Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-05-25

story, barefaced interference with the
sane enjoyment of the pleasure of life
commend me to the average citizen OF
this great republic.
-.
1t was Shakespeare who invented the
phrase 'method in Madness" and had
he lived in our day and generation he
would have noted another kind of meth
cd, to-wit: A method in intoxication
What do I mean? Let me explain.
! There is ordinarily little or no method
In man 3 habit of drinking. He drinks
any time, all times, when he knows he
ought not to, and when he thinks he
should. He swears off, or thinks he
does, but takes q drink the very next
day. His doctor tells him that if he
drinks he IL die. Forthwith he goes and
takes drink. You see there is no
method as general rule, in the drink
ing habit. Still, there is man in New
York, a brilliant author, who puts
method in use OF liquor. That is to say,
he gets intoxicated with purpose, and a
very delicate purpose, too. And he
keeps pretty steadily intoxicated for the
same design. The explanation is simple.
This man was an "infant phe-
nomenon- He was graduated
from college before he was
twenty. He wrote books, travelled and
lectured, all before he was thirty. Fiat
tered, complimentsd, feted, he imag-
ined he was genius. Later he began
to doubt it. At thirty-five he discov-
cred that his genius was simply q certain
brilliancy combined with q facile pen;
that there were stacks and stacks of men
just as much geniuses as he. In word he
awoke to the terrible reality that he
must now give up his role as a star and
sink into the nothingness OF an ordinary
stock actor in life. Suddenly brilliant
idea struck him-the only stroke of
genius witch he ever experienced. 1t
was to feign madness-the madness OF
drink; and from that day to this the
man IS life has been one protraeted de-
bauch. He is never sober, that is, ICE
cold sober. But he has gained his point
The world has not found him ont. He is
still, and will remain TO his dying day,
il he keeps drunk the ''erratic genius -
the "Gifted man. the s'brillIant
mind" ruined by ruml Mark the
lame and impotent conclusion. ''Saved
by rum would be nearer the truth, for,
had he been forced to take his place
among the sober, plodding, industrious,
AAhCioAg WV VI ihis city lucy
have found him out in one brief season.
AS it Is, when his debauch is ended "a
death, the daily papers will TEEN with
thousand-word obituaries of this ''bril-
liant genius, who was ruined by rum.
Sad is life, and New York is just the
place to see it.
-.
Then, there is death TO make us con-
slider seriously our department in life.
Terrible word that. "morgus. - New
York has its morgue over on the east
side, near the Bellevue hospital. 1t is a
long, low room, with marble slabs, upon
which the unidentified dead are exposed
ia public gaze; not, however, to tina
merely Idle and curious, but to those who
ask to see them. =, Above the
slabs are sprinklsrs to spray the
body with water or disinfecting fluid.
The word morgne means in French "a
''cold, naughty look, - aud tbs applica-
ton Of it to dea6houss arose IN the fol-
lowing manner: In oIdehs times it was
the custom in Paris 10 confne new Grim
inals in sort of pen, SO that the jailers
and policemen could study their faces
and get to know them well by sight.
This pen, therefore, Was place to study
bad. hard faces-that Ia, ''morgues -
and the name chung to the place when It