The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-05-01

Eater and his highly colored pictures OF
the delights experienced by the victims of
opium infiamed my imagination and aroused
my curiosity. Invent into it deliberately,
like fool, and before many weeks passed
/ was hopelessly, irretrievably-as | then
thought-gone. But [ never found the
delights De Quincy pictured-never There
wes an exhileration Of spirit, Of course, a
bracing up but under il all there was a
dreadful sense of horror that no amount of
opium, morphine or cocaine ever made me
lose sight of. The only thing / can think
Of to compare IL with is e Continued chord
of music, never changing, just holding
right on till its monotony drove you mad.
[ became q habitue Of the worst dens in
Salt Lake, with other young fellows who,
like me, were powerless to keep away.
You remember the death OF young Pat
R. Well, that was when l was at
my worst. knew, and all the rest of us
knew, what had killed him. l shuddered,
but I kept right on.
Were you following your profession all
that timel'
eyes, in = way, but whenever I went to
the theatre to play in the orchestra, my
gum was as indispensable to me as my
violin. l well remember when the anna
teurs were playing 'Patience'-that was the
time felt the greatest despair and the most
like ending it all by suiciding. l used to
SIT IN tlS pCCuSsiEh plhy ing, w usn biltb llOE-
rible sensation came oyer me that told Inc
my supply was giving out. l had to
drop my fiddle, plunge my hand into the
pocket where / carried my syringe, and
lab il into my skin without waiting to take
it from my pocket. Twenty times night
this had to be repeated. | got so that
| took sixty grains of morphine or cocaine
day, and finally l had to have recourse to
my gum every quarter of an hour 10 keep
up. Without il l should have gone raving
mad"
land during all that time did you never
make any determined effort to stopl'
ayes, many of them, and once thought
! had succeeded. | went 10 bed and warned
all my folks not to let me have opium no
matter how / raved. Well, l passed six
days in delirium, but took nothing except
few tonics, which were like so much
water In two weeks l was out of bed-a
shadow. / went about my work, but was
as man haunted, that dreadful craving
was always with me night and day, cay
and night. At last l thought / must take
some stimulant and went to whisky; that
helped nae, but | kept on drinking, and
when l got drunk I went back to opium
again without realizing what l was doing.
l shall never forget my sensations o. de-
spair when got over that drunk and found
l was again in the clutches of the morphine
fiend. l went on until my presence became
hateful to all my friends. [ wasn't wanted
anywhere on earth, and hundred times 1
had made up my mind 10 leave it,"
"And how did you come to go to
Dwight!'
zone day while I was in drug store
buying some of the poison, and wishing
some one would put pistol to my head and
blow my brains out, l happened to PICK up
one of Dr. Keeley's books. l saw that ne
claimed he could cure the morphine,
whisky or cigarette habits at his institute
| in Dwight. | read the book through and
had faith in it. l raked together all the
money l could and started of. First con-
suited several doctors in Salt Lake and
asked their opinions about the Kelley cure
They al said stuff nonsense "a cure of