Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1921-05-04

the den OF sin; and when your soul
sickens with the sight and sound of
such misery, and you have turned
detestation, know that all this Is
drunkenness, all this the effects of
rum.
But would not stop here. would
carry you to drunkard's parents
they whose anticipated cup of pleas
ure is removed far from them, whose
hearts are bowed down with anguish
and filed with desolation and de-
spair almost to bursting. Behold the
untold grief shown in those pale
countenances, in those heavy, sunken
eyes, caused by trouble and anxiety
or worry. We can see the drunkard
just arisen from the mirey gutter
and reeling his steps homeward: his
eyes inilamed. his face swollen and
bruised. and his whole appearance
presenting extreme wretchedness.
And the drunkard suffers to an in
tense degree. He knows and fully
realizes his condition.; he is to be
pitied in sense. He knows that,
through his folly, the wife of his
bosom and the little, innocent chill
drcn are in a state of starvation; he
compares his former with his present
state, and all those thoughts harass
him, and he hastens to the bottle to
silence them, to bury them in the
insane and numb effects Of alcohol
1t is then that the wife and children
may be beatc,. and every abomnable
action executed. Perhaps he shoots.
or murders, or commits some other
crime which puts the mark Of shame
on him and his wife and children
through life. 1t is not really the
man that does those things. 1t is the
drunkard-the man unnamed and
metamorphosed into a monster by
alcohol.
Just think Of the ragged, bare
footed and bareheaded little, harm
less children who are suffering from
hunger and the cruel blows of a
drunken father! Everybody shuns
them; they cannot go in society; the
poor children are avoided by the
other children in the neighborhood;
they are the innocent subjects of in
suit, and are made to bear the dis
grace allotted to the parent, as if it
were a mark upon them.
Visit his residence. Everything is
broken. probably having been thus
abused while the drunkard was beat
ing his unoffending wife; the win
dows, broken and filed with old rags
or paper, and most everything in the
way Of comforts have been pawned
for liquor. 1t matters not how cold
the wind blows, there is no wood or
anything with which the family may
warm themselves, and there is moth
ing left that might even so much as
create the least appearance of COM
fort. Everywhere there is nothing
but extreme misery. The wife, who
once had seen better times, who once
smiled at the golden prospects of the
future, now with scarcely clothing
! enough to appear decently clad, and
much less comfortably so; perhaps
her limbs marked with the blows of
a drunken husband and suffering Sc
we're pain from them, sits mute and
fearless, for she has shed tears until
her tear springs have dried up. She
has done all that a wife could do to
reclaim her miserable partner and
to minister to his wants and those
Of herself and her half-staryed chill
dren. but it does no good Every
thing that might be utilized for the
comfort and well-being of the family
goes for liquor, liquor, liquor. until
her exhausted nature. her insulted
affections and disappointed hopes
hold out no longer. She and her
children are beggars.
Mrs. Dovie Moore.
Mountain Rest, April 26.