PHILADELPHIA***


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THE HERRIGES HORROR IN PHILADELPHIA.

A Full History of the Whole Affair.

A Man Kept in a Dark Cage Like a Wild
Beast for Twenty Years,
As Alleged,
in His Own Mother's and Brother's House.

The Most Fiendish Cruelty of the Century.

Illustrated with Reliable Engravings,
Drawn Specially for This Work.







Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by C. W.
ALEXANDER, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court in and for the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania.




THE HERRIGES HORROR.

  "Man's inhumanity to man
  Makes countless thousands morn."


Every now and then the world is startled with an event of a like character
to the one which has just aroused in the city of Philadelphia the utmost
excitement, and which came near producing a scene of riot and even
bloodshed.

John Herriges is the name of the victim, and for an indefinite period of
from ten to twenty years has been confined in a little cagelike room and
kept in a condition far worse than the wild animals of a menagerie.

What adds an additional phase of horror to the case of this unfortunate
creature is the fact that he was thus confined in the same house with his
own brother and mother. To our minds this is the most abhorrent feature of
the whole affair.

We can imagine how a stranger, or an uncle, or an aunt possessed with the
demon of avarice could deliberately imprison the heir to a coveted estate
in some out of the way room or loft of a large building where the victim
would be so far removed from sight and sound as to prevent his groans and
tears being heard or seen. But how a brother and, Merciful Heaven, a
mother could live in a shanty of a house year after year with a brother,
and son shut up and in the condition in which the officers of the law
found poor John Herriges, is more than we can account for by any process
of reasoning. It only shows what perverted human nature is capable of.


THE HOUSE OF HORROR.

The house in which lived the Herriges family is a little two storied frame
building or more properly shanty, rickety and poverty stricken in its
appearance, more resembling the abodes of the denizens of Baker street
slums than the home of persons of real wealth as it really is. It stands
on the northeast corner of Fourth and Lombard streets, in Philadelphia.

Immediately to the north of it is an extensive soap boiling establishment,
while directly adjoining it in the east are some frame shanties still
smaller and more delapidated than itself, and which, belonging to the
Herriges also, were rented by Joseph Herriges, the accused, for a most
exhorbitant sum. To the credit of the occupants of these shanties, we must
say that by means of whitewash they have made them look far preferable to
that of their landlord--at least in appearance.

On the north of the soap boiling establishment referred to stretches the
burial ground of St. Peter's Episcopal Church, with its hundreds of
monuments and green graves, while on the opposite side of Fourth street
lies the burial ground of the Old Pine Street Church, with its almost
numberless dead.

The writer of this recollects years ago, when a boy, often passing and
repassing the Herriges house, and noticing on account of its forlorn
appearance and the comical Dutch Pompey which stood upon the wooden
pedestal at the door to indicate the business of a tobacconist.

How little he thought when contemplating it, that a human being languished
within its dingy wooden walls, in a condition worse than that of the
worst-cared-for brutes.

A fact in connection with this case is remarkable, which is this. On a
Sabbath morning there is no one spot in the whole city of Philadelphia,
standing on which, you can hear so many different church bells at once, or
so many different choirs singing the praises of Almighty God. And on every
returning Sunday the poor prisoner's ears drank in the sacred harmony. God
knows perhaps at such times the angels ministered to him in his dismal
cage, sent thither with sunshine that could not be shut out by human
monsters. Think of it, reader, a thousand recurring Sabbaths found the
poor young imbecile growing from youth to a dreadfully premature old age.
The mind staggers to think of it. Could we trace day by day the long
wearisome hours of the captive's life, how terrible would be the journey.
We should hear him sighing for the bright sun light that made the grave
yard green and clothed all the monuments in beautiful flowers. How he
would prize the fragrance of a little flower, condemned as he was to smell
nothing but the dank, noisome effluvia of the soap boiler's factory.

Hope had no place in his cramped, filthy cage. No genius but that of
Dispair ever found tenement in the grimed little room.

But though so long, oh, so long, Liberty came at last, and the pining boy,
now an old man, was set free, through the agency of a poor, but noble
woman, Mrs. Gibson, who had the heart to feel and the bravery to rescue
from his hellish bondage the unfortunate.


THE GIBSON'S HISTORY OF THE AFFAIR.

On the 1st of June 1870 Thos. J. Gibson and his mother rented the frame
house 337 Lombard Street from Joseph Herriges. The house adjoined Herriges
cigar store. Mr. Hoger, a shoemaker, living next door to Mrs. Gibson's,
told her at the time she moved into the house, that she would see a crazy
man in Herriges house and not to be afraid of him. Mrs. Charnes, living
next door but one, for seventeen years, laughed at her, when she asked
about the crazy man living locked up in Herriges house, as though making
light of the whole matter.


VERBATIM COPY OF AGREEMENT BETWEEN JOSEPH HERRIGES AND THE GIBSONS.

This Contract and Agreement is that the rent of sixteen dollars per month
is to be paid punctually in advance each and every month hereafter, and if
the terms of this contract is not complied with I will leave the house and
give up the possession to the lessor or his representatives.

  THOS. J. GIBSON.

Received of Ann Gibson sixteen dollars for one month's rent in advance
from June 1. To 30 1870 rent to begin on 1. June and end on the 30.

Rented May 27 1870

  J. HERRIGES.


THE DISCOVERY.

On Monday, June 14th, Mr. Gibson's little sister was sent up-stairs to get
ready for school, and on going to the window she was frightened by seeing
a man looking through the crevices of an upper window in Herriges house,
which window was in the second story. This window was closely barred with
pieces of plank from top to bottom.

The man was mumbling and singing and making strange and singular noises.
The little girl came running down stairs in the utmost terror exclaiming:

"Oh, mother! mother! there is a man up in that room! I saw him poke his
nose through the boards just like a dog!"

Being busy, Mrs. Gibson did not go up at this moment to verify the child's
statement, but when she did find time she went up. By that time the man
had withdrawn his nose from the window, but shortly afterwards she caught
a glimpse of something that she thought was the hand of a human being,
covered with filth, resting against the space between the bars.

At this moment Mrs. Gibson saw Mrs. Herriges, John's mother, in the yard,
and called to the prisoner, saying:

"What are you there for? Why don't you pull off the boards and get out?"

The man made some response; but in such indistinct tones of voice that