of a horse; he had received a liberal education; his morals
had been carefully attended to; his parents were people of large
property, and this son I always deemed his mother's favourite son; and
now in his very prime, when he might have been a blessing to society,
when in his successful professional career his parents might have reaped
a reward, when the heart of some loving, tender, trusting woman might
have joyed in his love, when fair young children, calling him father,
might have clustered round his knees, he is dying, I am told, before
their very eyes, slowly, and with agony, from the terrible effects of
drink. And does it not really seem as if there were a curse attaching to
those connected with the trade? A week or two since, had you been
passing down Bridges-street into the Strand late on a Saturday night, or
early on a Sunday morning, on a door-step, in spite of the pouring rain,
you might have seen a woman, in her rags and loneliness, trying to gather
a few hours of sleep. She was too weak to pursue her unhallowed calling,
and had she been so disposed on that cold, wet night, it would have been
of little avail had she walked the streets. The policeman as he goes his
monotonous rounds tells her to move on. She wakes up, gets upon her
legs, hobbles along, and then, when he is past, again, weary and wayworn,
seeks the friendly door-step. The policeman returns; "What, here still?"
he exclaims. Ah yes! she has not power to move away. She is weak, ill,
dying. The friendly police carry her to the neighbouring hospital. "She
cannot be received here," says Routine, and she is taken to the
workhouse. Again she is taken to the hospital, admitted at last--for is
she not a woman, and a young one, too?--not more than twenty-five, it
appears,--and on her face, stained with intemperance and sin, there is
the dread stamp of death--in this case, perhaps, a welcome messenger; for
who would live, fallen, friendless, forsaken, with a diseased body and a
broken heart? "The spirit of a man can sustain his infirmity; but a
wounded spirit who can bear?" Peace be with her! in another hour or two
she will have done with this wretched life of hers, and have gone where
"the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." More than
usual official cruelty is visible in this case, for all that is given her
between her admission and her death is a simple cup of tea; and the
coroner's verdict very properly censures the hos