Connecticut western news., 1890-11-12

the night the rufians of tho neighbor- hood conspired together, and sur rounded the house, and left the woman dead on the doorstep, and the hus- band, to rally in revenge the twelve tribes, cut the corpse of the woman into twelve parts and sent twelfth of it to each tribe, and the fury of the nation was reused, and . perem2tnry demand was made for the surrender of the assassins, and, the demand refused, in one day twenty thousand people were left dead on the field and the next day eighteen thousand. Wher- ever our horse today plants his foot in those ancient times corpse Lay, and the roads were crossed by red rivulets of carnage
 Now we pass on where seven youths were put to death and their bodies gibbeted or hung in chains, not for anything they had themselves done, but as 8 reparation for what their fa- th,r and grandfather, Saul, had done. Burial was denied these youths from May until November. Rizpah, the mother of two of these dead boys, ap- points herself as sentinel to guard the seven corpses from beak of raven and tooth of wolf and paw of lion. She pitches black tent on the rock close by the gibbets. Rizpah by day dts on the ground in front of her tent, and when vulture begins to lower out of the monday sky seeking its prey among the gibbets Rizpah rises, her long hair flying in the wind, and, swinging her arms wildly about, shoos away the bird of prey until it retreats to it's eyrie. At night she rests under the shadow of her tent and sometimes falls into drowsiness or half sleep. But the step of g jackal among the dry leaves or the panting of . hyenA arouses her, and with the fury of a maniac she rushes out upon the rock crying, Away! Awayw and then, ex- amining the gibbets to see that they still keep their burden, returns again to her tent till some sweeping wing from the midnight sky or some growl- ing monster on the rock again wakes her.
 THE LONE WATCH OF RIzPAH.
 A mother watching her dead children through May, June, July. August, Sep tember and October! What vigil! Painters have tried to put upon canvas the scene, and they succeeded in sketch ing the hawks in the sky and the pan thers crawling out from tho jungle, but they fail to give the wanness. the ear nestness, the supernatural courage, the infinite self sacrifice of Rizpah, the mother. A mother in the quiet home watching by the casket of a dead child for one night exerts the artist to his utmost; but who is sufficient to put upon canvas . mother for six months of midnights guarding her whole family, dead and gibbeted upon the mountainsG
 Go home, Rixpahl You must b. awfully tired. You are sacrificing your reason and your life for those whom you can never bring back again to your bosom. As say that from the darkest midnight of the century Ripah turns upon me and cries: ''How dare you tell me to go home9 am mother I am not tired. You might as well e1- pect God to get tired as for mother to get tired. cared for those boys when they lay on my breast in infancy and I will not forsake them now that they are dead. Interrupt mo not. There stoops an eagle that must drive back with my agonized cry. There k 8 panther I must beat back with my club!"
 Do you know what that scene byour roadside in Palestine makes me think off It is no unusual scene. Right here in these three cities by the Ameri- can sea coast there are thousand cases this moment worso than that. Mothers watching boys that the rum saloon, that annex of hell, has gib- beted in a living death. Boys hung in chains of evil habit they cannot break. The father may go to sleep after wait ing until twelve o'clock at night for the ruined boy to come home and, giving it up, he may say: Mother, come to bed; there's no use sitting up any longer" But mother will not 20 to bed. It is one o'clock in the morning. It is half-past one. It is two o'clock. It is haH-past two when he comes stag gering through the hall.
 Do you say that young man is yet alivea No; he is dead. Dead to his fathers eutreaties. Dead to his moth CTS prayers Dead to the family altar where he was reared. Dead to all the noble ambitions that once inspired him. Twice dead. Only g corpse of what he once was. Gibbeted before God and man and angels and devils. Chained in death that will not loosen its cold grasp. His father is asleep, his brothers are asleep, his sisters arc asleep; but his mother Is watching him, watching him in the night. After he has gone up to bed and fallen into drunken sleep bis mother will go up to hb room and see that he is properly covered, and be- fore she turns out tho light will put . kiss upon his bloated lips. ''Me<Aer, why don't you SC to bedf' 'tAhr'she Ays, 'I cannot go to bed am Riz- pah watching the slainw
 THE POLITICAL JAcKALe:-~
 And what are the political parties of this country doing for such casesf They gre taking care not to hurt the feelings of the iaekals and huzzards that r<,oet on the shelves of the grog shops and hoot above the dead. am often asked to what political party I belong, and l now declare my opinion of the political parties today. Each one is worse than the other, and the only consolation in