Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 November 1875 — The Phantom Surgeon—A. Strange Hallucination. [ARTICLE]

The Phantom Surgeon—A. Strange Hallucination.

About a year ago there came into my <o{fice ft man Who wanted help. was a well-built young fellow, with an honest face and a straight-forward manner. His shoes were blacked and his shirt was dean, but his threadbare clothes told •openly a story that his shoes and shirt half concealed. His name was Edgar T. Norwin, and he came from a manulacturing town in Windham County, Conn. His father, was a fanner. Edgar had more than an ordinary aptitude for books, and he found himself longing for broader work. Finally he became a school-teach-er. Then as his store of knowledge increased he wanted to see more of men and the world, and he gave up his school and •did what many another foolish fellow has •done—came to New York without a settled purpose and with no prospects. He •knew he was healthy, honest and willing to work, and he felt that if he could find his place in life lie would succeed. To make a long story short, he wandered aimlessly about until starvation drove him •to au active search for bare subsistence, and then he found a place in a store at. a salary that just fed him. i His heart was not in the business, and though he worked hard his services were not valuable and lie was soon adrift again. How he had lived since he didn’t care to tell, but I kuew as well as though he had told me. Here lie was now, starving, but still anxious to wiu a fight that has floored many a stronger man, and firm not to go home until lie should have conquered; a man hanging to the trapeze of fate, and sure to find the .right place to drop on it lie could hold grip until the world revolved to it. After giving him a little temporary assistance I irot him a place in one of the charitable institutions on Blackwell’s Island, w here he would surely get enough to eat and where, with that gTeat help to pluck, a full stomach, he might stiffen his backlione and get ready lor another wrestle with the world. He was liked on the island, and pretty soon they set him to pull an oar in one of the boats that ply between the city and the institutions. This was an improvement. He was earning money and in a healthful occupation, too, and he was young enough to wait. He worked there about two months, bought new clothes and was hopeful. One day he came into the office. His face was serious, and he said he had given up his place in the l>oat. 1 had come to take an interest in him, and I asked him why he had done so. Said lie: “Night before last I went to bed about the usual time, tired out, aud went right to sleep. About eleven o’clock I felt something touch me. I woke up suddenly and found two or three of the surgeons standing around my bed. They had just removed the jioles of a battery from my head, and one of them was smoothing the hair back while another got ready with a saw. What they wanted 1 didn’t knowthen, for I jumped out of bed and the surgeons ran away. Last night the same things happened,* only they,went further, and when 1 woke up one of the surgeons was trying to saw the top of* my head off. Then 1 knew what they were after; they were going to experiment on me; and,’’ be added, "I feel that saw now. So I jumped up again, rushed through them before they could stop me. swam across to the city, stayed up town last night, and here I am.” It was easy to see that Norwin was a little gone, but I told him pleasantly to go home and come back the next day and we would see what could be done. Meantime I made inquiries on the island and found as I had expected to that no such thing had occurred. I tried to get Norwin to go back but he could not be persuaded to. Then I found him a place on a stevedore’s gang on the North River wharves and lie went to work like a Sensible fellow and didn’t come in again for three months. When he did he seemed frightened, and his voice was pitched below his natural tone. He drew a chair close to the desk, glanced about him, leaned over Joward me and said: “They got after me again last night.” “Nonsense,” said I, laughing. “No, it ain’t,” said he. “ They're bound to saw my head oft' and they dune might}- close to getting it last night. I was to go on at twelve o’clock and some of us were resting on the wharf. About eleven o'clock I looked up toward the gate and saw the surgeon coming down with his case under bis arm. I crawled under a pile of lumber and made pretense of going to sleep, but I hadn’t been there ten minutes when I heard him brushing up past the lumber and saw him open bi 9 case, take out a knife and saw and roll up bis sleeves. He straightened my head out and took up the saw; then I jumped up, knocked him down and got away.” Norwin was nervous this time, aud it was plain that something must be done. So 1 told him, as solemnly as I could, that he was grievously mistaken; that 1 had l>ecn to the island and had learned that they It ad never attempted to experiment on him there, and that he was mistaken about the wharf, lie broke in here, but 1 checked him, and went oil to tell him that he bad been seized by an hallucination that he must shake off, and now. He was a sound, healthy man, I told him. with a good head and plenty of brains, a good prospect in life, young, and with the world all before him, but he must not handicap himself with a fancy that would grow on him and give him trouble if be allowed it to find root. I tried to show bim how impossible it was that anybody should attempt what be'bad described; explained to bim over and over again the utter improbability of it; told him again that be was mentally and physically a sound and stal wart man, and that be must conjure up not liis troubles but bis strength; that he must plant his feet firmly d'lwn, shake bis fist in the face of all such dreams and plunge into, the fight with perfect confidence in himself and with un-) daunted resolution to be a man. It wa£ plain that my talk relieved him. made him thinL better of himself and strengthened bim, and when I spoke of bis going back to the stevedore he said he would 2 1 wanted him to, but it was plain that he didn’t want to go, and I thought it best not to press him. He came in often now, and I talked with him as much as I could spare time to, and did all I could to impress him with his own strength and ability to cope with all enemies, real or imaginary, anft he seemed to brighten up and clarify daily. Finally he decided to go to work again, but he preferred that it should be away from the city. We had a long talk n over this, and at last decided that it might be better to go away from New York and start again fresh in the West. So one evening we had a little dinner together, and the sme njght he started, and the last I saw ofnftn was on the stern of a receding Jersey City ferryboat. This moyning I received a letter from him. v ' Ohioßiver Oct.aL'' Mr Dear Friend :I (hall never lor et /our kindness to me. uor that it is yon who tried to save me from myself. Ever since I have been out here 1 have worked faithfully aud have prog-

pored. Host of-the liiuc I have worked on steamboat*, and 1 am now ou oiie running from Cincinnati to St. Louis. I struggled maiilullv to follow your good advice, and 1 got so etron that 1 could look back without a shudder, and Anally I came to laugh at the surgeon. Hut last night, when, we were not far below Cincinnati, and while I was lying down, fired on t with the.afternoon's work, and looking off to the shore and thinking of yon and the surgeon. I saw a boat start out from the bank. The men seemed to pull like giants, and there was a man in the stern w ho wore a cloak. They came alongside of us. and the uisu In the cloak came aboard, and when he walked past the furnace doors, my God) it was the surgeon, with ills case under his arm. and looking for me. I shouted louder than the whistle;* the men on deck Jumped for me, and the surgeon saw there was no ehance to get at me in thatcrowd. aud he went back Into his boat, and wc soon left It behind. I know whst you will say to this, but I can't help it. The surgeon is bound to have the top of my head, and I can't prevent him. if you knew the torture his comlug brings mo, you would ;.lty me. I <an't stand it. and it he comes again 1 would rather die. I have fought till I am bred of living. With great love and respect for you, Edgar T. Norwin. This letter was inclosed in another, a mattcr-of-fhct document from the Coroner of an Indiana town, which said: Octohkk i#.—Bear Sir: The inclosed letter was taken from the body of a man who was found dead this morning on a St. Louis boat. He had evidently committed suicide, lor when he was found Ins hand held a pistol from which one bullet had been discharged, aud a bullet that matches those lu the pistol was in his head. Cause of suicide unknown. From the dates of these letters I infer that the phantom surgeon appeared to poor Norwin the next eight after lie wrote, and so.he gave up the fight.— N. Y. Cor. Philadelphia. Timex.