The Sad Fate of Rumsellers.
“The Rumseller,” says T. P. Hunt, “is wont to die a bankrupt—his sons and clerks to die drunkards—his daughters to marry drunkards—and his family to waste away by the ravages of vice.” Says a merchant, “I have been engaged in trade and commerce in this city upward of twenty-two years, and occupied the store I am now in during the whole time. Not an individual originally near me is now to be found, save three flour merchants. In casting my eyes around the old neighborhood, and looking back to the period above mentioned, I ask, Where are they now? On my left were a father and his two sons, grocers, in prosperous business. The sons went down to the grave several years since in poverty, confirmed drunkards. On my right was a firm of long and respectable standing, engaged in foreign commerce, the junior partner of which some years since died, confirmed in this habit. Five or six doors above, was one holding a highly responsible position under our State Government. At first, he was seen to stop and take a little gin and water; and soon he was seen staggering in the street; presently he was laid in the grave, a victim to intemperance. On the corner immediately opposite my store, was a grocer, doing a moderate business. Being addicted to drink, in a state of intoxication he went into the upper loft of his store at noon-day, put fire into an open keg having powder in it, blew the roof off his store, and himself into eternity. One door beyond this corner was a father, an officer in one of our churches, a grocer, and his two sons. Both sons have long since been numbered with the dead, through the effects of drink; a son-in-law of the above father, pursuing the same business, following the practice of the sons, has come to the same end; a young man, clerk and successor in the same store, has also gone down to the grave from the same cause. On the other side of the Slip, a wealthy grocer died, leaving a family of several young men, three of whom, together with a sister and her husband, have since died in poverty, confirmed drunkards. Next door to this, a junior partner of one of the most respectable grocers in this city, has long since followed the above from the same cause, leaving behind him two brothers, comparatively young in years, but old in this vice, now living on the charity of friends.”