The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, April 5, 1896, Page 19

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, APRIL 5, 1896, 19 gt VERCAUTION ‘and a stupid un- readiness to recognize the possi- ble truth centained in a fragment of manuscript which haslain un- heeded in my desk thess many days explain my long withholding of a suggestion that is as wonderful as terrible. But when the circumstances of my secur- ing possession of the document are related there may be found some palliation of my stupidity. It came about in this wise: One day while I was seated at my desk an uncouth middle-aged man slouched into the room and handed me a card on which my name had been written and asked me if I was the person indicated. I answered affirmatively. The man, regard- ing me with a manner that suggested fear and loathing, fished out a tattered parcel, handed it to me and was quickly escaping when I had the presence of mind to halt him. “Who are you,” I asked,” ‘‘and who sent me this?"” The fellow spoke English very lamely, but it was evident that he feared me and to evade my questions. He guese sailor. A few years be- his advent in my office he had been dare not tr; There he was taken care of by a white who spoke many languages, but nationality could not be deter- whose All the other inhabitants of the nd were the native savages of the place, and they ied the white man with a re; t composed of awe, fear and The sailor remained upon the r, serving the white i then, being no longer able to hich he was compelled to e one of the primitive boats with a blanket ail left the island. To ment he found the white 1g for him on the beach the iis escape, although he might rown that nothing could escape the knowledge of this extraordinary per- The white man, to the sailor'’s sur- elight, made no demur to the desire to leave, but’ on the con- him some gold and precious formed him what general course to take in order to fall 1n with trading ves- nd handed him the manuscript and card beari name, with the inction to seek me outin San liver the manuscript to me, whether that might happen one year or twenty years thenc Should the sailor neglect this duty he would be visited with terrible pena »m unseen sof would never hay ick until the mis- sior had been In all this the n tive intel. of si observe that he feared me was eager to lcave my p to take advantage of this I demanded to know what he had seen so terribie on the island, what the name of his white master was and why I had been selected as the final custodian of the document. I was led to this by the discovery that the manu- script had been so badly worn by the sailor’s care as to have lost its beginning and end and so to have become utterly un- the solemn Francisco and del 1g my intelligible. The remaining part of it read | like a delirious tale of impossible things. My aggressive attitude threw the poor fellow into the most distressing and help- less confusion. He called upon the Sacred Mary to witness that he wasan honest man and had done his duty, and that never of his own will had he harmed a living soul. The things which the white had compelled him to do wouyd be forgiven n, for he had prayed humbly and long to the holy Savior for his interces- sion. Thereupon my visitor broke down and wept piteousty. An ague of horror and contrition racked all his bones and I was forced to let him go, believing that his mind had been sadly weakened by eome dreadful experience and that to tor- ture him further would be murder. Since that visit I have not seen him to this day, but I trust that gocd fortune attends him. With the greatest care 1 studied the manuscript and all the circumstances at- tending its delivery. The man’s honesty could not be doubted. The writing on the card was identical with that of the manu- script and hence both had been written and sent to me by the-same person. Evi- dently the manuscript in its original form contained a full explanation of its appar- ent absurdities and impossibilities, and certainly the writer had furnished his name. Either he knew me personally or had sent the manuscript as a friendly act, or had seen my name somewhere and de- sired that I should make literary or sci- entific use of the paper which he had sent me. A vague impression haunted me that there was a familiar aspectin the penman- ship, but the most careful reflection did not enable me to recall a person of my ac- quaintance who could fit all the require- ments of the e. As these failures on my part rendered the fragment worthless, and as the document itself lacked a neces- sary explanation it would have been idle for me to publish it. A recent combination of circumstances, including a careful review of works on anatomy, vhysiology and surgery, and a comparison of the penmanship of the document witk that of all my old correspondents, suddenly filled the straiige: production with a semblance of lizht. The result, if I have guessed anything like the truth, is so startling and terrible ana suggests a criminal possibility of so overshadowing magnitude that I deem a full exposition of the matter right and timely. I shall on an island in the South Paci- | rces, and by the good God in | e e e A A e A A A A A A A A A A A A A e premise an introduction of the fragment with the assertion that the author in my opinion is nene other than Dr. Entrefort, whose astounding and miraculous achieve- ments in medicine and surgery are already familiar in part to some of my readers. That Idid not at once guess him as