Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1888-01-25
ENFORCED ABLUrIONS.
A Connecticut Hermit Bathed by
the Board of Health.
How n Body of WISE City Ohicials Abated
What They Considered q Nuisance
-Jabez Hurd's Marital Experi-
ence and It's Consequences.

TIC DOSJOn UtOOc, Lnere eXlSts q Cnarac Ter
As strange in his way as "the leather
man." or any other of Connecticut's
freaks. Jabez Hurd is bis name, and
Jabez is q hermit. He was at one time in
very comfortable circumstan as Con-
necticut farmers 60, and may be now for
all any one knows of him or his affairs.
But Jabez doesn't believe in the cardinal
principle that cleanliness is next to god
liness. Some Of his neighbors do, how.
over, and that is how it came about the
other day that he was given bath by
Board of Health.
There's bit of romance in Jabez' life,
and that romance was what led up to his
becoming the hermit that he is. Many
years ago he met and loved q handsome
young widow, who so say the Clinton
folks, was far and away handsomer than
ton. He courted the widow, and as he
was q good-looking man himself, he won
her. That was where he made the mis-
take Of his life, so say his friends. With
life trouble began, for the
widow with the pretty face and
the perfect form turned out to be
. perfect shrew, and she made Jabez' life
q burden. He couldn't tame her by ordi-
nary methods, and was averse to trying
the heroic measures resorted to by Pc
truchio, as reported by one W. Shakespeare
some years ago. She ruled the roost with
an iron hand, and made her husband un-
derstand perfectly that she was the sen ior
and ruling member of their martial part
ner ship.
Jabez stood this sort Of thing as long as
he could we'll doso, and then, finding life
with a shrew wasn't worth living, he de-
serted her. He chose for his home the
oommod ious barn belonging to his broth
or, refusing that brothers. offer of a home
in his ample house, and made the WELL
filed hay NOW of the barn his bed. For
q long time he kept out OF sight of every
one, and maintained. as he has since con-
tinued to do, absolute retioence about his
affairs. He would hold verbal communi-
cation with no one, but by a written mes
sage expires 'ed a Willingness to eat of the
food from his brothers. table il it was left
in the barn for him. Every one in Clinton
knew, of course. why Jabez had abau-
doned all the gayety of life in that town.
There was no secret about that. In fact,
il was talked about so much that the
shrewsh wife immed ately left town, and
just now no one knows just where she is.
Jabez' brother, after the life in the hay
NOW had continued for some time, OBJ
jected to that sort of thing. He tried TO
induce the hermit to return TO q civil zed
form of life in his own house or that of
his b other. But Jabez wouldn't listen to
such appeas. and declined absolutely and
with much gor to leave the barn for a
more comforta lleihome. Finally PROPOSE
tion TO build for him cabin hut near the
bai met with his approva', and he creed
to occupy it. So the hut was built, and
there for several W nters and summers
Hurd has lived, refusing to hold COM
munication with any one and apparently
satisfied with the purely animal existence
he passed. HIS meals were obta ned from
his brothers house. The victuals were
left, however, just outside the kitchen
do Jr, and Jebez would sneak up from his
hut, grab the food as if he were stealing q
1t, and sneak back to his cabin and de-
YOUR it.
That cabin wasn't the pink Of neatness.
On the contrary, it was exactly the op-
posite. So much the opposite, in fact,
that il became a source Of much annoy
ance to the good people Of Clinton. Final.
ly, complaints about the hut and its
equally dirty occupant were made to the
Board Of Health of the town, and they
were asked to abate the one nuisance il
possible aud wash the other. The board,
after due deliberation, for Jabez was a
powerful man, decided to try and fumi'
gate the hut and give Jabez a bath.
The absence from town of Jabez' broth
er, who had put up with so many years OF
his idiosyncrasies, gave the Board OF
Health an opportunity to get in their fine
work recently, and they availed them.
selves Of that opportunity. They went In
q body to the pretty farm on which the
Objectionable hut was situated. But q
consultation of war was held when they
got there. and it was decided that the
safest and surest way to capture the dirt
intrenched Jabez was to descend upon the
hut as skirmishers. This plan was car
ried out, and, as the sequel shows, was
successful. The advocates of cleanliness
approached the hut from various direc-
tions, and at such rate Of speed as would
enable them to reach the hut at about the
same instant. When the host descended
on the hut they captured Jabez in all his
filth, and Immediately wished they hadn't
done any thing OF the kind. They had
expected to find q nuisance, but the one
they found surpassed any thing they had
dreamed Of or hoped for. The filth OF
years was there and Jabez was reveling
in it.
Heroic measures were necessary, and
they were taken. Jabsz was made q
prisoner, and then the Board of Health
cleaned out the hut and fumigated it aud
chloride-of-limed it so that it should be g
filter place for Jabez to live in during the
winter IL he persisted In his deter.
mnation TO live there. That part OF
kl.. a1l. III - 4
its combined attention TO Jabez per-
sonally. They stripped him of the cloth 2
he had worn continuously night and day
for no one knows how long, and then at
the house pump, with liberal supply of
soap and several scrubbing bushes, gave
him the washing he so badly needed, and
cleaned out the matted hair AMI beard
that had known no brush or comb for
years. Then they gave him new and
clean clothing, and allowed him to re-
turn to his hut a cleaner but a no less
soured and obstinate hermit than before.
The story of the washing of Jabez wa
quickly noised abroad throughout the
town, apd the action Of the Board of
Health was applaude ed by Clintonitss gen.
orally. They knew thers was no crueity
in it, for they knew that Jabsl
was not insane. He was simply
obstinate and fooIishly so, and deter.
mined to make every one about him
uncomfortable simply because his shrev
of q wife had made him so in years gone
by. But Jabez' brother looked upon the
action Of his neighbors in complaining OF
Jabez as . nuisance and upon the action
of the Board of Health as an impertinence.
He stormed great dea!, did some threat
ening, and now he is going to get even
with Clinton's Board Of Health by suing
them for malicious assault on Jabez, and
for treSpass on his grounds.
SETTLED WITH HIM.