"SEQUAH"

Evening Post, Volume XCI, Issue 107, 6 May 1916, Page 16

"SEQUAH"

A STRANGE PERSONALITY

POPULAR. GULLIBILITY.

In more normal times (writes an English paper) the death of Mr. William Henry Hartley, even though he passed away penniless and'friendless in a hospital iu Johannesburg, would have called forth a great deal more comment. For ho was none other than " Serjuah," the last of a race of quacks who have thriven and prospered on the credulity of the ignorant and foolish. Of his early life little is known, save that he was born in Cornwall about 1844, and is believed to have been for some little lime a policeman. But he went to America, and the example of . the redoubtable Barnum was certainly not lost on him. If the alleged'miracles of the Red Indian remedies were believed in the smaller towns of the United States, what might not their value be if brought to England and astutely placed before the more guileless of English buyers? He had been successful, indeed, in this direction in America, wearing all the war paint of a redskin brave, but his best results had never approached the triumphs he achieved in the 'eighties in Britain. ' For his earliest appearance he continued the Red Indian garb, but later on he dropped that in favour of the sombrero hat,' the long hair, and the general picturesqueness associated with Buffalo Bill. When he visited a place he was careful to do a good deal of preliminary advertising in the. local press, and if there were no hall large enough for his purpose he relied, as one who well recollects his appearance in Yorkshire recalls, on the effectiveness of a huge golden chariot ablaze with many lights. Sometimes he would be accompanied by a clown and a fairy—" father a faded . one," as she comes back to memory— but there was invariably his own amazingly voluble patter, in the best style of the showman born, while ho never failed to have a brass band of the most strident order. To such accompaniments he offered his "Prairie" Flower Mixture," an infallible cure for every ill that could possibly attack the human frame and system. "OSTEOPATHY" AND "DENTISTRY." "Sequah" did not, however, confine himself to the sale, of medicine. He professed to be able to cure rheumatism, stiff joints, and ev&i paralysis. He had picked up a vocabulary of pseudoscientific terms, and 'talked much of what "osteopathy" could accomplish. But his methods of exceedingly vigorous massage were painful in the extreme, and it was to drown the groans of the, victims that the band played its loudest. Possibly it .was the "kill or cure"^ system that he adopted, but it is certain that some who faced his heroic treatment were enabled to move about, and for, a time believed themselves cured. In other cases, the sufferers made great muscular and spasmodic efforts, followed . shortly after by complete collapse. The brass bands also played a great part, in the rough-and-ready dentistry that he practised. He could persuade the simple country folk that any hollow tooth would soon cause suffering,-, and it would bo far better to have it extracted at once than to risk the pain of toothache. Not only was-he possessed of exceedingly strong hands, but he had also a collection of very powerful instruments, and, regardless, of any anguishto his victims, tho tooth had to come out. Once in a way a sufferer rose in wrath to punish him, but in general his good humour and urbanity caused them Ito forget their pain. On one occasion, when' some students had come for the purpose of mailing a scene and discrediting his claims, his cheery self-possession and ready answers made them his friends instead of his enemies. •CLIMAX AND DOWNFALL. \ It was near the 'nineties that Sequah had reached the climax of his successes. He had trained "doubles" to impersonate him ; he had achieved notoriety in South Africa as well as here; ho had taken partners into business and had premises near the Central Markets, where not only the "Prairie Flower Mixture," but also an embrocation bearing his name, were prepared. A company was formed to promote further developments .with a capital of £50,000. This in duo time was merged into a much larger company, in which he is said to have held £200,000 in shares, while its dividends in its first year or so were very large. He was living in ' lavish style near Brixton, and it is not difficult to credit the statement that in the course of his career he had made over £1,000,000. But he is said to have been a speculator rash even to gambling, though against this must be recorded that he was also exceedingly generous, and very willing to help those in distress or need. Gradually the profits declined, however, though a small effort was made to resuscitate interest in 1895 with the formation of yet another company—this time with only some £7000 capital. Sequah appeared at some of the less important music halls of London. Amongst the earliest of these engagements were the old Sebright Hall in'! Islington and the Queen's Hall in Poplar, but the latter was not a long engagement. The Albert Hall, Canning Town' was another stage on which he was seen. .His last London engagement of . the kind was at the old Middlesex, but his vogue was gone. Others had come into rivalry in his .particular line of business. Of Sequah's last months in South Africa the brief cables say nothing. But they cannot have been very bright" and the "death in the last kindlycharity of a hospital ward is a strange contrast to the blatant noise and glare of a lite that was lived before the crowd.