Show FANATICS OF THE WORST KIND The Religious Sect of the Angel Dancers THEIR LEADER LEAVES ONE OF THE STRANGEST CHARACTERS CHARAC-TERS EVER KNOWN Ills Queer Influence Over the Women of His Sect Angel Dancers Believe Be-lieve in No Marriage Law Are Opposed Op-posed to Meat Eatinsr and Are Hated By Their Neighbor One of the strangest characters In the whole wide countrya man hose religious re-ligious fanaticism has long troubled the community about Park Ridge New Jersey Jer-sey has just packed up his few traps and fled to Scranton Pa with the intention in-tention of seeking new fields for the planting of his new Biblical beliefs The man is known as Huntsman Mna son He calls himself the Saiiour and claims that the Lord speaks through him and that whatever he says is the voice of the gospel l At the place in New Jersey where he has lived for the past five years he has six converts four omen and two men Three of the women were old and the fourth was a young girl attractive or n aol tk and pretty One ot the men was knowil as Johh the Baptist and the other was called Silas the Pure Mnison was the chief of the band and he lorded over the others with a power as absolute us if he I really were what he claims to be I The people in the surrounding country always spoke of them as The Angel I I I t42S v HUNTSMAN MLASON Dancers and unpleasant stories were told of Mnnsons queer influence over the women Time after time efforts were made to drive them out of the neighbor hood but without success Mnason Is avery a-very shrewd man and when the law was I evoked he was generally able to wriggle himself free by the inflence of some legal technicality Except for his shrewdness it might have been possible to have him confined on the Insanity plea but the people peo-ple who disliked him tho most acknowledged acknowl-edged that he was an unusually clever man Called It Happy Valley The strange people lived on what was known as the Storms farm about three mth kbr fcn miles from Park Ridge a suburb less I than twenty miles from New York The farm Is In a sparselysettled region and its isolation was one of the causes of the I prolonged stay of the obnoxious sect in that neighborhood As it was frequent threats were made of tar and feathers for the members of the band but IMna son oniy laugnea ti em to scorn Mna son called the farm Happy Valley The neighbors called it Hells Hole The farm was the property Hermann Storms a weaK old man with a wife and daughter the latter named Mary In I some way the ompn met Inason and i he became a member of the Storm famIly I famI-ly Prior to Mnasons advent in tho household both > Irs Storm and Mary had I i displayed an almost morbid interest In I religious matters Shortly after Mnasons appearance the two men who afterward I I became known as John the Baptist and Silas the Fur > appeared and later the r sol aFt l efatV two old womci The names OL the latter 1 arc Jane Howls and Mrs Berry The names of the two men were never nidshort In a short time Mnason became the real head of the household Old man I Storms who was a shoemaker and farmer farm-er combined was shoved Into the background back-ground and his wife ana tiauKhter i treated him with no more consideration than did the others He was permitted I to have no say In the management of the I house and fer of bodily illtreatirent I kept hs mouth scaled He npver joined I the religious band and for this he was I t always spoken of by the others as an i emissary of the devil Sometimes he did I complain to the neighbors anJ thty I urged him to have tho whole crowd arrested ar-rested but his fear of openly disgracing i I his wife and laughter held him back I I About a year and a half ago after 1 i t many previous attempts the people had Mnason John the Baptist and Silas tho I II Pure arrested on the charge of keeping I i II I r I f i ik f i 9 tS r I I k fV1 J I l h m t Jl i I I < i7 tqhJ 1 f7 t frJf I f 11 z f 4 J i fJt i Vj1 I Jf f I I V f MVHY STORMS a disorderly house and they were all sentenced to one years confInement at the state penitentiary at Trenton At the trial the two companions of Mnason refused to divulge their identity and served ther sentences as John Doe and Hichard Roe During their imprisonment Mary Storms Induced her father to deed the farm to her and on the release of the three men last September they all returned re-turned to the farm and the orgies ot the Angel Dance were continued with more abandon than ever Huntsmans Strange Letter Mnasona idea of himself is admirably shown In the folwlng letter vhlqji he sent to Presiding Judge James M Van Alen the day he left for Scranton Judge Van Alen was the official who sentenced him to the year in prison This is the letter After takin my departure from thee at thy office the spirit of Cod the Lord of Hosts the Holy ono