"LEST WE FORGET"—AN INDEPENDENCE DAY INCIDENT.
[From a news item in the The Evening Telegram, New York, July 5, 1898.] THE patient was a tiny little girl—a sickly product of the slums, who had been found huddled in the corner of a side street suffering excruciating pain from severe burns on the soles of her feet . . . We asked her why she wore no shoes, but the question seemed to scare her strangely. It was only when the matron found in the little street arab's pocket a pawn ticket that the girl confessed and the mystery was evaporated. She told how her parents had started early in the day to celebrate the glorious anniversary of American independence, and she had been kept continually running for pints of beer, until the heat had made her drowsy and a dizziness had gathered on her. While on her last trip she had fallen, and dropped and lost the precious dime which was to buy beer for her brutal parents. Fearing to return home without the liquid refreshment—for she knew the beating which awaited her—she had done as her parents had often done before,—pawned her shoes to get the price of drink. She had not reckoned on the heated pavements and the blistering asphalt which lay in her path from the pawn-shop to the beer saloon, and thus her delicate little feet were burned until she could bear it no longer, and she fell to the sidewalk in agony. This is no romance. It is a true story of an Independence day merrymaking. We sought to notify the parents, but they were past the point of understanding.