The Aberdeen Democrat. (Aberdeen, South Dakota) 1???-1909, 1903-01-02
DROP OUT OF SIGHT.
pcop1e Who withdraw
Themselves from All
,ion with the World.

~ l;fe of a recluse has always a
ne interesting side TO the resi- VI IL
,,.nf,, There are many instances
n,h.rn other causes than religious zeal
have had to do with the witharaWai
from The worlds gaze of lnaivlauais
who have virtually buried themselves
oliye, as far as communication Win .he
outside world was concerned, says the
Philadelphia Press.
There are some strange refuses IN
Epoland and one of the strangest OF
these was a woman who dled IN Sani-
bridgeshire.
For over 80 years she had not been
seen by any human being. Her meals
were ALWAYS left outside her room to
he taken in when no one was ny, n
it was only through her negiecting
to do this for three consecutive days
that apprehension as TO her safety
was aroused. The door OF G room
was forced. and she was found dead
on her bed. The reason for her &C.
centric conduct never transpired u
she died-as she had lived-a mystery.
An equally mysterious recluse dWelt
in a Kentish town. a trusted civic
employe, he one morning quilted his
post for no ostensible cause and retired
to his house, where he lived. on a
scant annuity he possessed. Such food
as he needed was purchased by u blind
sister with whom he lived, and he gave
nosign of existence, save when at night
his steps could be plainly heard pac-
ing his back yard, which, that he might
escape prying eyes, he had rooted in
with canvas. The mystery at his death
remained unsolved.
A physician named Blore, who lived
at the end of the eighteenth century,
was suddenly seized with a hatred of
his kind, and resolved until his death
never to see, or be seen by, man. So,
he had made a large. bell-shaped struc-
ture of wickerwork, open at the top
ing caused it to be placed in the hall
of his house, he, having hidden a
solemn farewell to his wife and daugh-
tiers, descended through the aperture.
In this case insanity was at the bot
tom of the matter. and Blore persisted
by his OWL hand in less than a week
after he had taken possession of his
strange dwelling.
Another curious instance of mania
was that of a gentleman whose fam
lily was well known to the writer. He
was stricken with the strange fancy
that he possessed a Gorgeous head, so
that everybody who beheld him would
be turned to stone. He, therefore, re-
tired to a couple of %attics, to which he
would admit no one and, though doubt
less he might with propriety have been
relegated to an asylum, his family re-
spected his bizarre whim, and he re-
malned religiously secluded. for over
three years, when he recovered his
normal senses.
The late E. P. Whipple, an American
lecturer and critic, used to tell of an
eccentric New Yorker who, having read
a pamphlet on immurement as prac.
tlced BY the medieval religious orders.
was possessed by an irresistible desire
to copy their procedure-though not in
his own person.
This he gratified with the assistance
OF an elderly pauper. who, in considera-
11on OF a handsome annuity, allowed
TO ms wife, agreed 10 be confined in a
small dungeon built in the walls. In
TINS cell he spent four years of his
me- being fed through a small aperture
SO eontrived as not to permit a SIGHT
OF the voluntary prisoner.