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vol. title: Miscellaneous Scraps from January 1st 1878 vol. period: 1875-1878 pages in vol.: 153 |
< The Famine in Madras (continued from page 5-29) >
When I began my system of taking circle by circle, I was quite unprepared for the misery I found. The distress in some villages is simply appalling. In some, I have had to relieve nearly every soul, and I fear even then I have not done enough. To-day, in one village there were only two people who had made any attempt at a growing crop. Formerly, there were here thirty families of ryotts and three of pariahs. Now, seventeen houses are empty in the pariahs' quarter, and in the remainder, not a human being was to be seen, save one, and he a living skeleton. In his house there had been seven brothers living together in one enclosure—twenty-seven in all, with women and children. Five of his brothers had died, with six women and six children. He had lost land, bullocks, sheep, and everything he had, and had sown no seed. I gave this man twenty rupees for a pair of bullocks, five rupees for grain, and five for food.
One woman had lost 100 sheep and six cattle. Not a blade of grass was on her land, while everything was sold save some earthen pots, with a mother and three children to feed. I gave her ten rupees for seed and grain. In one house in another village there were three little, tiny children under charge of an intelligent child of eight years. The mother had left them. I wanted to feed the infants at once, but there was no food in the whole village. Bullocks and grain are what the poor creatures chiefly want, but they are thankful for anything.
<Untitled> (Colonel Bob Ingersoll must look out)
Colonel Bob Ingersoll must look out for himself and go into training if he intends to meet Dr. Gregg, sometime of New York but now of Dublin, who lately challenged the Peorian controversialist to a theological combat, in which each should handle the other without gloves. Dr. Gregg has written to The World touching the matter, and avows his willingness and ability to treat the Colonel as the naygur was treated by the famous Irish giant Kilmenny O'Gobblekilmore; that is to say, he will make him into a broth and eat him, licking his chops the while like the ogre that he undoubtedly is. Our advice to Colonel Bob is that he keep out of this man's way; the time of the cooking of Bob should be deferred as long as possible, even unto the other world; at present he amuses us, and we would not willingly lose him.
Colonel Ingersoll and Dr. Gregg, of Dublin
|Sir: I suppose I must be indebted to you for two copies of your journal that have reached me, carefully marked in red ink to call my attention to what concerned myself. I am obliged by the notice that you have thus taken of me, but not slightly surprised that in New York, where I accomplished in A. D. 1866 the deliverance of a testimony that occupied the Sundays of the last three months of the year, and drew together some thousands of people, and where also I have the pleasure of knowing some of your best and most distinguished citizens, there should be in the mind of any publicist of full age the doubts about my identity and antecedents that you have expressed. However, I do myself the favor of forwarding to you a few papers including notices of myself that may serve to satisfy you that, although I have not on me the guinea stamp of the Bishop Gregg to whom you have made allusion, I am not quite an unknown nor unappreciated individual. With these few remarks about myself personally, you will, I hope, allow me to say that you have, unnecessarily, perhaps, alarmed Colonel Ingersoll about the possibility of my drawing him into such intricate considerations as those which have been dug out and brought into the notice of curious persons by Philosopher Darwin, of England, and Philosopher Kant, of Germany. I am a man of one book—and that the book which the gallant Colonel has made the object of his attacks and the burden of his very eloquent oratorical diatribes, but one single syllable of which I am bold to say he does not understand in any language. Now I know how to cook him, and if he meet me, I shall accomplish this op- eration before the face of the American people, and serve him up to the world at large in the broth of his own ignorance and imbecility. I use these appellatives, saving the Colonel's favor, and under the stringent compulsion of truth. But when a writer descants upon subjects on which he is not qualified to judge he is very liable to lay himself open to the expression of terms of animadversion the reverse of flattering.
Writing thus for your information and—if you choose to set it before them—that of your readers, also, I remain your very faithful and very humble servant,
<Untitled> (In the bright New American Cyclopedia)
In the bright New American Cyclopedia there's no such word as “ Hell.” Is this a conspiracy to defraud the American people out of its latest inalienable grievance ?
<Untitled> (At last we have a real centenarian)
At last we have a real centenarian and no mistake. The Rev. Frederick Beadin, of Trinity College, Oxford, attained his hundredth birthday on the 3d of December. He took his bachelor's degree in the year 1800, and in 1812 was made a Canon Residentiary of Wells Cathedral, with a residence in the lovely little Cathedral Close which all artistic travellers in the west of England will thank us for recalling to them. He is in perfect health and in possession of all his faculties. It will be interesting to see what Mr. Thom, the executor, not to say executioner, of Sir Cornewall Lewis's unrelenting anti centenarian creed, will do with this case. The Canon who is also rector of North Stoneham, Southampton, has just received an autograph letter from the Queen, congratulating him on the attainment of his hundredth year.
Philadelphia Statistics for 1877
Philadelphia, December 31.—In the past year there was a total of 16,003 deaths in this city, a mortality less than that of either of the three years immediately preceding. In 1876 the number of deaths was 18,392; in 1875, 17,805, and in 1874, 16,315. The death roll for this year included 104 persons between the ages of 90 and 100 years, 7 between 100 and 110 and 1 over 110.
