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STRANGE STORY OF
JOHN EARLY
Declared a Leper in 1908, He Has
Escaped al Various Times From
Isolation, Recently He Left the 1
Leprosorium at Carville, La., to
Return to North Carolina.
(From Atlanta Journal)
The escape of John Early, leper,
from the Federal Leprosorium at
Carville, La., 60 miles north of Newj
Orleans and 30 miles from Baton
Rouge, presents another dramatic in
cident in his strange life.
Early disappeared from the Car
ville hospital April 10 to visit his
family at Tryon, N. C., and ten
days later was reported encamped on
the South Toe river, eight miles from
Brunsville, N. C.
Recent reports show about 200 pa
tients at the Carville leper colony,
the only institution of its kind in the
United States. Through the use of
Chaulmoogra oil, 40 patients have
been cured there.
On April 19, the announcement
was made that a five-year-old girl
from Minnesota had been dismissed
from the hospital as cured of leprosy,
•nd had been adopted by a family in
Minnesota. The child and her moth
er were brought to the hospital two
•and a half years ago, and the child
improved steadily under the Chaul
moogra oil treatment. The mother
is still at Carville.
John Early, whose escape has cen
tered attention upon himself and
upon the leprosorium, was first de
clared to be a leper in 1908 while he
was living in Washington, D. C., and
it was there that he was isolated, and
several times escaped, much to the
embarrassment of health officers.
The mixture of tragedy and humor
in his life is shown in the following
article from Washington:
BY THEODORE TILLER
Washington, D. C.—When news
was received here that John Early,
leper, had escaped from the lepro
sorium at Carville, La., health of
ficers were apprehensive that he
might pay another visit to the na
tional capitol.
Four times within the past 19
years, Early has been in the custody
of worried officials of Washington.
His story is one of tragedy and af
fliction, but through it runs a game
of hide-and-seek that might be amus
ing were the circumstances different.
Once when he returned to Wash
ington following his escape from
quarantine, he telephoned to Dr. Wil
liam C. Fowler, the chief health of
ficer of the District of Columbia.
“Do you want John Early back?’’
a voice over the wire asked. Dr.
Fowler thought he was the victim of i
a practical joker.
“No,” answered Dr. Fowler.
“So you don’t want John Early
again?”
“I am not particular about it,”
said Dr. Fowler. “Who is this?”
“This is Early,” frankly answered
the leper. “Come to my hotel at 11
o’clock and you can take me in
charge. I’m registered under the
name of Weston.”
And at 11 o’clock Dr. Fowler
found Early in one of the fashion
able hotels in Washington and sur
rounded by three or four newspaper
men who had been tipped off by
Early.
“Come on, John,” said Dr, Foo
ler and he returned to the isolation
he expected.
* * *
Declared a Leper
It was on August 21, 1908, that
residents of the National Capital
first were startled by Die disclosure
that a leper was in their midst. The
average reaction was based on the
Biblical references to leprosy and
its depiction in the play, “Ren-Hur.”
For weeks John Early held newspa
per headlines and the unfortunate
one was discussed in homes and clubs
and barber shops.
On that date, back in 1908, Dr.
Fowler received a message from a
Washington physician who numbered
John Early among his transient pa-
tients. This physician had never
treated a case of leprosy, but he sus
pected that his patient suffered from
that supposedly incurable disease.
Dr. Fowler, health officer, had never
known leprosy in all his medical ca
reer; but he agreed with the diag
nosis of his informant. An expert
of the United States Public Health
Service, who had known lepers in
far-away places, was called in. He
asserted that John Early was a leper.
“At that time,” says Dr. Fowler,
“John Early was in a rooming house,
conducted by a charitable organiza
tion in lower Pennsylvania avenue.
Our records show that Early was 35
■years of age. I purchased a tent,
with wooden flooring, and isolated
Early on the eastern branch of the
Potomac river, a short distance away
from the quarantine station and the
-district jail. Here remained! un
der guard, for nearly a year.
“On July 3, 1909, he was remov
ed to New York City for treatment
by a skin specialist, Dr. Bulkley.
His removal from Washington was
with understanding that he would not
return here. But Early did return,
and has returned three or four times, 1
as I recall. He came back to Wash
ington again December 1, 1909, and
ten days later he was sent to New ,
York for the second time. Then for |
several years we lost track of him,
but heard that he was up and down
the Pacific coast.
“On June 2, 1914, my records
show, Early was back in Washing
ton, having escaped from quarantine
at Fort Townsend, Washington state.
We put him once more in isolation,
but hp escaped from our Potomac
river house on August 13, 1915, and
went back to hki North Carolina
home, or somewhere else.
