Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 2, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 January 1859 — The End of a Fashionable Laday. [ARTICLE]

The End of a Fashionable Laday.

One of the most melancholy events of the old yetr was the decease in New York, on the last day of December, of a Mrs-. Hughes, (the widow of Colonel Hughes-of the army,) but a shojrt time since a boarder amid the luxuries and splendor of the Metropolitan and Prescott Hotels—a lady of education,of refinement, of beauty, and but thirty-five years of age, died in a tenantless house, the victim of rum. By the testimony of her little son of only eight years old, she had sold evfery article of clothing to buy rum. This little innocent lad was three days at one thifb without food, and in the mother’s mnd-

ness she repeatedly had attempted to take his life. Here is a portion of that child's testimony on the Coroner inquest: “I was once three days with nothing to eat except a little piece of bread; my mother used to drink a great deal; a few days before she died she wanted an ax to kill me; soon after she had another crazy fit, and wanted to get a knife to kill me; just before she died she said she was very cold; she asked me to take hold of her hands and lead her to the fire; she then had a very wild, strange look,<»nd soon afterward died; my mother took off all her cluthes, ‘every single bit,’ and sold them to obtain rum; I pledged a skirt for her at a drinking-shop for six cents; they told me I could get it again for seven cents; she took oil' her clothes, one by one, and sold them until all were gone, so she had nothing on her; she sold her chemise last to a woman that came in for three cents, and sent for brandy with it; I am eight years of age.” , Hew terrible such an end! llow awful such a warning!