Smyrna Times

LOVE AND LIQUOR.—The Wilmington papers report an Enoch Arden case for that city, only their Enoch got drunk and Tennyson's Enoch didn't. The case is this: Thomas Hughes, of that city, went into the army, leaving behind him a wife and several children. After a while his wife failed to receive any tidings from him, and she concluded he was dead. For seven years she remained a widow as she thought and then married John Hassinger. She was the wife of Hassinger seven years, about, when a day or two ago Hughes returned home, after fourteen years of roaming. He went in on his wife and found her the companion of another man and the mother of other children than his own. It seems that he didn't take on over it. He and Hassinger came to an agreement and then got drunk and had a fight. The agreement was that Hughes should have his wife again, and with her he took one of Hassinger's children, the latter taking the remainder of them. But Hassinger became possessed of a desire for his other child and went for it, when it was given over to him in a friendly way. Still he lingered. His visit was made agreeable to him by frequent quaffings from the bowl, until his brain reeled, and he refused to obey the lord of the household. Then a scuffle ensued, which was terminated in the Mayor's Court, last Saturday morning, by Hughes, who had made the assault, being put under bonds to keep the peace.

SUICIDE.—A white woman, named Swiggett, in Wilmington, wife of Sam'l Swiggett, a negro hod carrier, committed suicide by taking laudanum, last Sunday. She left a note saying the act was caused by ill treatment. A portion of the note reads as follows:

'He is the cause of doing this. He treats me in awful way, he works steady when he can get it to do, his week wages is from $13 to $12 to $10.00 per week, Money is the time I do not see a cent. I am a mother and a wife. I hope God will forgive him. This is my 3d husband, little did I ever think this life of mine should be destroyed by man. Sometimes I would get drunk to spite him. I did not want to do it, yet I had to do something, he says himself he does not treat me as he ought to. I hope heaven will be his home if hell is mine.' He may tell what he has a mind to to make it all right on his own side.

This heart of mine,

may God have mercy.