Meets Wife And Child
“x do not know where he wander
ed in the next few years, but T recall
that he last reappeared in Washing
ton on July 16, 1923, after walking
away from the Carville, La., leprosy
colony. He stayed here only about
a week and we sent him back to
Carville, from which institution he
I recently escaped. I will ask you
not to question me as to the means
of his transportation—whether by
nutornobile, passenger coach, box car
lor what not. But we sent him down
to Louisiana, where he has been for
several years.”
During the past twenty years many
columns have been written about
the leper, Early. But no story ap-
proaches in human interest that of
the meeting of Early and his wife
and child on the banks of the eastern
Potomac branch in 1908. This writer
was there. The wife and baby came
up from the little North Carolina
town to see a husband and father who
had been adjudged an outcast be
cause of a disease whose loathsome
taint has trailed through the recitals
in fact and fiction for some twenty
centuries.
Newspapermen interviewed John
Early from afar. He stood by his
little shack and shouted answers
across the No Man’s Land of leprosy.
His wife and baby came and they
stood, and sat, at the top of the small
hill that overtopped Early’--, isola
tion camp. In summertime it was a
tent; in wintertime a small brick
house, put there originally for a
gardener and tenderer for some dis-.
trict institution.
About it all, in those days, was a
wired fence. Early talked over and
through that to wife and child and
interviewers. Always he was philo
sophical. He read his Bible, the
daily newspapers, and protested that
he was not a leper but just the victim
of some skin disease.
The philosophy of the man; his
habit of coming back to Washington
and telling the health department
that he rs back; his way of walking
out of restraining institutions when
the mood so moves; his protestations
that he is not a leper, although in
a leper colony, and his seeming cheer
fulness under an endless affliction,
apparently give to John R. Early a
distinction, unfortunate as it may
be.
j The narative of John Early is re
mindful of the Valley of Lebanon.
Except there is no one to touch him
and make him well again. Healers
jund and physicians 1927 years after
.Christ have conquered most of the
ills that are visited upon humanity,
but John Early’s alleged leprosy still
brands him as an unwelcome man in
any community outside of the gov
ernment leprosorium from which he
recently went away.
300 LEPERS IN COLONY
IN LOUISIANA FEARFUL
OF MISSISSIPPI FLOOD
Memphis, Tenn., May 11.—Three
hundred lepers, quarantined in the
national leprosarium at Carrville, La.,
near Baton Rouge, watch with appre
hension the menace of flood waters
beating against the levees of the low
er Mississippi river.
| Headquarters of the American Red
Cross announced Wednesday that the
little colony was in fear and that
the plant was doomed if the levees
below Baton Rouge crumple before
the flood. Senior Surgeon John Mc-
Mullen, detailed by the United States
I public health department to the Red
[ Cross disaster relief headquarters
| here, has wired his department at
Washington to “consider plans to
evacuate the leper colony if it be
comes necessary.”
Dr. McMullen said the lepers
would be taken to some nearby levee,
if evacuated, where they would be
sheltered in a tent colony until dan
ger had passed.
Some of the members of the col
ony have spent years there. The
colony first was established by the
state of Louisiana more than forty
years ago, but the federal govern
ment made it the national lepro- 1
sarium twelve years since. • I
COUNTRY EDITORS EXPRESS
THEIR OPININS
Are the country editors experts
on osculatory technique? Judging
from the number of editorial para
graphs commenting upon a certain
'news item dealing with that subject,
they are. Here are some of their
, comments:
| A scientist figures that a kiss
shortens one’s life three minutes. A
.lot of young folks have one foot in
| the grave right now.—Marcy B.
Darnall, in the Florence (Ala.) Her
ald.
An alleged scientific chap has dis
covered that every kiss a man in
dulges in shortens his life three min
utes. I now understand why 1 have
lived so long. I, however, do not
claim any special credit. I never re
ceived any encouragement to in
dulge.—M. M. Beck, in the Holton
(Kan.) Recorder.
Some scientific guy has figured
! out that every kiss shortens one’s
.life three minutes. He explains the
kiss makes the heart beat faster,
■ causing palpitation of that organ.
We will agree with the professor in
! some cases he might be right, but
I where would the palpitation stuff
come in on the average mother-in-law
: kiss? Figure SQme more, professor,
some kind of kisses don’t have any
kick, hence no palpitation. -—Clyde
Sid Jones, in the Polo (Mo.) Newc-
Herald.
