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Show ptd Leacte Morgue Then to Potters Field " I tMrffed Hobso of tho ;Gay life. Wljj i few days ago that Florence SiA the ga', wilful Virginian , Er who!9 escapades mado her mrffo worlds, died the day after Staf bBfore her death, she die- Jtrtlcle that appears on this page. "feechsnck thought that she had jsar .to live, and she had de-.-Bfc devote overy working hour to vr girls of the path she had 9h P7 primrose path, whose end 9pixed grave of Potter Field. EeTO6 to have boon her first x&M .he would have taught in It mfei by Death, and it is more ttcov perhaps than It would Htvitb its writer still alive. EbtB&i it will be remembered, daughter of Dr. Powhattan i retired surgeon of the United jjkracd member of one of the 'k'Ckilea Wilson, a -whip in the jB&rMlt stables. She had tired Ei7ln the seaport town of Nor-K&to Nor-K&to wanted to see the world. 4 And what she saw and ex- Be gayest of lives in New York, 4pkif9 her Btory.her warning to j eH n5iy e tempted to tread I he Career of Miss Florence Schenck, Who Realized the Fatal Folly of Her Misspent Lite jfs. When It Was too Late And the " Lesson It Preaches to Women cF ' ' .Florence Schenck at the Height -of -'Her Gay, Misspent Life, I 'Beware the Path I Trod!" : By Florence Schenck, - Dictated by tier Three Days Before Her Death.) pify'fatUcr, in answer to my ;Hptdltig8, came to flee me in my Hfc.'hlni through ray tears- I Hi fr the sob In my throat. m Pwhand, tliluklng: "Poor father! HfBKMny a shipwreck down home, . B.mDretm11)le t1mn tllis of llls :Btte." I stared up Into his face StarBand sad. I whispered: 3 MSS ps uPn m? forehead and ' P'h choke in his throat. Bw"! sister Ann came in and m cried. She went out of the 1 KfaoctoKcame lu 5lIlfi they and E'jKlat bru,setl slde aQrt ti9 MEKvhere the surgeons had made HfflW&tod all of them looked very Uwds I loolcod up at father F iHKf Te long, my daughter," he lE vrl'1 be but a short time. ViHKto recover it will only mean Bp We will be that of an in- . IBBlTe reputed, have you not? ,BvfltcVer tlmc Is left to you in L llR S5 against tho path you B PFiTd" t0 moreUe nnti K ' And tQlB js the way I J, a Httlo better. Tliat they A Br. ft ?lh Knowing that it ''tBn Umc aud that inevitn-iBT inevitn-iBT 0r8e alul tnen the end IH :IBffir' lnflt time of being u llt-t llt-t gjfcy Widen time It is theu 7 ' BE0? tf- RS to my old home at fP ES14 be 100 severe a cross S C L?ame 19 temptation, for K f m,1 51031 taents or the KSf S 1 Wh!ch ls tnc hlllty i v ertn2neJles-,ana Eayoty. Even i - ; M8andcS2Ul Wreatlle(1 lu K Ko E J n smalt city, for WSu tna thero ve quietly t S ( roin tlle Platform or .fc'MU u,!01111 cnios. Always 1C T M.WllRefl f Pl" 13 W,U address myself Plfit YlD,lcrllllt'a Private telB Wi nnmp oE tn car jPlvstlux,1.,,a 1,01 ''now It then. KHSo! fl;r'es.au1 'f ent of K Amit 5Sara ar?(1 of cU people who belonged to tho smiling world, where there is no fear mingled with the thought of paying next month's bills. I had forsaken the work world where I bad been a stenographer, working in the Fair Grqunds at the Jamestown Exposition at seven dollars n week, and had entered the play world, where I had nothing to do but look pretty and be gay spirited. This alone would not have seemed justification justi-fication to me for leaving my home. But I had at my elbow and flguratively at my feet a man with whom I was infatuated, Charles Wilson, whom I had met at the Horse Show, while I was admiring the Vander-bilt Vander-bilt horses. I saw that he admired me and I wns llattered. When ho began to mnke , love to me I believed him. When I got aboard the Wayfarer I believed that he would marry me when we reached New: York. Instead he took me to his home at Isew-nort Isew-nort when a sweet faced, grayhaired woman greeted me kindly and called him Charlie. When X asked him who sho was, lie said: "Don't make a fuss about it. Shea my wife!" , , I left their home In Newport and came to Ncw York. He followed me here. I threatened to go home and toll my fatter everything. . . "You'll not Ptay long," he sneered. They'll kick von out. Do you suppose an F. F. V. will have such a girl as you now are under its roof?" y,m Although ho spoke in anger. I lnww no told tho truth. I had always admired and lovod my father, but I knew him as ho was, a proud, stern man with little sympathy for the weaknesses of human nature. I had been very weak and foolish. fool-ish. That I loved this man who had strewn my life path with wreckage whm I was onlv seventeen years old would do little excuse to him. Southerners are hot. headed an well as high-spirited. L I told father the truth he might follow Charles Wilson aud kill him. Before that thought 1 quailed. Often a woman s heart .is traitor trai-tor to her own