Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 116, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 October 1904 — AID FOR DRUNKARDS. [ARTICLE]

AID FOR DRUNKARDS.

Salvationists Have a Novel Plan for Regeneration in Chicago. Drunkards are to receive in Chicago this winter a degree of care and attention never bestowed on them since dipsomania overtook the descendants of the occupants of Eden’s garden. A “stretcher corps” is being organized by the Salvation army for relief work among the victims of strong drink. Before the frost has seared -the autumn leaves the work will be fully organized and in full blast. The “gutter soaks” will have found a friend. They will be picked up in the night, when irresponsible and not able to care for themselves, and in the morning instead of receiving ass fine—to be worked out in the bridewell; —'they will be -given five-minute lectures on the evils of drunkenness—the lecturers being the Salvation army officers who found them intoxicated the previous evening and placed them in free beds where they might sober up. Equipped with streachers the squads of officers constituting the drunkards’ rescuers will make the rounds of the squalid districts of the city at night, pick up those who appear to be completely overcome with liquor and carry them to one of the seven hotels maintained by the Salivation army in Chicago and in which more than 250,000 guests were accommodated last year. In every hotel or home maintained by the Salvation army a number of rooms will be set aside for the special purpose of accommodating the inebriated persona who may be brought in by the stretcher corps in the night. After they have revived their names and addresses will be taken. If they have homes and are susceptible of influence and approach, an acquaintance will be formed and social visits, made at their residences. In this way the nucleus will be laid for further work, which, the army authorities believe, will ripen into an effective scheme of reform.