Birmingham age-herald., 1894-12-09

bt1Q 10 WIS plClIul.
 linen they went. Others took the body to another room, where two men who were passing through stopped and looked. There" said one, that should please you you reRuked me, for giving to that ragged tramp on the Street; Said tfamps deserved to starve, the sooner they all starved the better for the world. Now, here is one who did starve." silently looking on this thing that had passed beyond all pain.
 "Go to my offlce," he said to one,
 ''and tell the boy to give you that suit of dark blue that hangs in the closet, and here," he handed out some money,
 ''get sbirt and some socks. Have the body washed and laid out like hu. man being" It was very strange but I wished he had given the clothes and money to some living suffering shirk.
 "The worlds good way, said his com panion; "for the living creature who from inherited weakness or sin makes a failure of life, it has scorn and mer- ciless condemnation, and hard with holding of all comfort and kindness so long as cold and hunger and pain can hurt; and when these have done their work, then late protesting conscience is appeased with bestowing freely on the dead thing left what was so scorn. fully denied the living sinner. We'll did my mother say: The world shows no kindness to idlers unless they have money Somewhere I have-or had a brother, born idler. He was gentle, gay and loving, but for all I know he may even now be in such case as this,"I and he laid his hand on the thing had had been I, nor knew that I was close to his breast-his friend grasped his arm.
 'I have had lesson," he said, quiet 1y. "Go you now. will follow in a little time and we will return and go with this poor fellow in place of the friends who may be somewhere griev- ing for him."
 Still I fingered by the body which the men had just bathed when there entered the physician who had made the examination, and with him several young men gayly talking and laughing.
 ''Wait few minutes before dressing it." he said to the men; q wish these students to see the body. A most in- teresting case of starvation, gentle men," he said. "You will observe" and he went on to speak in scientific language, while the students listened eagerly and examined the Subject" before them. ''It is evident he suf- fered greatly" he said In conclusion. They all stood silent moment. 1T refused my dinner yesterday because the roast was overdone," said one, as if speaking to himself.
 70 ''I gambled away fifty dollars last night" said another.
 T wasted twenty dollars on bou- quet for ballet dancer" said the third. 7rrrr~ e
 ''I must not be outdone in confess sion," said the physician; ''I grumbled last night because had to drive mile wrapped in furs. It is strange this case has moved all so."
 Still the students fingered, and the one who had given the twenty-dollar bouquet to the ballet dancer began to speak, hesitated, then quickly as if tle- flying ridicule said:
 .'.'I would like to put some. flowers in his hand" -..s..s
 Let us do it." cried the others, and quickly they left the room and soon returned with a box in which lay a single long-stemmed rose and some violets on bed of ferns.
 What does it all mean? Yesterday this dead thing lived and suffered, and none cared for it's pain or regarded it's life. Now they bind up its wounds and clothe it; they lay flowers on it's breast-I almost think they would not grudge it food. But I wish they had given the clothes to some living, suffer- ing man.
 The two friends have returned and there is priest with them. They stand beside the coffin, and he who was my brother is pale as well as grave-and I am close-close beside him. They ask who placed the flowers there My brother takes from a pack age three white roses and lays them beside the check of the dead shirk. Some one calls his friend into another room and l go with him, for know what it means A man says: "We looked as you told us and we found this in an inside pocket of his shirt" and they hand him package wrapped in an oil silk covering. He reads the address on the letter that he finds within-the date is years before-he looks at the miniature that lies beside the letter. There are two girlish faces, the golden-haired singer and the merry housekeeper of the drowsy Holland town. Then he folds them reverently and puts them into his breast pocket, gives money to the men and says:
 ''It is as I thought, but he must never know. Keep the secret sacred ly," and he returns to him who was my brother, his face pale as we'll as sad.
 They stand beside an open grave. The priest reads the offices for the dead, the earth falls upon the coffin lid, and as they turn from the heaped- up mound he that was my brother stops and looks back with startled air. N s@@