USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Weymouth > Town annual report of Weymouth 1883 > Part 9
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Ida F. Taylor
Grant
1st and 3d
320
August 11. 1882
Lucy G. Tucker
Pleasant Street .
4th and 5th
340
Sept. 7, 1883
Katie C. Koehan
320
August 17, 1881
J. W. Armington
Hunt .
9th
900
April
6, 1870
Hattie B. Baker .
66
Sth
400
April
20,1883
Mary J. Moore .
7th
400
April
20. 1883
Sara E. Wilbar
66
6th
380
Jan. 27,1882
Antoinette W. Knights
Lincoln
5th
340
August
1,1879
S. Lizzie Hunt .
66
. 1st
320
August, 29, 1879
Emma F. Parker
Tufts
4th
340
August 28, 1876
Hannah E. Ward ..
66
3d
320
August 28, 1876
Hattie E. Darcy .
2d
320
August 11, 1882
Hattie L. Reed
66
1st
320
March
30, 1882
George C Torrey
Pratt .
. 7th to 9th
900
August 25, 1873
Sarah W. Spilsted
360
Jan.
4,1875
Ellena N. Spilsted
Holbrook
Ist to 6th
360
August 29, 1873
Sophia L. Vining
Shaw
7th to 9th
500
Nov. 20,1871
Mary E. Grundstrom
66
Ist to 3d
320
August 29, 1879
Alice Ford
Centre
. 1st to 5th, and 8th
340
April
20,1883
Edgar R. Downs
Bates .
8th and 9th
900
Feb.
6,1880
Lizzie L. Whitman
400
Jan.
5, 1875
Mary L. Bates .
360
August 26, 1881
Mrs. M. A. Morrill
Howe.
3d and 4tlı
340
Sept.
1,1860
Ella M. Clark .
1st and 2d
320
July 27,1883
Mrs. E. J. Smith
Thomas
1st to 6th
340
Dec. 16, 1872
Martha E. Belcher
Pond .
1st to 6th
340
August
9,1878
Lenna B. Cook
Hollis
Ist to 6th
340
Sept.
12, 1881
HIGH SCHOOLS.
Robert E. Denfeld .
North High
10th to 13th
1,200
July
17,1882
Edith A. Parkhurst
..
500
August 31, 1882
Carrie A. Tower
66
360
July
17,1883
Nathaniel S. French
South High
0th to 13th
1,200
August 11, 1882
Harriet C. Torrey .
66
500
April
10, 1882
66
4th to 6th
360
Dec. 28. 1883
Mrs. L. B. Holbrook
WARD V.
Ist
WARD III.
WARD IV.
1st to 6th
7th
5th and 6th
** Grades Ist to 3d are primary; 4th to 6th, intermediate; 7th to 9th, grammar; 10th to 13th, high.
-
WARD I.
WARD II.
Ist to 4th
1st
4th
High Street 66
d
165
SUMMARY OF STATISTICS.
Population of town, according to census of 1880
10,578
Number of children in town between five and fifteen years of age by school census of May, 1883 : -
Ward I.
289
II. .
702
66
III. .
425
66
IV.
263
66
V.
·
294
Total
1,973
No. of Scholars Enrolled.
No. enrolled over 15 Years of age.
No. of Teachers.
Ward I.
300
10
7
II.
683
22
15
“ III.
470
19
10
" IV.
267
10
8
North High School
99
78
3
South High School
47
30
2
Total
2,191
182
54
V.
325
13
9
This table is based upon the school registers for the year ending June 29, 1883. 1
-
No. 143.
THE MAN WHO COULD TAKE CARE OF HIMSELF.
--
BY MRS. J. D. CHAPLIN.
ENSATIONAL stories, however good their moral, fade away like pictures in the cloud ; but facts, properly presented, remain before the mind with lessons of hope or warning. There is no fiction in the following sad story. God's eye looks down to-day on the desolate scene described, and his ear hears the groans that are pressed from a mother's heart by the evil doing of those she loves.
Some years ago there lived in a neighboring city, in great style, & rich and elegant man of the world with a gente Christian wife, whose chief earthly joy and care lay in her three beautiful boys. This gentle- man drank wine at his dinner and at the club-room, but had no more fear of being a drunkard than of being a leper. He drank, however, "a little more" every year. Indeed, he "felt the need of it," as all moderate drinkers do. Finally the boys began to taste the cup, and, while yet at school, could judge of wines and criticise their flavor as skilfully as did their father. The mother had thus far been asleep to the danger, but she now began to urge her husband to "give up wine for the sake of his example on her sons." But he "knew what he was about, and could take care of himself without the help of a woman !"
This sharp speech was a new demonstration of the destroyer's band. Then she admitted for the first time to herself that he was a drunkard.
