Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (July 1, 1879)
July, 1879. THE WEST SHORE. a.7 WHO KILLED HIM? HY J. A. CtlZAN. "At Ihc last it I .it it h like serpent ami Itfof. rlh like n aillcr." I'rov. xsiii., 3a. Portland pocked New Market The- aler from pit to dOHM, Friilay night, June 25th, in honor of a great actor. The mimic tragedy of Julius Cicsar held the great audience breathlessly intent. A few hours earlier, in a hardware store on First street, occurred the last net in a tragedy of real life. How many acts are there in a trugctly ? Five in Julius C'u'sar. We'll make five of this real life tragedy. ACT I. A pleasant home. A proud mother holds her baby-boy in her arms, rains kisses upon his lips, looks into his eyes, anil wonders what high station he is horn to till; looks dreamily into the future, sees herself aged, grav-haircd leaning UDOn her son as a tower u strength. King the hell, and let the curtain drop. ACT II. A printing office. Hoy at the case; thinks of Franklin, and (iree ley, ami the Bennetts, and the Harpers and as the type rattle into the "slick," amltitioii is "set up" with them. Hut the foul atmosphere of a printing office poisons his soul as well as his hlood The weary hours, past midnight, w hen he toils at the case to give unthinking thousands their niornini' paper with their coffee, jade his bodv. He must spur it to unnatural power. He tak in his hand that scorpion whip, Hum ! Km.' the hell, and let the curtain drop ! Ai T HI. Tented fields. The hat tie's hellish carnival ! Chicammtga Stone river ! A wounded soldier Andersonville anil its horrors ! Peace and home alive at last ! King the U II, and let the curtain drop ! Ait IV. A desert of red-hot sands. A drunkard's heavy feet dragging a shrieking soul across that terrible waste to that awful "at last!" Hit tout cutely sensitive, his will power gone ! Chained ! " Quit drink ! Quit drink ! Why, 1 would walk into that saloon, when the fit is on me, and drink if 1 knew that the next moment I should drop into hell! Hell ! Hell ! I am in hell ! Every day I suffer the tor ments of the damned ! There can he no more horrible hell P Drop the cur tain ! the pocket!" "Let me try it !" Crash! but the child will have within him Thud! There lies that proud mothei's 11 'ery nerve of appetite when he is boy ! Quick ! What is that in his born, which awaits only the liquid pocket ? A card ! What does it say ? ",rk "f the first glass to make It a " From a man who is about to die. 'aging, destroying contlagratiott. Ban me as I am, without a shroud. Thh is not rhetoric, but phs.iolngi- c been drunk three weeks, and can't Ct, which any physician who U iiber!" Head! Hv his own '" a quack will Corroborate. I keep son hand! "At the last, truly, it docs vc seen Ixiys sons of "moderate bite like a serpent and sting like an drinkers," men who never were the adder!" Quick! Quick! Kiugdown " worse for liquor," and yet who diank the curtain! Turn out the belli. ! daily I've seen their boys drunkards The tragedy is ended ! beferl they were ten ycais of age, and No! No! No! It is not! The "" l'w KU Ml road to a drunkerda or a suicide's grave is 11.1t the end ! There suiciile s graxe ! I tell x htrfJily is one act more ! Ood'l own haul W1 '"-. "! strong, merciless raises the curtain ! hands. Main a fat bet , long years dead, Ai r VI Eternity I Something It I reachea out from hl grtrtre that skeleton written over the door of the future : "'. p'tot agaml ins sons 'No drunkard shall inherit the king- ,uml '"'"V Btrl lomofOodP A desl royed soul ! No presses the fatal triggei that sends his light I No music! No hope! I)es- "Uiciiic-son into eternity : pair coiling around the heart, with tin- Patents (J.mPs wonl is jutt as true utlerable anguish ! Uliukncss of dark- '"' WBttl written 011 Ninailu UMtl ness forever! Woe! Woe ! Woe! of stone, lie say. that he will "xis.t cannot bear longer to look I Myeoullthe Iniquity of the lathen upon the sickens at this last ail of this tenible ihil.licn unto tin tluid and l.iuilb gen- life -tragedy ! Quick! Quick! Quick! elation." Ilewaie bow you put youi () merciful Father! Lei the curtain cbildien under ibis n 11101 . Ics. law of drop, and hide this eternity of horror ! moral gravitation. Coleman Hryxvit, aged only (I, a j, The band of Mcitty was umiii 00d mechanic, a brave soldici, a man that pistol also. of mote than ordinary ability, is dead ! "Whiskey did it !" And whiskey U Who killed him r sold at evi l) street c er, and mm let) 1. "Why," you say, "he killed him not only permit it, but legalize, it and self!" iharaa in the Mood-money. Wholieo. Ves. Years ago he U-gan that self- ti,.V ) We ate. Yes; your bund and murder, when he took that first glass f,u trigger ! We in his hand, just as some young men know that men will throng these ta- here, H-rhaps, have already begun loons and drink llicin.cU es ml. 1 In trial, their'.. He did not see that thai lint jV; that some of litem will . oititnit glass was ihaped like a pistol, but it murder, and nlhci. will iiiunler them, was! That first glass had blood in it ! Kes. We sec Coleman llrowus Hut be did not taste it, else it would thronging Otti saloons by the store, have been the last. And every day breeding fatal appetites, diseasing their since that first glass has his hand Im-cii KMic,, ,i.,oig their brains, breaking fastening its vice-like grasp tigbti 1 and ,1,,,, -ir wills and losing all self tighter upon that pistol ! Yes, he killed rc,,r-;,. And all this i. done hv the bin. sell ! His own hand grasped the i(uihrity of society, for a . . ila... price pistol ! His own finger pressed the , m(mcy that bl.H.I .Lured fatal trigger! Hut there were other w,ich w eagerly lake l. arise it fingers n that trigger, other hands MVC, m w n)Mch jn at (tilrHlK gras)cl the pistol. ,i, (, clcrv ,jm, M,r, , ,jfecl j. Was the hand of his own father tMlttm Wrlikey levies dollars .,f m one ' direct tasc ! Then when the saloons I do not know the Lets in this case, ,,ro,IKC icjr UjgiijmaL result when but this I know: That the parent i,c ,uu mIc1., or murderer blood trie. whose blood ami accretions are nar , eveii-oi!ey snatches away it. cotiaed with tobacco, or t with ff(mt tritf Krr. ,lrop ii. blood- Itiiuor. must transmit to hi child a let- .... ' 1 . , Act V.-A hardware Morel "It'.lrible legacy. That father may frel """7. ' " ' y a good pistol -well suited to carry inj none of the ill effceta of hi. indulgen-1 horror, ami erica: "What a reign of