I have been within ten feet of Jesse Pomeroy! Immured deep in the vast gray walls of Charlestown penitentiary, the strange, warped human who once bore that name is hidden away from the sight of man forever in a living death, unknown by the coming generation and forgotten by the passing one. He has a double cell, much larger than the ordinary cell, into which the sunlight streams, says a Boston writer. His room is neat, and he himself is the personification of neatness. Upon this he prides himself. He wears a beard, which is kept neatly trimmed. He changes the style of it occasionally to suit himself, and displays as much taste and is as well aware of what is becoming as the most exquisite man of fashion.

“But is he well?” I asked of the one who gave me this information, and one who knows.

“As well as you are,” was the reply, “and he looks well.”

“People say a man cannot live without exercise. The only exercise he gets is in his cell, walking up and down, yet no one could possibly be healthier than he is. So far as I know, he has never known a sick day and he has been a prisoner in absolutely solitary confinement for sixteen years. He is a great reader and student. He speaks three different languages. He does not want to work, but prefers his books.”

“Does he seem to have any curiosity about he outside world?” I asked.

“Yes, I presume so, although he never asks. He does not ask privileges; no doubt he realizes it would be in vain. The only favor he has asked of Gen. Bridges since has has been warden was permission to keep the box his holiday things came in. This favor had been granted to him once before, and he used the cover to hide a hole he had dug in the wall.

“If he gets a penknife or a spoon, the probabilities are he will commence and dig. The walls are so thick it is impossible for him to escape, and no doubt he does it to make the prison officials uneasy, more than anything else.

“He is a remarkably good-looking man, a fine-looking man, in fact. If you should pass his cell, ignorant of his name, you would comment upon his appearance and select him as a man much above the ordinary.”

It is said that either his hearing is supernaturally acute or else he is possessed of some strange sixth sense, enabling him to know things that have transpired before the guards themselves. One instance of this is related. A couple of years ago the prisoners were all assembled in the chapel awaiting the annual announcement of the governor’s pardons. Before the convicts’ cheers which greeted the lucky ones had died out, Prison Physician McLaughlin had occasion to attend a prisoner located in the same tier as Pomeroy. As the doctor passed Jesse’s cell he called to the doctor, saying, “So the governor has pardoned two men,” and giving their names. Not half a dozen people have seen him since he was a boy, and he has seen no woman’s face but his mother’s since his incarceration.

The Onlooker, Vol. 1, Part 2. May 28, 1902.

This small magazine has an article on Tammany Hall, a short theatre review, some gossip, and some miscellany.

The Editor, Alfred Henry Lewis, has a split personality on the web. Is he the lawyer-turned-cowboy? Is he the muckraking journalist? Any clues would be greatly appreciated.

The magazine itself has no presence on the web, except of course, for at Odd Ends, DP and PG. It is similar in appearance and layout to The Philistine (Elbert Hubbard’s magazine) of the same era, but unfortunately I can’t find any pictures.

Thanks to Diane Monico for Post-processing this text!

For Forty Long Years He Vainly Searches His Brain for It–The Story That So Suddenly Lost Its Point–Principle of Psychology.

Rev. Cyrus Hamlin, who as a missionary resided for more than forty years in Turkey, and was the founder and first president of Robert college, in Constantinople, has collected a number of incidents connected with his residence in that country. Among them is one which has an interesting bearing on the question of memory, says the Washington Star.

It is a familiar contention among psychologists that an incident once thoroughly present to the human mind cannot be effaced from memory. But for many years Dr. Hamlin thought he had proof of an exception to this law. After he graduated from the theological seminary and had decided to devote his life to missionary work he visited Philadelphia on business connected with his work, and while there was introduced to a gentleman, who being much interested in missions, generously rendered Mr. Hamlin financial assistance, which enabled him to carry on his work to better advantage than he could otherwise have done.

It was 30 years before he again visited America, during which time he had married and a family of children had grown up around him. None of these having ever visited the father’s native land, they were naturally curious to learn all he could tell him of this country, and were. of course, especially interested in incidents connected with his own life. Among other stories he often related the one concerning his patron, but curiously enough he found it impossible to recall the gentleman’s name. Every incident connected with their interviews, even to the street and number of the house in which he had lived, was as plain to him s if it had been but yesterday that the events occurred, but to save his life he could not think of the gentleman’s name. As time went on this lapse of memory became so persistent as to cause him considerable annoyance, and he adopted all sorts of expedients to bring back the name. He would take the letters of the alphabet one at a time, and think over all the surnames he had ever heard, but to no avail. Then, in his imagination, he would start down the street where his friend had lived, enter his house, go thorough with the ceremony of introduction, and repeat word for word, as nearly as he could remember, the conversation which had taken place between them, but still he could not recall the name.

