Purses of Human Skin

The report comes from Tacoma that the cuticle of Tom Blanck, a desperado who was killed a few days ago, will be tanned and made into pocketbooks. While in jail in Seattle Blanck made a wooden imitation of a pistol, with which he held up the janitor and escaped. He was followed by the jailor and a posse and killed, as he would not surrender. Exactly how the pocketbooks will be disposed of is not stated, but judging from the results of several enterprises of this kind in the past, the owners of Blanck’s skin will have no difficulty in disposing of their manufactured stock. One of the inhuman practices brought to light by the investigation set on foot by General Benjamin F. Butler into the affairs of the Tewkesbury (Mass.) poorhouse was the skinning of dead patients and the making of souvenirs of various kings of the skins, for which the keepers or others in the scheme found a ready market. The same state of affairs is said to have existed at the Ohio State Prison, in Columbus, fifteen years ago. Prisoners were knocked in the head or shot on the slightest provocation by the keepers and guards, who were all banded together for the traffic in human skin souvenirs. These outrages finally became so flagrant that an investigation was held, which resulted in the turning out of all the keepers and guards in the prison. None of the men were ever prosecuted, as it was impossible to get tangible evidence. There must have been money in this human skin traffic or the men engaged in it would not have taken such chances. There are many persons whose morbid tastes make them delight in the possession of just such grewsome souvenirs and it is not infrequent that some man of a reckless, roving disposition and a checkered past is seen proudly displaying a tobacco pouch, purse or other “pocket novelty” made from the skin of a human being.