Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1879 — Fond of Human Blood. [ARTICLE]

Fond of Human Blood.

New York Mereurv. Ludwig Helreifel, a German tailor, living in Avenue B, between Second and Third streets, has acquired from hto neighbors the singular name of “Blood Sucker.” He not only indulges in animal blood as a ionic beverage. but expresses a preference for human blood, whenever he can get 1L Thto was made by domestic troubles, which ended in a permanent separation between Helreifel and hto wife; abe, on he part, charging him with a dangerous inclination to gratify his unnatural thirst for blood at her expense. Habitual cruelty was, however, the legal plea. Curious to know how much truth there was in the rumors and stories told of Helreifel’s blood-thirsty inclinations, a Mercury reporter sought him out, in order to get from the man himself the truth, if any. Hehriefel to a diminutive, swarthy man. His head is very large, and covered with a shock of bristly, black hair that makes hto head appear out of all proportions to the body. Hair seems to grow eveiywhere upon the man; even upon the tip of hto nose there to a considerable turf of hair. He to not a prepossessing man in appearance, and this propably has had something to do with prejudicing many against him. When asked by the reporter if it was true that he habitually drank human blood, he answered by asking if the reporter was acquainted with hto former wife, Margueretha. On being assured that there was no such acquaintance, be then readily and freely told hto story. “Yes, it to true that I drink Mood,” said Helriefel, “and it to good for me. It to a good medicine. It makes me strong. The Germans eat blood sausage, and they all think it to good. But when I drink mine they say it to bad, and they call me Bloodsucker. Now, what to the difference whether I take the blood before it is made into sausages' afterwards? They make a fuss about nothing. But all the trouble came from that woman, Margueretba. She told all the women that I couldn’t live without drinking the blood of some person. And the women, they told the story to everybody for the truth, but it to not so. She told them that I used to bit her arms in the night, when she was asleep, and then suck the blood. She made me so much trouble.”

“But didn’t you sometimes bite her arms?” Well, yes; I did bite her sometimes, but it was not for the blood, although the blood from a person is better than that from an animal. It is just as much better as good wine is better than some common wine. If you try it once you would see the difference. Human blood is richer, and it has a fine flavor.” { When questioned at to how he came to acquire such a singular appetite, Helreifel said it began in childhood. He was a very small delicate child, and, being the last survivor of six, his parents spared no trouble or expense to raise him. In Germany the poorer classes eat very little meat, while the children get almost none at all. But in Helreifel’s case the doctor pronounced it poverty of the blood, and ordered A solid meat diet for the child. Even this did not have the effect desired, and raw meat, and finally blood still warm from the animal was given to him. Every morning bls mother would take him to a butcher’s, where for four pfenings, German money, a good drink of warm blood was obtained, the mother herself first tasting the blood to see if it was fresh and pure, or, as Heldreifel expressed it, “not humbugged.” In this way he soon acquired an appetite for fresh blood. A cut, or some similar accident, when a boy at school, first gave him a taste of human blood. Perceiving at bnce a difference, and that human blood was superior to animal, Helreifel acquired an actual appetite, a craving for the former. One reason for this preference was, he thought, because human blood was very difficult to obtain.

At parting Helreifel warned the reporter against heeding the slanders of his neighbors. “I like blood because it is good,” he said- “but these foolish women think I am like that bat which sucks the blood from people’s feet at night until they are dead. I am not like that, and they tell lies about me when they call me Bloodsucker. I believe some of them think I would suck the blood from my own veins if I could not get it from another person, and that is humbug. I like a glass of human blood just as poeple like a glass of good wine. It brings a good feeling and makes me fresh and healthy; a good wine does the same thing; there is no difference.