The Pioche weekly record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1877-1900, 1889-03-23
ENTIRELY REFORMED.
How an Elephant Was instrumental In
Redeeming Drunkard,

How an Elephant Was Instrumental In
Redeeming Drunkard.
One Of the strangest stories Of drunk
ards reformation is told in the PHILADELPHIA
Times. William H, prosperous trades
man OF Eastern Pennsylvania, lost his
property through unforeseen business
troubles, and, leaving his young family,
went West to retrieve his fortune; but dis.
couraged by want OF success, he took to
drink, and finally became a degraded
loafer. He drifted eastward again, and was
seen in Troy, N. T., hanging around liquor
saloons. He had lost his manhood, and
even his very name (having long been
ashamed to be called by it), and men knew
him as "'The Worm Of the Still"
Once, soon after the arrival of a circus
and menagerie combination to exhibit in
the city, the drunkard saw one OF the keep
ers purchase pailful Of whisky for sick
elephant, and sneaked after him to the
circus tent, following the impulse of hls
raging thirst
The keeper put the bucket of whisky
down before Betsy" the sick elephapt.
and she drank about half of it. The intelli.
gent brute knew it was medicine. and did
not propose to take more of it than she
thought she needed. The bucket, still half.
lau OF liquor, was left standing near her.
and the keepers attention was called away
for moment.
Hardly was his back turned when a
bloated, red face was poked through under
the canvas, and its pair of watery eyes
were fastened greedily upon the bucket
Betsy fixed her keen little eyes on the in.
truder, stopped swaying to and fro, and
waited to see what he would do.
He did not notice her The fascination Of
the whisky blinded him to every thing else.
The bucket was beyond his reach, He
drew himself under the tent until he could
clutch it. The instant that he did 80, BETSY
hung her powerful trunk around his waist.
and whirled him up in the air.
She did not mean him any harm. hut he
was tampering with her medicine, and she
would not stand that. So he had barely
time to give one wild shrek OF terror, when
she tossed him thirty feet away, where he
struck against one Of the ponderous wheels
OF lion cage, fell to tho earth with one leg
broken, and three fractured ribs. She did
not attempt to follow and hurt him, for she
had no malice. He was carried away on a
stretcher to the hospital.
The rest OF the story is q pathetic
romance. The wretched mans recovery
was 30 slow that fifteen weeks passed be-
fore he could walk on crutches; but IN that
long time the thorough hospital treatment
hid cleansed all the liquor out Of him, and
he had begun to look something like his
former self.
one day, when party Of ladies visited
Me hospital, distributing flowers and read
nRmatter to the patients, one Of them, a
handsome but sad-faced young woman,
stopped by his chair, and gazed at him as if
strangely startled.
Father" she said, ''you don't remember
me. am your daughter Mary
was twelve years since she had seen
MIN, but she knew him.
one had him conveyed to her home as
soon az possible, where, In time, he was re-
'Wfea to health. found good employment,
suu began new life OF sobriety and in
uIstry which continued to the last.
ais adventure with the elephant, 50 near
1atal to him, proved the means of his en-
TIRE reformation.