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Show "DRINK DID IT" A man living at the point of death, and the one who fired the shot lying in the county jail has the old, old story attached to it. "Drink did it." Big-ler, Big-ler, who did the shooting, was insanely drunk ; he did not recover consciousness until this morning, and was almost inconsolable when told he had shot his friend. Wringing his hands, he several times repeated, "Drink did it." Nephi telegi'am to Salt Lake Tribune. What a shocking moral is contained in the few words of confession of this unfortunate man, now in prison for shooting his friend. Here is another painful admission on the part of a man who was executed a few weeks ago in Bristol, England: "I did it. Whiskey, whiskey, whiskey," was the exclamation ex-clamation of hapless Willie Hole, when taken into custody for murdering his wife, Alice. The murderer mur-derer was a barge owner, had carried on a large business, and occupied at one time a very respectable respect-able position among his friends and acquaintances. For some years he had been a church member and a temperance man, but, forsaking his church, he and his wife became habitual drunkards. Their bad habits led to frequent quarrels, ending in the murder of his wife by the "wretched man. The cases of Bigler and Hole are not altogether exceptional, they are but horrible examples of what is occurring occur-ring too frequently in every city of our country. 'Did 'you notice that fine looking man that left the office just as you came in ?" asked a physician of us the other day. ( He was a marked man physically, tall and well formed, with the stoop of the scholar in his shoul-, shoul-, ders. "He was the Congregational pastor of a fashionable church in one of our cities, but was obliged to send in his resignation a few week3 ago. He has become an almost helpless victim of an appetite ap-petite for strong drink. He has been seen under the influence of liquor in some of our lowest saloons; sa-loons; and his last pastorate was the third he has been obliged to leave for the same cause. He is a man of more than ordinary ability, was especially popular in his last charge, and it almost broke the hearts of some of his best friends to be obliged to demand his resignation. He began the use of stimulants stim-ulants on account of nervous irritability and overwork, over-work, and now his appetite for alcohol masters his will. His is a pitiable case indeed, for he has a wife and two young daughters dependent on him He was here . to consult me about the Keelev cure " We are too apt to forget the terrible scourge that lies in this frigntful temptation. Here is the startling admission of an eminently great man and bishop. Cardinal Manning, not long before the end of his long and useful life, said at a temperance meeting- held in Exeter Souare, London: "For thirty-five years I have been priest and bishop in London, and I now approach my eightieth year. I have learned some lessons, and the first is this : The chief bar to the working of the Holy Spirit of God in the souls of men and women is intoxicating drink. I know of no antagonist to that good spirit, more direct, more subtle, more stealthy, more ubiquitous ubiq-uitous than intoxicating drink. Though I have known men and women destroyed from all manner of reasons, yet I know of no cause that affects man, woman, child and home with suclj universality of steady power as intoxicating drink." Referring to the man whom the drink habit has conquered, here is what Owen Meredith says: . . . "I hold that man to be but a coward slave who bears the plague-Spot about him, and knowing it, shrinks or fears To brand it out, though the burning knife should hiss in the heart's hot tears." There was some philosophy and more truth in the remark of the Nevada stage-driver to Artemus Ward, who, when crossing the divide, offered the driver a drink from his flask: "Stranger, thank you, I don't drink. I'm of the opinion of these mountains keep your top cool. They've got snow and I've got brains that's all the difference." There's a wealth of wisdom in the sententious remark, "Keep your top cool." |