Of course it spread like wildfire in the neighborhood of Herriges house
that the police had visited it, and found there a man who had been
confined for nearly his whole life-time in a little cage of a room. In
consequence a great multitude of curious people at once collected on
Fourth Street and Lombard Street, and as the story was repeated from mouth
to mouth, a feeling of anger spread through the assembled hundreds that
quickly broke out into violent demonstrations.
Hoots and yells and curses were indulged in, and such cries as:
"Burn the d----d house down! Bring out the infernal wretches! Lynch them!
Tear them out! Hang them! Poor fellow! how horrible to keep him that way!
Down with the shanty boys!"
At this moment some person in the midst of the mob hurled a stone at the
wooden image that stands at the entrance to the store. This was like a
spark in a train of gunpowder, and amidst a shower of missiles a rush was
made for the apparently fated dwelling.
But at this juncture some one shouted out:
"Back! back! there's only old women in the house! He's run away for the
police!"
This stopped the rush, and without doubt saved the building from speedy
demolition at the hands of the enraged mob.
Meantime Herriges himself had walked out of the house and started up
Fourth Street, on his way to the station-house to obtain a force of
policemen to protect his property from the threatened attack. He was at
once discovered and recognized by the infuriated people, who with one
accord dashed after him with frightful yells and cries of
"Kill him! Run him up to the lamp-post!"
It was about this time that several gentlemen connected with the newspaper
press arrived on the scene for the purpose of obtaining particulars of the
case.
On entering the dwelling, Herriges' mother, a very old; and as the
reporters describe her, "weasaned faced woman," seized one of them and
begged him to save her.
"Oh, save me! for the mob is throwing bricks and stones at the house! They
are going to burn it down, and burn us all alive in it."
She was assured that she would be protected, and that no harm would befal
her; and a special messenger was despatched to the police station to have
a powerful posse of men hurried down to save the place. Each moment the
mob was growing larger and increasing in the violence of its
demonstrations, and had not the force of police arrived shortly after
this, there is no doubt but that the house would have been torn completely
down, and perhaps burned. Happily, however, such a result was averted by
prompt action on the part of the authorities.
The newspaper gentlemen, thereupon, had ample opportunity to proceed with
their visit of inquiry.
A respectable looking woman led the way up stairs ascending which required
more than ordinary effort, not only on account of their wretched
condition, but also on account of the frightful stench that came from the
late abode of the imbecile.
This person informed the visitors that two rooms had been set apart for
the use of John. The "parlor" as she called the den on the first or ground
floor was entirely destitute of any furniture but the remains of an
ancient sofa, a regular skeliton with nothing left but the wooden slats.
Over this was a horribly filthy quilt. This was the imbecile's "parlor."
His "bed-room" was the cage to which reference has already been made. The
scanty glimmering light that forced its way in between the wooden slats
nailed across the window was just sufficient to show the efforts that had
been so hurriedly but abortively made to cleanse the den.
Most prominent was a bed freshly placed there and covered with a middling
good coverlet. One of the gentlemen remarked as he noticed this.
"Ah, I see you have put a bed in here. There was none when John was taken
out."
"Oh, yes it was," said the woman quickly. "The bed was always here, but we
have put a spread over it. We did not do any thing else."
"Yes you have done something else," was the rejoinder. "You scraped away
several inches of filth off this floor, and whitewashed and scrubbed it,
it is all wet yet."
"Oh well," said she, "the poor old woman down there was not able to keep
him clean at all. She is eighty years old and the most devoted loving
mother possible, feeding him with her own hands and providing for him
every delicacy, like strawberries and such things as that."
"Well, now what was the reason you had John confined here?"
"John studied too hard when he tried to get into the High School and
turned his brain. When he was first wrong his brother Joseph, who is the
kindest hearted man alive, had him taken to a public institution; but his
mother got uneasy about him and he was brought home again; and Dr. Goddard
was called in to attend him. The doctor said he needed nothing but
kindness and skillful nursing, which they gave him with an affection
beautiful to behold."
In reply to an inquiry of how long the poor fellow had been locked up in
this room, she said:
"He wasn't locked up here at all. He had the range of the whole house."
"How long has he been out of his mind?" asked a gentleman.
"Somewhere about eighteen years."
"Are you a relation of his?"
"Oh, no, I am only a neighbor, and came in to stay with his poor old
mother, who is nearly scared to death."
"Has he any relatives except his mother and brother?"
"Yes, he has four sisters."
About this time Joseph Herriges, nearly dead with fright, returned with
the police force, and expressed great gratification at the presence of the
reporters, in order that they might tell his part of the story, and thus
have _reliable_ facts to give to the public instead of a pack of lies told
by the neighbors. He said:
"John, when a boy, was very intellectual, and I had resolved to give him a
good education, so I got him into the public school, also into a night
school, and had him taught penmanship as well as cigar-making.
"Once when he attended a lecture he fell as he came down stairs, and
struck his head such a violent blow that he never was the same boy
afterwards, but gradually lost his mind. That has been about twelve years
ago."
It will be noticed here that the woman had previously stated eighteen
years. This was the first discrepancy. Herriges continued:
"I took him to the almshouse, where he was under Dr. Robert Smith's care
for a month. Then his mother and his sister _here_ visited every day."
[Here Herriges pointed to the woman who had positively said she was only a
_neighbor_.] "At last, to please mother, I brought him home and called in
Doctor Gardner, who said, after a long attendance, that he could do him no
good. I have devoted my life to that boy, and washed him every day, and
attended to his wants whenever I attended to my own, and combed and fed
him."
"Then how is it that his hair and beard have become just like felted cloth
with filth, and how is it that he is covered from head to foot with
vermin?"
"What! how!" exclaimed Herriges with a decidedly mixed expression on his
countenance. "Was there vermin? Well I don't know how he got them. I never
saw any that's certain."
"Was he so very violent that you kept him locked up in this cage?"
"Oh, no, John was always as gentle as a lamb."
"Then what are those iron and wooden slats at that window for?"
"Oh, well, we were afraid that he might take a fit some time and get into
the street and say strange things."
At this juncture of the garbled narrative, Herriges became flurred, and
begged the reporters to do him justice, repeating the words.
"Now you will do me justice, won't you? You see they say I have kept him
imprisoned in this way to get his share of the property. He has not got a
cent in the world, for this house is only the property of mother during
her life time. It is all she has and when she dies it will have to be
divided among the whole six of us."
"But look here," interrupted a gentlemen of the party, "what about those
houses on Lombard street and the houses on Fourth street?"
"Oh, those are all my own," answered he. "I worked and earned them
myself."
The questioner replied.
"But you told me this morning that your father died in Oregon and left all
his property to you alone. How do you make that agree with this last
statement?"
"Don't interrupt me. You confuse me, and put me out. I am trying to tell a
straight story and you throw me out. I'll tell you again exactly all."
He then repeated his former statement and wound up with a fresh appeal to
be done justly by; which seemed in his mind to mean that his statement
alone should be given to the public. But he was told that Mrs. Gibson's
story would be published as well as his own, whereupon another sister,
who had just arrived on the scene, pronounced Mrs. Gibson a liar, and
added her solicitations to have that part of the history suspended.
On a subsequent visit, the sister who had represented herself as only a
neighbor, repeated the statements that been previously made by her and her
brother with a few more variations and contradictions. For instance she
remarked that the papers said John was a boy of eight years old when he
was first put in the cage, or little room, "Now that is false, for he was
between twenty-three and twenty-four when he went insane." On the previous
day she had said that he went crazy when he was trying to get into the
High School.