Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1875 — A Sad Sight. [ARTICLE]

A Sad Sight.

A correspondent of the St. Louis Republican says, in writing of a visit to a private lunatic asylum: " Several of the inmates walked about in the large yard, and down one walk a quantity of water had been run in and it had made a splendid slide Well wrapped up in mittens and furs there w-as the aged mother ot the two ladies I had accompanied, going down that slide in ten-year-old stvle, and hanging cn by the fence, crawling back and taking her place behind a girl of sixteen, to have a slide when her turn ca ne. Down sat my two friends and began to cry. ‘ O mother, mother!’ sobbed the younger,* *1 do believe you’ll break my heart!’ I’m not hard-hearted, but for the life of me if the tears came as I looked on the two daughters, the laugh came quick enough as I saw the old lady. She took a little short run, she sailed up with that inevitable hop all women take when they slide, and she went down the ice as stiff as a poker, with her mouth wide open, and plunged into the snow 7 bank at the foot of the yard. Then she clambered up and blew her fingers, put on her red mittens and toiled back, hugging the fence, laughing with much glee at the downfall of another skater. It was no crying matter to me. And a magnificent prospect would open up before us women if we knew that al fifiy.five or sixty we were going to be coasting down-hill, and huckleberry ing our ojd age away in mittensand a