Here is an important matter which
should be given serious considera
tion. A scientist has discovered that
kiss shortens the life of the kissee
three minutes because it causes such
palpitation of the heart that vitality
needs just before we die is used up
in kissing. lam reminded of an old
uncle who died several years ago.
When he was seventy years old he
said to me, “Willie, the doctor says
I would live ten years longer if I
would quit eating hot biscuits and
ham gravy. I had rather die ten
years sooner.” He lived to be eighty
two.—William Southern, Jr., in the
Independence (Mo.) Examiner.
An item going the round of the
Kansas press recites the dubious fact
that an eminent psychologist an
nounces that “every kiss shortens
life three minutes.” This is palpably
absurd. Take the writer, for in
stance, aged fifty-nine yeare, 1
month and 19 days, who has been
married now for a matter of 34
years. What with staple and fancy
kissing, domestic and foreign, includ
ing kin at 50 per cent off, if every
kiss cost him three minutes of his
life he would have been waiting im
patiently for the undertaker six
months before the Revolutionary
war. It is such loose talk of scien
tists that disorganizes the rising gen
eration and contributes to the in
crease of crime!—William Allen
White, in the Emporia Gazette.
A SUCCESSFUL BANKER’S
ADVICE
Some advice to young men enter
ing upon a business career has been
given by Otto 11. Kahn, one of
America’s most successful bankers.
Mr. Kahn lays down these ten rules
i which he thinks should bring a fair
measure of prosperity to young fel
lows of average ability:
Eliminate from your vocabulary
the word “perfunctory.”
think—exercise your brain as you
do your muscles.
The most serviceable of all assets
is reputation.
Use your imagination.
Know how to bide your time and
to “sit tight.”
Be neighborly. Bea good sport.
Remember you can’t lift yourself by
downing others.
Work hard. It won’t hurt you.
Take an active interest in public
affairs.
Meet your fellow man frankly and
fairly. You don’t have to go through
business armed to the teeth.
If you are successful be patient,
courteous and conciliatory. Avoid
ostentation.
SERVED HIM RIGHT
| The young man was puffing away
at his cigar, despite the pained ex
pression on the old lady’s face.
1 “Young man,” she said, when her
| fit of 'coughing was over, “do you
know that it’s wrong to smoke?”
“Well,” replied the young man, “I
use tobacco for my health.”
“Health ” ejaculated the victim.
“Nonsense. You never hear of any
one being cured by smoking.”
“Yes I have. That’s the way they
cured pigs.”
“Then smoke away,’’ said the vic
tim. “There may be hope for you
,yet."—Tit-Bits.
. Why .
fli^stonc
GOM-DIPPED TIRES
Wear Longer
WE recently were given the tremendous advantage of having the mammoth
Firestone factories brought to us. In lire Educational Meetings we were
shown, by means of motion pictures, charts, tire samples and complete engineer*
in„ data, the details of Firestone tire design and construction-and how Fire
stone and Oldfield tirei and tubes arc made in the world’s most efficient and
economical rubber factories. ,
Firestone pioneered the original low-pressure tire and made impractical b\
Gum-Dipping. The motion pictures show ed us how the cords of the carcass
are dipped in a rubber solution, thoroughly saturating and insulating e\er>
fiber of every cord w ith rubber. Simple demonstrations and tests illustrated the
great advantage of this process, which supplies the extra strength to withstand
the extra flexing strains of low-pressure construction—one of the reasons why
L©W
(O&sh W&mm
OLDFSELD
TIRES
30x3 Fabric-... $5.85
30x3 Vi Fabric 6.35
30x3 Vt Cord 7.35
29x4.40 Balloon.. 8.40
32x4 Cord 13.40
31x5.25 Balloon 15.35
33x6.00 Balloon 18.35
Oldfield Tubes are
also priced very low
Mad: in the great economical
Firestone Factories at Akron and
carry the Standard Tire Warranty
JEFFERSON MOTOR COMPANY, Jefferson, Ga.
GAINESVILLE MIDLAND
RAILWAY
Schedule Effective January 2nd, 1927
@ No. 2 leaves Jefferson for
Gainesville, 9.03 a. m.
* No. 12 leaves Jefferson for
Gainesville, 1.00 p. m.
* No. 11 leaves Jefferson for Ath
ens, 9.13 a. m.
@ No. 1 leaves Jefferson for Ath
ens, 4.53 p. m.
@ Daily.
* Daily except Sunday.
Schedules Nos. 1 and 2, are cov
ered by Passenger Motor Car * 400.
a. Tors 1C
drove's Tasteless '.fiill Tonic restores
Energy and Vitality by Purifying and
Enriching the Blood. When you feel its
strengthening, invigorating effect, see how
it brings color to the cheeks and bow
it improves the appetite, you wilt theu
appreciate its true tonic value.