Before long there was proof that one of the sons could not "take care of himself," and a heavy loss in business, reducing the wealth of the family about this time, led the mother to lay plans for their salvation.
She proposed leaving the city and finding some pleasant rural home where their reduced income would be an ample support ; but, while she was planning, and urging, and entreating, the club-room, the gilded saloon, and the meaner "bar" were doing their work on these fine-look- ing youths, who were just entering manhood.
Before long the degradation of the father ceased to be a secret in the neighborhood, and frequently it required all the strength of two nien te get him from his carriage to liis chamber. Business was now utterly neglected ; raslı schemes were entered into, and mad risks were run, till there was no longer money to keep up such an extravagant style of living without seizing on the lady's patrimony, which had hitherto, according to her father's expressed wish, been kept sacred against soins great emergency.
.
2
THE MAN WHO COULD TAKE CARE OF HIMSELF.
The husband, seeing the wreck of his own estates, felt that " the great emergency " had come, and consented to leave the city if she would pass her property over to him for family uses.
The poor woman now realized fully that she was the wife and mother of drunkards, and thought this a small sacrifice for their salvation. Before her plan could be carried out, however, the hopeful mother had fierce flames to pass through. Hitherto her youngest son had but once or twice "gone," in his father's words, "a little too far." But onenigbs, as she sat watching for his return, while the small hours were passing, she was startled by violent ringing at the door, accompanied by loud voices and terrific cursing. This was the death-knell of her hopes for that time. Two policemen brought in her boy of seventeen years, the darling of her heart, raging with drink, and pouring out profanity, till then a stranger to his lips. When he saw her pale face, he burst into a fit of wild weeping, and, throwing his arms around her neck, ho shrieked out : "O mother ! I'm your boy for all this. Oh ! love me still. Can't you save me ? They are all trying to ruin me, body and soul ! Take me away from father and the boys, and never let me out of your sight again ! Take me away from them ! Hide me-anywhere-in prison- in the grave-only where there's no brandy ! It is burning out my brain ! O mother, mother !"
Let all women who have yielded up pure-hearted and undefiled young sons to God stand dumb before this mother's anguish, and thank heaven that their boys are safe, beyond the reach of the tempter !
In a rich but almost wilderness region, a long day's journey from the city, there lay a farm with wondrous advantages for cultivation as well as of scenery. Hills rose on every side, forming, as it seemed to this crushed woman, a little world of her own to which the destroyer could not gain access. A lovely lake, shadowing on its surface high hills and tall forest trees, lay before the house ; and far off, between opcnings in the hills, were seen other lakes and distant villages and towns.
The road which led to this (what seemed a mansion of peace to that poor tired heart) led no further ; no stage brought dangerous passengers, no sly expressman conveyed mysterious packages, boxes, or demijohns. She felt that a new paradise had been found ; and again, as when her boys were in their cradle, her poor heart began to draw fair pictures of an honorable and happy manhood for them. The husband consented to go there, as there was fine hunting and fishing there !
The plan of this family was not to take up a rude life, but to carry all that betokened their intelligence and refinement with them to their new home. Their costly library, their rare gems of art-many of which they had inherited-were so much a part of their home that no place would seem like home without them. And these pictures, marbles, and bronzes made a strange display in the low, broad parlor of the old farm-house.
The autumn was in its glory, and heaven seemed opening new joys to this fond mother as she gathered her family around her, nine miles away from any stronghold of their enemy ! If ever a poor heart turned to heaven in gratitude, it was hers, in the few short days of triumph that
2
THE MAN WHO COULD TAKE CARE OF HIMSELF.
followed. The world was dead to her, now that she had saved her family :
But very soon the dream was broken ; for when they came, "Satan came also " to that quiet retreat. Among the furniture and supplies there had come a cask of brandy and cases of raro wines, which very Boon revealed their work to her ! When the heart-broken woman asked, "What did you come up here for ?" her husband replied :
" I came to drink myself to death away from the eyes of the mul- titudo ! "
" And what can I do for my sons ?" she cried in despair.
"Let them drink themselves to death, too ; they are too far gone now for anything else," was the heartless reply.
But still her hopo did not fail, and sho wrought on, trying to make home happy, and looking for the day when this brandy would be gone, and no more could be found in the forest.
The old man kept the key to his horrid treasure, which lay hidden in a closet in the harness-room. But once, when beyond the power of car- ing for it, his eldest son, to whom heaven had given the form and the head of an Apollo, robbed him of his keys, and, with thirst whetted by partial abstinence, they all again drank deeply and madly. They sang, they swore, they shrieked, and they laughed, till their few rustic neigh- bors, who had looked on them as beings of a loftier sphere, came to see what had befallen them !
