The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1872-05-17
A CURE FOR HEART-ACHE.

some ten OayS ago IHefe u1So III
San Francisco one of the most sin
gular residents of the Pacific slope.
His name was William Hewer. He
was English by birth, and a surgeon
by profession. The Golden City
has long been known as a kind of
Mecca for eccentric people; but of
all the oddities that have ever found
their way thither, DIR. Hewer was
perhaps the most remarkable. He
was Timon and Shylock and Kotze-
bu's Stranger rolled into one. For
fourteen years no living soul had
been allowed to enter the room he
occupied. In it he apparently lived
d life of abject poverty and in 1t
were found, after his death, cash
and securities to the extent of
thousands, besides rich store of
precious gems.
This strange man was born at
Exeter, England, in l7SS He stud
led medicine, and got his degree
from the Royal College of Surgery,
Edinburgh, in 1910. Soon after he
obtained a commission III an artil-
lery regiment. He was a man of
fine powers deliberate imagination,
warm sympathies, and keen sensi-
tiveness endowed him with the sus-
ceptibility both to pleasure and pain,
common to the possessors of such
qualities, and which makes the is
sues of their lives so critically
doubtful. Hewer fell i'll love with
a beautiful girl, who seems to have
beea as capricious as she was fair.
A few years of happiness followed,
4 than a hiffnR.
Hewer went off with 'friend" of
her husbands, an officer in the same
regiment, and the husband was
never thereafter the same. He be-
came a misanthrope and wanderer
on the face of the earth. Withdraw
ing from society, he lived for the
most part i'll gloomy seclusion, en-
livened at times by outbreaks of
furious revelry. Only one thing
besides drink alone appeared to
have charms for him; and that was
to ship as surgeon on vessels bound
for long passages. 1t was in this
way he came to San francisco. He
arrived there in the Agi court, just
after Captain Suffers memorable
discovery, and when the whole
Western world was aglow with the
rage for gold.
The current passion of the hour
took possession of Hewer, and
thenceforth never LETT him. The va
cant place in his heart was ever after
filled by an almost insane avarice.
He began to lend money for usury
on diamonds, watches and other
valuables, and he boarded up his
treasures with the jealous cunning
of magpie. Virtually he became
a pawnbroker, although he disdain-
ed the appellation, and would
haughtily resent its being applied.
When stray Englishmen of edCca-
ton turned up in San Francisco,
the recluse would sometimes emerge
from his den, and embark with
them in frantic orgies that neither
age or shame ever restrained.
When thus excited he would occa-
sionally exhibit huge diamonds and
pearls, Yerba River gold of the fin
est quality, and strange old-fashion-
ed Jewels. In these accumulations
he took the greatest pride, and al
though il was notorious that he pos
sessed them, oddly enough he was
never robbed. Probably he took
unusual precautions to guard his
property, and, in truth, quite a
magazine of arms was found in his
room at the last.
The scene in that room when
Hewer's body was discovered would
make a terrible and impressive sub
ject for painter. The old mans
body, clothed in quaint, parti-color-
ed rags, was found bent backward
over an old chair-the dead eyes
open and starting upward, the white
hair sweeping the ground, He had
been gloating over box of trinck-
cts, and there was burnt out lamp
by its side. Ali around was a
strange medley of filth and finery.
Broken spittoons and rich bits of
carpets, dried herrings and dia-
monds pieces of old brass and iron,
and silver-plate emblazoned with
armorial bearings strings of onions
and of pearls, beer bottles and
Etruscan vases, pawn tickets, COM
missions, unsforms, and foul plat
tiers were all mingled in wild con-
fusion. Besides all these, there was
one il-picture-that of young
and lovely woman-she, no doubt,
who was the original cause of all
this wreck and waste-the sign and
token of a prevented nature, a
crushed heart, and broken life
New York Times. 4