<Untitled> (The very latest “Turkish atrocity”)
The very latest “Turkish atrocity” is to be seen in Cheapside, in London, where a peripatetic vendor of penny wares is carrying about a trayful of “Bulgarian ears,” made of flesh-colored india rubber, and imitating, with frightful fidelity, a human ear severed from a human head.
A Criminal Lunatic
James Doran came out of the Tombs cell this morning with his shoes in his hand. He threw them on the floor and then said:—
“Now, Doctor, what is it?”
“I am not a doctor,” the Telegram reporter answered.
“Oh, yes you are; no one cares to see me except doctors. My case is a very curious one. You know I am unsound in my mind.”
“How long have you been so?”
“Well, I guess I never was really right. The voices have been following me since I was a child, and there isn't a night that I do not see the pictures dancing on the wall.”
“What do the voices say?”
“I wouldn't like to tell you, Doctor; but they tempt me and they scream ‘Jimmy! Jimmy!’ in my ear when I walk out.”
“How about the pictures?”
“They never come on the wall until I put out my lamp and all is dark. Then they light up the wall themselves and I lie abed and look at them. They are always beautiful women, and they are dancing—always dancing—and they wave their arms about like the branches of trees and they beckon to me.”
“Are they really beautiful?”
“I tell you, Doctor, that they are like angels, or like what I imagine angels to be. There is one with light hair and blue eyes, who always stands behind the others and looks at me in a strange way.”
“You are sure that you are not suffering from the effects of an hallucination? These faces and these voices are real?”
“Of course they are. Don't I know when I hear a sound and see a form?”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-three years.”
“And you live—?”
“At No. 77 Roosevelt street.”
“What do you work at?”
“I'm a shoemaker.”
“Now, I'll tell you about how I got here. For the last eight months I have been in my room. I don't care to go out, because the voices yell at me in the street, and it drives me wild. And, then, I want you to see the pictures. There is a phantasmagoria about me all the time, but it's only beautiful when I'm alone. Now, about my arrest. My father, who is a 'longshoreman, broke his cotton hook, and I was trying to fix the handle yesterday morning. I went down stairs to where my brother and his wife live, and, although I don't remember much about it, they say I became disorderly. At any rate, they sent for an officer and I was brought in here. But it doesn't matter. I have been seventeen years in jail.”
“Seventeen years out of your thirty-three?”
“Yes. I am a criminal lunatic, but I don't steal any more, and I am as mild as a kitten, except when the voices laugh at me. I like the pictures the best.”
“Where have you been in jail?”
“I have been three times in Sing Sing and twice at Ward's Island.”
“Did you not escape from Ward's Island?”
“I did, but they got me again.”
“How did you manage it?”
“I stole one of the gardener's boats and rowed to the New York side. They found me soon; they always do. Here I am again, and I was going to work next week in Greenwich street.”
“What at?”
“Why at making shoes—I told you.”
“So you did.”—
“I wish I could paint those pictures; that would be better than making shoes, wouldn't it? You ought to see the girl with the blue eyes.”
“I used to steal,” he went on in his rambling, irresponsible way, “but I don't now. I do not think anything would tempt me to steal. I'm simply wrong in the head, and of course it is right that I should be taken care of. No, I don't recollect precisely when I was first crazy, but it must have been when I was very young. I remember people speaking about it ever since I remember anything. I used to sit for hours with a shoe in my lap and never drive a peg, because the noise would have scared them away.”
“Who?”
“Why, the voices. They were nice then, and used to sing for me; now they hoot and yell, and cry ‘Jimmy! Jimmy!’ at me, and that's the reason I stayed in the house for eight months. Nobody else hears them, and when I turn around and say, ‘Be quiet, will you?’ people know I'm insane. Well, I am—there is no mistake about that.”
Saying this, Mr. Doran stooped down and picked up his shoes. We walked together to a nice seat on the windowsill, where the Telegram reporter has had many a cheerful talk with a madman, and there the shoes were put on. While the operation was in progress there was an opportunity to notice Mr. Doran. He is medium sized, is full whiskered and has protruberant eyes that dance constantly and glare with a strange light, as if there was a reminiscent halo in them of some French ball.
“I know my pupils are dilated,” said Mr. Doran, detecting the glance as he tied his shoe, “but I can't help it. I'm glad of it. I can see more of them.”
“More of what?”
“More of the pictures—more of the girl with the blue eyes and the light hair, who stands back of the others and beckons me. But don't mind what I say; my brain is not right. Perhaps it's because I've been locked up so long.”
Out of politeness we waited until he was secured in his cell, and then we withdrew, hoping that tonight his wail at least will be iridescent with the opulent gleam of the dancing pictures, and the blue shimmering sheen of the light-haired girl's eyes.
Editor's notes
- ↑ Colonel Bob Ingersoll must look out by unknown author, World, The, New York, Monday, December 31, 1877
- ↑ Colonel Ingersoll and Dr. Gregg, of Dublin by unknown author, World, The
- ↑ In the bright New American Cyclopedia by unknown author
- ↑ At last we have a real centenarian by unknown author
- ↑ Philadelphia Statistics for 1877 by unknown author, World, The
- ↑ The very latest “Turkish atrocity” by unknown author
- ↑ A Criminal Lunatic by unknown author