The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1884-12-05
THE EVIL OF IT.
Burdette Relates n Chapter from Her.
bert ThOrpe's History.

bert ThOrpe's History.
II can drink it or can leave it alone =
said Herbert Thorpe proudly.
Herbert was the son of an only mother
and she widow whose husband was dead.
He was young man of rare promise and
still rarer fulfillment. He graduated at
college with brilliant honors behind the
bat the envied idol of his nine. Life open
ed itself before him voluntarily, like sick
oyster. But, alas! in an evil hour-say
about half-past early in the morning-the
tempter-with a small i've might say
C. t., in fact-came upon him.
He became slave to the foe of young
men, the d. D.
| Not the d. D. who breaches to large
and fashionable congregation. Oh, no.
The other ID. D.-the Demon Drink.
He weakly yielded to the destinations of
his Daniel Boone companions Thomas
and jeremiah, Bill Yards and the rest of
the boys.
''Oh, shun the glass;" pleaded the fair
young girl who liked him.
few weeks ago we would have said
loved him, but since Bulwer's love letters
were published anything of that kind is too
awfully-the ammonia, please.
He said he never used the glass. He
was shaved at the barber 5. and he Wore
flat scarf that hid his flannel shirt and
didn't have to be tied
Fly the tempter, said his pastor.
But he said it was all he could do to fly
little kite for thirty days, and he wasn't
very fly, anyhow. And with this brutal
and heartless jest-which in his better mo-
ments Herbert Thorpe would never have
uttered-the white-haired old pastor went
away and crawled under tree and died
some thirty-eght years later, of extreme
old age and starvation, brought ON by two
donation parties in the same week
DO not trihe with it, begged Lis
friends.
And Herbert Thorpe stood up and utter
ed the proud sentence with which this sad
chapter opens.
If the chapter is any sadder than the peo-
pie who read it, it will shed enough tears
to wet down all the paper for this issue of
the able and influential journal you are
now perusing with intense delight-now is
the time to make up clubs-subscribe at
once and avoid the rush at the doors
why, oh, why longer delay ?-time flies
and money is eight per cent.-send for cir
cular, and see prospectus in another col
umn.
Il can drink it or let it Alone he said,
proudly
Could he?
We shall see.
A space of period had elapsed; or. per-
haps, not as long rs that.
Herbert Thorpe enters the palatial bar
room, where the sitting odors of decaying
cigar stumps, stale tobacco smoke, and
sawdust and cheese sandwiches, and che
human breath divine lure men to ruin.
Il can drink it or can let it alone,'' he
whispered to himself as he ordered what
he wanted, and suggested to the gentleman
behind the bar the propriety of hurrying
up the same. That gentleman shook his
head with the firmness and immovable con-
servatism of the Bartholdi fund.
Drinks are cash." he said
And Herbert Thorpe turned sadly away,
with the Great American Desert raging in
his parched throat.
He 'set it alone
Young man, if you stick to it and keep
at it long enough, that's what you re COM
ing to. You say now, you can drink it
or you can leave it alone" But all the
same you keep on drinking it. Well, keep
at it. And just about the time you learn
to like it, and want it all the time you will
have to ''let it alone" You can't raise
your pocketbook by hand, my son. That
is, you can't bring it up on the bottle. 1t
won't thrive on it, They empty each 9th
er, but they won't fill each other up. They
eontrive to fill you up, but, paradoxical as
it may seem, they clean you out at the
same time.
Be wise, my son, and, if you must spend
your money foolishly, make election bets
with it, You will be cleaned ont Just as
effectually, but you won't have SO much
headache
ROBERT ]. BURpETTE.