When after thirty years he returned to his native land on a visit, he took the trouble to go to Philadelphia, in order to settle the question which had been puzzling him for so long. He visited the house, but found only strangers, who could tell him nothing of the people who lived there so many years before. So, finally, Dr. Hamlin abandoned the search, thinking that here at last was a case where something had been thoroughly presented to the human mind and as thoroughly effaced.

One night, when he had returned permanently to this country, he attended a large dinner, where present were several distinguished psychologist[s]. During the evening the conversation turned upon the subject of memory, and the well known scientific principle was discussed. This was too good an opportunity to be lost, and Dr. Hamlin proceeded to relate his experience at length as an example of the opposite view, namely, that incidents could be throughly effaced from memory. He was, of course, listened to with great interest, and as he approached the end of his story, he said with great impressiveness: “Gentlemen, there is an incident presented to my mind more than forty years ago, and I have not been able to think of the name of Capt. Robinson from that day to this.”

When the climax was greeted by a hearty burst of laugher, the worthy doctor looked around in great astonishment, for he thought he had told a pretty good story, and could see nothing to provoke mirth. It was sometime before he saw that he had been “condemned out of his own mouth.”

The Ann Arbor papers complain of the employment of counterfiet [sic] dog tags. We suppose whenever they find a counterfiet dog they put a tag on him, and some folks don’t like it.

The Times is authority for the remarkable fact that it is more than half of the time impossible to get a prescription filled at any drug store in Ann Arbor during night hours. We should suppose that the people should do something to wake up the sleepy druggists of that quite [sic] town.

Joseph Dennison, who for several years has taken care of Byron McClelland’s breeding stock at Lexington, Ky., has become violently insane. His insanity was caused by the accident to McClelland’s valuable yearling colt by Longfellow dam Sallie McClelland. The colt broke its left hind leg and had to be shot. Dennison became imbued with the idea that he was to blame for the loss of the colt, and has thought and talked about nothing else since the accident. He went into town and acted so queerly that he was locked up and will be sent to the asylum.

Guests of the Stamford hotel, on Michigan avenue, were horrified Sunday at an accident to a young lady which occurred right in front of that famous hostelry, which has become a kind of headquarters for those bicyclists who make use of the magnificent South side boulevards, says the Chicago Tribune. At about 4 o’clock in the afternoon a very dashing girl, with a little cap set jauntily upon her blonde ringlets, came speeding down the avenue. She was dressed in a very natty blouse and the latest style of riding bloomers, which reached well down toward the ankle. Just as she reached the hotel one of the bloomer legs caught in between the chain and sprocket of the machine and in an instant, going at the scorching pace she was, the entire bloomer was stripped off her shapely right limb. The spectators were for a moment paralyzed at the extent of this catastrophe, and two or three young ladies who were just about to mount their wheels blushed as red as a rainy sunset, but he dashing damsel was equal to the emergency. With a dextrous hand she disengaged herself from the mangled bloomers and stood before her admiring and astonished audience arrayed in an extremely becoming pair of black tights and trunks to match. Thrusting the bloomers into her blouse, she vaulted lightly on her wheel and the next moment was vanishing southward over the hard roadway at a two-minute gait.

Euphrates Esculapius Endymion Mc[?]msey is the name of a clerk in the recorder’s office at Marysville, Mo. He signs his rather euphonious name with a big rubber stamp. His mother was a student of oriental history and mythology.

The English public appears at this moment to be under the spell of a bacillic spectre which disturbs severely the piece of mind of the well-to-do. With the advent of the epidemic of grip¹ the doctors relied upon oysters and champagne as a mitigating remedy. Just at that time it was reported that typhoid fever was a possible sequence to indulgence in the first.² In consequence the bivalve was avoided, with a corresponding increase in the dose of champagne. Following close on the heels of this theory came the discovery that death lurked in watercress. Dr. Verdon, the medical officer of the health board of Lambeth, stated officially, after an inspection of the various watercress farms about London, that the plant was contaminated with sewage water and consequently dangerous to the health of the people of London, who consumed all the Lambeth crop. On top of this it was announced that bread was positively dangerous unless baked at a temperature of 100 deg. centigrade. As no one could be positive that this particular degree of heat was employed in the brand which he consumed, all bread was looked upon with suspicion. To add to this burden of uncertainty, bacteriologists uttered a note of warning against the contaminating possibilities of the common house fly. It was clearly demonstrated by these investigators, that, in default of any other explanation, the fly must be held responsible for the spread of disease. There is at least one advantage in the acute interest of people in the bacillic theory, and that is the closer attention which is now given to care in the preparation of food. This is very much in evidence in the kitchens of hotels. There are many of these in New York, where every person who has anything to do with the cooking, preparing, or serving of aliments is required before he enters the kitchen to wash his hands thoroughly with antiseptic soap and to dry them on a separate towel. Care is taken that this process shall be repeated at intervals during the day, clean towels being provided for each ablution.