best interests. I rematajd in Now York. Wilson told me he would divorce his wife and marry mo. I tried to believe him and I waited. i hoped and prayed for the "we when, re-habilitated, re-habilitated, as his wife, I could pay a visit to my homo. But waiting is a ngeroua pastime in Now York. Especially if you are young and beautiful. If I went out for a walk my appeara noe attracted attention. I was lwea costed, or was followed home, by some nrin usually one with cruel eyes and a predatory mouth. Often I reach ed borne fust In time to slam the door in his face, if I dared to go to. a play in the after- nTn;vasWvelonaely" Charles Wilson's travels wltStho Vanderbllts hones and 1,1s care for them at the stables in New York and in Newport kept him busy. I saw him seldom, and then for -only a short time If you are very clover you can amuse vmirself. You can study and read. Your thoughts are ZZS But If you are only pretty and depei dene tho hours you are alone are hours or tor- 'Tiiu.o ueuvo a girl like me saj-;, "too- The Sad, Aged Face of Florence Schenck a Month Before Her Death A. Broken,, Miserable Old Woman ut 25. pie have different ideas of hades. Mine ls just being alone" When you are alono, if you are such a arlrl, thoughts aasall you. You see your-Bolf your-Bolf deserted, starving, dying and alono. STou think of a way out You plan sul-olde sul-olde but you are afraid. In those long hours alone whllo I was waiting .for Charles Wilson to keep his promise I learned to drink. A girl who was blue and lonely like myself advised It. "It will drive away the blue dovlls. You'll think you are a prin-oess prin-oess for a little while," sho said. Two glasses of champagne made my head whirl, mado mo dance and sing. made me laugh, -made mo build air castles of the time when I should go home and introduce my husband and when my mother should take mo In hor arms and say, "Daughter, T forglv.e you." Tho next time I was alone and blue I drank again, this time threo glasses. I kept on comforting myself thus In secret. Once Wilson came to call and found me unconscious, with the empty bottle and glnss beside mo. Ho was very angry. We quarrolled. He stayed away. I entreated lxim to oomo back'. It was tho beginning of many scenes between us. Whether he would have willingly kept his words had I not In those months of waiting formed the habit of drinking. 1 don't know. I havo never been sure. But of this I am sure. It gave him nn excuse for procrastinating. It gavo him reason to tell mo that hlB love wns gone becauso tho girl who had como from Norfolk with him was gone. My mirror told mo that this tlmo he told the truth. I was not tho samo girl. My figure was losing its slim, youthful lines. My features were bloated. My eyes were 'smaller and the lids wore heavy. My fresh color had disappeared and had given way to a gray, pasty look. I was sober tho morning I looked Into the mirror and paw the truth that all I had, my beaut', was vanishing. I threw myself on the bed nnd cried for hours. I promised myself to stop dr"'-'!1. OoDvrlnht. 101J. by the Btar Commxny But that evening some gay friends telephoned tele-phoned mo of a party that was being made np at a rathskeller to watch 'tho old year out and the new In. I knew I should bo alone. I went. I slept all of tho next day. When I awoke I knew what that heavy torpor meant. I - had drunk too much, far too much. I had become a slave. Let me tell you what it is to become a slave to drink. It Is to become utterly hopeless. It Is to become incapable of effort of any kind, oven effort of the will. Friends tried to "pull me up." They suggested Paris. But I felt only the call of the cafes in Mont- &ffiB martre. I -went to London. 1 fStIS handled the Vanderbllt horses gHgttl now and them and the papers talked of .ha .Virginia, beauty WSjl who was so clever a whip. But .pro all the while a voice whispered c wjSj to me when I was alone, "You '&WH are not beautiful. You are not tffiHI " happy. You are not gay. You t&yfrm only seem to be. You and your kind aro QPPleS of Sodom, beau-?'-isg tlful outside, but ashes within the GBhes of despair Charles Wllson'B mood to-$P(&-a ward me varied. Sometimes he fwJl was kind. At others cruel. He secured ttils divorce. There '1 was a ceremony. I have brought wiaSa a suit to prove that I became SEhb bls legal "wlfe That BUlt la 1 pending. , IIPN But ne afterward married an- Wm&& other. A young, lovely girl, s$S& with such a face of innocence iM$li -as 1 uad wnon 1 fir3t met hIm g$Jl The news drove me frantic. I Lypai watched for them one day, and lilt'lS when they drove up to the sta- !jaS! ton I threw myself In her path Is!?!'