The Savannah morning news., 1902-07-07
A CLEVER CRATER.
How He Worked His Loss of Mem
CRY Scheme.

ington the other day, when / got into
a small town in Iowa, on my way
East, 1 found the town In a state of
considerable commotion over the pc
culiar case of a man who had reached
the place the day before. The man, it
seemd. had one OF these sudden-loss-
of-identity cases about which we've
been reading so much in the newspa-
pers during the past four or five years.
This l found out before l had seen
him. He had stepped off a train
bound from Omaha to Chicago on the
day before and had engaged the sta
tion-master in conversation as soon as
the train pulled out. He had clean
forgotten who he was, where he had
come from, where he was going, or
anything whatever about himself, the
young man told the station master.
THE station master, of course, was
willing to knock off work any time to
talk with such a queer proposition as
that. The station master took the
young man to the hotel of the town
and interested several of the solid citi
zens in the case. In conversation with
all of these the young mans manner
was exactly the same as it had been
when he had tackled the station-master
and told that official of his sudden loss
of identity. In a quiet, pathetic sort
of way, and frequently passing his
hand in a puzzled manner across his
forehead, he told them that he had
no more idea what his name was than
of any of the event that had led to sis
dropping off the train into the little
town in which he found himself. He
didn't remember ever having seen the
town before, and what his purpose had
been in stopping off there was too
much for him.
1.-The leading physician of the town
was called into the conference after
awhile and he was as much puzzled
over the young mans story as the solid
citizens. He questioned the young man
closely as to whether he had recently
received any injury to his head. and
the young man replied that he didn't
recall anything of the sort. The medi-
cal man examined the young man thor
oughly, and found that he was in tip
top condition physically. and that he
was perfectly rational and level-headed
mentally, except that all recollection of
everything connected with his previous
life had absolutely departed from him.
The towns press correspondent, of
course, got hold of the queer story and
interviewed the young man, and he
sent the story out all over the country.
"All of this was on the day before
the landlord pointed the young man
out to me, and 1 went upsto the table
where he was enjoying a hearty meal
and had talk with him. He was a
chap of about twenty-eight or so, good
looking and very we'll dressed. He had
| landed in the town without a cent of
money and without any papers where
by he could be identified, but his case
seemed so extraordinary that the solid
| -. efl III 81
unteered to stand for his hotel bill, and
so on. until it could be decided what
to do with him. The solid citizens, as
matter of fact, were rather proud
of the business, knowing as they did
that the story had been wired to the
papers all over the country. They
considered that it sort of advertised
their town.
1.-The townsmen who had volunteered
to look out for the young fellow assem-
| bled at the hotel on the night that I
got in for the purpose of arriving at
| sc me decision as to what should be
done with him. There was no hospital
| in the place designed to cope with cases
| of lost identity. / happened to mention
at the conference that perhaps the
young man would be better off in Chi
cago, where he could go to one of the
| big hospitals for treatment. The young
chap came in 81 that point with the
remark that he had a vague sort of
recollection that the name of the place
from which he hailed began with a
| C.
I'm going up to Chicago to-mor-
row. said / to the conference of citi-
Zens, and, if you gentlemen desire it,
l could take this young fellow along
with me and see that he gets into the
| right hands for treatment
They all looked upon the suggestion
as good one, and thanked me for it,
Then they took up a collection for the
young mans benefit, and raised nearly
hundred dollars, which they wanted
me to keep for him until we arrived
in Chicago l told them that 1 would
rather not do that, however as the
young man appeared to be perfectly
rational, and in shape to take care of
the fund himself So they handed the
money over to him on the following
morning, and gripped his hand in cor
dial goodbye handshakes, and the pair
of us climbed aboard the express train
bound for Chicago.
I'VE got into the smoker and the
young man pulled out a handful of
good cigars and offered me a smoke
Then he produced from his valise a
quart bottle of Iowa drug store whisky
and offered me drink. This, of
course, surprised me whole lot, but
didn't want to take a chance of MAX
ing the man of lost identity nervous
by submitting inquiries to him as to
where, how and why he had got the
whisky; so took nip along with him,
and / let it go at that. Well, to make
it short, he hit that bottle up pretty
fNrd within an hour after our depar-
ture, and inside of a couple of hours
he was pretty well Jagged. He invited
me to play a game of poker with him,
pulling out the 500 wad that the solid
citizens had donated to him, and gaz-
ing at 1t humorously. 1t struck me
as something pretty queer that man
who had clean forgotten all about his
own identity should still remember the
somewhat involved game of draw polk
er. but l didn't say anything about it,
Then the young fellow took another
large swig DIT his bottle and gazed at
me in a rummy sort of way out of the
slants of his eyes.
Great graft, pal, amt it?' he said
to me.
Whats great .graft?" 1 asked
him.
" 'Thish Josh o. memory scheme said
he, and then he went On drunkenly
and let the cat out of the bag, telling
me he had been working the dodge
right along all over the country for
two or three years past whenever he
was broke, and that he got away with
a cute little bundle on the strength
of it every time. l told him that he
was a loafer and blackguard and
several other things, but he was too
much loaded to care by that time,
and | left the smoker in disgust and