The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-12-19
A MAN WITHOUT A NAME
SET ASHORE ON THE BAT OF FUNDY
 COAST FORTY YEARS AGO.

Since Then Ike Hasn poken an In
 telligible Word, and No One Knows
 Whence He Came or Who He Is-Year-
 ly the Government Votes sum for
 His Support.
 The blue books published by the gov ernment of the province of Nova Scotia are, as a rule, pretty dry readi1g, and that called the Financial Returns is one of the dryest of the lot. Yet there is one line in the Financial Returns be- hind which turks one of the straneest mysteries, which, after 40 years, still remains mystery. The Financial Re- turns give all expenditures from the officeof the provincial treasurer-that is, all expenditures made by the pro- vince of Nova Scotia. One line reads: oeroine %. ...''........r.... .........."..Sl04
 Few, if any, members of the present Legislature know what it means They only know that it has been there for many years, and therefore some one is receiving $104 every year, but who and what Jerome is or why he should re- ceive anything they do not know. The item was there in the old days before confederation-before there was any Dominion of Canada and Nova Scotia was a seperate colony
 One day. 40 years ago, the people liv- ing about the narrow strip of rock and land on the Nova Scotia side of the Bay of Fundy, know as Digby Neck, ob- served a ship on the horizon. Her movements were unusual. She seemed to be aimlessly lowering about the same place. When darkness came she was still there and her mission was an ob- ject of much speculation to the fisher men whose little cottages were the only residence in the neighborhood of that rugged shore. Next morning the vessel was gone, but there was a man. or piece of a man, on the beach. His legs had been cut off above the knees. The work had been recently done and by a skillful hand. The wounded stumps were carefully bandaged. The man was apparently about 19 years old, with soft. flaxen hair and blue eyes. His white skin, delicate features and shapely hands betokened that he was probably well born and well brought up. His underclothing was of finest linen and his other garments of good material, but of cut differing from that of any people the flshmermen had ever seen. He seemed to be suffering from the effects of some terrible shock. Be- side him on the beach were a small keg of water and a ships biscuits.
 He was taken to one of the cottages and nursed and cared for. He gradual 1y recovered, but was gloomy and si- lent His vocal organs seemed all right, but if the guttural sounds he uttered were meant in words, nobody could make out what they meant. Peddlers who were from abroad and seafaring men who had a smattering of foreign tongues went to see him, but his language, if language it were, was strange to them all. Perhaps no effort was made to teach him English, or per- haps his sulen disposition rendered him unapproachable, or the shock of his system when his legs were cut off duled his mind so that he could not learn. Certain it is that although 40 years have passed since he was marooned in the mysterious manner described, he has never sonveyed to any living being by speech a single thought.
 There was not letter or paper of any kind nor marks on his clothing to give the slightest clue to his name, home, nationality or history. The people called him "Jerome," because they thought some of the sounds he made with his voice resembled that, but ex- cept for this he has remained for 40 years a man without a name, In time the poor people of the village felt they could no longer bear the burden of the waif's maintenance, and they applied to the authorities to relieve them of him. The poor commissioners of Digby county did not see why they should bear the load. He certainly was not a Digby county man. They accordingly applied to the Legislature of Nova Scotia to take care of him. Pending investigation the Legislature appro- priated the sum of $1O4 for his main tenance. Investigation failed to dis CONSl ally lllO4C 'lldll hoo Cody known, and the grant was continued year after year.
 Jerome" lives now with resectable French Acadian family near a place called Saulnierville, on the Bay of F'undy shore, in Digby county. It is on the main post road of the province, and in bygone years passengers by coach would stop to see and inquire about the man, but in time they got so accustom- ed to seeing and hearing of him that they would simply wave the hand to him, as he stood in front of the house stunning himself He has always been very fond of warmth as though he had come from hot climate. In the sum mer he basks all day in the sun. In chilly weather he huddles behind the kitchen stove
 He is still the silent, gloomy man he was when he first landed, keeping to himself, eating at meal hours such food as is placed before him, never attempt ing to read or write, and never having given any indication whether he can do so or not.
 Various stories of a mutiny on ves- sel, of a stolen heir being put out of the way, of a nobleman whose estates are in the hands of another are among the versions of the mystery which have