Waterbury Democrat., 1900-11-07
ABOUT TAR AND FEATHERS.

Several guests were sitting in the cosy corner of the Grunewald lobby the other day, reading the papers and exchanging desultory comments. "Ha! ha. "chuckled one of the party, ''I see they tarred and feathered a couple Of Mormon elders up the country last night. Served 'em right, by jove! They must have looked funny, sauntering out of town, dressed in pitch and plumagen Did you ever see anybody tarred and feathered?" asked red bearded man in the next chair. "No? Well, let me assure you it's pretty serious thing. l saw one case, and I'll never forget it in my life. It was in the fall of 'S7,' he continued, in re- sponse to a general request for the story, ''and I was running a Turkish bath house in Pittsburg, Penn. One morning q big athletic man of about thirty-five walked in and ordered a hot bath. A little latter he rang the bell and sent for me, and when I entered the room I was so astonished l nearly toppled over. From his feet to his neck he looked like a half picked black chicken.
 As it afterward turned out he had been waylaid by a party of men at a place called Sheldon. right in the heart of the district where the coal strike is now in progress, and treated to coat of tar and feathers. He was supposed to be private detective who had been sent to pry into the secrets of the miners societies, and I guess the supposition was correct. Anyhow they did a very thorough job, and evi- dently stopped at his neck to give him chance to get out of the district without attracting attention, which was really a pretty Shrewd move. The question before the house was how to get the stuff off, and a more difficult problem I never attacked. He had ridden over 100 miles in the cars, and the tar had become thoroughly dry In hardening it had contracted slight ly and pulled out millions of the mi. mute hairs with which all human be- ings t-re covered, which, of course caused him intense agony. Moreover it had choked up all the pores, and, if he hadn't been a man of superb phy- sique, I'm satisfied he would have sue. cumbed before he reached the city.
 Well. put him in a hot bath to be- gin with, and set couple of massage operators to scrubbing him with flesh brushes and .carbollc soap. In q little while we saw that wouldn't do They got off few small pieces, but the skin came off along with them, and I stopped the flaying and tried spons- ing with benzine. That had about as much effect as spring water on krupp armor plate. Then I sent for doctor who had to admit himself puzzled. He said he had had very few cases of tarring and feathering in his practice; but something had to be done quick so he tried soaking in warm turpentine That proved to be the correct thing but it was desperately slow work, and meanwhile the man had to be kept up on stimulants, for he was getting very weak. Eventually the turpentine dissolved the tar, tually the turpentine dissolved the tar, and we got it of with soft sponges; but how long do you think it took Five days-working on and off. as he could stand 1t. When we got through he was laid up for month. l got S15O for the job. }, gentlemen, there is nothing humorous about tar and feathers. when seen at close range. New Orleans Times-Democrat