Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 February 1875 — Delirium Tremens. [ARTICLE]

Delirium Tremens.

I had felt, coming on for two or three days. I was standing on the verge of a mighty precipice unable to-fetrace my steps and shuddering as I involuntarily leaned over and looked down into the vortex. That was to my wild and heated imagination a literal hell which opened up before me, and as I looked down into that awful lake of fire I could see the lost writhe, and hear them how lin their awful orgies. The wail, the curses, and the awful and unearthly ha! ha! came Tearfully clear and distinct from that horrid pit of fire that came up before me. I had got in that condition that my stomach would not bear one bite of food or drop of drink. I had been repelling from my stomach for three days every drop that I drank, so that I was getting terribly weak and nervous. I went into the bar-room and asked for a drink, and as I tremblingly poured it out a snake shot his head up out of the liquor, and with swaying head and glittering eye looking at me, licked out its forked red tongue and hissed in my face. I felt my blood run cold and curdle at my very heart. I left the glass hntouched and walked out on the street. By a terrible effort of my will I, to some extent, shook off the horrid phantom. I felt that if I could only get some stimulants to stay on my stomach I might escape the terrible torments that were gathering about me. And yet, at the very thought of touching the accursed stuff again, I could see the head of that snake again, and hear 10,000 hisses all around me, and feel serpents crawling and sliming through every vein of my body. Allnhe time I was burning and scorching to death for whisky. At that time 1 w'ould have marched across a

powder mine with a lighted match touched to it. I would have fearlessly marched before exploding cannons to get whisky. But these snakes were a new torture to me. i feared them more than any or all other warnings that I had ever had; yet mv thirst was so intense, and my sufferings so terrible that I resolved to try once more and get a drink of whisky and see if it would not steady and strengthen me so that I could get home before I died, for I f<?lt death in my tortured body and some invisible something told me that there was for me no escape from death. I walked into a saloon and called for whisky. I was afraid to touch the bottle and stood back while the murderer beiiind the bar poured out the damnation, and again that whisky turned to living, moving snakes, and they crawled around the glass and on the counter, hissing, writhing and squirming. Then in one instant they all coiled about each other and matted themselves into one snake with a hundred heads, and from every head forked tongues and glistening eyes hissed and gleamed at me. I rushed from the saloon and started, I did not know where. or care where, so that I might escape my tormentors. I had only rushed along a little way when a dog as large as a calf jumped up before me, and, with raised bristles and shining teeth, planted itself in my path. I picked up a stick about three feet long, thinking to defend myself. Just as soon as I took the stick in my hand it turned to a snake. I could feel its slimy body writhe and squirm in my hand, and in trying to hold it to keep it from biting me every finger-nail emt like a knife into the palm of my hand and the blood streamed down over that stick, which to me was a writhing, bloody snake. Hell is a heaven compared to what I suffered at that time. At last I dashed the accursed thing from me and ran as for my life. I got to the Little Miami depot and took the cars. At that time I did not know where I was. I went about ten miles above Cincinnati and left the train. At times, for awhile, I could reason and understand my situation. I soon found that I was in a town where a young man lived who had been my companion and schoolmate in the city. I went to him and told my condition. He did everything for me that can be done for one in that condition. But as night came on my tormentors returned in ten thousand hideous forms and drove me raving inad. I went to a hotel, where they pursued me, to lie down. Just as soon as I touched the bed I reached my hand over and it touched a cold, dead corpse. The room lighted up with a hundred bright

lights, and that dead body pow appeared to me like nothing that had ever been visible in human shape. It opened its glazed, dead eyes and stared me in the face. Then Its whole face and form turned to a demon and its wild eyes .gleamed at me, while its whole form was lull of pas Mon, fierceness and frenzy. I jumped from the bed, and as I shrank back from the loathsome monster everything in my room turned to living devils. Chairs, stand, bed, and my very clothes tdbk form and became living demons that crawled and sat about me, some hissing and others cursing me. Then all at once there appeared in the corner a form larger and more soul-sickening than all the others. Its appearance was more ghastly than any description I had ever read about witches and old hags. This mixture of devil and human marched right up to me with a face and look that will haunt me to my grave. It began by making threatening gestures and all the time talking to me, saying that it would thrust its fingers through my ribs and drink my blood. Then it would stretch out its long, bony, skeleton finger?; that looked like sharp knives, and ha! ha! Then it said it would sit upon me and press me into hell. That it would roast me with brimstone and dash my burnt entrails into my eyes. Saying this it sprang upon me and, for what seemed to me an age, I fought the unearthly thing. At last it said, “ Let me go,” and when I did it glided to the door and giving me one deadly look it said: “ I will soon be back with all the legions of hell, and then I will be the death of you; you shall not live one huur.” I left my room and wefit out into the night. Just as soon as I touched the street I put my foot on a dead body:' The whole sireet and pavement v£gls covered with dead men, women and children lying heaped close together with their cold, pale white faces turned up to heaven. Some looked like they were sleeping, while others seemed to have died in awfu' agony and their faces presented horrid contortions. Others had their eyes oursted from their heads and hanging 1 out on their faces. And when I would step on them th-y would come to lrc and with their bloody eyeballs glaring at nie raise up to my face and curse me. I could no move without placing my feet on dead bodies, and when I world step on a dead body it would open its oyes and cry; then the dead mother woiild rise up and pronounce a curse upon me for trampling tinder foot her child. And devils would surround me and with horrid oaths curse me for disturbing the dead. 1 would tremble and beg and try to fihd place to pat my feet, but the dead

were in heaps and covered all the ground, so that I coaid neither walk nor stand without-putting my feet on a dead body. I would stop and pant for breath, and then I could feel a corpse under my feet and it would raise up, throw its arms around me and curse me for tramping on it. It was in this way that I put in that whole night. —Cambridge City Tribune.