A Story of a Wrecked Life.
The most thrilling and sadly suggestive temperance lecture is the sight of a once noble, talented man, left in ruins by intoxicating drink. A Washington letter tells of a ragged beggar, well known in the streets of that city, who once held an important command in the army, having been promoted for personal bravery, from a cavalry lieutenant to nearly the highest rank in military service. One night recently, when he had been too successful in begging liquor to sate his craving, and while lying helplessly drunk in the rear part of a Third Street saloon, some men thought to play a joke on him by stealing his shirt, and proceeded to strip him. Underneath his shirt, and suspended by a string from his neck, was a small canvass bag, which the men opened, and found it contained his commission as Brevet Major-General, two congratulatory letters—one from General Grant and one from President Lincoln—a photograph of a little girl, and a curl of hair—a "chestnut shadow" that doubtless one day crept over the brow of some loved one. When these things were discovered, even the half-drunken men who found them felt a respect for the man's former greatness, and pity for his fallen condition, and quietly returned the bag and its contents to where they found them, and replaced the sleeper's clothes upon him. When a reporter tried to interview the man, and endeavored to learn something of his life for the past few years, he refused to communicate anything. He cried like a child when told how his right name and position were ascertained, and, with tears trickling down his cheeks, said:— "For God's sake, sir, don't publish my degradation, or my name, at least, if you are determined to say something about it. It is enough that I know myself how low I have become. Will you please promise that much? It will do no good, but will do my friends a great deal of harm, as fortunately they think I died in South America, where I went at the close of the war." Intemperance and the gambling table, he said, had wrought his ruin.