John Anderson’s Saloon

"The end of these things is death."

“Why do you mix that liquor with such care and give it to that child? You know he is not going to pay you for it?”

“I am making an investment.”

“How so?”

“Why you see that boy’s parents are very rich, and in course of time he will be one of my customers.”

“Well! John Anderson as old a sinner as I am, I wouldn’t do such a thing for my right hand.”

“What’s the harm? You are one of my best customers, did liquor ever harm you?”

“Yes it does harm me, and when I see young men beginning to drink, I feel like crying out, ’Young man you are in danger, don’t put your feet in the terrible flood, for ten to one you will be swamped.’”

“Well! this is the best joke of the season: Tom Cary preaching temperance. When do you expect to join the Crusade? But, Oh! talk is cheap.”

“Cheap or dear, John Anderson, when I saw you giving liquor to that innocent boy, I couldn’t help thinking of my poor Charley. He was just such a bright child as that, with beautiful brown eyes, and a fine forehead. Ah that boy had a mind; he was always ahead in his studies. But once when he was about twelve years old, I let him go on a travelling tour with his uncle. He was so agreeable and wide awake, his uncle liked to have him for company; but it was a dear trip to my poor Charley. During this journey they stopped at a hotel, and my brother gave him a glass of wine. Better for my dear boy had he given him a glass of strychnine. That one glass awakened within him a dreadful craving. It raged like a hungry fire. I talked to him, his mother pled with him, but it was no use, liquor was his master, and when he couldn’t get liquor I’ve known him to break into his pantry to get our burning fluid to assuage his thirst. Sometimes he would be sober for several weeks at a time, and then our hopes would brighten that Charley would be himself again, and then in an hour all our hopes would be dashed to the ground. It seemed as if a spell was upon him. He married a dear good girl, who was as true as steel, but all her entreaties for him to give up drinking were like beating the air. He drank, and drank, until he drank himself into the grave.”

By this time two or three loungers had gathered around John Anderson and Thomas Gary, and one of them said, “Mr. Gary you have had sad experience, why don’t you give up drinking yourself?”

“Give it up! because I can’t. To-day I would give one half of my farm if I could pass by this saloon and not feel that I wanted to come in. No, I feel that I am a slave. There was a time when I could have broken my chain, but it is too late now, and I say young men take warning by me and don’t make slaves and fools of yourselves.”

“Now, Tom Cary,” said John Anderson, “it is time for you to dry up, we have had enough of this foolishness, if you can’t govern yourself, the more’s the pity for you.”

Just then the newsboy came along crying: "Evening Mail. All about the dreadful murder! John Coots and James Loraine. Last edition. Buy a paper, Sir! Here’s your last edition, all ’bout the dreadful murder".

“John Coots,” said several voices all at once, “Why he’s been here a half dozen times today.”

“I’ve drank with him,” said one, “at that bar twice since noon. He had a strange look out of his eyes; and I heard him mutter something to himself.”

“Yes,” said another, “I heard him say he was going to kill somebody, ‘one or the other’s got to die,’ what does the paper say?”

“Love, Jealousy, and murder.”

“The old story,” said Anderson, looking somewhat relieved, “A woman’s at the bottom of it.”

“And liquor,” said Tom Cary, “is at the top of it.”

“I wish you would keep a civil tongue in your head,” said Anderson, scowling at Cary.

“Oh! never mind; Tom, will have his say. He’s got a knack of speaking out in meeting.”

“And a very disagreeable knack it is.”

“Oh never mind about Tom, read about the murder, and tend to Tom some other time.”

Eagerly and excitedly they read the dreadful news. A woman, frail and vicious, was at the bottom; a woman that neither of those men would have married as a gracious gift, was the guilty cause of one murder, and when the law would take its course, two deaths would lie at her door. Oh, the folly of some men, who, instead of striving to make home a thing of beauty, strength and grace, wander into forbidden pastures, and reap for themselves harvests of misery and disgrace. And all for what? Because of the allurements of some idle, vain and sinful woman who has armed herself against the peace, the purity and the progress of the fireside. Such women are the dry rot in the social fabric; they dig in the dark beneath the foundation stones of the home. Young men enter their houses, and over the mirror of their lives, comes the shadow of pollution. Companionship with them unprepares them for the pure, simple joys of a happy and virtuous home; a place which should be the best school for the affections; one of the fairest spots on earth and one of the brightest types of heaven. Such a home as this, may exist without wealth, luxury or display; but it cannot exist without the essential elements of purity, love and truth.

The story was read, and then came the various comments.

“Oh, it was dreadful,” said one. “Mr. Loraine belongs to one of the first families in the town; and what a cut it will be to them, not simply that he has been murdered, but murdered where he was-in the house of Lizzie Wilson. I knew her before she left husband and took to evil courses.”

“Oh, what a pity, I expect it will almost kill his wife, poor thing, I pity her from the bottom of my heart.”

“Why what’s the matter Harry Richards? You look as white as a sheet, and you are all of a tremor.”

“I’ve just come from the coroner’s inquest, had to be one of the witnesses. I am afraid it will go hard with Coots.”

“Why? What was the verdict of the jury?”

“They brought in a verdict of death by killing at the hands of John Coots.”

“Were you present at the murder?”

“Yes.”

“How did it happen?”

“Why you see John had been spending his money very freely on Lizzie Wilson, and he took it into his head because Loraine had made her some costly presents, that she had treated him rather coolly and wanted to ship him, and so he got dreadfully put out with Loraine and made some bitter threats against him. But I don’t believe he would have done the deed if he had been sober, but he’s been on a spree for several days and he was half crazy when he did it. Oh it was heartrending to see Loraine’s wife when they brought him home a corpse. She gave an awful shriek and fell to the floor, stiff as a poker; and his poor little children, it made my heart bleed to look at them; and his poor old mother. I am afraid it will be the death of her.”

In a large city with its varied interests, one event rapidly chases the other. Life-boats are stranded on the shores of time, pitiful wrecks of humanity are dashed amid the rocks and reefs of existence. Old faces disappear and new ones take their places and the stream of life ever hurries on to empty where death’s waters meet.

At the next sitting of the Court John Coots was arraigned, tried, and convicted of murder in the first degree. His lawyer tried to bring in a plea of emotional insanity but failed. If insane he was insane through the influence of strong drink. It was proven that he had made fierce threats against the life of Loraine, and the liquor in which he had so freely indulged had served to fire his brain and nerve his hand to carry out his wicked intent; and so the jury brought in its verdict, and he was sentenced to be executed, which sentence was duly performed and that closed another act of the sad drama. Intemperance and Sensuality had clasped hands together, and beneath their cruel fostering the gallows had borne its dreadful fruit of death. The light of one home had been quenched in gloom and guilt. A husband had broken over the barriers that God placed around the path of marital love, and his sun had gone down at mid-day. The sun which should have gilded the horizon of life and lent it additional charms, had gone down in darkness, yes, set behind the shadow of a thousand clouds. Innocent and unoffending childhood was robbed of a father’s care, and a once happy wife, and joyful mother sat down in her widow’s weeds with the mantle of a gloomier sorrow around her heart. And all for what? Oh who will justify the ways of God to man? Who will impress upon the mind of youth with its impulsiveness that it is a privilege as well as a duty to present the body to God, as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable in his sight. That God gives man no law that is not for his best advantage, and that the interests of humanity, and the laws of purity and self-denial all lie in the same direction, and the man who does not take care of his body must fail to take the best care of his soul; for the body should be temple for God’s holy spirit and the instrument to do his work, and we have no right to defile the one or blunt the other and thus render ourselves unfit for the Master’s service.