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About The Omaha morning bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 1922-1927 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 2, 1923)
« 1 How the Officer’s Grip on Cissie Loftus’ Trembling Shoulder Cleared Her Brain of the Fogs of Delirium and Gave Her the Courage to Make - i a Winning \ _m Fight for Freedom and Life Itself Mis* '"'issie Loftus, who has amazed and delighted her fi’ends by conquering the morphine habit to which she so long was a slave , “Eternal Pain,” Darde’a striking piece of sculpture which typi fies the suf ferings a drug slave undergoes “Cod bless the *bobby* who arrested me that night in London!” says Cissie Loftus. “The grip of that policeman’s hand on my quivering, drug-tortured flesh seemed to clear the fogs of delirium from my brain. As it tightened on my shoulder, I felt something like my old strength of will surging through me and giving me a new and unbeatable courage. ‘Come with me,’ he said, and / went gladly, for even in the disgrace of my ar rest / was supremely sure that at last I was on the way to freedom’’ ✓ THAT has become of Cissie "* A/W Loftus?” That was a ques ’ ” tion frequently asked both in IJngland and America a little more than ten years ago, when the talented and charming actress suddenly and mys teriously dropped from the public’s view. Her disappearance came just when she was being carried swiftly to the crest of the wave of popular favor. After a bril liant career on the professional stage in support of such well known stars as E. H. Sothern and William Faversham, she had gone into vaudeville and achieved an even greater success there with her mim icry of famous actresses. The public was delighted with her imi tations of Sarah Barnhardt, Ellen Terry and Yvette Guilbert and some enthu siasts declared them even more fascinat ing than the original performances of these women. Then all at once, without any warn ing or explanation, Cissie Loftus's name ceased to appear on the theater pro grams and in the twinkling electric signs. There was no announcement of continued ill health or of her permanent retire ment from the stage. Even her man ager and close friends in the theatrical world did not know where she had gone or what had become of her. It was a puzzling mystery, and so it remained for nearly ten years. The first light on it came less than a year ago, when the cables from England flashed the news that Cissie Loftus had been arrested in a London street—arrest ed on a charge of having in her posses sion narcotic drugs. Sweet-faced, gentle Cissie Loftus in Jail! The talented actress a drug ped dler, or, worse still, herself a drug fier.d! Her friends and admirers in this country hardly could credit the truth of what they read in the newspapers. But it was only the truth, as later dispatches from London proved. “Yes,” Cissie Loftus sobbingly admit ted when arraigned In court, “i had mor phine in my possession. For vears now I have never been without it. If I could not get it I should die.” She stood before the judge a pallid, trembling shadow of her once rosy, viva cious and well-poised self, and told ^a story that is being heard with alarming frequency in the courts nowadays. There >»nd been a serious illness. The hospital nurse had given her more mor phine than she should to ease the pain and bring sleep. By the time the dis ease was conquered Cissie Loftus found herself’conquered by a still more terri ble foe—the morphine habit. The doses the conscienceless or un thinking-nurse had given her had im planted a craving that could be satis fied only with more and more of the drug. She was a confirmed morphino fiend. In court that morning, after her ar rest like any outcast creature of the streets, she pleaded for iust one more chance—one more opportunity to try to shake off the shackles which had forged themselves so tightly about her wrists. The judge was touched by her pleas and, after hearing the testimony of her friends, he suspended sentence and pa roled her in their custody. All this the admirers of Cissie Loftus read with dismay and gi ief. This, then, was the sad explanation of her myste rious disappearance from the public’s view. They feared that the humiliation of her arrest marked the beginning of the end. It seemed incredible that, after these years of addiction, anything her will power or the loving help of friends or the skillful advice of physicians could do could free her from her pitiable slavery to drugs. It was, as everybody sadly thought, ghodby forever to Cissie Loftus, the charm of her personality and the magic of her art. Hut it was not goodby, as Cissie Loftus herself proved just the other day when Bhc landed in .New York -once more a free woman, escaped from the cruel slave master that had so nearly ruined her In mind and body and brought her to the brink of the grave. Cissie Loftus has made the fight no body thought she had the strength to make—and she has won. Deep lines in her face remain to tell of the suffering she has undergone in gaining her hard fought freedom, but otherwise, for the first time in nearly ten years, she is her old buoyant magnetic self. Now she is eager to make up for all the happiness and success she missed during those awful years when she was submerged in the depths that yawn for victims of the drug habit. Also, she wants to lend a helping hand to others who are enslaved as she was by the crav ing for morphine or cocaine or other nar cotic drugs. "The cure for the drug habit must come from within,” says Cissie Loftus. "Physicians and friends and other tilings may help, hut complete freedom from the slavery can be won only through one's own soul. "Cod bless the ‘hobby’ who arrested me that night in London! The touch of his hand on my shoulder stirred for the first time within me confidence that I could strike off the shackles of the mor phine habit "The grip of his hand on my quiver ing, drug-tortured flesh seemed to clear the fogs of delirium from my brain. 