Sins of Parents Visited upon the Children.
By Merritt E. Cornell
WHEN men can find no more to say against the fourth commandment, they will sometimes assail the second. They cannot see how it is that the iniquity of the father is visited upon the children from generation to generation. The following clipped from the New York Tribune may serve as an eye-opener to some of them. M. E. CORNELL. BORN DRUNK.—Among the names registered at the Tombs was that of a youth about fifteen years of age, who had been arrested for drunkenness. But he was not drunk, nor had he been drinking. He was moreover, in good, sound health, but gave all the external indications of being intoxicated when arrested by a police officer. Upon protesting to the keeper of the Tombs that he was not intoxicated, it was revealed that the unfortunate youth had been born a natural drunkard, or rather, that he had always acted like such a thing. He said that although in good health, he had never been able to walk without staggering. His speech was not unlike that of persons in a decided state of intoxication; and when excited, would mutter and reel. The unfortunate youth was detained until the next day, and was not sent to the courts to be gazed at through judicial spectacles. A subsequent investigation of the case proved that the lad had been telling the truth about himself, but his condition revealed a demonstration of the natural law that the child is a fair copy of his parents. It appears that prior to marriage the father had been a secret, but confirmed, inebriate. Months passed away, when it was discovered that the child at three years of age acted strangely; and at the end of six months the unhappy woman fully realized all her forebodings. The effect produced upon the mother was not without its influence upon the father, however. Realizing, in the midst of tears of the bitterest anguish, the sin that had been visited upon the child, the man reformed. He has now several bright children, and most exemplary ones, too, they are. But the boy that was brought into the Tombs was not drunk, but had entailed upon him a life of misery, as it were a blasted destiny.