St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-03-28
COUGHS BOYHOOD.
Scenes in the Early Life of the Famous
Temperance Lecturer.

Scenes an the Early Life of the Famous
Temperance Lecturer.
TSarah K. Bolton in Wide Awake.
His life had been peculiarly bitter one.
Born in very humble home at Sandgate,
on the English coast, cleaning with his
mother and sister after the reapers, that they
might have bread to eat or cleaning knives
and shoes in the gentleman IS house where
his father was a servant, there was little to
make boys life bright. When he was
twelve family offered to bring him to Amer
lea if his parents would pay $50 for his pas
sage. 1t was difficult to earn this, but his
mother thought, after the manner of
mothers, "Perhaps in the new world, our
John will be somebody So, with tears,
she packed his scanty clothing, putting in a
little Bible, and pinning these lines on a
shirt:
Forget me not when death shall close
These eyelids in their last repose;
And when the murmuring breezes wave
The grass upon your mothers grave,
o then, whate er thy age or lot
May be, my child, forget me not.
JANE COUGH.
Then, again and again, she pressed her
only boy to her heart and stole out behind
the garden wall, that, unobserved, she might
casta last look at the stage which carried him
to London.
The voyage was long one of nearly two
months. The little lad often cried in his
cabin, and he wrote back, II wish mother
could wash me tonight" showing what a
tender mothers boy" he was. When New
York harbor was entered, and he was eager
to see his adopted country, he was sent be-
low to black boots and shoes for the family.
HaHis school days were now over. After
two years of hard work in the country he
| sold his knife to buy postage stamp, and
wrote to his father, asking his permission to
| go to New York and learn a trade. Consent
was given, and, in the middle of the winter,
our English lad of IA reached the great city,
with no friends and only fifty cents in his
| pocket. Hundreds passed by as he stood on
| the dock holding his little trunk in his hands,
| but no one spoke to him. But, at last, by
dint of earnestness, he found place to
enter as errand boy and learn book-binding,
receiving 1925 week, and paying 50 out of
this for his board How his employer sup
posed he could live on 81 month for
clothes and washing, has never appeared.
The first hight he was placed by his board
| ing mistress in an attic. with an Irishman
who was deathly i'll. The second night the
| man died, and the horror stricken young
| boy stayed alone with the dead till morning.
| Nearly two more painful years went by.
Finally, though he earned but SO week, he
sent to England for his mother and sister.
When they arrived, two rooms were rented;
the girl found work in straw bonnet fac
tory, and, poor though they were, they were
very happy. John was now sixteen, devoted
| to his mother, and still a noble unselfsh.
persevering boy.
At the end of three months, through dull
ness of business, both children lost their
places; and now began the struggles which
the poor know so well in our large cities.
| They left their two decent rooms and
moved into a garnet. Winter came on and
they had neither fuel nor food. John walked
miles out into the country and dragged home
1 old sticks which lay by the roadside. He