or otherwise abuse an unresisting victim?  Are they aware of the fact that the fallen are still human, and that, as guardians of the peace, they are bound to yet be merciful while discharging their duties?  I have heard of more than one instance where men, and even women, were treated on and before arriving at the station house as no decent man would treat a dog.  Such policemen are decidedly more interested in the extra pay they get on each arrest than in serving the best interests of the community.  Many a poor man has been arrested when slightly intoxicated, and driven to desperation by the brutality of the police, that, under charitable and kind treatment, would have been saved.  And I wish to ask a civilized and Christian people, if it is just the thing to take a man afflicted with the terrible disease of drunkenness, and thrust him into a loathsome, dirty cell?  Would it not be not only more human, but also more in accord with the spirit of our intelligent and liberal age, to convey him to a hospital?  I leave the discussion of this subject to other and abler hands.

At one time the grand jury at Rushville met and found a number of indictments against me.  I was drunk at the time, but by some means learned that an officer had a writ to arrest me.  I started at once to go to my father’s.  I was without means to get a conveyance, and so I started afoot out the Jeffersonville railroad.  I had then been drunk about one month, and was bordering on delirium tremens.  After walking a mile or more, my boot rubbed my foot so that I drew it off and walked on barefooted.  My feelings can not be imagined.  Fear and terror froze my blood.  The night came on dark and dismal, and a flood of bitter, wretched thoughts swept over me, crushing me to the earth.  Before me in the distance appeared the head-light of an engine.  It seemed to look at me like a demon’s eye, and beckon me on to destruction.  I heard voices which whispered in my ears—­“now is the time.”  A shudder crept over me.  Should I end my miserable existence?  I knew that a train of cars was coming.  I could lie down on the track, and no one would ever know but I had been accidentally killed.  Then I thought of my father, and brothers, and sisters, and as a glimpse of their suffering entered my mind, I felt myself held back.  A great struggle went on between life and death.  It ended in favor of life, and I fled from the railroad.  I soon lost my way and wandered blindly over the fields and through the woods all that night.  I was perishing for liquor when daylight came.  In order to assuage my burning appetite I climbed over a fence, and, picking up a dirty, rusty wash-pan which had been thrown away, I drank a quart of water which I dipped from a horse-trough.  My skin was dry and parched, and my blood was in a blaze.  When I came to grassy plots I lay down and bathed my face in the cold dew, and also bared my arms and moistened them in the cool, damp grass.