Grove's Tasteless chill Tonic is simply
Iron and Quinine suspended in syrup. So
pleasant even children like it. The blood
needs QUININE to Purify it and IRON to
Enrich it. Destroys Malarial germs and
Grip germs by its Strengthening, Invigor
ating Effect. 60a
iffy-1 am a
I should be killed!
\ Bee Brand Powder or
* Liquid kills Flies, Fleas,
\ Mosquitoes, Roaches,
Ants, Water Bugs, Bed
, Bugs, Moths, Crickets,
1 Poultry Lice and many
I other insects.
/ Powder Liquid
/ roc and 25c 50c and 75c
/ 50c and SI.OO $1.25
/ 3QC Spray Gun.,..,55c
/ Writeforfreebookletonkill
/ Mg house and garden insects
/ McCormick & Cos.
I t ) Baltimore. Md.
V Bee
Brand
Ji INSECT jttea
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“ liquid gp
The Quinine That Does Not Affect tno Heat
Because of its tonic and laxative effect, LAXA
TIVE BRCMO QUININE is betterthan ordinary
Quinine and doe* not cause nervousners noi
linking in head. Remember the full name and
look for the signature of E. W. GROVE. 30c.
Firestone Gum-Dipped Tires are establishing
such unheard-of mileage records.
We learned \xhy the Firestone Balloon Tread
gives extra safety, comfort and long wear. We
were shown why Firestone, from the very begin
ning, designed and continue to use the round
Balloon Tread, minimizing “shoulder breaks”, so
destructive to tires. Excess rubber at the edges of
a Balloon Tread is wasted—actually detrimental to
tire mileage. In the Firestone Tread the small
units and sharp projections are scientifically placed
to permit easy flexing, resulting in extraordinary
riding comfort.
Come in and let us put a set of these
Gum-Dipped Tires on your car —you can \s,wiljl/
forget about tire trouble. Quality is \intjjr
higher than ever before —prices are TfiajMarq
lowest in history. Buy now! ofCjw&biy
We Cass Serve Youßettes*
and Save You Money
GRUEN WATGHES
The Gruen Factory make the most artistic watch cases
in the world, and the movements are absolutely de
pendable. If you are interested in a GOOD watch,
call and see us.
M. F. FICKETT JEWELRY CO.
Jewelers-Optometrists
224 Clayton Street Athens, Ga.
SERIOUS AFFLICTIONS
Willie, looking very dejected, was
on his way-home from school when
his appearance attracted the atten
tion of a kind-hearted old lady.
“What’s troubling you, my little
man?” she asked.
“Dyspepsia and rheumatism,” re
plied Willie.
“Why, that’s absurd,” remarked
the old lady. “How can that be?”
“Teacher kept me in after school
because I couldn’t spell them,” was
Willie’s dismal answer.
[KG]
Baking
k Powder A
Same Trice
for over 35 years
25 ounces 5*
USE LESS THAN OF
HIGHER PRICED BRANDS
| Why Pay 1
| War Prices? J
THE GOVERNMENT USED
1 MILLIONS OF POUNDS ’ r
See us for Potato Plants.
•—Boggs & Dadisman.
Habitual Constipation Cured
in M to 21 Days
•LAX-FOS WITH PEPSIN" is a specially
prepared Syrup Tonic-Laxative for Habitual
Constipation. It relieves promptly but
should be taken regularly for 14 to 21 days
to Induce regular action. It Stimulates and
Regutates. Very Pleasant tc Taka 60c
oer bottle.
Renew Your Health
by Purification
Any physician will tell you that
‘'Perfect; Purification ( of the System
is Nature's Foundation of Perfect
Health.”. Why not rid yuurself of
chronic ailments that are undermin
ing your vitality? Purify your en
tire system by taking a thorough
course of Calotabs, —once or twice I
week for several weeks—and see ho?
Nature rewards you with health.
Calotabs are the greatest of
system purifiers. Get a family pack
age, containing full directions. 0m
35 cts. At any drug store. (AM
A fine line of Fresh Fish,
Saturday, at Boggs & Dadis*
man’s.
Many Children and
Adults
Keep Strong On
SCOTT’S
EMULSION
It's The Pleasant
Way To
Take Cod-liver Oil
Vitamins
26 M
Scott ft Bowne, Bloomfield. N. J- __
PLANTS
Potato and Tomato
every day. Spanish
Peanuts, and all kin s
Bulk Seed Beans. y
right, at the “Sun ‘
Corner.” Phone 155
ler & Legg.