Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1899-07-26
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"CARRYING THE BANNER"
A Good Temperance Lecture-What 9TH
Murderer" Has Finally Come To.

A Good Temperance Lecture-What "The
Murderer" Has Finally Come To.
A. B. Williams New York Correspondence
Greenville, S. C. News.
met man on "the Row" the other
night and he asked me to save him
from "carrying the banner" which
means walking around all night or
taking what maps can be got on the
seats in the parks between the visits
of the policeman. This man was tell
ing me something about carrying the
banner night after night. Dead tired,
wild for rest and sleep and for the
merciful oblivion that comes with
sleep, sinking down somewhere only
to be stirred and made to move on
Just as oblivion has come-roused
once more not only to physical pain
and discomfort; but to the dragging
sense of degradation and helplessness
and to facing the memories that haunt
more relentlessly and more dreadfully
than any ghosts. We who sleep in
our beds with the untold comfort of
stretching unincumbered limbs, find it
hard to have our rest disturbed once
or twice in the night. How about the
man who must seek sleep in snatches
with all his clothes on, sitting on q
hard bench and prodded up at half.
hour intervals?
Don't blame the police. They can
not discriminate and allow the parks,
established for the comfort and recrea-
ton of respectable people, to be made
sleeping place for buns. And this
man is bum all right enough and
probably deserves what he is getting,
although it is heavy dose. Yet when
1 stretched out in my own bed 1 was
more comfortable in thinking that this
Door devil had for once at least the in
expressible comfort of bed and hav-
lug his clothes off.
Three years ago, when I first came
here, envied this mamie looked so
we'll kept and we'll conditioned and so
sure of himself; and he had the repu-
tation of being one of the most capable
newspaper men on the Row, as he was
and is. 1t is said of him that he could
walk into any newspaper Office in New
York and be welcomed to place at its
desk. He had another reputation Of
which he was even prouder-that Of
being able to drink more whisky than
any man in the business without feel
ing it. They used to call him "The
Murderer" because it was said he had
drunk dozen men to death who tried
to keep up with him. 1t was his
amusement to take several men in an
evening, drink them all stone drunk
and 60 on his way, neatly and well
kept, and capable as ever. Now we
see his finish. He is carrying the
banner. The time came when his
wonderful constitution broke under
the strain. He thought he was the
master of whisky, but it got him at
last. He began to be capable of get
ting drunk. Then he got so that half
dozen drinks would make him silly
and helpless. He drifted from one
Office to another and finally landed on
the street, for the Row has no use for
the man who can't keep up to his work
and past performances are not con-
sidered. So he buns about in the
parks. Sometimes, so he tells me,
some Office boy who knows him lets
him 20 into one of the newspaper Of
fees after o'clock a. No., when every
body has gone, and sleep there in
peace two or three hours. That is
about the best he can look for, except
when he can get Is cents from some
old acquaintance for bed-that is all
a bed and bath cost in the Bowery.
And he is As years old. l know he had
wife and children somewhere in
Brooklyn, but I hated to ask him
about them. Maybe his wife has done
as several women I know here have
done in similar ircumstances-run
him out and gone to work to make
her own living. 1 hope 80.