A PHASE OF LIFE AT NEW YORK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6255, 3 December 1881, Page 7

A PHASE OF LIFE AT NEW YORK.

A yery wealthy and well-known man died here recently whose life contains an impressive moral. He was self-made, and had by remarkable energy, shrewdness, and perseverance early acquired a comfortable competency. Possessed of many sterling virtues—a kind heart and a generous hand among others—he had a passion for low company and course pleasures which he had never controlled. His will and constitution alike were strong, and his business habits as fixed as his moral habits were loose. He could spend the night in debauch, catch an hour or two of sleep, take a bath, eat a hearty breakfast, and be ready for a hard day's work as early as eight or nine o'clock. Licentiousness seemed to be in his blood ; but he never allowed it to interfere with practical affairs. When he was sixty he enjoyed profligacy as a boy might, and bad tastes which most free livers correct before 30. Haviug married early—such a man should never marry—he had a number of children, three of whom, a boy and two girls grew to maturity. They were badly reared, of course, and were greatly hurt by the example of their father, who did not care to hide his grossness even from his children. The son naturally imitated his parent; but he had neither his brain nor his force, although equally dissolute. The result was that he became a drunkard. The not unusual effort was made to reform him by inducing a pure, good girl to become his wife. It is needless to say that be did not reform ; he simply ruined her happiness and continued to sink deeper himself. She died wretchedly, and he, grown to be a common sot, committed suicide. The man's daughters found husbands who were their father's companions in dissipation. They were also intemperate, and were constant subjects of repulsive gossip. They had no sensibility and little self-respect. Their domestic life was most unfortunate ; they did not separate from their husbands, because the behaviour of both was well nigh equally culpable. They were, and are, the sort of women whom certain men affect, and the better kind of women never name, and instinctively shun. Their mother, who had ardently loved her liege in the beginning, was so neglected, and her confidence so abused, that she came ultimately to detest hitn, and the two passed the years in mutual anger and distrust. He might have altered when he had seen the ruin of his home ; but then it was too late. So he tried to drown the bitter memories which he himself had evoked by following his vicious course uaflaggingly. He might, with any degree of moderation or prudence, have lasted to SO; but his excesses wore him out before five and sixty ; his business talent and energy remaining unimpaired to the last. He left a splendid house —it had never been a home —in which there are a dozen skeletons in every closet, and where every material luxury is associated with anguish, mortification, and remorse. When one looks at that magnificent pile, and recalls his history, its handsomeness dissolves, it seems more unattactive than the humblest cabin, whose occupants have never drunk the poisoned wine of lawless pleasure.