And went through drink, disease and death,
As swift as racing flame.

Lawless and homeless, foul they died;
Rich, loved, and praised the men;
But when they all shall meet with God,
And Justice speaks--What then?

--Stopford A. Brooke.

E. A. B.

CHAPTER XXX.

HELEN CHAMBERS, SOME OTHER GIRLS AND "DAISY."

This is the story of Helen Chambers as told in a special dispatch from
Kansas City, Missouri, to the Republican of Joliet, Illinois, and
published in that newspaper August 5, 1909. Drink, drugs and debauchery
hurried this winsome and respected girl to her coffin before nineteen
years had passed over her head. She is one of thousands who perish
similarly every year in this beautiful land of churches and colleges.

FIRST DRINK SENDS GIRL TO HER RUIN.

Died a Drug Fiend.

Kansas City, Mo., Aug. 5.--On last New Year's eve Helen Chambers,
daughter of a respected family of Aurora, a girl not yet 18 years old
and still a student in the high school, with a girl companion went to
Chicago. There in a cafe Helen Chambers took her first drink. She took
several drinks, and before the night was over was enjoying to the
fullest the fascinations of a life that she had never known before.

After a lapse of several months Helen Chambers died at the general
hospital this morning of a reaction following an operation. Her system
had been too weakened by dissipation to recover from the shock. A mental
and physical wreck, she had gone to the hospital in the vain hope of
relief.

Lives Two Weeks on Absinthe.

Within seven months Helen Chambers, the simple Aurora girl crowded
events into her life that would have been good measure for as many
years. From the simple drinks that she indulged in on her first night,
which marked the passing of the old year, she went in for the stronger
ones. For two weeks prior to being taken to the general hospital she
virtually lived on absinthe, and at the last she began using morphine. A
message to her mother, still living in Aurora, received no response and
the girl, with her life slowly ebbing out, dozed restlessly through
weary and tortuous minutes until the end came.

"I was just quitting high school," she said yesterday, when asked to
tell her story. "On New Year's eve I went to Chicago with another girl.
We met two boys and went to a cafe, where the New Year's celebration was
just starting. I didn't know what it was like, but I found out.
Ev