The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1885-06-16
ADRIFT.
An Evil Needs a Remedy, but
What Kind?
"A Sad Story, but an Every Day
Episode.

5plSOoc.
tits an old and trite saying that "Cne
half the world does not know low the
other half lives" ard perhaps, barring
policemen and reporters, who are suppos-
posed to know just what everybody does,
This is true But in al the varied phazes
of human existence, doubtless there is no
class of women more worthy OF pity and
commiseration than that class who grow
up in the back woods novels and the huts
hid away among the fsslns sses, where
dwell the lower classes of the rural dis
tricis Ii is true the drsmatiSt and novel;
list has endesvored 10 find place for Them
and draw favor to them by pIcturing them
as wild flowers, whose frag rance ahad only
TO be Inhaled to bring veal and pomp,
and all that is grand and good to their feet,
and whose virtue and purity was unsp-
proachable.
But such is not the case. Reared in
hovel surrounded by IDLE, shiftless men,
who have no keener sense OF beauty than
Hoten.ot or Comanche Indian; used 10
profanity, vulgarlty, whisky and tobacco,
the young, pure girl, no ma ter how bright
or beautiful In person or intellect, gvner-
ally assimilates herself with her surround
ings, marries one OF the shiftless
idlers whose only virtue is his prolincness
and when the family gets TO be composed OF
half dozen children, a dozen dogs,
gun, few chickens and turkeys, gar
den patch of squatter land, and if very
lucky, horse, a COW and pig. The mother
tends the babes and the garden, milks the
cow, sells butter and Eggs at the country
store to supply the family apparel which
she makes, mends and washes while the
lord of the household smokes a short pipe,
hunts, aud if Of an unusually industrious
1uln Goes an occasional odd days work at
the neighboriDg sawmill or riyes few
cIapbu ards to dispose of for powder and
shot. These WON, doubtless on the whole
are as conlenied and happy as the majority
of the human race 30 long as they are per
mitted to 90 on uninterrupted In their
course but when necessity or the accrde ntal
shooting of neighooring farmers hog, by
mistake of course, or a natural restless
spirit On the part of their liese lord COM
pels them to 60 out into the civilized
world and ccme in contact with its busy
whir, then indeed are they as helpless to
save themselves as is straw
10 sustain drowning man.
day after day is this exempi6ed and day
after day do the pap,rS record instances OF
the mishaps which befall the waits of this
class as they drift lost on the mighty sea OF
civilization. In the brotheI, in the gilded
halls of luxurious vice, In Ihe stress, In
the prison walls, in the novels of squailer
that initsi the suburbs and byways of the
city are they found, and first and most de-
serving are they to De in the highways
of traffic and travel, just cast loose to drift
into the first harbor or shelter may offer,
cost amidst multitude Ct fellows penniless
and weeping, vainly struggling to reach the
old home st, the old shelter of seclusion.
But, alas, how few ever succeed. Lake The
tender worm that is caught uuawares by the
MONDAY SUN with the turning Of clod,
they faint by the way and fall an easy
spoil TO the first bird of prey, and all The
missionaries, the churches, the boosted
law order, morality, and Christian charity
OF boosted civilization, seems powerless to
help it. 4 Thousand times do these
thoughts come to the reporters
mind, suggested day after day by
the illus rations OF thsir truth
which come under his personal observa-
tion, and yet when he tells the story of one
of these waits, the reader glances it over
shrugs his shoulders, cries "bosh" or ''Oh
how vulgar" snd dismisses it from his
mind only to see it repeated in a different
case or dlferent:form day after day. And
here, reader, is reT itition Of the
OLD STORY.
"Can you tell me where / will find the
marshal" pleaded sad faced woman who
sat en- the city hall steps yesterday after
noon wrapped in faded buster.
Right up stairs in his Office, Madame"
With weary step the assembled the air
way and entered the presence CT our genial,
bot busy Chief Barnett.
"Whst can do for you" inquired that
urbane official.
please, sir, / have two little children ct
the depot and / want to get to Vipita, /.
T., to my husband. g is all the money
have and it won't take me. What must /
do?" she said, bursting into tears.
"Who is your husband, and what does be
do?"
"His name is Frances, and he works in
saw mill In the country"
How came you here away from him ?"
"We wanted to move Saline county and
he sent me ahead. Then he got sick and
could not come, and sent for me 10 come
back"
'Why didn't he send you money to come
on?"
HE did not have il, sir, and have only
81 left"
"Well, madame, all can do is to send
you to Clinton, that is forty miles, and as
far as can furnish you transportation"
"Rut how will get from there homer"
THAT I do not know, unless YOU expend
your s. for ticket to Fort Scott and sp-
ply to The authorities there" replied the
marshal, taking dollar from his pocket
and calling an officer. Take this money"
he said to the officer, sand purchase this