A CRUEL HUSBAND.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 409, 6 July 1880, Page 3

A CRUEL HUSBAND.

The woll-meaning temperance lecturers vrho denounce the wickedness of fermen - tation may occasionally be guilty of exaggeration, but when they speak of the cruelty of the drunkard to his family they cannot posibly use language that is too strong. Even the ablest of our professional drunkards, the man who is never guilty of either violence or bad language when intoxicated, subjects his family to a cruel disgrace. The very existence of the habitual drunkard is cruelty to his wife and children, and the only drunkard who is not cruel is the one who manages to kill himself at an early period in his professional career. Of the various forms of active and voluntary cruelty of which the drunkard is guilty, an appalling catalogue might be made. He is constantly discovering some new method of inflicting pain and disgrace upon his unfortunate family, and an ingenious Western drunkard of much local intoxicated reputation has lately managed to make even his occasional lapse into temporary sobriety a source of acute suffering to his family. The drunkard in question, Mr Alonzo B. Davis, has been in the active exercise of his profession for nearly ten years, and is universally regarded as the'most energetic and accomplished drunkard in Potts County, Ind. lie has been in the constant habit cf returning to his house, at about midnight, in an advanced state of drunkenness, for several years, and during the 17 months preceding the 4th of January, 1880, he never lost a single night by sobriety. Mrs Davis is a most estimable and amiable woman, and in spite of her husband's disgraceful conduct has steadily clung to him. Night after night has she sat up for the degraded man in order to help him upstairs and take off his boots. With the self respect of a true woman she has never allowed him to treat her with violence, but has always promptly knocked him down with a base-ball club whenever he showed symptoms of muscular brutality. A nioro\ ttnder, and devoted wife a man never had, and yet Mr Davis , i requited her kindness by continuing k> live where there was a river, a railroad, 'Ahrce buzK-jSaws, and any quantity of kc\roaeuc in the town, with

the aid of which he might at any moment have had a fatal and beneficent accident. On the night of the 4th of January Mrs Davis was, as usual, sitting up in her bedroom and waiting for her wretched husband. It was nearly 11 o'clock. The night was cold, and the candle was almo/it burned out. In the corner stood the base ball club ready to be used in case of necessity, and on the mantelpiece the eight-day clock drowsily ticked away the waning hours. Tired Mrs Davis herself grew drowsy and when a loud ring at the front door bell aroused her, she found that she had fallen asleep, and that the candle was out. Without waiting to light another candle, the faithful wife felt her way downstairs opened the door and admitted the drunkard. He was even more drunk than usual, for he could not articulate a single word. Mrs Davis had immense difficulty in assisting him up stains, for he insisted upon sitting down at every separata step and falling asleep. There were 22 steps in all, and it took three-quarters of an hour to get him up to the top of the stairs, down which he promptly foil again. Nothing, however, can exhaust the patience of a good woman, and about half-past 12 Mrs Davis succeeded in bringing her charge into the bedroom and placing him on the sofa, where he instantly and permanently went to sleep.

Under the circumstances she resolved to let him he there, and thus avoid the trouble of lighting a, candle. So she 'loosed his cVlar, ("row o!f his boots, placed a stick of wood under his head, and inserted a piece of soap in his month as a hint to stop snoring. Having thus made him comfortable for the night she was about to prepare herself for bed, when the front door was opened with a latch-key and a man sprang , hastily np stairs and rushed into the room. Mrs Davis, being , a woman of much presence of mind, screamed out 'Fire!' and hastily lit the candle, so that she could see how to brgai operations with the club on the supposed burglar. To her unspoken horror the newcomer was her husband in a state of complete sobriety. He had not been so hopelessly and aggressively sober in ten years, and as he looked at the drunkard on the sofa, recognised him as a certain dissolute neighbour and then, in sepulchral tones, said—' Mary !is this my reward for signing the pledge ?' Mrs Davis felt that her cup was full. In the darkness of the nighfc, and trusting implicitly to the habitual drunkenness of her husband, she had innocently taken the wrong drunkard to her room, and now her cruel husband has betrayed her confidence by actually venturing to come home sober at the most inopportune moment possible.

The probability is that the poor woman will be sent home in disgrace to her mother. Mr Davis assumes to regard himself in the light of a betrayed and wronged husband, and refuses to accept Mrs Davis's explanation. She now feels that the crowniii# cruelty of his life was his unexpected sobriety. That after all the ymirs of his constant drunkenness, he should suddenly, and without any warning, come home sober was indeed, refinement of cruelty of which only the most, hardened of men could be guilty— Neio York Times.