OF A CERTAIN PENNSYLVANIA FAMILY. 41 



are decidedly alcoholic. They have so little interest in one another 

 that they often remain lost to other members of their family for years 

 together. 



IV-101 is said to be one of the worst of this fraternity. He was very 

 excitable as a child and indulged by the rest of the family. He was 

 incapable of making progress in school, and was fond of letting his 

 imagination take him on wonderful adventures. At 25 he was "cured " 

 of his epilepsy by a quack doctor. He and his wife lived in squalor in 

 several towns, where he had fitful employment in the foundries. When 

 he had work they lived extravagantly for two or three days following 

 pay-day, starving the rest of the time. 



Of their children, the first (V-203) was still-born, the second and 

 fourth (V-204, 206) were boys and died when a few days old, the third 

 (V-205) is a low-grade imbecile and a patient at the Institution for the 

 Care of the Feeble-Minded at Polk, Pennsylvania. Both parents were 

 very fond of their children and very sad when they died, but were so 

 little observant of their needs that on one occasion, a relative states, 

 they actually cuddled one of them and held it to the fire to warm it a 

 long time after it was dead. 



After his wife's death IV-101 left his daughter to the care of relatives 

 and resumed his vagrant existence, spending part of his time at the 

 county farm, and part with any relatives who would keep him. At 

 present he is staying on a farm where he gets his board and 50 cents a 

 day, though his emploj^ers say he does not earn it, since he knows and 

 can learn nothing about handling a horse, and can do only such rough 

 work as loading stone and digging trenches. He is a stooping, under- 

 sized man, with head set well down between his shoulders, shuffling 

 gait, hands showing tremor and face continually twitching. Can not 

 read or write, and, although he knows the denominations of money, 

 shows no judgment in making the simplest of purchases. He is a great 

 glutton, but is not at present intemperate in drink, though he has been 

 so in the past. Is very good-natured and entirely trustworthy, so far 

 as money and his work are concerned, but he lies magnificently about 

 his own affairs, showing, however, some discretion in his choice of 

 person to whom he tells these tales. He told his employer's wife that 

 he had bought his daughter a gold watch for a Christmas present, but 

 when the story was repeated to the field-worker, the gold watch had 

 become a pair of red slippers. Most of his accounts, however, have to 

 do with his agility and his physical prowess. He is fond of telling how 

 he whipped John L. Sullivan in 1882; how he once grabbed a roll of 

 butter off a red-hot stove and knocked a man down with it. Another 

 adventure he relates is that once he and another man drove a hand-car 

 5 miles from their camp in order to carry a beef. Before they could do 

 so they were attacked by a wild cat ; they fled to camp, making the 5 

 miles in 10 minutes, the wild cat following them all the way, and when 