- and told her my 8tor "He 15 not your husband. He's mine," SgjpM! I said, pointing at him. A crowd ("slsgB collected. He had me arrested. "tplrPs I served a term In Holloway fllEr Jall wlth my golden hair, that wBEMW jj6 ha(j often said was my chief beauty, cut off. When I had served my term I searched London for friends and help. I wont to Paris and was arrested at the station sta-tion for disorderly conduct Thirty days. When I spoke people lookod at me with contempt and drew away. My story was written in my bloated features, In my eyes, that betrayed my secret I was a drunkard. One night I sat all night while the cold gray tfog came up from the river and wraped me round, on one of tho benches on tho Embankment, with other human wrecks. Once I tried to kill myself, but in that, aB in everything else in .my life, I failed. I drifted back to America, half of my passage paid by charitable Americans. I told my story to those I had known In my first days in New York. They doled out money to me, a little at a time. Faying, I POTTER'S FIELD. (81 The End of the Primrose" PatKi Wj "Spend it for food, not rum, Florence." fllja I didn't follow their advice. A chart iffSl! table woman wrote my parents. My own HERi mother answered, saying her heart was jrHS j broken, but that they had given mo up, jfflBi that my case was hopeless. juwC A klndhearted woman places me with jfPfK the good sisters in a convent near Har- W& j rlson, New York! They were kind to mo jj $ ( but they would give mo nothing to drink. Hm j I craved drink. I went mad for it I climbed the high convent wall, ran to tho ft station, found a dollar on tho station floor a B I where some one had dropped it and paid j ff my faro to Now York. When I arrived I m went straight to a cafo. I asked tho pro- fittl prletor, who had known mo in prosperous Wjm times, to trust me for the drinks. I tele ttffil phoned a woman friend who came and fw paid for them, though sho did grudgingly. R1 "I suppose I'll have to get you out of Uwi hock, you fool," she said. QjH "That'B it" I said. "I'm a fool. I am jPfl filled with the folly that you pour out of in a bottle." OKI Since then Fve lived about on the boun- Kul ty of former frlendB who pitied me. My Wm health and strength were gone. I lay in bed all day, awaking only to drink myself fl into n stupor. To be sober was to realize HH the depths to which I had fallen and that flSl was torment for then the flno sensibilities WM I had inherited from gentle folk awoke hi 'wfll me and lashed me as with whips. IfijH Then came this last terrible illness that iljyij sooner or later will prove fatal. There Is no hope for me. Drink caused the ab- Arai domlnal walls to become encysted. It mtt hardened my liver. I am dying, though fflif! tediously, slowly. There is no hope for Mm me. But thero Is hope that I may say mjm what will warn other girls from a fato mm like mine. ISlf I havo seen other girls slip slowly down Wot to perdition as I have done and oven more fig? rapidly. That dreaded disease, "swift jpl consumption," ls not quicker than drink SLJ when it devours Borne bodies and blights cfu some souls. w "Do you drink'?" I hoard a physician ask Ws a beautiful young actress. 4n "No." she replied, her clear eyes looking obM Into his, corroborating her story. "Why WmH do you ask?" WSQ "Because," he replied, "if you did you jfrai would be dead or Insane in three weeks." ImmR Hers, ho explnlned, wns a delicately mm organized constitution upon which liquor MmH would work havoc, rapidly destroying her 3n nerves and putting out the lamp of her awn! life. wm I know a girl who is beautiful as tho arm dawn, her beauty of the fresh, delicious fl! sort of dew-kissed violets. Yet that girl fSli Bits all day in cafes, drinking brandy and MwS finishing the day with doses of cocaine. elan The doctors say that at most she can Wfm live two months. ifUfll Drink is tho greatest danger that threat- Wfim ens a woman's footsteps, for it Is the be- ffln ginning of all other pitfalls. Avoid tho HfS first glasB and regard the friend who offers mW you a first glass from that time as on f enemy. raiSf Old men give the advice: "Keep your HiSl head." You cannot keep your head with Kjflv demonB of brandy or green devilB of ab slnthe dancing in your brain. Rkjl Old women tell you to guard well your JjfeiHJ heart, for that way danger lies. You can- Btfi not guard your heart while fumes of HIM strong drink are muddling your ideas. At mWI Btich time every one seems a friend and B)a! Bvoryono Is enwrapped In romance. fijis! The greatest safeguard a girl can havo Mai ls a fear a hatred of strong drink nnd of WSw the drugB that follow. fil-fl Drink and drugs are sign posts on the m path whltfh leadB by way of the Morgue to Potter's Field. My way, your way, tho las way thatbeglns in forced gayety and ends Wa i In despair, the way not of mirth, but of Uyli I misery, abject and hopeless. vmu j |