The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1891-12-02
SOMETHING OF WRECKS.


found, there are plenty of them on land
on land as dry as your throat, my friend
after night spent with the boys whel
you came home at a. M, smelling lik
an illicit distillery and with your hat OF
the back of your head. Wherever yol
I take your walks abroad these wrecks yol
can but see. You will find them on ever,
Y street and every corner, and the mos
distressing thing connected with the cast
q is that they were all wrecked by theiI
I own hands, with little incidental help
f perhaps, from their brother werm of the
: dust Divide them into classes and YOU
: have the wreck of love, of fame, OF
: wealth, of the cigarette and of the sa.
loon.
~.
You all know the wreck of love. He
is the young jackass with hair cut pom
padour and moustache cut bias, who gets
married before his eyeteeth are cut and
starts in to grow up with the census. lie
has read somewhere that love rules the
camp, the court, the grave, and he has a
vague idea that it will rule the porter
house steak and the bean soup also.
Some fortuitous combination may make
it rule the excheuquer too, he vainly inn
agines and so he foolishly plunges away
over his head into the stormy channel
without first learning how to swim.
~
He catches his bird without first build
ing cage in which to put it, and conse-
quently has trouble in holding it forever
afterward When he was sitting by her
side on the sofa with his arm around her
waist, her powdered face on his vest
lapel and the light turned down, he fig
ured it out that it wouldn't cost them
but 81 week to live, and he is paying
So as single man. So he gets married,
finds it costs him $40 a week, and even
then he is hungry half the time. At the
age of 80 he finds himself earning So per
| day and with a fretful, disconnected, ner-
vous wife on his hands and seven young.
growing children with appetites like a
saw mill. If he isn't wreck, what's he?
~
There is the wreck of fame, fool who
was was born with the bells iingling
around him and the cap growing with
his head. Some one told him one day
that he resembled Daniel Webster. espe
| cially about the feet, and straigntway he
began to figure on getting into congress.
He commenced staying out late at nights
and attending Oaucuses and conventions
and yelling "Mr. Chairman" and setting
| them up to the boys who laughed at him
when his back was turned, Sometimes
he was allowed to preside over meeting
of a score of half drunken patriots intent
on saving their country even if their own
homes went to wreck and ruin.
~.
Finally he was sent as delegate to a
district convention, and in the incohe
rency of nomination and ballot received
seven votes for congress. That broke
him all up and he hasn't done a stroke
of work since. He hang around corners
and barrooms talking politics with any
one who wslI listen to him for minute
or two. He is convenient man to make
motions in a ward convention, or act as
secretary thereof, and when the spoils
are given out he gets the bone labeled
acting deputy assistant sheriff, to eat on
election day. Now, is the summit of his
ambition reached2
~
Step out the greatest fool of all, the
wreck of wealth. A nice looking speci- |
linen you are, amt you? You didn't
want to climb the hill by slow degrees
you wanted to get rich all at once, and a
nice mess you did make of it, didn't you? !
You were not content with honest money
made by honest toll. OH no; that was
too slow for you. You wanted to 90 up
as a balloon does, and you scared so high |
you got ont of sight, but you came down
awful quick, didn't you, and the pieces
are not all gathered up yet.
~
Things went along very swimmngly |
for awhile. His pile grew like boil on
an old woman's nose, and his pockets
were soon stuffed to repletion with GER
tifcates representing money, or supposed
to do 50. He got rich, very rich, and he
WASH very scrupulous as to how he got
there. He robbed widows houses and
betrayed every confidence reposed in him
and the natural result followed He
went into bankruptcy, shameful and dis
astrous, and now money and reputation
are both gone, and if he gets up from all
tours again it must be in another coun-
try. He is right smart of a wreck, amt
he?
~.
There is no necessity of naming this
other wreck, is there? He has named
himself. Look at the lack luster eyes,
the narrow chest, the stained tongue,
! the stained fingers and the listless, lazy,
preoccupied air. That is the cigarette
wreck, whose sole ambition is to see how
many packages he can consume in the
course of a week. He has tremendous
collection of absurd pictures that he got
ont of the countless little boxes he has
opened in the search OF Ill health and
constitutional nastiness in connection
with complexion colored by nicotine.
~
See him as he goes along the street
fumbling in his vest pocket as he goes.
Out comes the package of Jones' cigar
ettes he takes out one of the rolls of vile,
disreputable paper filled with alleged
tobacco, re-rolls it, puts it in his mouth,
!, flash of the match and it is lit, and