The Indianapolis sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1880-1904, 1885-04-16
A CANCER IN HIS rHRoAr.
Major Hay Has His Tongue Gut Out {,
PrOlong His Life.
New York World

Major Hay Has His Tongue Out Out to
PrOIong His Life.
New York World
Major Hav served with distinction, not
through the Crimesn war though he looks
capable OF having done so, but through the
war OF the rebellion, and brought away from
that conflict pair of badly crippled legs.
In no field of LIES action has the MsjOr been
60 successful as Ne was during the early
sixties indeed Ii has often seemed that the
Msjor exhausted his possibilities for success
during that period, and has been hopelessly
and helpletsly drifting ever since. His has
for years been familiar figure on Park row +,
and ne has haunted newspaper offices with 8
persistency worthy of q better cause, for
there are better causes than the revolution
izlug and improvement of the daily press to
which the Major seems 10 have been body
and soul devoted. Indeed the Major, in his
unselfsh efforts TO lift up and ennoble the
fame for himself than is denoted in she term
crank" He has been one, aud distin-
guished member. of the army of would.be
literary celebrities of New York, and mis-
welcome in editorial sanctums has not at all
times been as cordial as it might have been
had the occasion for it been little less fire.
quent.
On approaching the busy editor the Major
WAS never embarrassed of apparently aware
OF the undying fact that there is in news.
paper Offices occasionally some work to be
done. He had the air of man who &C.
cepted the maxim that "time was gads for
slaves" and loudly proclaimed his freedom.
He talked as il he were giving orders TO a
regiment OF soldiers in battle, aud seemed
TO have an idea, never 6ispeled by expert
ence, that his mandates would be obeyed
with alscrity.
Several weeks ago the Major disappeared.
NOBODY seemed to know where he had gone.
Me-. Il I'D L. aA Loaf ~
and his face was pale and careworn, bat his
eyes flashed and his brow was corrugst
with the deep lines OF thought just as of old.
Limping to the editors desk he took ND his
old familiar station with his right elbow
leaning of the desk. Oddly enough, how
ever, he remained silent. His long
absence had etitled him to a respectful
consideration, and IL was accorded to: him,
but he did not speak. Presently he motion.
ed for pencil and paper, and hastily ex-
planned that be had lest his tongue, and
then there followed, jotted down in the
Majors crimped and old.fsshioned hand
writing tale of suffering, patient and he.
roic suffering that would command respect
anywhere. 1t was explained by the old hero
that for months he had suffered in silence
from the effects of that dreaded disease with
which his superior officer in the late war,
General L. s. Grant, is Affected cancer
upon the tongue. He wrote oRt his pidful
cAOIy WlluOuk QulNtI VI tLS 4Apo VI WdbcE
OF the haRd that held the pencil.
"I was taken to the hospital eight weeks
ago and they cut my tongue out at
the roots.n Ia these few words be told
the story of the agony he had en-
duIed. There had apparently been no
waste OF time in medical consultations over
the Majors case. The hospital doctors had
him, an unwilling recruit in their barracks.
They decided tha. he couldn't live with a
csnceroUs tongue and that he might possibly
survive without it, Crd so the tongue Was
taken out. The Cstient Major, lying in a
hospitsl ward without friends his suffering
uaheralded to the hero-worshipping world,
was stripped OF the member he held most
dear and turned out manned aud mutilated
into world from which, even with a tongue
IN HE head, he had found hard pickings to
make bare living.
His mission at the Office of the editor was
the same unssltish mission of preaching
| through the types, 10 q needless world.
There is but little chance that the cancer has
been eYadicate6; indeed, the accompanying
| Major looks for its speedy reappearaucs
! Meantime he is grateful that his honest righl
! hand is spared. and that there is sti1 INK in
| the editorial ink-pot.