The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1889-01-24
no MORE NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
A Veteran Thinks He Has Performed
OFTEN Enough Before Doctors.

Gen. Black, Commissioner of Pensions
at Washington, D. c., received the fol.
lowing letter from man named Chats.
worth, who lives in Redwood, ILL.,, and
who says he is one-legged soldier:
Mr.. Black, Commissioner DEAR SIR:
gest got another one of them postal
cards telling me to go before the doctors
and be examined. I've been a geettinp
these cards about every new moon ever
since applied for an increase OF pension,
more than too years ago, and I've been
examined time and agin. I've been
punched iu the ribs, thumped on the
chest, had some kind of darned instru.
ment held to various parts Of my body
my lungs have been tested have been
made to bend over the back of chair,
and to hop and jump and skip around
the room performing all sorts of monkey
shines until I feel like I ought to have
salery for performing and to have an
agent go ahead and stick up show bills
for me. have laid ON a table and al.
lowed the doctors to turn me over and
over and pinch and punch and pull me
about till I was sick and sore. Firt
you sent me to cupple OF DOCTOR IN "a
Perryville, and it was fully b.,lf an bour
before they found out th-. 4 tho blood Aid
not circulate in my -,ooden leg. Then
you sent me to little dried up old
doctor at oaF Ridge, who put my truss
On WIN r.ong side before and said the
psa vas intended to brace up my spinal
golrn, confound him. Afterwards YOU
Sent me before odds and ends of cranky
doctors, and none of them could tell the
difference between measles and hopping
cough.
Tho examination business of the doc.
tors may be fun for them but I'll be dog
oned If 1t don't make me tired, and now
that you have ordered me back to Perry
vile and believing that will have to 90
clear around the whole circuit xgin, Il
stop and assert my right to kick and I,
do kick like steer and don't ycu forget
1t. Last summer got my wooden leg
ruined by an accident, snG applied to
the surgeon general for new one, but
was told that only had it three years,
l would have to wait too years more as
a wooden leg was expected to last a man
five years. He said though that if it
had been my real leg that got ruined he
thought me could have furnished me
another wooden leg at once, which l
thougAtwas little consolation. I've been
hobblin around now for ten months on
one foet tryin my best to prove by ex-
amplethat one oS Uncle Sans old vete.
rams with one foot in the grave and the
other nigh it, is'oetter than corpse be
several per cent. Meanwhile the leg !
wsslucky enough to bring back with me
from the battle of the Wilderness has
tuck the rheumatic and hurts me so bad
thatsometimes almost wish I had lost
1T too. About the only use it is to me
'now'is to act as a rudder when I slide
downstairs.
Now, Mr.. Commissioner, you may do
jest as you please about increasing my
pension. If you and the doctors before
whom have been cutting up monkey
shines for the hast two years, think that
losing my leg in the battle of the Will.
derness in 1864 blotted out the record OF
my getting bullet through my carcass
at Antietam in 1862 and that the pension
lam drawing is full pay for an old vete-
ran who has to 60 sliding around the
world suffering with rheumatic in his
leg and splinters in his body; and who
has set OF insides that haint been in
good running order for % years and
never will be again until reach the
new Jerusalem, wy, all right. If the
Government thinks am getting value
received tor what lost and what I suf.
fer on her account, and intends to treat
me asa silent partner, wy, I guess, by
gosh, can stand it, but I'm going to
tell you, jest between us, that when
that dratted bullet went through me at
Antietam it played the dickens with
some important functions OF my innards
and played it "tor keeps" I simply
know that it tore something all TO thun-
der and that your pet doctors don't know
any more about it than 1 do, and maybe
not as much. The plain fact, is, and
that ia what I'm driving at, Tn physical
ly breke up and shattered from my single
heel TO my chin whiskers and it was all
done at Antietam before lost my leg at
the Wilderness and the record says so,
and now you have made me do as much
marching from pillar to post and from
one fool doctor to another rs would have
taken me from the Wilderness to Ca
mans fair and happy shore and I'll be
gol darued if I'll do any more Of it,; No,
sir. Mr.. Black, I've made q iackass OF