The Black range. (Robinson, Socorro County, N.M.) 1882-1897, 1895-02-15
ENTIRELY REFORMED.
How an Elephant Was Instrumental ia
Redeeming a Drunkard.

NAa4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AZ
Redeeming a Drunkard.
One Of the strangest stories Of a drunk.
ards reformation is told in the Philadelphia
Times. William H, a prosperous trades
man Of Eastern Pennsylvania, lost his
property through unforeseen business
troubles, and, leaving his young family,
went West to retrieve his fortune; but dis
couraged by want of success, he took to
drink, and finally became a degraded
loafer. He drifted eastward again, and was
seen in Troy, n, Y, hanging around liquor
saloons. He had lost his manhood, and
even his very name (haying long been
ashamed 70 be called by iD, and men knew
him as "Ihe Worm of the Still.n
Once, soon after the arrival Of a circus
and m%enagerie combination to exhibit in
the city, the drunkard saw one of the keep
ers purchase a pailful Of whisky for a sick
elephant, and sneaked after him to the
circus tent, following the impulse of hs
raging thirst.
The keeper put the bucket Of whisky
Town before Betsy" the sick elephant,
and she drank about half Of it, The inteili
gent brute knew it was medicine, and did
not propose to take more Of it than she
thought she needed. The bucket, still half
full Of liquor, was left standing hear her,
and the keepers attention was called away
for a moment.
Hardly was his back turned when a
bloated, red face was poked through under
the canvas, and its pair Of watery eyes
were fastened greedily upon the bucket
Betsy fixed her keen little eyes on the in
truder, stopped swaying to and fro, and
waited to sec what be would do.
lie did not notice her. The fascination of
the whisky blinded him to every thing else.
The bucket was beyond his reach. H
drew himself under the tent until no could
clutch it. The instant that he did so, Betsy
flung her powerful trunk around his waist,
and whirled him up in the air.
She did not mean him any harm, but he
was tampering with her medicine, and she
would not stand that. So he had barely
time to give one wild shrek OF terror, when
she tossed him thirty feet away, where he
struck against one of the ~ponderous wheels
of a lion cage, fell to the earth with one lee
broken, and three fractured ribs. She did
not attempt TO follow and hurt him, for she
had no malice. He was carried away on a
stretcher to the hospital.
The rest Of the story is a pathetic
romance, The wretched mans recovery
was so slow that fifteen weeks passed be
fore be could walk on crutches; but IN that
long time the thorough hospital treatment
had cleansed all the liquor out of him, and
he had begun to look something like his
former self.
One day, when a party of ladies' visited
the hospital, distributing flowers and read
ing matter TO the patients, one of them, a
handsome but sad-iaced young woman,
stopped by his chair, and ga2ed al him as il
strangely startled.
Father" she SAID, lyon don't remember
me. an your daughter Mary.n
Il was twelve years since she had seen
him, but sac knew him.
She had him conveyed to her home as
soon as possible, where, in time, he was re-
stored to health, found good employment,
and began a new life of sobriety and IN
dustry, which continued to the last.
HIS adventure with the elephant, so near.
y fatal to him, proved the means Of his en-
tire Reformation.