Alas! poor human nature; yes, poor human nature, sunk down into those depths of misery and degradation, yet every one of them are our brothers and sisters, who are rearing up children like themselves, as true as like produces like, while we look on, shrug our comfortably-wrapped shoulders, and "Thank God we are not like one of these," and yet never give, out of our abundance, one cent to make one of them like one of us.
"Well, what of her husband?"
"My husband, is it?" she said, as she stood glaring at us; "my husband? Go, look in your city prison, you old gray-headed villains, where ye or the likes of ye, murdered him without judge or jury. Did you try him for his life? No. Had he been a murderer? No. Had he done any crime? No. You licensed him to sell liquor, and he drank too much—I drank too much—what else can you expect, when you set fools to play with live coals, but they will burn themselves? What next? What is the natural consequence of getting drunk? A quarrel. I know it. Don't ask me what I get drunk for; I know you did not speak, but I saw it in your eye—yes, your eye—turn it away—I cannot bear it, it looks right into my soul. Don't look at me that way, or I shall cry, and I had rather die than do that. It would kill me to cry for such as you, who murdered my poor husband. You licensed him to sell rum, in the first place, to make other wives miserable with drunken husbands—mine was not drunken then, and I did not have to live in such a hole as this—look around you, ye murdering villains. What do you see?—poverty, filth, and rags; starvation, misery, crime—on that bed is my dying boy—that is nothing. Let him die, I am glad of it—the priest has made it all right with him. Now, look in that bed, rum-selling, licensing whelps that you are—that is worse than the dying boy in the other—see what we have bought with our money paid to your excise office. See what a mother is sunk to by rum. Yes, I do drink it—why do your eyes ask the question? I do drink, and will again. What else have I got to live for? What lower hole can I sink to? Me, a mother. A mother! Mother of that shameless girl, do you see her, there in that bed, before her mother's eyes?"
"Yes, and a pretty looking, bright-eyed girl she is."
"Bright-eyed. Yes, bright-eyed. I would to Heaven she had none—that she had been born blind. Her bright eyes have been her ruin—a curse to her and the mother that bore her—they are a curse to any poor girl among such villains as you are. Ye are men—how many hearts have you broken?—withered, trampled on?—there, go, go. I hate the sight of all men."
"Who is this man I see with your daughter; is he her husband?"
"Husband! husband! Do the like of her get husbands? Where is my husband?"
"We cannot tell, can you?"
"Tell! who can tell where a man is that died drunk—died—murdered in your man-killing city prison, and the priest not there to give him absolution. What had he done? What crime? Drank rum that you licensed him to sell—beat me because I drank too. What next? Next come your dirty police—the biggest scoundrels in the city—mad at my husband because he would not 'touch their palms,' and drag him to the Tombs—a right name—good name—true name—Tombs indeed—a tomb to my husband."
"Did he die there?"