p. 9 | WHO IS SHE?

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 1, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 39.

"WHO IS SHE?"

A NEW YORK physician relates the following fact:—

A few weeks ago he was called to the help of a man who was mortally wounded in one of the low dance halls or "dives" of that city. When he had attended his patient, the doctor looked curiously about him. The wounded man lay before the bar, against which lounged some drunken old sots. In the next room a few young men, flushed and bright-eyed, were playing cards, while the gaudily dressed barmaids carried about the liquor. But neither the gamblers nor the drunkards paid any attention to the dying man on the floor. They squabbled and laughed, deaf to his groans. The proprietor of the dive, a burly fellow, who had been a prize-fighter in his younger days, having seen the police secure the murderer, had gone back quietly to his work of mixing drinks. Death, apparently, had no interest or terror for these people.

Suddenly a little old woman with white hair, a thin shawl about her, came to the street door. Her appearance produced a startling effect. The besotted old men at the bar put down their glasses and looked uneasy; the card players hastily shut the door to keep out of sight of her, and the barmaids huddled together in silence; but the change in the brutal landlord was most striking. He rose hastily and came up to her, an expression of terror on his face.

"Is James here?" she asked gently.

"No, no; he is not here. I do not know where he is," he said hurriedly.

She looked around bewildered and said:— "I was sure he was here. If he comes will you tell him his mother wants him, sir?"

"Yes, yes," he said, and the man urged her out of the door. The physician soon followed, and saw her going into another and another dive and grog-shop along the street.

"Who is she?" he asked of a policeman outside. "Is she any danger?"

The man shook his head significantly. "They will not harm her, sir. They’ve done their worst to her. She is the widow of a clergyman, and she had one son, a boy of sixteen years. They lived happily and comfortable enough till he took to going to pool rooms, and then to the variety theaters, and at last to these dives here. He was killed in one of them in a fight three months ago—in that very one you were just now in—and was carried home to her, bloated from drink, covered with blood, and dead. She knows nothing since. She only remembers that he came to these houses, and she goes about them searching for him every day. They are afraid to see her. They think she brings a curse on them. But they won’t harm her; they’ve done their worst to her."

This is a true story. How many sons of loving mothers are going down like this boy into these dark places to-day?—Youth’s Companion.