the author of the writing discloses a grievous stupidity on my part, for not only is he my old-time friend, and not only has he in the past furnished me with material for some of the most gruesome things that I have published, but he is the only man in | all the world having the originality and | daring to conceive and carry out the awful | | experiments with which he unmistakably | has had so marvelous success. And Iam | the only person to whom he would have | sent the account of his labors. | | world where he is free from the danger of | punishment. [ The fragment, which I shall follow with | my own explanation of its meaning, is as | follows, although a considerable margin | must be admitted for errors arising from | the sadly mutilated and blurred condition | of the writing: The Fragmentary Document. * * * than at the beginning. At first the very greatest tact and patience were iments which accompanied and followed my discovery of a means for developing special functions in the gland was the ad- vent on the island of a shipwrecked Por- tuguese sailor. This man, though of alow order of intelligence, judged from the Eu- ropean standard, had a mind vastly supe- rior to that of the natives, and his grati- tude to me for my kindly treatment of him and my sbility to utilize his religious char- acter through his fears made him devoted to my service. Itis by the hands of this man that I am sending to you this hur- riediy written account of my work. It has been pitiful to observe the horror and re- pugnance which my experiments excited in his uneducated mind. At last he has prepared to escape from me and from th Happily | terrible things which he seesand which he | for him be is operating in a part of the | aids me in bringing about, and although | he thinks that I am unaware of his inten- tion I shall meet him on the beach and forward his effort to get away. This Portuguese is a powerful fellow. Hence his strength is often useful, as some of the work which Tdo is excessively pain- ful to the subjects, and the sailor is very clever at tying knots, making tourniquets and inducing unconsciousness by tracheal or carotid pressure with his fingers. I trust that the skill which he has acquired ] whom I produced an arm six feet long, I exercised such an influence on the func- tion determining the size of his other arm as to cause it not only to cease growing in infancy, but actually to dwindle to an in- significant and useless appendage. A curi- ous and unexpected result of this experi- ment was a shifting of the normal arrange- ment of the thoracic bones, so that the long arm seemed to issue from the center of the chest, the palm upturned, a natural conservation of the feeding habit. The general anatomical characteristics of these people are similar to those of other races. This means that rudimentary hair covers the body, as with us, and that the coccyx in embedded. You may infer the extent to which I have carried the dif- ferentiations of the gland’s functions when | Iinform you that by proper treatment I can restore the original simian abundance of hair and cause the coccyx to emerge and form a true tail. An embarrassingac- companiment of the caudal experiment is the eventual ossification of the joints. You are aware that in infancy the coceyx is jointed and flexible but that in time it be- comes rigid, forming a bone of continuouns structure. The result has been followed | exactly in the cases of those for whom my treatment has induced a tail—the appen- dage in time becomes rigid, and in that | condition is exceedingly annoying, re- quiring the wearers, in the absence of'am- putation, to carry about with them a sharp-pointed stick, with which they make a hole in the ground for the reception of the tail before sitting down. 1 have not time to set forth further de- tails of my experiments. The formule which I send herewith might be sub- mitted for test to some competent pbysi- cian of your acquaintance in order that the truth of my discoveries may be proved. You will be aware, however, that a general knowledge of these matters would be ex- ceedingly: Thus the fragment abruptly ends, with nothing explained. Entrefort does not even say, so far as this writing goes, that he will ever return to civilization and clear | up the mystery. | T venture with much hesitation to sug- | gest that the gland to which he rafers is the pituitary gland, that obscure little organ which lies on the under side of the | brain at the point where the optic nerves | cross on their way to the visual centers. | This is merely a guess. Possibly som person more seientific than I who may happen to read this will be able to sugge! |a better explanation. I will add this | much onl; That I know Entrefort to be | an extraordinary man and honest in what he says, and that if it was really he who | wrote this account it is entitled to respect- | ful attentio; | Albert Halstead, a son of Murat Hal- stead, has become editor of the Springfield | (Mass.) Union. He has been the Wash- ington correspondent of. the Cincinnati Commercial-Gazette. SOME HAD ARMS SIX FEET LONG‘. required to convince the natives that the changes which were coming over them | were to their advantage. During the | earlier experiments I had not learned to “ specialize the functions of the gland, or to regard that obscure organ as a complex | mechanism capable of differentiation. | Moreover, the means which I then em- | d for stimulating it into morbid ac- | were crude and the results indeter- minate by prognosis. 