A Mental Health Crisis in North Yakima

Monday night a man named Davis, who jointly occupied room 7 of the McGlothlen House with A. Hord, went to his room with the intention of going to bed when he was horrified to find his companion bleeding profusely and unconscious from a ragged gash in the neck which extended almost from ear to ear. Hord was stretched out in bed, and the presence of a big jack-knife showed the means of execution. County Physician Taft was summoned, and he found that two cuts had been made and the windpipe severed. He sewed up the wound, which required 29 stitches, and then after administering a hypodermic injection, left the man in the care of watchers. Early in the morning Hord recovered from his stupor and made a dash out of the house and down the street. He was finally captured at the Hotel Bartholet after a desperate struggle, in which the stitches were torn from his neck and the wound re-opened. The following day he made another break for liberty by jumping from the window, running to the blacksmith-shop and arming himself with a big hammer. Again he was overpowered, and on Tuesday afternoon Judge Graves ordered his commitment at Steilacoom, where he was taken by Sheriff Simmons and Harry Coonae on the first train. Hord is a young man and a Scandinavian. He formerly worked on the Moxee, and was a steady, industrious young man. Recently he has been talking in a strange, rambling manner about Henry George’s theory of single tax and on social science, but previous to his trying to commit suicide little attention was paid to his vagaries.