The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1905-12-29

This Curse of the Age ON h Increase
Horrible Effect on its Victims.

The dope is one of the most gigantic
that burrows under the ground and
only now and hen comes to light in
its hideous deformity: al evil that
somehow and someway associates with
responsibility and attempts to claim
for itself responsibility, and hinges its
strongest claim upon the fact that re-
spectacle men sell the compound and
the Pure in Heart who see evil only in
alcohol never raise their voice or hand
against this more insidous foe-against
a certain moral and physical death
which masouerades as a drug and
given by doctors in their pathetic
helplessness to relieve a real or imag-
mary pain described by an impatient
patient. evidence is found on every
hand. We have known physicians who
were deceived by dope fiends. They
insisted. these cunning dopers. that
terrible pains: pains that they could
no longer endure were tearing them to
pieces and doctors willing to give re-
lief used the needle and the %grinnins
dope hend congratulated himself upon
how easily he had worked the physi-
clan. Morphine and cocaine and
choral and other drugs which make
grinning idiots out Of otherwise intel
lectual people are increasing their
sales: some say the cigarette hastens
the desire. and it is only once inawhile
that the victim manifests his murder
Gus designs and therefore thousands Of
cases do not become public. They are
Cn0Eor 2f 0nfr with hated breath in
households desolated and sometimes
d~ishonored. or. not spoken of at all,
gnaW at the hearts of those who know
the dreadful secret. Who can tell
how many of these unfortunates there
are. Don't ask the Pure in Heart who
see only John B~arleycorn as an enemy.
Don't ask the saloon keeper who has
been long e consigned to hell by
these self-same pure in heart-but go
to h man who sells the dope and let
him tell you the number Of his help
less victims. Don't blame him for
selling it, because it wasn't w~hiskey--
but reach out to him your glad hand
of welcomes: give him a front seat and
tell him how different is the man who
sells dope to wreck forever his brother
and the miserable wretch who sells
whiskey to his neighbor.
Men have recovered from whiskey,
vi t1tCII o"I dcSOIu. but Tie per CENT
age of those who do not recover from
the use OF dope is much larger. Death
IS generally the end of dope-not
physical death. comparatively a small
matter: but intellectual death. moral
death, the graual unbalancing of in
tellectual power. of hope. Of faith. Of
love, Of all that ennobles and purifes
the character.
And while the sacrifice to those near
n dear is terrible. it is we'll that
once inawhile the cover of secrecy that
wells this horrible pit from the public
gaze should be lifted a little away.
There may be some who look into it
that have started on the path that in
evitably leads to it's fearful depths.
May they be warned. and turned back
before it is too late. De Quincy wrote
about it and the man who can sit with
him and see the thousands of croci-
diles, old and Shiny leering at him
from every viewpoint; who can feel
almost the ~cancerous kiss which he
described heed not believe d. Quincy
because on every hand, and with as
tonishing multiplicity are cases within
sight that verify all he said.-Every-
thing.