THE CURSE OF THE WINE "INDUSTRY."
By Mae Guthrie Tongie
[Mae Guthrie Tongie, in Union Signal.] HERE is a bit of history from real life:— A young married couple came out from Germany, and settled in Sonoma County, Cal. The man planted a vineyard, and began to make wine, of which the family partook freely. Six children were born. One of these—a little boy—was found dead, having fallen upon his pocket knife. Another son died of typhoid fever when about twenty years of age—died with a curse upon his lips. Another died at the beginning of young manhood of quick consumption, aggravated by the use of wine. Another mounted his horse one day, and rode away, and never returned. The supposition is that he drowned in fording the river while intoxicated. The fifth and last son developed heart disease as the result of excessive wine-drinking, and died subsequently from the effects of a blow from his drunken father. The only daughter died in an insane asylum. The mother, a woman of some refinement, became insane, and died from the effects of drinking and her husband's brutality. The father was the last to succumb, meeting a wretched death, the victim of his own insatiable appetite for wine. The foregoing is but one of several similar instances where whole families have been wiped out as by the hand of some pursuing Nemesis. With tears running down her cheeks, a gentle Christian woman—my hostess for a day and night—said, as we parted: " When I came here ten years ago, my two older sons were pure and good. Today they are both drunkards. O, this wine business is an awful thing! It is an octopus that drinks the blood of human hearts," and her eyes rested anxiously upon the fair-haired boy of fifteen years, her third and youngest son.