The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-01-30
THE CAMP aIuMPER .

THE CAMP JUMPER"
 Up in the woods along the Canadian
 border during the long months when
 deep snow covers the ground and the
 dense stiffness is broken only by the
 sharp ring of the woodman's axe. the
 time hangs heavily on the hands of the
 crews of the logging camps For miles
 Tn all directions there is an unbroken
 expanse of trees and snow. The great
 world outside rushes on, but these men
 know nothing of elections, strikes.
 disasters and horrors on land and sea
 until months after they have occurred.
 They are buried in the wilderness and sometimes they go mad or fall ill of melancholia, but for the first part they spend the time when their labors are over in devising some new form of diversion of variations of amusements that have become traditional, like that of compelling a man to climb tree. after which they proceed to chop the tree down, permitting the unhappy yic- tim of their sport to make sudden de- scent into some convenient snow bank.
 IT, however, a camp is provided with a jumper" the men never feel called upon to look further for a means and source of amusement. Now .'jurnper,' m the woods is about as luckIess a specimen of humanity as walks the earth. He is seldom found far away from the woods, because it is in their shade that he first begins his jumping career. To start with, he is simply a man whose nerves are abnormally sensitive, There are many such among the half-breed French Canadians.
 Ordinarily, they would simply be very nervous men, but when such a one is discovered in a logging camp, drastic ana persistent measures are taken to develop him into a full-fledged ssjunnp- er,' by which is meant one who has so lost control of his muscles that they will act involuntarily at the command of another
 This result is secured by constant nagging and ceaseless petty annov- ances, until the nerves of the victim be- come completely unstrung, as the say- ing is, and he is helpless in the hands of his tormentors. The luckless logger straightens up from his work and stick from some unknown source strikes hlm in the back. He goes to bed at night and no sooner is he asleep than a shower of boots and shoes beats down upon him. A string is tied to each toe as he dozes in his bunk and one string pulled at a time until his foot seems to be burning up. He gets no peace by night or day, and before many months his nervous system has become completely shattered and the camp has secured it's jumper" the butt of all it's jokes and the cause of boundless hilar- ity.
 A fully developed jumper is as help less as a baby in the hands of a. strong Wllled man. A shout him high into the air A poke in the ribs sends him al- most into hysterics. Tn order to con- trol himself he often resorts to biting his fingers and I have seen a "jumper'' with hands bleeding and raw from con- stant gnaWing. Point a finger at The unfortunate man and he will beat his hands fiercely against a board or a stone wall.
 sometimes jumper acts like a. man hypnotized He will sway from side +o side or go in any direction indicated bv the motion of hand. He will. even peat another with his fists when com nanded, but being perfectly conscious or what he is doing, although power- iess to help himself, will cry out piteous- " Il can't help it, don't hit me-
 Sometimes tragedy follows an at tempt to have sport with one of thesa nfortunate individuals It is related that several choppers, among them a
 Jumper were once walking through the woods in single file, their axes over. lhelr shoulders, when some thoughtless threw a stick of wood which struck the Jumper" The latter sprang. 1 hto the air and brought down his keen l suseo axe With great force, cleaving the SKULL of the man walking in front of 1 llll. More often it is the ssiunpe,, llmself who is injured, for the men of ne lumber camps are not inclined to l ,nink first before playing their Jokes on 1 Ter aiiilcted comrade and may cause | nm to come tunbling down from q, nile J logsfor even jump into the fire
 It all seems very pitiful. for the ,ifa i T Jumper must be one of the ut- most misery He is alawys an ignorant nan, however, and knows of no way to | 'scape the thraldom. Perhaps as a. rule lis intellect is not very strong to begin Vith. Probably in nearly all cases his nind becomes affected after a few ears. He gets no sympathy from lls fellows, for they cannot understand IS weakness. and their sport is nearly llways rough. His antics make them augh and relieve the tedium of long ma lonely winter, far away from iviiization.-Boston Transcript.