Death of a Noted vagrant.
--The
Philadelphia papers chronicle the death, on Wednesday morning, of a well known vagrant, named
Margaret Harman, aged about 50 years. The
Inquirer says:
‘
"Margaret was considered a very hard case, but possessed qualities of heart which, if they had not been prevented and obscured by intemperance, would have won for her lasting respect.
When sober, she was a civil and kind-hearted woman; but liquor changed her into a brawling, fighting termagant.
When she was in full vigor of her strength, and before intemperance and exposure had destroyed her constitution, she was a dangerous character to meddle with, and many an officer had his clothes torn to pieces while attempting to take Margaret into custody.
Upon the breaking out of the cholera in Moyamensing prison, some years since, she was an inmate of that institution, and she at once devoted herself to the duty of nursing the sick prisoners.
She labored assiduously for their comfort, and no trouble was too great, no exposure too severe, and no endurance too painful, if they tended to relieve the sufferings of her patients.
Margaret received a handsome acknowledgment of her services upon that occasion, and subsequently, when there were numerous cases of the ship-fever at the Lazaretto, she was called upon to act as nurse there, and for a time she won golden opinions.
But her old appetite returned, and having become drunk and turbulent, she was discharged in disgrace.
For several years she has been a constant inmate of the station-houses in the upper wards, either as a prisoner or a lodger, and there are many stories told of her exploits.
When taken into the rope-walk, where she breathed her last, she commenced singing '
Hall Columbia,' and the air and the words only died upon her lips as the vital breath left them."
’
