The Marion daily mirror. (Marion, Ohio) 1892-1912, 1909-01-12
FIGHTS AGAINST DRINK
Men Who Defy Temptation
and Sometimes Lose.
LEAD MISERABLE LIVES

eide Rather Than Yield 20 the De-
mon Rum-The Inevitable Moment
of Weakness.
Recently story was printed in the
new York Sun telling how steve
dore committed suicide after yield
ing to temptation to drink Seven
years before, after having been pull
ed through u bad spree with extreme
difficulty, he had bought some poison
and declared that he would use II II
he ever fell to drinking again. He
carried this resolution, out.
"A case of what we call the fixed
idea, rather unuiAial among men OF
the stevedore class, but by no means
unprecedented, was the comment on
this case of medical man who for
many years has made a special study
OF alcoholism. up to ten years ago,
used to be called in every three or
four months to take care Of an up
holsterer whose spress lasted from
ten days to two weeks.
"Ten years ago he got so bad that
/ had job to get him through.
When he was able to listen / told
him that another spree would wind
him up for a certainty. He told me
there wasn't going to be another.
"He lasted for six straight years,
subjecting himself to a yerltable tor
ture of temptation all the time at
that. On the day when he went back
in his silop after that last bad spree
he got quart bottle of fine old Ken
lucky bourbon whiskey with a rich
bouquet.
"This, after loosening the cork, he
placed on little shelf Immediately
above his work bench. Then he went
to work, with that bottle of whiskey
right before his eyes. Every once in
while he'd take the bottle down,
remove the cork and take long, gloat-
ing smells of the whiskey.
Dropping into HIS shop, I caught
him doing this time and again.
81 told the man frequently that he
was torturing himself unnecessarily,
that he was racking his nerves with
out any reason, and that eventually
he'd become the victim of an irres-
istible impulse.
No won't he'd protest The
stuff made fool OF me for a good
many years, and now I'm get
ting hunk-I'm making q fool OF
the whiskey.
"One forenoon In his seventh year
OF abstention he was going through
his stunt of breathing the bouquet of
the shelf bottle into his nostrils and
gloating over his triumph over II
when the moment OF irresistible Inn
pulse arrived. He put the bottle to
his lips and never stopped gulping II
till he had swallowed the whole quart.
Then he fell off his bench In a state
OF coma and when | got to him he
was dead.
THE stun that he'd conquered for
six years got him in the long run.
as | had supposed II would all along,
But as a matter Of fact that uphol-
sterer might have killed himself with
drinking long before had he not de-
veloped that peculiar mania.
I'm my own practice ] had another
case Of a similar sort. This man
was the black sheep OF an old Wash
ington Square family. who when cast
off by his people onac count of his
dissipated habits, supported himself
by giving piano lessons
This mans tipple was peach
brandy, for which he had a passion
amounting to a mania. One night
while sitting intoxicated in the back
room of Il Fourth avenue saloon he
quarrelled with young fellow The
young chap drew a knife, and the
music teacher struck out at him
blindly, catching him on the point
Of the jaw with his right fist.
'The young fellow went to the
floor and his head struck the edge
Of an iron spittoon. His skull was
fractured and he died in hospital the
next day.
"The music teacher was tried for
the thing, but there were plenty OF
witnesses that he'd only acted In de-
fense of his life and he was let go.
He never drank drop OF his favorite
peach brandy or of anything else
when he left the Tombs Instead OF
that ne devised the same scheme of
self-torture as the upholsterer.
He'd place a bottle of the fragrant
peach brandy-than which no liquor
made has a more perfect bouquet
on the piano in his lodgings, and
then, with the bottle uncorked ana
the fruity aroma filling the room, he'd
play for hours IN sort OF trance.
zone night while playing at the
plano, with the bottle OF peach bran
dy sending it's perfume all over
the place, the black sheep music
teacher suddenly ceased playing,
grabbed the bottle, knocked the neck
on II against the side OF the piano,
poured the liquor out on the floor,
and then with the Jagged edges of
the bottle cut his throat. There is lit
tie doubt that the old mania for the
drink had seized him and that he had
killed himself rather than surrender