1 have measurably overcome those difficulties and uncertain- | ties by the means which I have already described, and can now proceed with reasonably exact expectations. I had already ascertained beyond doubt that the monsters known to the civilized world as giants were the product of a spon- taneous abnormal activity in the gland, and that acromegaly, the greater enlarge- ment of one side of the body than the | other, was a variation of that activity. | Those two facts taken together were suffi- cient as a suggestion of the possibilities residing in an artificial stimulation con- ducted with a view to produce definitive variations from the uniform enlargement resulting in a symmetrical giant. ‘This race is puny, the result of unintel- ligent feeding. Hence I would take a | native not yet grown and by general | stimulation and excessive feeding of the | gland, combined with the administration of abundant wholesome food, he would rapidly develop generally into a symmet- rical giant, attaining in three or four years a height exceeding that of the average by from two to four feet, with a correspond- ing excess of weight. As the natives never before had seen creatures of such size they were terrified and sought the | 8ood graces of their gods. It was impos- sible for me to conceal my agency in the matter, and so I had to assume the role of chief god and convince them that their transformation into giants was proper and for their own good. This does not mean to say that I did not stalk amidst perils for a long time before I came to exercise this moral power. It would require much space for me to narrate the entire Listory. My success amonz them in the practice of ordinary medicine and surgery was the greatest source of my influence, but you mnst not infer from this declaration that it by any means covers the most interest- ing feature of a truly wonderful and com- plex experience. A great aid to me in the advanced exper- in these arts under my instruction will not cause the appearance of a maniacal strang- ler when the fellow shall finally land at San Francisco. Another factor which appeared in aid of my enterprise was the kindness and gen- tleness of disposition discovered by the giants whom I produced. At first these prodigi ous creatures had so formidable a look that they filled tbe people at large with terror, but presently, when it was learned that they were really very dccile, had enormous strength that was useful | on occasion and generally died young, they became quite acceptable. Among the ways which the native ingenuity found to utilize them was the fording of deep streams with others on their backs, the extermination of huge snakes which swal- lowed infants, and the plucking of fruits growing above the reach of ordinary men. Now comes the most interesting part of the account—the specialization of the glandular functions. Acromegaly had given the clew to that possibility. The problems presented for solution were these: 1. Did acromegaly indicate that the gland, instead of being a homogeneous body, was divided into hemispheres, each hemisphere attending to the nourishing of a side of the body? 2. As each side of the body is composed of many and unlike parts and as they in some instances were unevenly developed, how could it be assumed that each hemi- sphere of the gland had a homogeneous constitution ? 3. Assuming that the gland was a very complex mechanism, having a special function in supplying building material for each distinct part of the body, how might each or any number of these func- tions be stimulated separately for the pro- duction of such definite results as the en- largement of one or more particular parts selected for that purpose? You will thus see that the study was ex- ceedingly difficult, but I am happy to an- nounce that I have mastered the begin- ning of it. That is to say I can produce a man, otherwise norinal as to shape, with one arm a yard longer than the other, or with an ear of dimensions so ample that he can wrap it about his head for a cover- ing. It will at once be evident to you that there must be a corollary of excessive arti- ficial stimulation, namely, an atrophied result. Thus, in the case of a man for FUGTIE FRON JUSTCE | Mrs. Emma York, Mother of the Late C. F. Gibson, Leaves for Canada. | Gibson's Widew Swears Out a War- rant for Her Arrest for Felony Embezzl:m>nt. The widow of Charles Frederick Gibson, the well-known saloon-keeper, acting on the advice of her attorneys, Delmas & Shortridge, applied to Judge Low yester- day morning for a warrant for the arrest | of Mre. Emma York, her deceased hus- band’s mother, on the charge of felony em- bezzlement. Judge Low, who dismissed a charge of grand larceny against James A. Gibson, brother of the decease¢, on Friday, re- fused to issue the warrant, on the ground that the widow had, in his opinion, no claim to the $22,500 which Charles F. Gibson is alleged to bave presented to his mother on his deathbed. Mrs. Gibson then went to Judge Joa- chimsen, and after laying the facts before | him he at once signed the warrant, which was placed in the hands of Chief Crowley. Mrs. Gibson stated that after Mrs. York had attended the funeral of her son in Sacramento on Thursday she left for Kes- wick, N. B., where she formerly resided, and took the $22,500 with Ler. L‘hie!l}ro\\'ley at once put the wires in motion and telegraphed to all points on the different routes to Canada a descrip- tion of Mrs. York, with instructions to place her under arrest, as she was wanted