Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1906-08-15

| the lazy Is one Oh Iuo figures IAos
has passed, whose life hurried her to
a. pitiful end before she reached what
should have been her prime. The ma
| irons all called her 1.-The lady," be-
cause even in her worst days she new
or looked anything but the lady, was
always well dressed and never came
to the police station without her we'll
fitting gloves carefully buttoned,
! though sometimes she was picked out
of the gutter in an almost hopelessly
deadened condition. Her story is one
that might have been the thread OF
some of the stories one used to read
in the Sunday school libraries, though
it comes with much more force to
hear the police matron who saw her
in the last days of her degradation tell
| it.
She had spent her girlhood in the
country at her fathers home upon the
Hudson, where they took city board
ers in the summer time. The girl was
as pretty as picture, had been care
fully reared and we'll educated. One
summer there came the inevitable
man from the city that won the heart
of the country girl, and they were
married and came to Brooklyn to live.
All went as happy as marriage bell
for while. There. was little girl
baby after whose coming the young
wife was not very strong, and the doc
tor ordered milk punches every day.
The young woman began to like the
punches and wanted two instead OF
one day, then after a while she be-
gan to take the brandy without the
milk and soon she found the habit
fixed on her strongly. The husband
bore with her and did everything that
could be done, but things went from
bad to worse until the habit fastened
itself so that there was first visit to-
the police station, and after the first
a second and third.
The woman, whose life had been
guarded as carefully as any girls
could be, who had been used in her
young days to take nothing stronger
than milk or sweet cider, began to be.
come used to the walls of cell and to
bow in abject slavery to the taste OF
whisky. Sometimes she would plead
with the matron to 60 and intercede
with her husband and promise better
things, and many time has Mrs. Cox
n gone with the plea. Always it was
granted and the same result would
follow and "the lady" would be back
in the station house crazed with drink
The baby girl grew up into beautiful
young woman, who would come after
dark to visit her mother in the cell
and plead with her. 1t was like try
ing to check the north wind. The pas
sion swept down everything in its
pathway. One day Mrs. Cox was sent
for to come to consumptive home
and there she found "the lady, in the
last stages of the disease. She wanted
to say goodby and to offer thanks fol
the little kindnesses of the old days.
Made Nursery Of Station.
One day not long ago a 14-year ole
girl brought in dirty little baby an6
said the child was lost. The baby
spent the afternoon peaceably sleep
ing on the big quilt the matrons keeI
for the purpose, and about five O'CLOCK
man came in and asked the matron
'Have you got for me baby?"
The matron assured him that she
hoped it was for him, as she was anxi
GUS to turn the infant over to some
body. The baby was properly identi
fed and the man started off with it
complacently, when the matron asked
where his wife was that she had lef
She had gone out, the man answered
and she had telephoned to him at hi:
place of work over in Manhattan tt
call at the police station on his way
home to get the babe. The man was
told very plainly that the next time
his wife wanted to go shopping sht
was not to send her baby to the police
stations as a nursery.
"shoplifter" Puzzle.
The shoplifter is often the :puzzl'
to the matron of the Adams stree
station. They come in great number
from the poor, shabby woman, WIZ
has stolen a few pairs of socks, or ;
little frock for her baby whom sh'
longs to have dressed like the babie
of her well-to-do neighbors, to tn
woman of apparent wealth, who ha
secreted some seemingly useless tritle
One woman, faultlessly gowned ant
of undoubted culture and good breed
ing, who offered $500 not to be mad
, to sleep in cell had been arrested
, for taking three pairs of 69-cen
gloves. She was indignant at her al
rest, but she didn't deny the theft
merely offered to pay for the gloves
1 That was a case out of many suc]
l that Mrs Boylan recalls from her ez
2 periences at the Adams street sta
/ ton, one of the things no one can ez
t plain. They call it kleptomania wit
5 the rich and thievery with the poor
t who, at least, have the prick of neces
. sity to lend palliation to, their guilt.
2 These are the ordinary happening
l in the life of the police matron. Thei
! days and nights are a ceaseless roun
/ of watching the intoxicated, of stan6
t ing by to keep the suicide from he
r intention, of dressing the woman wit
D delirium tremens, who tears he
. clothes to shreds in the night, of heal
l ing over and over the stories Q
e wretchedness and misery and depra,
ity.
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
Sc ring to the Interpretation of roles,