The writer remembers getting a very graphic account of his experiences from a gentleman who is still living in the city, and who dates his reformation from habits of insobriety from a police magistrate’s commitment to prison. The gentleman will of course recognise whose pen traced these lines, but as his name will not appear in the course of the story, and as his fate may serve to “point a moral and adorn a tale,” the liberty is taken of reproducing his confidences as nearly as possible in his own words.
“From my eighteenth to my twenty-third year I had been gradually piling up for myself a taste for “bumming.” After business was done in the store I could not rest in the house at night, although I had as pleasant a home as ever a young man had. My sisters devised all sorts of schemes to interest me and keep me at home. At tea-table, without seeming to wish to inform me of the matter, they would be discussing among themselves
THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND BEAUTY
of some young lady friend of theirs whom they expected there that night. But it was all to no purpose. I had made the acquaintance of a gang of fellows and I can only describe myself as being infatuated with their society. If I had been compelled to stay away from them for one night I think I would have burst. I have often thought the matter over since and I have come to the conclusion that my liking for the society of these fellows lay in vanity. The most of our evenings were spent in saloons, where we drank and talked, and sometimes sang. I always did my best to amuse and please, and it was very flattering to my vanity to find that I was apparently successful in doing so. My companions laughed and applauded whenever I spoke. I will not say how much their smiles were inspired by the round of drinks which was sure to follow an unusual burst of laughter.
This way of spending my evenings soon began to tell its tale. I became a source of sorrow and anxiety to all my friends, and as I became more addicted to liquor I decidedly descended in the estimation of my employers. Formerly all my drinking was done at nights; now it became necessary for me to take an “eye-opener” in the mornings, and finally I drank all day long, taking all sorts of excuses to slip out and have a nip. I tell you honestly, Jack, there is no sort of liquor sold over a bar whose taste I like. I know of no drug that is more distasteful to my sense of taste and smell than the strong liquors, whisky, brandy, gin, rum, and I can’t say much better of beer. Yet I used to pour all these down my throat, concealing as much as possible the wry face I was inclined to make at them. I found myself at length out of a situation. I now
DRANK HARDER THAN EVER
to drown my chagrin. Even at this day, when I look back to that time, I experience a sense of humiliation and shame that makes me fear to look my fellow-man in the face. I never yet preached a temperance sermon to any man; perhaps because I feel I have no right to, but I say to you that I am firmly convinced that drink deadens everything that is best in man. Let a young man be distinguished for his domestic affections, for gratitude, for chivalry to woman, or any other noble quality, and then let him take to drink, and as sure as night succeeds day piece by piece these virtues will vanish from his character, and be succeeded by brutal indifference, selfishness, and weak wilfulness. During these years my family viewed my decadence with almost silent grief. My mother would sometimes gently remonstrate with me after I got very bad, but it appeared as if I could not stay myself. I frequently woke in the morning and found the clothing and boots, which I knew had been mud-bespattered almost beyond redemption in the debauch of the night before, brushed and tidied into respectability once more by my sisters’ loving hands. This touched me so that I determined to do better, but the resolutions were mighty sickly ones, and seldom outlived the day. I was six months out of employment, and during that time did nothing but waste my days in taverns, sulking about like a criminal until I got enough liquor in me to make me feel bold. Oh, when I think of that six months my blood boils. Sometimes I was away from home for two or three days at a time.
ONE NIGHT I GOT “PULLED IN”
by a policeman, and woke up next morning a prisoner in the cells. But I did not know that fact when I woke up. I was lying on a hard floor, but that did not surprise me, as I had frequently had that as a waking experience. I looked about me for a few minutes, and found that I was not alone in the room. Several other men were lying on the floor. The stench in the place was sickening. “Where can I be?” I said, and I tried to recall the events of the night before. Just as I was trying to do so the chimes of St. James’ cathedral rang out, and like the thrust of a cruel sword the thought darted through my head, “My God, I’m in the police cells.”
I must have been still full of liquor, but that thought brought consciousness and soberness at once. I sat up against the wall, and oh, what bitter thoughts thronged through my brain! In spite of me, the great hot tears welled from my eyes. The hero in the Silver King, which I saw at the Grand, says, “O God, roll back Thy universe, and give me yesterday!” These were not the words I used, but that was the thought. Oh, if I could only have avoided this last dreadful crowning shame of all! But, sir, I thought things in that cell that have saved my life. It was a bitter experience, but it has proved salutary. I could tell you every thought I had from the time I woke in the morning until I was put in the prisoners’ dock a few minutes before ten. One prayer was predominant in my mind, and that was that my people would never hear of my disgrace. I was assured by my fellow-prisoners that, it being my first offence, I would be discharged. Well, I was brought into the court and placed in the prisoner’s dock. I had an idea that I presented an appearance of respectability in contradistinction to