Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 May 1898 — Making Wild Men. [ARTICLE]

Making Wild Men.

There are many curious tribes in the world, tout the most strange mwk surely be the “artificial manufacture of wild men.” Yet a well-known English doctor in China has just certified from his own personal experience that this art Is regularly practiced In the Flowery Kingdom. First, a youth is kidnaped, then bit by bit ho Is flayed alive, and the skin of a dog or bear grafted piece by piece upon him. His vocal chords are next destroyed by the action of charcoal to fci&ke him dumb; and the double purpose of causing “etiolation” of the skin and utter degradation of the mental facilities is affected by keeping him Immured in a perfectly dark hole for a number of years. In fact, by treating him Uke a brut, fqr a sufficiently long time be is mad;> Into one, At last he is exhibited to the entirely credulous Chinese as a wild man of the woods, and bis possessors reap a rich harvest ( The priests, it seem, are adepts at the art. When $ however, is caught by the people he is torn to pieces, and when the authorities get Mm they torture him and promptly beiead him. Such Is life nnder the role ot the Sou of Heaven.