The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1904-08-17

to Its Victim.
This is a true story readers.
The writer first knew the man in rors-
don. He was successful, owned a bank,
had a fine house in the city and another
in the country, had horses and carriages
and a promising family He belonged to
some of those clubs in which membership
means cheap and desired distinction.
He had ambition. His friends predicted
that his success and atfiuence would grow
and his ambitions be realized as the years
went by.
Among his other possessions, this man
had one to which he attached. then but
slight Importance. That was bottle
which was passed to him quite often by A
solemn butler, who always brought with
II a smaller bottle containing soda water.
( he curious part of the. story is that
y man gradually lost all of the important
things, all of those which he originally
valued very highly, and that lie never lost
that one small, unimportant bit OF prop
erty-the plain, black bottle OF which, iu
the beginning, he thought 50 little.
The man was seen again the other day
toward dusk on the sidewalk of a Western
city. 1t was difficult to recognize him, and
he was evidently surprised that any one
should recognize him, and take the trouble
to check him in his shufting march
His clothes were dirty and actually
ragged. The brim of his hat was torn.
His face was bloated, his look uncertain.
His dlffident, timd smile, with all the
old selt'relance gone, was very pathetic.
The man told his story, and as he told
it in restaurant, after being asked to eat
and drink, he whispered to the waiter A
little whisky, please" And the waiter
brought him that same dark bottle that
had been brought to him SO often in the
days OF his prosperity.
The story that he tod was his story, but
it was not the story.
The real story was very simple; you who
read this can guess quite easily its main
features. 1t is a story that you can read
In the faces OF men in every barroom,
prison and poorhouse, in the faces OF men
that commit suicide, OF those that commit
murder, of Others that shuttle along as this
man shuthed poor, heart.broken failures.
The man had gradually lost his mental
keenness and capacity for business 9th.
ers got his banking business away from
him.
But the bottle stayed with him. He
gradually came to rely more and more
upon it, and to value its companonship
as his force of character diminished.
His friends left him, and he had TO leave
his clubs.
But the bottle still stuck to him. The
dues that it claimed he paid faithfully. 1t
was there at his elbow when his other
IrlendS mad disappeared.
he lost his house in the city and his
house In the country, but that bottle,
which represented now his chief posses.
sion. was still with him.
His wife and his children had to 60 to
those who could take care OF them. But
they did not take the bottle away with
them. The wife had tried only too often
to take away that bottle, but she had to
leave IL. She could take away the children
the law allowed her to do that. The
sheriff could take away his horses and his
carriages--the law allowed that. The gov.
erning committees could put him out OF
the clubs, and friends could take away his
reputation and remaining chances OF en-
ployment with shake OF the head.
But no power on earth and no law could
take away the bottle, that stuck to him,
and he stuck to it.
The man who had travelled with his bot.
tie from success and fortune to ragged
clothes and pathetic despair, ate his din.
ner and drank his whisky. and, with the
drunkards pitiful selfdeception, said
Il don't look like much, do /? / am
afraid | have been drinking pretty hard
since luck went against me. 1t is not many
OF my old friends that speak to me when
they see me now.
Even then the poor man could not see
that 1t was whisky that had turned fortune
against him--not i'll luck that had turned
him to whisky.
Whisky conquers men by deceiving them,
by encouraging them to think that theiI
drunkenness is some one else's fault.
ears before this man had deceived him
self when told by anxious wife and friends
that he must give up that bottle. or give
up everything else. And now that all but
the bottle had gone, he still deceived him
self into the belief that the bottle, which
caused his misery. had come really as
friend at the end, as solace in his misfor.
tunes.
How great benefit it would be if every
young man in this country could have seen
years ago, and one week ago, the whisky
victim that is told about here.
II Is hard for us to learn through the eE
perience of others, but no man could fail
20 he impressed by this example.
The man once had everything that he
wanted. and one thing that he did not
want, or need-the whisky bottle
Had he given up that one unnecessary
thing. he might have kept all the Others,
and the remaining years OF his life might
have been happy and useful.
But with the power of selfdeception
which that very bottle supplied to him. hg
clung to it to the end OF his good fortune,
and he will cling to 1t to the end OF his
life. unless -racle OF self'control should
save him.
In mere selfshness and the desire for
wealth success and ease. there are to be
found powerful temperance arguments.
Young men must make up their minds, in
this day OF competition and OF organized,
exacting struggle, that a man who would
go to the top must not try to carry that
bottle with him.
But for the real man, the young man
worthy the opportunities of modern life,
the argument against whisky should b0
based, not on selfshness. but on noble
desire to be a useful and worthy human
being.
Whisky takes away your money yout
houses, your friends, " II prospects Of get.
ting those things.
But II does worse than that. II takes
away your manhood and your courage: u
takes away your right to look other men
in the eye, and your power to use the
strength that nature has given TO you.
Whisky destroys the will and supplies
the lying arguments with which its victims
deceive themselves. Ii arouses the lowest
instincts of vice and OF dissipation, and
chokes the possibility OF progress toward !
better things.
Ii whisky controls you. you cannot be a
man. Leave it alone.-New York Ameri.
can.
tHtts.-tt