The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-05-18

Whitechapel road, crouching behind an old
curtain and trying to warm himself over
brick that was heated by a gas jet. Mr..
Treves went up to him not only without rear
or loathing, but with sympathy. For the
first time in his life of twenty-four years
Merrick heard a kind word and was spoken
to like man. The effect was curious. 1t
made him afraid at first. He shrank as an
ordinary man would from something un
canny. Then as he began to realize the
truth he broke into sobs of gratitude. Days
and even weeks passed, however, before ne
recovered from the shock of hearing COM
passionate word. :,
The police prohibited his show on the
ground of public decency. So he went to
Belgium, where again the police interfered,
AndIiwhere an agent decamped with MS
money. Merrick was left destitute and
starving in the streets of foreign town,
where the ignorant mob thought MN q
fend. 90
i He came back to London-how, no one
quite knows. At every station and landing
place crowds logged him. Steamers refused
to have him on board. But he came back
to London because in London lived the only
man who had ever given him kind word.
He made his way to the London hospital,
found Mr.. Treves, who had him lodged for
time in an attic in the hospital, and de-
termined to find a permanent shelter for
him.
But now it was found that no institution
would receive him. The Royal Hospital for
Incurables and the British Home for Incur
ables alike declined to take him in unless
sufficient funds were forthcoming to pay
for his maintenance for life. He himself
begged that he might be placed in blind
hospital. 1t is hard to match the pathos OF
this plea. a
Then in November, 1886, Mr.. Carr Comm,
the chairman of the London hospital, wrote
TO- R>rT hell, f~x md
the British public responded. room was
built for Merri OK on. the ground floor In
remote wing of the hospital, and there, sur
rounded with books, flowers and hundred
tokens of the kindness that is really quick
in the public heart, he has lived until the
middle of April.
He had fonnd many friends-the Prince
and Princess of Wales, Mr.. Gladstone, Mrs.
Kendall and others. To Mrs. Kendall is due
the happy suggestion that Merrick should
be taken to see. the Christmas pantolnime at
Drury Lane. She engaged the royal box;
she had him brought to the theatre, and took
every precaution that no strange eye should
sec him. Hidden from the house. behind
the curtains of the box. the Elephant Man.
tasted an hour or two of intoxicating happl-
ness. 1t was all real to him-the fairies, the
splendor and the jewels.
Merrick, in spite of his hideous exterior
and terrible experience, was in his way a
gentle sentimentalist and gushed forth at
times under the happy conditions OF his life
at the hospital in verse modelled on the
hymns of br. Watts, in which he gave utter
ance to feelings of gratitude the sincerity of
which none ever questioned. It was tender
heart that was beating beneath mask more
hideous than that of Orson. Above all it
was heart that was filled with love for the
man who was literally his savior, who first
spoke kindly to him, who rescued him frnm
fate thousand times worse than death
and to the end was both his doctor and his
Sneaker.