye, and watched with affectionate pride the grow ing and shining intellect ot their but earthly idols, will fully. realize that even the brightest and most beautiful days may not wane in all the glory and sum- shine that attend their creation. So with their idols. Temptation comes in guise most beautiful, and those who are not morally strong, follow in the light re- Aected by the gilded delusion-seldom pausing to gaze down the highway of futurity, where in fancy they might have beheld the evil shadows that darken the pathway to that eternal Wonder, whose depths even the wisest cannot penetrate.
 But they followed the dazzling siren until lost in the dark caverns of crime, far beyond the call of any earthly re. deemer. As outcasts and beggars, wan derers, unknown and unloved, they hassened to meet what would at least give their poor, weary bodies ress-death by suicide-caring but little for the terrors that might await them on the mystic shores of the other life, while their forms, created by God in beautiful image of himself, found a last resting place in that humble but none the less sacred resting place, Potters Field.
 There is a large class of female un- fortunates, many of whom, though not possessing the principles of the utterly depraved, finding themselves deserted by those who should love and protect them, give themselves up to dissipation, whose ruineus excesses sink them so low in the social and moral scale, that they, too, eventually go to populate that city of the unknown dead-in this class of unfortun- ate we recognize the victims of the liber- tine.
 Does he ever bestow a single thought upon his poor, helpless victims, who per haps had no parents or kin to reclaim them? Does he recall the VOWS lightly made then more lightly broken-or the homes that he has darkened, and hearts that he has broken? Do phantom voices reproach him for his per6dy, or is there ever ringing in his ears the last fearful appeal of the poor unhappy creatures whom he lured from the walks of in- nocence and purity? Did he watch their career until stunned, as out casts, they sought havens in gilded tenn ples of shame, while the once beautiful caskets for souls destroyed by him long before being touched by the more merciful hand of death-were taken from their last earthly abode to likewise swell the number who, upon the judg- ment day, will arise to coafront their de- stroyers before that supreme magistrate whose impartial judgment will be visited upon all, evea as the rain falls equally upon the heads of both the rich and the poor and humble?
 There is . bright and dark side to nearly every picture, and could the liber- tine but gaze upon the dark side ot many in which he has prominently 6gured, he would shrink away in horror.
 From the sorrowful vale of fact, will go into the garden of fancy and paint for him one that trust will be SO strikinely truthful as to enable him to recognize it.
 In the foreground he would behold an Eden wherein dwels youth, innocence and beauty, surrounded by halo of sweet influences born of virtue, modes,y and truth. In dim distance, upon the sky of the background arose little cloud, bright in cobra men speck. In iss centre he would discern his own face, in- distinct at fra, bat monsntasily grosiAg larger, while the Hoaden shadovs (his yuise of f1iendship} that surrounded is. graduAsy assuned darker hue, until hey penexaeed and ahsoFbed the Edenic sunshine sf she fosegEoanA. TAe bssn- lies ef ths pictu,e raPidly rsosde bsfare Ais Aarhsaing isAueace. and his face and iorm cd haseia acosrespoedhgiy rapid aeeree assumed the El1eueM ef . keaA-I de6zat, gioatirg, and repulsively hide 1 pus.
 The scene is changed. The destroyer