Year: 1876

duced the father TO accompany them in
a tour through the country. By a severe
course Of cruel treatment the mutes were
forced to submit TO being clothed, and
for a few weeks they were transported
about the country, the father shameless
ly delivering q ''lecture" on their lives
and exhibiting his talents in contrast to
their utter bruitlshness The specula-
ton did not pay, and Parke and his
children were taken back to their hut in
the wilderness.


THE RELAPSE INTO BARBARISM.


The darkest chapter in this reYolting
narrative is yet to be told. Parke and
his children returned TO their hut in the
depth of the severe winter of 1872. The
snow was deep, and, being absent from
his efarm," Parke had not been able to
take care of his potatoes and turnips,
and what he had left wer2 frozen and
rotted. Bill and Melvina at once resum-
ed their wild life, and all they had to eat
was the bark OF trees and roots they
could find under the snow. Parke made
his wants known to the community and
occasional aid was sent TO him but most
singuiarly, no move WIS taken to deal
permanently with him and his children,
objects of charity, certainly, if ever there
were slch in the world. In this way
they dragged through the winter.


So nearly famished were the ''mutes'
when spring opened that as the weather
grew warm they seized on lizards ana
snakes, as they appeared on the edge of
the swamp near the house, and deyour-
ed them alive. Parke ayows this to be
a fact himself, and others saw the horrid
had grown extremely violent since their
return home. The boy, especially, was
ungoyernable, and both his sister, and
father were subjects of his fury. The
revolving diet just mentioned seemed to
increase the brutishness of their natures
and they fought furiously every day.
The acme of horror was reached, how
ever, when one night in May the girl
gave birth to child in the hut. Parke,
hearing its cries, took charge of it. The
paternity of the child Parke attributed
to one of the men who took the family
away to exhibit, but admits the proba-
biiity of the girls brother being its
father. Be that as it may, Parke took
care OF it until it was week old, when
one of the frequent furious outbreaks of
the children took place. He was com
PEELED to leave the hut, and they tore
the infant i'll pieces He afterward
buried the remains, but believes that
the mutes exhumed and devoured them


MURDER OF THE GIEn.


A few days afterward the boy stabbed
Melvina in the stomach with an old rus
ty case knife he found in the hut, and
also cut her fearfully in other PAGES.
She escaped into the woods and was
found by her father dead in pool of
blood. He carried the body away to a
ISIIiOlc place dIltt DllIlStt lt


SENT TO AN INSANE ASYLUM.


The remaing ''mute" now daily made
deadly assaults on his father, and fnaly y
the latter want to Tunkhannock, The
county seat, and entered formal COM
plant against his son as murderer and
at iempted murderer. With great diff
Guilty he was secured by officers, and
was lodged in jail in Tunkhannock. Eff
forts were made. to clothe him. but he
tore to threads everything placed upon
his person. He was kept in jail for
some months and then released, the
authorities being at loss to know what
to do with him. He took at once to the
woods, and up to a few weeks since roam
ed about as of old. He seems not to
have disturbed his father until recently,
when he attacked him and inflicted
wounds that it WAS thought must prove
fatal. He recovered, however, and his
son was hunted through the woods and
finally captured. He has been confined
in the insane asylum at Danville, where
he will probably remain the rest of his
days, and to which institution, or sim
liar one, his father, it is said, will event
ually follow, as he is considered as be-
coming hopelessly insane