«
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.
