The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-08-05
TOWN NOTED FOR
ECCENTRIC PEOPLE
Everybody FreakiSh in This
Community
SOME PECULIAR STORIES
Some Kinks Noted BY Casual Visitor.
Don't Like to Talk About Neigh
bors' lnflrmities-Visit-
ors Not Wanted.
From the New York Tribune.

| voted his lie TO retaining community
of cretins, would find excellent scope for
activity in an odd. picturesque little vii
lage not twenty-five miles from New York.
With population of few hundred, this
hamlet boasts more freaks, eccentrfcs and
downright crazy folk than can be met in
any other place of the same size--except
an institution for the witless. Every form
of abnormallty, from religious mysticism
| to homicidal mania, Is represented, and
considering the healthful location, the
quiet and pure air, the explanation of a
local sayant that a germ carries the in
lection of wandering wits seems plausible.
Villages don't like bad name any more
than individuals. The fact that two dozen
out of a few hundred have space to let
in their upper stories ought not to mill
tate against the entire population. There
fore, 1t is enough to locate this village at
the foot of the Orange mountains in New
Jersey, between a pair of thriving towns
where many New York commuters dwell.
| To a stranger the natives are either
reticent or evasive on the subject of loose
| screws. They ealclate that few cases
| have been bad enough to require confine-
ment, and most of those shut up have
been released after an interval That fell
| low2 He's all right, only he's away
here" said citizen, gravely tapping his
forehead with his index finger. Some
| times the boy loses his thinktngs, but he's
strong and healthy said a woman, de-
scribing defective. She acts funny but
| means we'll" was another phrase. The
! cunty medical officer was inclined to dis
| courage the view of large percentage of
| twisted wits until the investigator cited
many cases, when he said that some of
fl,,
| clergyman some time ago made himself
so unpopular by connecting insanity with
| the vicious influence of the four saloons
| that he had to leave the place.
Eccentrieity, at least is not confined to
the poor or middle class inhabitants A
wealthy old bachelor whose father had
| wide repute as u physician and hymnol-
ogist, takes pride in an estate fronted
with miscellaneous dwarf statuary A
| small park for deer, a cedar hedge laby-
rinth and an art gallery of yelled oddities
| are other features. Their owner rarely
shows his face to the villagers, and is
said to subscribe to worthy charities in
| fractional parts of dollar. spinster
| relative who lives nearby secludes heslef
for weeks In the upper rooms of her
house, shouts down to visitors that she is
not at home drinks coffee a pastime
and further amuses herself by hopping
the stairs with costly silk frocks. She
takes pensiye aesthetic delight in watch
ing cultivated blackberries decay on the
bushes
Another woman member of the family
who died recently, owned gabled man
sion which she would neither sell nor
rent believing 1t to be the chosen abode
OF her departed ancestors. All the furni-
ture. fine carpets and rare porcelain We're
left in the place for the use of the ghostly
tenants. 1t was surprising what hard
! 1.
furniture. She decided after while that
the ancestors did not need to bang the
piano and so had that instrument re-
moved. Hardheaded persons assert the
nocturnal noises and mysterious lights
seen through the mansions encircling
screen of spruce trees and exotic shrub
berry were due to the activities of tramps.
Tragedy Not Wanting.
| More tragic is the case of a young man
of family who inherited mental disorder
from his father, tired to drown himself.
was confined in asylum and is now
affected by a harmless religious mania
which impels him to go about exhortlng
sane sinners The father, who died lately,
was in and out of the asylum and had d
habit of tearing carpets and lighting lamps
in the daytime Pathetic also Is the faint
transmitted by mother to her two chill
dren. a boy and girl. The girl is simply
1
stoops and into henhouses, which the ac-
customed neighbors take as a matter of
| course. Drinking kerosene and Sitting
feather pillows are the limit of her
achievement At nightfall, like wild ami
NAL, she goes into hiding. Symptoms
shown In the caseof her brother are partly
| attributed to vicious environment
mechanic thus describes his expert
ence with an exceptional subject beyond
the village limits:
II went to Mrs. SIS house to fix the
pump. | rode there on horseback and had
my horse tied outside. Just as ! was
| getting through the woman walked into
the room with her hands behind her back
and began talking queerly, hut friendly
noticed she kept edging around so as
| to get between me and the door. got
nervous, because l had heard how she
ran out at people driving past, and
tried to see what she had behind her.
Suddenly she gives a screech, lifts a
small crowbar that was hid and aims for
my head | jumped pretty quick, you bet.
| got past her out of the door and on my
horse | rode away fast as / could
and never went back to get my TOOLS
A conjunction of internal applejack and
an astronomical full moon were blamed
for the periodic seizures of an old man,
now dead. who had Indian blood in his
veins He had a smooth face, long white
hair and excelled in carving animals out
of wood. When liquor and the moon CO.
incided his family fled the house. 1t Is
said he went in his back yard and danced
fantastically In point honor Of Bacchus
and the Great Spirit. More recently an
| old Austrian soldier, who lived next door,
took a fatal dose of paris green after a
vain attempt to administer the same ne
penthe in the family coffee, but this was
rather the climax of coal oil and rum
spree than OF a naturally disordered in
tellect.
The woman who talks with her parrot In
| preference to human conversation seems
a comic type until one learns the whole
story. She abuses her neighbors in lively
outdoor chats with the bird, keeps her
house tightly closed. puts lighted parlor
| lamp on the front stoop at night, leaves
| skirts on the clothesline for five-day peri
| DDS and takes trolley car rides OF a maxi
| mum distance of two blocks. Once she
advertised for boarders, and installed in
| the hest chamber birdie and bridegroom
| who were upon their honeymoon. The
| Young couple congratulated themselves on
| the delightful nook they had found. but
| M midnight they were routed out and
! driven into the street. The woman said
| merely that she had changed her mind
about having boarders; the couple. seeing
| her glaring eyes politely agreed that she
| mad n right TO change her mind.
Suppose we had been murdered in our
| Sleep said the hysteric bride as they
| sought quarters in local tavern.
| Guess the parrot would have turned
! states evidence" remarked bystander,
| t., aside.