Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1906-08-16

known in all the police stations, but
tine lady" Is one of the figures that
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 the lady," be-
cause even in her worst days she new
err 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 a picture, had been care
fully reared and well educated. One
summer there came the inevitable
man from the city that won the heart
Of the country girl, and they were
married and anne to Brooklyn to live.
All went as happy as a marriage bell
for a while. There was a little girl
baby after whose coming the young
wife was not very strong, and the doc.
tor ordered milk punches every day.
The young m began to like the
punches and wanted two instead of
one a 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 a visit to
the police station, and after the first
a second and a 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 a cell and to
bow in abject slavery to the taste OF
whisky. Sometimes she would plead
with the matron to go and intercede
with her husband and promise better
things, and many a time has Mrs. Cox
gone with the plea. Always it was
.-n~%aI o-I @LN - xor,,It would
follow and "the lady" would be back
in the station house crazed with drink.
The baby girl grew up into a 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 a consumptive home,
and there she found the lady" in the
last stages of the disease. She wanted
to say goodby and to offer thanks for
the little kindnesses of the old days.
Made Nursery of Station.
One day not long ago a 14-year old
girl brought in a dirty little baby and
said the child was lost. The baby
spent the afternoon peaceably sleep
ing on the big quilt the matrons keep
for the purpose, and about five o'clock
a mar came in and asked the matron:
Have you got for me a baby?"
The matron assured him that she
I--.el = ,ro, 60, 1,;,o, ~, rN,N u,or 81 -, I
GUS to turn the infant over to some
body. The baby was properly identi'
fed and the man started off with 1T,
complacently, when the matron asked
where his wife was that she had left
the child ~uncalled for all afternoon.
She had gone out, the man answered,
and she had telephoned to him at his
place of work over in Manhattan to
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 she
was not to send her baby to the police
stations as a nursery.
"shopIifter" a Puzzle.
The shoplifter is often the puzzlt
to the matron of the Adams stree
station. They come in great numbers
from the poor, shabby woman, witt
has stolen a few pairs of socks, or
little frock for her baby, whom sht
longs to have dressed like the babies
of her well.to-do neighbors, to thu
woman of apparent wealth, who ha'
secreted some seemingly useless trife
One woman, faultlessly gowned ant
of undoubted culture and good breed
ing, who offered $500 not to be mad'
:, to sleep in a 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
n That was a case out of many sue
d that Mrs. Boylan recalls from her e'
periences at the Adams street sta
n ton, one of the things no n can e1
it plain. They call it kleptomania wit
s the rich and thievery with the poo
# who. at least, have the prick of nece'
e sity to lend palliation to their guilt.
e These are the ordinary happening
ID in the life of the police matron. Thei
d days and nights are a ceaseless roun
ID of watching the intoxicated, of stan'
it ing by to keep the suicide from he
sr intention, of dressing the woman wit
to delirium tremens, who tears he
to clothes to shreds in the night, of hea
ID ing over and over the stories
re wretchedness and misery and depra
Iity.