The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1885-02-20
TEMPERANCE.
A TRAGEDY IN The nTomRs..

1t is a trite but true saying that truth
is stranger than fiction. A few hours
in the eourt-rooms of a great city win
make revelations more remarkable than
the widest fancies of romance couId
suggest
The sorrows of the lowly and poor,
the struggles of the wretched with sin
and misery, the wages of vice and the
tragedies of broken hearts and wasted
lives are displayed as on stage every
day in the court-rooms. Last week one
was brought ont having IN it elements
OF great dramatic interest, but the more
simply and naturally the story is told,
the better will the terrible moral of it be
seen.
Some fourteen years ago an Irishman
came from his native isle to this city,
bringing with him his wife and four
daughters, all quite young. He found
employment at first and got on COM
fortably. They must have been FAM
lily of more intelligence than many of
the poor immigrants who find q refuge
in this country when hunger drives
them from their own. But when the
burden of his family became too heavy
for the unprincipled wretch to bear,
coward as he was, he deserted them, fled
to parts unknown, and they have never
heard word from him since. Then
tie mother succeeded in getting the
children into various asylums, and she
went back to Ireland.
Several years went on and these
children were growing up without any
knowledge of the whereabouts of their
mother. When the oldest daughter
left the asylum, she managed by dint
of industry, energy and courage to get
knowledge enough to enable her to be-
come "a teacher. Then with a noble
spirit, she took room and gathered
into,it her sisters. and finding work for
them to do they lived comfortably.
There is something very fine in the he
roic conduct of this oldest girl. It is
strange that two such sneaks as the
father and mother could be parents of
such family of daughters. Now they
were all earning more than their daily
food, and they sent to Ireland for their
mother to come back and set up q home
once more. This was sad mistake,
but it was nature and filial affection.
The mother came, and became
drunkard. There is the bane of life
among the lowly. A mother and
a drunkard among these four poor
girls struggling to make a home for
themselves and her. OF course a drunk
en- mother is living monster. There
is no terror like it in this world of sin
and misery. She would have the money
the girls earned and spend it for liquor
She went to the school where the oldest
daughter was an able and respected
teacher and made a scene that covered
the teacher with confusion and shame.
This was repeated so often that the no.
BILE young woman was obliged to re-
sign her place, driven out of it by the
beastly conduct of her own mother.
Then want added its terrors to this
wretched household. But for the one
dreadful vice of the mother they might
have been happy, in their humble way,
with industry, health and peace. Now
the furniture had to be sold, one piece
after another, which the girls had
bought with their hard earned money.
The walls and floor were stripped and
the mother drank it all, except what
little was spent to keep them from
starving. Can there be deeper distress
than thisp
At last when all hope had persisted,
and it had become impossible to bear it
any longer, the daughters were COM
PEELED to seek the protection of law
against their own mother. They laid
the case before one of the justices. The
mother was arrested and brought into
court in the Tombs. The heart-broken
daughters told their sad story of suffer-
ing. cruelty and shame The mother
turned upon them and denounced them
as vile women, thus going down one
step lower in infamy than we had
thought it possible before. Their
character was investigated, and it was
easily proved by their neighbors that
they were excellent young women,
worthy of all respect and confidence,
whose young lives had been blighted by
their own mother. She was sent to
prison for SIX months. At the end of
that time, perhaps before. she will come
out to renew course of vice and
wretchednesS which will bring these
daughters into sorrow and suffering I'M
speakable.
In this sad story see specimen of
parental meanness and baseness rarely
equaled Can mother forsake her
own child? Here first the father, then
the mother, forsake four daughters,
leaving them to the cold charity of the
world. The father is probably drunk
ard, certainly the mother is, therefore
the last drop of parental love is expelled
from the heart, and even mother be-
comes wolf, destroying the children
she would otherwise cherish and protect.
Take out this vice and here in this
humble family were all the elements of
comfort and enjoyment. With this
vice, the home is the abode of woe too
grievous to be borne.
But there is meaner and a baser
person than this wretched woman.
When we see and know the power of
the passion for strong drink, we can
pity while we abhor the mother who
robs her children that she may buy the
liquor she loves more than she loves the
children that draw their life from her
bosom. We pity her. But for the man
W. daily ministers to her dread appe-
tite and for the sake of few cents
makes hera drunken demon to carry
he'll into her household, for such man
there is no pity in human breast
For him there is a fearful looking for of
Judgment! Each piece of silver in his
till is coined out of the sorrows of
orphans. When he counts his ill-gotten
gains he counts the tears and sobs of
virtue hungry and in rags. When he
drives his horse on the road, every foot
fall tramples on hearts he has crushed.
May God have pity on him ere he comes
among those the smoke OF whose tor
ments ascendeth up forever and ever!
When this drunken mother was sent |
to prison the feelings of her daughters
broke forth in sobs that made the court |
room like funeral Even then they |
would have taken her back, and hoping
against hope, would have made one
more VAN attempt to save her from her
self But it could not be and oughtno |
tn no And thus ended the TRAGEDY in |