Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 October 1900 — TRY TO DODGE DEATH [ARTICLE]

TRY TO DODGE DEATH

MANY SCHEMES TRIED TO ESCAPE THE DESTROYER. fear of Dissolution Leads Many Men to Strange Freaks and Unusual Ways of Livingr—Sometimes Hurries Them Into Their Graves. A man who, while poor, Is not more ■fruid to die than most people, often develops a hauntiug terror of death after he lrns made a big fortune and ■pends an unhappy life and huge sums «f money in trying to avoid the coming fate, frequently Wiurrylug himself into a premature grave through sheer worry stud fear. This passion has turned the grains of a good many wealthy people stud made monomaniacs of them. They lesort to the most childish expedients to keep death from their doors. You remember Kipling’s character who had his chair slung-on ropes from ■ beam that the world might spin under him Instead of carrying him along to grow older. There was an actual case very like this a few years ago, when ilolm Islip, an Englishman, who made a huge fortune out Of silver In Mexico, drove himself mad through worrying it bout his death. After exhausting all the safeguards London could offer, he bought a small rocky island called Brycliil, on the west Irish coast, taking with him one faithful servitor. Here, in feverish haste, he had four stone pillurs raised and a 6mall one-storied cabin, with three rooms, rather like a houseboat, slung on chairs from iron girders that crossed the pillars and swung clear of the ground. Once inside this he shut himself up, with some books and a pet Jackdaw for company, and never left his swinging house until his death. The attendant, who lived in a small house close by, used to row to the mainland—a mile and a half—when the weather permitted for provisions. The master spent his time reading and looking out over the Atlantic from the cabin windows. Ilis brain hail given way, of course, and he imagined his life stood still while the earth revolved under him. He had no relatives to insist on his entering a private asylum, and he died three years later in the cabin, worried out of life by the fear of death. His hair was snow-white, though he was only 43. Another wealthy man, Jean Inglesant, though he had made a fortune by shrewd speculation, also gave way to the dread of death. He conceived the idea that all movement and effort wasted the tissues of the body, and this notion sunk so deexily into his mind that he went to bed in a quiet country house and hardly moved hand or foot for years; if he even stirred a finger he did it with dread, believing it used up bis vitality and shortened his life by so much time. He spoke as little as possible, sometimes not opening his lips for days, and was fed by attendants with Ispoons. All his food consisted of “slops,” to save him the fatal exertion of chewing, and lrts one amusement was being read to by the hour together, for he would not hold a book or turn the pages. Even the reading he did away with toward the close of bis life, believing that listening shortened his existence. One of the queerest cases was that of a Mrs. Holmes, a very wealthy widow, who had a terrible fear of germs and bacilli of all kinds. She had studied the subject deeply and it affected her reason, to all appearance. The dread of death seized her, and she was convinced she would die by some wasting disease inspired by microbes. Knowing that cold is fatal to the average germ, ■he had two rooms adjoining each other fitted as refrigerators and kppt constantly at a temperature of about 30 degrees or just below freezing point One would suppose this to be more trying than any quantity of microbes, but the owner was happy In Iter consciousness of freedom from germ diseases. Winter and summer the rooms were kept at the same point, and the adjoining rooms and hall were also kept cool that no curreut of warm air might bring bacilli In. This lady lived clad In furs throughout the hottest days that blazed outside, and her attendants and servants were obliged to constantly disinfect themselves before entering her presence. They lived In a perpetual atfitosphere of carbolic acid, arid their mistress had to pay very high wages to Jnduce any servants to stay with her.— London Answer.