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.