CLAY-EATERS | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 5, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 52.

CLAY-EATERS.

It seems that the singular race of people known as the "Clay-Eaters" is not yet extinct in the mountains of Kentucky, but that victims of the habit can be found at this day, even upon the very verges of civilization. At Manchester, in Clay County, Taylor Henson and his wife have just been arraigned in court for the brutal and inhuman treatment of their only child, a girl six years of age. In their defense they pleaded that the cause of the unmerciful beating of their offspring was that she was a clay-eater, and that they were endeavoring to cure her of the habit. They explained that she inherited the taste from her father's family, which had contained many clay-eaters, and that the habit had so fastened itself upon her that it appeared to be as difficult for her to resist the temptation to eat clay as it is for an inebriate to quit drinking intoxicants. They said that unless they could conquer the child's appetite now she would be completely ruined in a few years. The court dismissed the case, the parents promising to employ more humane methods in the future.

The clay-eaters are a singular people. They are stupid and morose, and their complexions assume the color of the clay they eat. They do not live to be very old. The substance used is a soft, yellowish clay that is found in abundance in many of the mountain counties, and while it is almost tasteless, the appetite for it is easily acquired, and, once contracted, is almost as hard to relinquish as is the opium habit. A number of families of wealth and prominence in the neighborhood of Manchester are said to be clay-eaters, and E. Y. McKeehan, the wealthiest man in Corbin, who died a short time ago, was a clay-eater in his youth, and was cured only after the most strenuous efforts on the part of his physicians.—Press Dispatch.