A DOWNWARD COURSE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 280, 16 March 1877, Page 4

A DOWNWARD COURSE.

(AuakUuni "• Ev»nlnif Star." Jtoeli 1.)

Connected with the death of the unfortunate jprf Poulgrain in Chancery-street feat weefc> there is a most melancholy ■tery showing the steadiness of the downward cot»se,tfiiß family who lived in a street eflf Manukau Read, Parnell, owning a little cottage ©n unclaimed land. A few year* ago the family seemed respectable and mdtwfcrWs,. bat habit* of dissipation have completely wrecked it until two oi the inexnber* have met dishonourable deaths, and the rest are left homeless vagabonds. Three months. ago the mother, after a protracted fit of drunkenness, in which she was not sober for three weeks, died suddenly. One of the daughters had previously been in the habit of going te> iervice for a period, and then ret timing home for a spree with the rest. The other daughter has been a familar habitue at the Police Court for all the offences that are usually connected with such a life m hers. The fate of the mother offered no- warning, but rather seemed to sever the only connecting link between the Quiet happiness of the past—if there ever was such a season—with the wretched misery of th« present. The daughter abandoned all habits of industry and plunged unrestrainedly into the vortex of the vilest and most abandoned habits. The father occupied the same hoose, living- upon the infamous earnings of his own child The daughter, whose sad end formed the subject of a coroner's investigation, did not trve with the others, but seemed to have dipped even deeper into the moral mire. .Finally, aIH other means being exhausted, the father sold his house to> an expressman for £?k whi<;b was speedily expended in a drunken orgie. The daughter took refuge in a neighbour's house. When his money had run out, the man returned to his former home, where he demanded admittance, and was allowed a night's lodging. Sinew then he has slept on the iKtehanics' Bay reelaniation. A more painful picture in a Colony where industrious men and women migUt obtain ample and remunerative employHwint it is impossible to imagine, yet the case is but a sampU) of the many wideh daily provide work for our Police Court.