THE BELISLE FAMILY TROUBLE

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8, 10 January 1905, Page 2

THE BELISLE FAMILY TROUBLE

I B.v Mas A dele:r.) "Mr? Bel_le." said tbe magi—rate, as he took his seat, "what is the difficulty between yon and yonr husband?" "I'll tell your honor. One night last month, when I reproved him. very gently of course, for coming home from a. torchlight procession drunk, and trying: to get into bed with his boots on, he took —-damn- to kill himself with. T called in the doctor. and the doctor got a stonia_-p_mp j and pumped him out. When he came to, be was awfn! mad. and shock his fist at mc, said — " 'Ton old hap. I'll die in spite of yon." ! "That"? what be said to mt'' j "Didn't I set. 'Darling, I want to sleep ! sweetly beneath the violets, with the an- ' gels?" as—sd llclislc. "No. yon didct. And. judge, that very morning he drank a whole bottle of camphor that I bought to keep tbe moths out of Susje's flannel petticoats, and so I had to call in the doctor to pump him out again. He was madder than ever. Said b"d die anyhow, and his ghost would come back and haunt the house and smash all the dishes on the _tenen dresser." "Yon have forgotten. Ellen. What I said was that I would return to be yonr guardian angel—that's what I said. And yon said that I would be a healthy old guardian angel if I came in. drunk,_s nsnal.l thought, at the time it was very unkind." "And so, judge, what does he do but go in thai very afternoon and gulp down all the cockroach poison in the house. - I thought he was really dead this time; but I ran out and bought a stomach pump of my own. so as always to be prepared, and " "It was a silver-plated one. with a bone I hsndie, you know," said Mr Bells le, smilj .uc blandly. ■ "And so I saved his life again. He got j over it. and you never saw a man so crazy j with rage He accused mc of being so j mean as to want to save his funeral e_j penses. and he said he was determined to kill himself, and to leave a will which would compel mc to sell the furniture to bury him and put np a magnificent monument over him."' "Don't you belie - -e her, jadge,*" said Belisle. "I merely asked her when she put mc In the coffin to pin her second-best breastpin on my shirt front, and to plant honeysuckles o_ my grave. I think she made some unkind remark abont preferring to plant onions.'" "When I came home from market that evening, I found that he bad taken a large dose of croton oil. and was dying. I ran lor the stomach pump. He heard mc. and, raising his body feebly, said, with a fiendish chuckie: 'You red-headed tramp. I've beaten yon this time; I've punched a hole in the sucker." " 'Golden-haired angel" was the phrase I used, judge"' "And it was so," continued Mrs Belisle; "he had really ruined the valve of the pnmp. and " "The silver-plated one with the bone handle, she means, your honor," said Belisle. "And I had to send ont for the doctor again. We bailed him onr. after an hour's bard work, and then he sat up and enrsed . and swore at us In the most violent and i_- ! decent manner, so that " •"1 _erei3" remarked, your bomor. in tones J i-< tbe gentlest rem uiistrsDC.-. that it was ■ 'i":?e_tlemsT.'y fnr a medical practitii'nsr I 1 > ;sr.r. 4 r -a --.son's; interior with such enerry — 10 cause his toes to be drawn inward i —id his esophagus to pull up under his J chin." j "And he dashed at the doctor and tried to strike him."' "I only wanted to give him the Knights of Pythias' grip, your honor, said Belisle. "So the doctor left, and two hours afterwards Thomas locked himself in the garret and ate a paper full of arsenic The doctor had to climb up tbe fight—fig rod and crawl in through the window. Then he opened the door and let mc ia, and when we put the pump in Thomas' _onth he bit the tube in two, and the doctor had to give him ipecac and bold him by the legs while he shook him ont the garret window. I am nearly dead with worrying. If costs mc three pounds a week for doctors, stomach pumps, and repairs to perforated suckers, and I want the protection of the law." "And 1 invoke the strong __ of the law for the suppression of violence in the operation of stomach pumps," said Belisle. "I hold yon in £100 bail to keep the peace." said the iustice. 'iCant give it," replied Belisle. "Then a month iv prison," said the magistrate. ' Til go," said Belisle, grandly. "But, j Ellen, mark mc I shall swallow my pocket | knife and my bunch of keys, and on Tues- I day night ne»t my apparition will haunt you, and make each particular red hair to stand on end the very minute It gets dark." j They led him away, and Mrs Belisle vent : idly home - I