In the midst of the uproar the father awoke from his drunken slum- bers, and with a faint show of parental authority commanded silence. This, and the threats which accompanied it, so aroused the demon in the breasts of the two eldest sons that they flew at their helpless father, and dealt blow after blow on hisdefenceless head ; and, but that their brother and mother interfered, would have murdered him on the spot. As it was, ho was sorely wounded, and the patient martyr mother was dashed, while fainting, from the room, and lay bleeding in the hall !
Her youngest son, less wild than his brothers, attempted to revenge the wrong dono her, when a scene ensued which could not be rivalled in North Street or at the Five Points for brutality. The father and his sons engaged in a promiscuous fight, making the tasteful parlor a scene of horrible bloodshed ! The servants, well used to such scenes, removed their mistress to her room ; and soon the noise ceased, and the stillness of death reigned in the parlor, now turned into a dormitory for the 1
debased men.
When the morning broke, the sun looked in on the scene of those fearful orgies, and disclosed the work of the night. Thousands of dol- lars' worth of pictures, marbles, and bronzes had been destroyed by drunken violence ! The legs of a chair had been thrust through the canvas of a matchless Titian. Venus had lost her head by a fall from her pedestal ; Jupiter's face was marred, and Juno ruined. What were the marvels of the brush or the chisel to these infuriated madmen ? If they had no pity on the mother who bore them, what cared they for cold marble and senseless bronze ?
4
THE MAN WHO COULD TAKE CARE OF HIMSELF.
The two younger sons were terribly crushed and humiliated when they saw their desolation and heard the moans of their mother. But the rage of the father and his eldest son was aroused anew at the sight of each other ; and, exhausted as they were, they sprang up afresh liks tigers, and fought like prize-fighters, till the mother was forced to send for her neighbors to separate them, and, finally, for a sheriff to imprison ber first-born, lest he might kill his father.
Then, in the wild confusion of that awful day, the youngest son, not yet eighteen years old, pleaded with his mother to send him at once to the Inebriate Asylum, that she might, perchance, have one son to stand by her to the last.
But the father, who now held all her property in his hands, refused to "waste money on asylums," adding, "If the boy isn't a fool, he can take care of himself, as I do !"
And the poor boy, who was struggling in his fetters, cried out : "Let me go as a pauper, then-only save me from the smell of brandy and wine."
To-day the man of mercy, at the head of that asylum, is helping the poor boy, in God's name, to crush the foe, and to rise in the strength of a new manhood to do his work in life.
Satan, in going to and fro and up and down in the earth, inspired one of his emissaries to establish a distillery so near that the fumes of his poison reached the lungs, and killed the feeble efforts at reform, of these wrecked "gentlemen."
"Ruin " is written on the dwelling ; for everything but nature and the mother's love has fallen to decay there. Money and land are melt- ing away like snow beneath the sun ; and when this poor woman shall fall into the rest of the grave, her husband and sons will very soon be paupers.
Can the dens of poverty and ignorance show a deeper degradation than this ? Is there no danger for men of wealth and culture, and for their children ? Is it not time that the churches of God-the mightiest power in the land-rise strong in the might of their great Leader, and lay this foe of humanity in the dust ?
Let us get help from politicians, if we can, but let us not rely on it in this warfare ; for there are politicians, not a few, who would sell a soul for every vote. But let us rely on our power with the God of bat- tlos, and call mightily on him to crush this foul foo of humanity, and to break his power in high as well as in low places.
Let those who pray ask God's pity for that broken-hearted mother, who is now living in hourly peril of her life, and who yet refuses the shelter of her early home, in the sad hope that she may yet save the souls of her husband and her sons.
Was there ever earthly sorrow like unto her sorrow ?
PUBLISHED BY THE NATIONAL TEMPERANCE SOCIETY AND PUBLICA- TION HOUSE, NO. 58 READE STREET, TWO DOORS WEST OF
BROADWAY, NEW YORK, AT $3 PER THOUSAND
INDEX.
Selectmen's Report. 3
Receipts and Expenditures 6 Schools 9
Highways 32
Fire Department 56
Miscellaneous, etc., etc.
.67
State Aid, Chap. 301
79
Trial Balance. 822
Oran White's Report 83
Assets, Town Debt, etc.
84
Report of Overseers .
86
Expenses, Supplies, etc. 88
Inventory
91
Receipts.
93
State Relief, Chap. 252 102
Trial Balance .103
Auditors' Report. 104
Paupers in Almshouse
105
Town Clerk's Report 106
Engineers'
120
Assessors'
123
Trustees Tufts Library Report 125
Treasurer “
128
Report of Committee on Town History 130
Report of the School Committee 133
Report of Superintendent of Schools 143
7
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