here on the charge of felony embezzlement. As soon as the Chief is notified of the fact that Mrs. York is arrested an officer will be sent to Sacramento to secure Gov- ernor Buda’s signature to the necessary xeTuisinou papers. The $22,500 represents practically the entire estate of the deceased, and the widow is fighting to have her share of it. She has, through her attorneys, secured | special letters of administration on her husband’s estate, and Judge Coffey has issued citations for James A. Gibson and Mrs. York, requiring them to be in his court on Tuesday morning to answer uestions pertinent to the cause. Mrs. ork has evaded service of the citation by tlight. MUBDERED HER BABES, Verdict of a Coroner’s Jury in the Tragedy of the Deuss Family. THE WOMAN WAS INSANE. Owing to the Ncn-Arrival of & Brother cf the Woman the Cremation Is Delayed. H. 0. Deuss retold the storv of his domestic troubles to Coroner Hawkinsand a jury yesterday, and the jury decided that his wife was insane when she killed her children and herself in her Guerrero- street home on Monday night. The first inquest was held on the mother. Deuss, who has somewhat recovered from the shock of the tragedy, testified that he last saw his wife and children alive at 8 o'clock on Monday evening. Mrs. Deuss seemed to be in good spirits at that time. She was subject to fits of insanity and several times charged bim with unfaith- fulness. One evening, about four weeks ago, she followed him, and when he re- turned home later she declared that she had seen him in the company of a blonde woman. Since the tragedy he had learned { that his wife had visited a clairvoyant, | who had told her that he (Deuss) was un- | faithiul to her and was in the habit of con- sorting with other women. He was certain that as a result of her visits to the medium her mind had been upset, and attributed her actions to this affliction. On one occasion she called at Lis place of business in the Thurlow block on Kearny street. and charged him with having a woman closeted in the place. She was 1nsanely jealous of him, and as a result of her temp: nentthey had several quarrels. He upbraided her for her care- lessness in not correcting the children when they did wrong, and wrote her brother at Chicago that her conduct was driving him crazy. His wife said to him one day that if he died she would not live after him. She loved him very much, and they were happy in their domestic relations except for her jealousy. Henry cke, a grocer, testified to i Deuss in ner lifetime. She 1 several times the name of the woman with whom her busband kept company. He had told her that he had never seen Deuss in the company of any woman. The verdict of the jury was to the effect that Gretchen, Freda” and Charles Deuss ‘‘came to their death at 80914 Guerrero street, on March 31, from asphyxiation by illuminating gas,” and that “‘they were murdered by their mother, Olga Deuss, while temporarily insane,” and that *‘Olga Deuss committed suicide.” The motner and three children will be cremated Tuesday morning. A brother of the dead woman, George Krieger, was ex- | pected to arrive from Chicago vesterday, and owing to hisdelay the cremation was postponed. DIVERSION FOR DINERS. Enigmatic Menu Cards to Stimulate Mental Activity While You Fat. Enigmatic menu cards, writes Laura Douglas in an article on “Easter Menu Cards,” in April Ladies’ Home Journal, are important factors to the enjoyment of guests at a dinner. On such cards blue points may, masquerade as ‘‘Cerulean dots’ or “*Colored angels.” The shaddock, which is so often used for the first course, has been hidden under the phrase, “Fish and fow!” (shad-duck). Soup is described according to its kind, as ‘‘Make-believe terrapin” (mock-turtle), ““Love - apple broth” (tomato), or a dozen other names which will occur after a few moments’ thought. For nsh the antique joke of “Poison’’ (poisson), or else it is described by its kind. Shad isknown as “‘Bones,’”” smelts as “Refines,” salmon as *“A scriptural | character.”” cod as *‘A fashionable wrap’’ | (Cape Cod), and trout as *‘Giraffes” (spec- kled beauties). ‘‘A character in Ivanhoe” can hide “'F. de Bef,” the initial repre- senting both “Fillet’” and the gigantic *Front.”” “OQur Nationai bird” will ai guise not the eagle but the turkey. domestic” will describe ducks, and “Sail- back” the cauvasback vawvety. Salad appears as ‘‘Nothing but leaves,” or in case a mayonnaise of celery is used as “Below stairs-y” (cellar-y). Cheese is called ““Slang,’” from ‘‘Cheese it,”” or is | ignored with crackers, which are others wise calle '’ from the children’s faney cracker ert is hailed as “An arid plain,” with icecream as ‘‘An oasis,” “Frozen milk-tops” or “A mockery king of snow.” Pastry is described as **Printers’ confusion” (pie—pi), and coffee as “A. severe cold.”” NEW T})-DAY. FREE CREAM CHOCOLATE | ! A Package Given Each Customer FREE | ! ‘With Our | MONEY-SAVING 'TEAS, COFFEES, . SPICES. | Our 50¢ Teas. Our 40c Teas. | Our 85¢ Teas. | Our 30c Teas. “ost 75¢ elsewhere -Cost 60c elsewhere Cost 50c elsewhere .Cost 40c elsewhere | Our 25¢ Teas. .Cost 35¢ elsewhere | Our 20¢ Teas... +++..Cost 30 elsewhere EXTRA PREMIUMS GIVEN AWAY. Great American Tmportng Tea Co.'s 1344 Market st., S. F, MONEY- SAVING STORES: B ::::z‘:".:‘i?.{é :::3 100 0per[:tiol MONEY SAVED EVERY DAY. NO SPECIAL DAY, 521 Montgomery ave., S. Pe 333 Hayes st., S. F. 146 Ninth st., S. F. 218 Third st., 5. F. 2008 Fillmore st., 5. 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