, 1890-06-11
A sosRowFuL AND SOLITARY LIFE.


The Pitiful and Touching story of Joseph
MerrieI, the Elephant Man
We can remember no invented tale
that spesks so to the heart at once of the
cruelty of life and the beauty of human
compassion as the true story closed by a
sentence in the newspapers announcing
that Joseph Merick, the elephant
man." was dead.
Imagine a human soul clothed in a
body so ~unspeakably frightful that see
ing it men turned sick with loathing and
women tainted; a being who had to be
conveyed from place to place in secret;
who hardly dared to venture abroad
even by night; who, finding his fellow
creatures ran from him, grew terrified
by the terror he created, and shuddered
in dark corners like q hunted beast
Imagine him driven by starvation to &C
cept a showman's offer and be exhibited
to the most brutal of audiences, that
commonly enough shrieked and ran pell
nell from the tent as soon as the curtain
was drawn.
Early in 1896 Frederick Treves, one of
the surgeons Of the London hospital,
found Merrick in a penny show, in a
room off the Whitechapel road, crouch
ing behind an old curtain and trying to
warm himself over a brick that was
heated by a gas jet. Mr.. Treves went
up to him not only without fear or loath-
ing, but with sympathy. For the first
time in his life of twenty-four years Mer-
rick heard q kind word and was spoken to
like a man. The effect was curious. 1t
made him afraid at first. He shrank as an
ordinary man would from something IN
canny. Then, as he began to realize the
truth, he broke into sobs OF gratitude.
Days and even weeks passed, however,
before he recovered from the shock Of
hearing a compassionate word.
The police prohibited his show on the
ground of public decency. So he went
to Belgium, where again the police in
terfered, and where an agent decamped
with his money. Merrick was left desti-
tute and starving in the streets of a for
eign town, where the ignorant mob
thought him a fiend.
He came back to London-how, no
no one quite knows. At every station
and landing place crowds dogged him.
Steamers refused Il have him on board.
But he came back to London, because
in London lived the only man who had
ever given him a kind word. He made
his way to the London hospital, found
Mr.. Treves, who had him lodged for a
time in an attic in the hospital. and de-
termined to find n permanent shelter for
him.
But now it was found that no institu-
ton would receive him The royal hos
pital for incurables and the British home
for incurables alike declined to take him
in unless sufficient funds were forth
coming to pay for his maintenance for
life. He himself begged that he might
be placed in a blind hospital. 1t is hard
to match the pathos Of this plea.
Then in November. 1885, Carr Comm,
chairman Of the London hospital, wrote
TO The Times asking help for this case,
and the British public responded. A
room was built for Merrick on the
ground floor in a remote wing Of the hos
pital, and there, surrounded with books,
flowers and n hendred tokens of the
kindness that is really quick in the pub
lie heart, he lived.
He had found many friends - the
Prince and Princess Of Wales, Mr.. Glad
stone, Mrs. Kendall and others. To Mrs.
Kendall is due the happy suggestion that
Merrick should be taken to see the
Christmas pantomime at Drury Lane.
She engaged the royal box; she had him
brought to the theatre, and took every
%precaution that no strange eye should
see him. Hidden from the house behind
the curtains Of the box, the elephant
man tasted an hour or two of intoxicat-
ing happiness. 1t was all real to him
the fairies, the splendor and the jewels.
Merrick. in spite of his hideous ex-
terror and terrible experiences. was in
his wa n gentle sentimentalist, and
gushed forth at times, under the happy
conditions of his life at the hospital, In
verse modelled on the hymns of DR..
Watts, in which he gave utterance to
feelings of gratitude, the sincerity of
which acne ever questioned. 1t was a
tender heart that was beating beneath a
mask more hideous than that of Orson.
Above all, 1t was a heart that was filled
with love for the mar who was literally
his saviour, who first spoke kindly to
him, who rescued him from a fate a
thousand times worse than death, and to
the end was both his doctor and his
friend. Recently, it was only Mr.. Treves
who could thoroughly understand the
poor creatures MANNED utterances; and
to Mr.. Treves he chung to the last with
the wistful trust and affection of a dumb
animal-London Speaker.