of Israel in a still voice spake unto me as I went on my way down the street to take the train to New York and thenco to Scranton Pa The still small voice of tho God of Israel spake unto me saying Thou son of man write unto Van Alen the judge and ruler In Israel my word saying it is written whatsoever thou has met unto others shall be met unto theeMoreover Moreover the word of the Iord came unto me saying As thou 0 ruler met unto those my servants in the court of Injustice and intended in-tended to stop the cause of the Almighty and most high God so will I stop thy course in the world of thy natural life and thou shalt be removed Moreover the word of the Lord God Almighty came unto me saying Thus salth the Lord Almighty unto the ruler In the midst of Israel an angel of the Lord God the moat high that ruleth in tho kingdom of men will smite thee because be-cause thou wouldst not give God the glory j glo-ry and the worms will eat thy flesh and t thou shalt give up thy spirit I Thus saith the Lord God of Israel the most high unto thee For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken It MNASON Doesnt Believe In Marriage Law Mnason andhis converts always snoke to strangers In this imitation Biblical way Mnason used to wear his hair so It long that it hung down on his shoulders and his beard fell almost to his waist Mnason does not believe In any marriage law and all of his disciples must believe as he does He also lays down the law against the eating of meat He and his band subsisted entirely on potatoes turnips tur-nips bread fruit and a mixture called buttermilk pap The diet gave all of them a peculiarly pallid look Mnacon is a vigorous man though and as he now wears his hair and beard closecropped he is not so eccentriclooking as formerly The Angel Dances The Angel Dances often took place at meal times A resident of Park Ridge who was Invited to become a disciple of the Church of the Living God supped < = THE STORMS H015E at the house just before Mnason left and he described the performance to the writer No other outsider has ever witnessed wit-nessed the spectacle This is the way the dance is described Finally when Mnason had eaten enough he seemed to make up his mind I that something was wrong The devil Is among us he shouted Chase him I away At this old Jane Howells got up and began to prance around the table as fast as she could Jump over it shouted Mnason She put her hand on John the Baptists shoulder and sailed over the table almost al-most without touching a dish Then she commenced to cavort around us agan until she had covered fourteen laps During all this time the others were clapping their bands praising the Lord and spurring the old woman to renewed efforts She got wilder and wilder and finally jumped upon the table and slashed around among the vegetable dishes She stepped on a big cake and mashed it flat In the meantime old man Storms who had not yet fmibhed eating grabbed some buttermilk pap and fled Tho old wonan kept up dancing among the vegetables intll she had overturned nearly all of them Then she sat down by John the Laptist panting with exertion amid the rapturous exclamations of the disciples This was the ordinary Angel Dance but i did not end here Things would have quieted down if John the Baptist had not leaned over and made an affectionate affec-tionate remark to the panting Mrs How ells Mnason heard it and waxed wroth He jumped up and kicked the table over Away went the turnips potatoes buttermilk but-termilk pap and dishes with a great clatter clat-ter In an instant Mnason and Johnthe Baptist were clinched like a pair of cats and rolling over the floor among the debris de-bris fighting for dear life Silas the Pure in trying to part them received a quantity of mashed potatoes po-tatoes In the left eve Then the women took a hand and the dishes began to fly You could have heard the noise of combat com-bat a mile away When they got through there were mashed turnips and buttermilk butter-milk pap on tlie windows and walls and mashed potatoes on the ceiling The floor was covered with broken dishes and the place looked a though it had been upturned by an earthquake I In their struggle the disciples had rolled over and over on the floor until their clothes were covered with proven del When quiet had been restored Mnt son said Praise the Lord and the others oth-ers aid Amen That settled it I did not join the Church of the Living God I The cause of Mnafcons denarture was the fear of another term in the penitentiary peniten-tiary The neighbors were preparing for another crusade against the Angel Dancers Danc-ers when he left John the Baptist and Silas the Pure have also anpearpd The two old women still linger about the Storms farm but there is meat on the table now and old Hermann Storms is once more boss I |