From Wealth to Poverty; Or, the Tricks of the Traffic. A Story of the Drink Curse

A short time after their marriage Richard inherited the business and property of his father, whose health had been failing for years, and who died quite unexpectedly. His mother never recovered from the shock, but in a short time followed her loved husband to the grave. So the son was left with a good business and ample means, seeming to be on the road to opulence.

As the years rolled on business prospered, and the prattle of children's voices gladdened their home. First a boy came, with the fair hair and large dreamy eyes of the mother; then, two years later, a girl with the dark eyes and the raven black hair of the father, and their cup of bliss seemed full to overflowing.

Circumstances, however, had already occurred which caused Ruth very much uneasiness of mind, and sometimes when a friend called she had to absent herself for a short time until she had removed the traces of her tears.

Richard had joined the "Liberal Club," and as he threw his whole soul into anything which he deemed worthy of his attention, his wife soon had grave fears that it absorbed too much of his time. Hours which should have been devoted to business were spent in discussing the political issues of the day, and she felt they suffered serious loss, for there were left to his employees important transactions which should have had his undivided attention; and the course he had pursued had alienated some of his best customers. The Liberal Club of which he was a member was composed of the most ultra of the Radicals in that section of country-in fact a great many of its members had been participants in the Chartist agitation, and, a short time after Ashton joined, they invited Henry Vincent, the celebrated agitator, to deliver an address, he, while he remained in town, being the guest of Ashton. This gave great offence to many of his best customers-not only to those who were ultratories, but also to the whigs, and, as a consequence, many of them left him and gave their patronage to rival establishments.

This, however, was not the worst feature of the case; there was another and a stronger motive power to accelerate his already rapid descent. He, with many more of the prominent members of the "Liberal Club," was also among those who are called liberals in their religious views. This could not be tolerated for a moment by those among his customers who were decided in their religious convictions, for they were fully convinced that a person who held such opinions was a dangerous man in any community. They therefore withdrew their patronage, which completed the ruin of his formerly prosperous business, for it did not afterwards pay running expenses.

This state of things greatly alarmed Ruth, and was the source of much sorrow. But there were greater sorrows to follow.

When we are struggling with difficulties and environed by circumstances which have a tendency to make us miserable, we must not imagine that we have sounded the deepest depths of the abyss of woe, for if we do we may discover there are depths we have not yet fathomed. This Ruth Ashton soon bitterly realized, for her husband had of late frequently returned from the Club so much under the influence of liquor as to be thick in his speech and wild, extravagant and foolish in his actions, which caused her many hours of unutterable anguish.

When he first began to drink she was not seriously alarmed, it being the custom in England, at their convivial parties, to pledge each other in wine; and since on such occasions it frequently happened that they imbibed, enough, not only to make them a little exuberant but also quite intoxicated, she thought she must not expect her husband to be different from other men in this respect, as it was at most only a venial offence. But now when his troubles thickened, and his friends one after another left him, and he began to drink more deeply to drown his cares and to stimulate him to meet his difficulties, her partial anxiety deepened into agony, strong and intense. She made loving remonstrance, appealing to him if he loved wife and children to leave the "Club," and not destroy his business and thus involve them all in ruin. Also, frequently, when the children were fast asleep in their little cot, as she looked with a mother's tenderness and pride upon them, thinking what a picture of innocence and beauty they presented as their heads nestled lovingly together on the pillow-the raven-black and gold mingling in beautiful confusion-she would kneel beside them, and as the deepest, holiest feelings of her heart were stirred, she would pray that the one who was so dear to them all might be redeemed from evil and become again a loving husband, a kind father, and a child of God.

Richard at first received her gentle remonstrance with good-natured banter, and generally turned it off with a playful witticism. He asked her if she had not enough confidence in him to believe he was sufficiently master of himself to take a glass with a friend without degenerating into a sot, and he used very strong expletives when speaking of those who were so weak as not to be able to take a glass without making fools of themselves.

But he would not allow even Ruth to influence him in regard to his political predilections, for, when she tried to persuade him to take a more moderate course, he sternly replied he would not desist from exercising what he believed to be his right, not even for her, much as he loved her. He said it was his proud boast that he was a Briton, and as such he would be free-free not only to hold his opinions, but to act upon his convictions, and any man who would withdraw his support from him because he would not be a slave was a petty tyrant, and if such an one was not a Nero it was because he lacked the power, not the spirit.

So matters went from bad to worse with Richard Ashton, not only in regard to the moral, but, also, in the financial aspect of the case. In fact he had soon to draw so largely on his banker that the money his father had left him, outside of the business, began to be seriously diminished. Josh Billings says, "When a man begins to slide down hill he finds it greased for the occasion." And certainly the case of Richard Ashton illustrated the truth of the aphorism, for when he once began to go down hill his descent was so rapid that he soon reached the bottom; and became bankrupt in capital and character. He now began to talk of selling out and going to America: "There," he said, with much emphasis, "I shall be free."