The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1911-09-23
DOMAIN OF TEMPERANCE.
THE BAck-DooR ENTRANCE.

W
for twenty-five years have sat at a
desk where I could look across the
street at the rear entrance of saloon.
was not there many days until no
ticed a STRIPPING of country boy GO
into that back door with an older
companion. The boy went with a
hesitancy which indicated to me that
he was persuaded against his desire
and better judgment to do SO. When
he came out, he looked UP and down
the street, before walking away. It
was long time before he came again.
little more boldly this time. and he
was less careful not to be seen when
he departed.
Within a year his visits grew more
frequent, and he remained longer in
side. Up to that. time he never
seemed to be the least intoxicated
when he left. In fact, he looked better
and acted better. He had shaken off
somewhat that shrinking country air
so common in rural boys coming to
town. He dressed better, and had as
sumed a sort of jaunty mien, and
would have been taken as an average
youth not yet down to the even and
steady trot of life.
The next year he came still more
frequently, and sometimes had not
come out when had finished my days
work and gone home Once, about the
middle of the second year, l noticed
reddish flush on the cheek next to
my window as he came out, and little
later he staggered slightly as he
turned down the sidewalk, and seemed
to be ashamed of it.
The next year he moved to town,
and secured work in a factory. For
few years then, never saw him go
in that back door except on Saturday
afternoons, but he was pretty sure
not to miss appearing on these half
holidays. He seemed to be man of
habit. The appetite fastened on him
with all the certainty of death, but
somehow he never got to going in at
the front door It was always the same
old path he trod, Notwithstanding he
had lost whatever hesitancy he had in
the beginning about entering and
leaving. He now plunged in without
looking to the right or the left, and
walked out when he was ready to do
SO unabashed and unafraid.
Ten years after I first began to no
tice him, he married a girl of about
his own station in life. For a while
the back-door visits almost ceased.
Evidently he was spending his leisure
hours with his young wife. Within a
year, however, he came oftener than
ever; and one evening I saw his wife
standing irresolutely on the sidewalk
waiting for him to come out. When
he did emerge from the building, there
was little scene. He scolded her
for coming after him, and she apollo
gized for interfering with his pleasures
for the reason that the supper was
getting cold and the baby was not
we'll.
Notwithstanding his growing bibu-
lous habits, he accumulated a com.
Portable little home, and several inter
esting children had come to bless it,
all within the next five years Then
came an appointment to public Office,
by reason of a public pull and political
affiliations. One day he awoke sud-
denly to the fact that he had gone far
down the road toward making a
drunkard of himself He rallied and
went off to cure establishment, and
came back apparently ready to start
life over. He fell again by way of the
back door of the same saloon, re-
gained his feet by taking treatment
again, and again fell. He had not the
moral force to try again to recover his
footing, and has since put in his days
and nights, no doubt, trying to keep
the path from the sidewalk to his
favorite saloon well-worn and easy to
find
His home has been broken up; his
wife and children have been obliged to
leave him for self-protection He has
lost all his property, self-respect and
friends; and but few days ago saw
him hobbling in at the self-same back
door, old, broken and bent, pensioner
on his relatives and friends, and
hopeless wreck.
That is the plain, unvarnished story
of what has happened at the back door
of one of our dozen or more saloons
in the third span of an ordinary life
time-told without an attempt at
sermonizing or pointing a moral.
Only last week saw the proprietor
Of that saloon come out of the back
way to enter his carriage for a drive,
and, meeting the human derelict of
this story in the path, ordered him Off
the premises.
The phase Of the saloon question
which permits Of the secret or rear
entrance is that which has impressed
me much. There must be q beginning
to every mans downward course, and
the back door is usually the first en-
tering place. III the saloons can not
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