1 realized as 1 never had before in all those dreadful years the depths to which 1 hnd sunk, the wreck I had made of my life, the joy 1 had missed, the sorrow I had caused my friends. ‘‘Ilis hand tightened on my shoulder and as it did I felt something like my old strength of will surging through me and giving me an unheat able courage “‘Como with me,’ he said, and 1 went gladly, for even in th” disgrace of my arrest I was supremely sure that at lust 1 was on the way to freedom." From the courtroom Cissie I.oftus was taken to the light and cheer and restful quiet of a country cuttti ■ Kindly hands and sane ii a son surrounded her, but it was the will power to which the touch of the policeman's hand bad given a new birth that finally won the battle. It was made all the harder by'the excruciating pains that seized her. Drain and nerves were crying out in agony for another dose of the drug to which they had so long been accustomed. Hut Cissie I.oftus, fighting in what she now knew was the last ditch, stead fastly refused to heed their insistent demands. “Morphine is not a real need," she1 kept repeating to herseif. ‘‘This craving is a false and perverse appetite, and if I ever gratify it again it will put me in my grave. I MUST get along without it, and 1 WILL!” When brain and nerves and the whole body machinery finally began slowly to return to normal the pains | steadily grew less, and as they did, so did ths 1 craving for the drug. I Weeks later Cissie Lof I tus awoke one morning, ] after the first night of refreshing sleep she had had in years, to find the gnawing desire for morphine complete ly gone. But it took still more weeks of rest and food and invigorating air to fill out the hollows in her cheeks, restore the roses to them and bring back to mind and body the strength which her years of slavery had robbed them of. r“Like being chained to a nightmare,” ia Cissie Lof tus’* vivid description of the hor rors a slave to the drug habit knows. Yet in the beginning it seems like no nightmare at all, but a radiantly golden dream— a dream so entrancing!)’ blissful that the mind is numbed to the realisation of what its end must be. Hays when she was sunk into a heavy lethwggy alternated with .days when she was lifted to planes of wild ecstasy. At other times came a depression weighing so heavily 'on her spirit that not even death seemed a way of escape. The drug freed her from all the inhibi tions which normal persons know and obey- all the inhibitions which mind and body, education and environment have set up as safeguards for us. She found herself doing queer, ecstatic things. She often felt as if she were dismembered— an eternal spirit, a thing supreme, apart, having nothing in common with the world about her. As the drug broke down, one by one. her inhibitions she became absolutely reckless of facts, consequence*, every thing to which sane n\ind> give heed. Al though, a- her mirror and the wonder ing eyes of friends plainly told her, she was pale, haggard and wild eyed, she fell hounding with health and bubbling "with high spirits. Yet with this strange excitement that thrilled every fiber of her being she seemed to view the world of reality with a profound and superior calm from her detachment she looked, for instance, with deepest contempt on persons who hail the coarseness to stuff themselves with rich foods or drink to excess. She was carried out of herself, lifted into such regions as are described by Aleister Crowley in his “Diary of a Drug FieniL” The hero ha.< fallen in love with a young and charming drug slave and they go to Paris and Italy on a honeymoon that ia one long drug debauch: "She spoke to me for the first time. Her voice thrilled dark unfathomable deeps of being. I tingled in every fiber. And what she said was this: ‘Your kisa is bitter with cocaine.’ was a boiling caldron of wicked neu^Uliat bad suddenly bubbled ever. Her JFIce rang rich with hellish glee. It stablated me to male intensity. 1 caught hm in my arms more fiercely. The world went black before my eyes. I perceived nothing any more. I can hardly even say that I felt, “At that moment she threw me off as if I had been a feather. I felt myself all of a sudden no more good. Quite unaccountably I had collapsed and 1 found myself, to my amazement, knock ing out a pile of cocaine from a ten gramme bottle which had been in my trouser's pocket, on to my hand and snif fing it up into my nostrils with greedy relish." The heroine describes her experiences —the terrible struggle to obtain drugs and always at the same time the dull hope of fighting off the craving once and for all: “We walked on aimlessly in silence. A taxi offered itself. We climbed into it listlessly and drove back. We threw ourselves on our beds. The idea of lunch Was disgusting. We were too weak to do anything. I found myself on fire with a passionate dt termination to fight heroin and cocaine to a finish; and my hands were tied behind my back, my feet were fettered by a chain and ball. "I went to the glass to take my hat off. I didn't know who I was. There is no flesh on my face. My complex ion’s entirely gone. My hair is luster less and dry, and it’s coming out in hand fuls. I think I must be ill. I've a good ' mind to send for a doctor. But I daren't. It has been a frightful shock! , . . "And in these hideous hours of help lessness we drifted down the dark and sluggish river of inertia toward the stagnant and stinking morass of insan ity. We were obsessed by the certainty that u'p could never pull through. We said nothing at first. We were sunk in solemn stupor. When it.found voice at last it was to whimper the surrender " It was when Cissie laiftns had reached such a state, when there seemed no pos sibility of es. ape, that she was sot on the road to freedom by the touch of a tioliceman’s hand. The story of how her arrest galvan ized her will power into action and en abled her to make her winning fight for freedom and life itself is otVb she is now glad to tell, in the hope that it may help other victims to escape from the cruel bondage into which they have been cast by their craving for morphine and other narcotic drugs.