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Show SMITH'S QUEER AILMENT. His Tongue Suddenly Buns Amuck and Disgraces Him. As curious a case as has ever come up in the municipal court of this city probably prob-ably was that of Captain J. B. Smith, who appeared before Judge Reid today to answer the charge of using vulgar and foul language on the streets, the warrant being sworn out for his arrest by Dr. J. C. Orchard. The charge was not denied by Captain Smith, who, through his attorney, entered a plea of being unable to hinder himself from using such language; that the muscles of his throat were affected with St. Vitus' dance, producing at times involuntary invol-untary ejaculations for which he was not responsible, but which were directly direct-ly traceable to the effects of the peculiar pecul-iar malady by which he is afflicted. Smith may be talking rationally enough with a person, when he will at once make use of the foulest expressions and has been known to threaten the lives of his listeners, and in the next breath he will give the assurance that he did not mean anything he said. Judge Reid ordered him to keep off the street, and his friends agreed to keep him in a private boarding house, and he stated that he would write to California Cali-fornia for money and would leave the city by Monday next. Smith has been sheriff of San Francisco Fran-cisco county, Cal., and has held other responsible offices in that county. He was committed to the insane asylum at Salem, Or., last September, on account of his strange malady, but escaped from the institution and came to Tacoma. The doctors of the asylum discovered that he was not insane and entered his formal discharge from the institution on the books two days after his escape. He was brought before Judge Stallcup two weeks ago and examined as to his 6anity and discharged. He is quite wealthy. Tacoma Dispatch. |