MISAPPLIED WEALTH.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 18, Issue 1208, 28 December 1871, Page 2

MISAPPLIED WEALTH.

A late Melbourne paper tells the following sad story:—lt necessarily takes some time to drink away a fortune of ,£3,000, but we have those amongst us who attempt the task and partially succeed in it. The stoiy told of the Malcolm family is an illustration in point. They succeeded some time ago to a legacy of the sum stated, and husband and wife >eem to have at once commenced a drunken orgie, vying with each other as to who could take the most liquor. It must have been a question of physical endurance, and the husband as the weaker vessel went to the wall j that is to say he went mad, died, and was buried, leaving behind him a widow and three children. Not at all sobered by the calamity that had occurred; the woman continued kerdrnnken habits, and finding a congenial partner in a dirty old man, named Molloy, cohabited with him. At last the woman's mental and physical powers gave way, her children were often dependent for food and attention on tha kindness of neighbors, and one kinder than the rest gave the mother into custody of the police as a lunatic. After the woman's arrest one of the. children was found with a <£so note in his possession, and a woman of ill fame gave the police another note for tha same amount, which the lunatic had given to her in the watchhonse. The old man Molloy had meanwhile taken away a cash-box which one of the boys, declared his mother kept her money in, and it is impossible to say therefore, how much has been stolen fiom the poor children. Molloy was subsequent ly arrested, but only an " empty " cashbox was found in his possession. This is not the first public instance in this city of misapplied Avealth, and without moralizing on what good might have been done had the recipients of this, handsome sum of money not been drunkards, the circumstances point strongly in fas or of the movement that is on foot for the establishment of an inebriate asylum for. people of the Malcolm class. Had such an institution been available it is probable that husband and wife or boih might have taken advantage of it in some lucid interval, and have made provision for their young family instead of leaving : them friendless orphans and all but paupers on the bounty of the state.