The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1897-05-01

| ''>'"NS
happy old home-one soon after, but the
other two long after their Christian parents
had gone to swell that countless throng in
glory.
All, poor heart broken mother and
father the terrible news has reached you at
last. The birdie has whispered. The ever
gossiping Flora McFlmsy has been to see
you and notwithstanding your weak and
enfeebled condition has rolled as a sweet
morsel from her tongue Of scandal the awful
tidings that your sons are drunkards, and
worse are also gamblers. The news has
killed you dear mother. Oh! yes the end
is near and they had summoned your three
sons to be near when your spirit takes its
flight to soar up the great white throne in
glory. But your favorite son is not there :;
| your handsome Neddie is now lying in a
drunken stupor over in Miller's man trap,
lured there by the devil who is the chief Of
all gambling and rum bells Poor inebriate
! Ned, when he had slept off the debauch Of
NS 80 'NA'i' NsllilC ilblllt INT
next morning and found his darling old
mother on her cooling board He wept
| great scaldiDg tears of sorrow and kncelcd
! by the side of her remains and there asked
God to forgive him once more, that he
might fulfill his promise to his mother in
meeting her in the City of God They
| hnra1 +ba hnl,, ,,F ~,
immortal spirit was housed with the
cherubic beings of glory.
Grief, caused by the loss of his compan-
ion, the mother of his boys the loved wife
who had shared adversely as well as pros
perity with him for more than fifty years,
soon began to tug at the good old man S
heart strings. and in a very short time old
Tobias Upton's spirit went the same road
and finally joined the one which had pre-
coded him a few months before.
The Upton estate was settled up and
divided between the three sons. 1t
amounted to about three thousand dollars,
each receiving one thousand which was
quite fortune in those days
Will, the oldest of the boys, went directly
to Miller's man-trap and it is said that he
never left while he had cent
Tobias refrained from the cruel cup for a
few months, but he was soon in the tolls of
Miller, the gambler, again. The devil had
sent his imps, or as they were called in
those days stoolpigeons, but in these days
they call them touts. Yes, the chief saw
to it that the drag-net of the gambling hell
was safely thrown around poor Tobie, and
his legacy was landed into the hands Of the
sharpers.
Handsome Ned had never been to Miller s
grOggery since his mothers death, but he
had wooed and won beautiful Violet, the
gamblers daughter Miller was not aware
OF the fact, and was too busily engaged in
fleeing poor lobe and Will to notice
anything else. Ned and Sweet Violet had
quietly slipped away and were secretly
married.
Now just at this time we are to take on
another character, not fictitious one but a
real, live iewelry peddler, and nearly every
one in that neighborhood knew old Jake
Slime, or Peddler Jake, as they all called
him. Jake's territory for peddling was
Newark, Iron Hill and Glasgow, or as it
was called in the long ago, Allentown
and after Miller had opened his GROCERY
near Iron Hill Jake always put up at
Miller's. His comings and goings were
periodical. and he carried considerable
wealth around the country on his back,
and beside which he always had three or
four hundred dollars in his pockets, and
Miller knew it well. Yes, he knew it, but
Jake wouldn't gamble, and he could not
possess it by that hellish process. But he
must have it. And how, oh! how, the
terrible sequel will show. The awful storm
which has been brewing since that black
cloud, Miller's rum and gambling hell, has
appeared across the way is lowering and
must soon burst, and then woe be unto poor
! Ned and Sweet Violet Ned had won the
heart of beautiful Violet not so much
because he was handsome, but because she
thought his reformation was permanent
and he had promised to take her away
from the home that she so despised because
of the rum selling and gambling carried on
by her father so near her. Be it known
that the house where the rum was sold and
the trumps turned was little way from
John Miller's private home, perhaps a
quarter Of mile. Miller didn't know as
yet that Ned and Violet had been Joined in
wedlock, and all their meetings were
clandestine. Poor Violet had not seen her
handsome Ned for over week, and the
terrible suspicion had dawned upon her
mind that all was not right with Ned.
Poor Violet the cloud grows in dimensions,
the awful black monster hangs directly
over yours and your husbands heads
| Already we think we hear the mutterings
OF the thunder which will precede the
downpour of wrath which will come sooner
or later to all who disregard the laws of
both God and man. But you, Sweet Violet
/ the innocent must po down with the puiltv