The Elbert County tribune., 1906-08-16

all power over herself. At % she was
hopeless wreck. The closing act
OF the little tragedy was when the
mother came from her home in the
country. near New York, and insisted
on seeing the place where her girl had
died. The matron begged and pleaded
with her not to look at the cell: that 1t
would be something she could never
forget, but the mother demanded to
see II, and as scoE as she looked into
the bare place. fell in collapse. and
an ambulance had to be called to care
for her.
The lady" was once figure well
known in all the police stations. but
the lady" is one of the figures tina.
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
er 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
1t 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 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 came to Brooklyn to live.
All went as happy as marriage bell
for 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 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
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 go and intercede
with her husband and promise better
things, and many time has Mrs. Cox
gone with the plea. Always 1t 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 It's
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.