The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1900-02-15
LEPER, But 4 HERO
How John Whey Voluntarily
Went to MoIokai
WHENCE is NO RETURN
And Where Abounds All Unut-
terabIe loathsomeness.
WHENCE is NO RETURN

New York, Feb. 14-Speoial correspond
ence Of the Sunday World from Honolulu
under date OF January 20, relates the story
Of a heroic leper as follows: Sixteen years
ago John c. Whey landed at Honolulu
from sailing vessel. youreg, strong and
ambitious. He seatled in the prosperous is
for years worked hard at his trade as a.
carpenter He became a prosperous con-
tractor. Now, with an income Of over
$500 a month, he is money-king of a
leper settlement, only living out the days
that must elapse before the most dread
full of known diseases shall end his
wrecked areer.
Whey went to San Francnsco in 1890.
1t was in that year that he began to
suspect tIrat he had fallen a victim of
the malady once so prevalent in the Ha-
waiian Islands, but now, thanks TO An
glo-Saxon methods of quarantine, very
seldom seen away from the island of Mo-
lokia-
One night Whey lifted a hot lampelass
in his home, where he was entertaining
a friend The glass was so hot that
smoke rose from his scorched fingers.
and the friend uttered an exclamation
of horror, but Whey showed no signs of
having felt the pain He saw the smoke.
1t was a tgrirn confirmation of his worst
suspicious The thickening skin that
comes with the first advance of leprosy
could not traIe been shown in more
startling manner. The friend thought
nothing of it a the time, but John Whey
knew what it meant
After that n ght Whey Stunned his
friends. He Wa IS seen walking along the
water front of San Francisco, with his
hat over his eye s, buried in thought He
avoided speaking to any one. A close
observer might have seen, perhaps, that
his eyelids were thicker than they should
have been, and that his fingers were
thick and shiny. Whey was contemplat-
ing the step he finally took of placing,
imself under the guards that hem in
h thousand or more lepers of NIolokai.
Il was a terrible step to consider. In
III ahe world there is probably no moro
lorrA BE place to live than in a leper set
lemen t, where ;tnong a thousand COM
,anionI' there is not one with the hope
hat be longs to The average man. where
III are familiar with the deepest despair
Ind not a few are such spectacles as no
nan likes to think of.
Many have com United suicide rather
han go to MolokajL Others have risked
leath to escape from there. In the wilds |
# Hawaii there is. a canyon in which
i've a few lepers, who guard the an
hoi-
hey be arrested and moved to the set |
Element. They are not molested, as they |
ire harmless to the world, and may as |
we'll be allowed to live out their wretched |
existence in the spot they have chosen.
It was 10 Mo1okai that Whey finally
decided to go. He returned to Honolulu
surrendered himself and was taken TO
he settlement. But for its horrible pop
llation, Kaanapad, the Molokai leper
settlement. is one of the most lovely
spots in the world. Its climate is unsur-
passed, its scenery grand. But these
beauties are lost in contemplation of the
horror of the place.
The lepers live and love, marry and
raise children, like human geings in the
outside world. They even have their en-
and their industries, but
the pail is never absent. The old cry,
Room for the leper! Room!" has not
been given up yet, though now civilized
man provides the room and tries to allie
viate the suffering rather than run from
H.
Whey knew when he set foot on Molo-
kai that he had not the slightest chance
of leaving the place. No earehly circam-
stance can be conceived under which he
could ever expect to tread any other soil
than that of the leper colony. He built
a home there and with the courage of a
man who refuses to yield to anything
but death itself he took rb again his oc-
of contractor.
He is at Molol1ai yet He has a home,
with servants. lepers all, hut is still al
property owner in Honolulu. He will
never see any of his relatives or former
friends again. AS far as they are con-
cerned he IS dead. But in fact ne is liv-
ing on, with a noble courage that defles
all the world can do to down a man.
One of his workmen's tools is supposed
to have carried the germs of Ieprosy TO
Whey. He was in the habit of working
in his own shop, and frequently used the
same tools as the other men. A case of
leprosy developed among his employees.
and the man was sent to AIolokai, fol-
lowed later by his employer.
Nh HlIRRY AROJT FITTING en-