The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-03-07 00:00:00

with the exception of Marlow, who was sentenced to
fourteen years' penal servitude, were acquitted upon
this charge also.

THE REV. H. SPEICE.

The Lancet (a medical journal) says that on Mr.
Speke's arrival in London he was well advised in at
once placing himself under medical care. Dr. Gull
and Dr. Tuke, the physicians consulted, recommend
an entire cessation trom clerical duty for some time
longer, rest of mind and body, and change of climate.
Mr. Speke will, therefore, proceed in a few days to
the south of France, probably with his relative Mr.
' Murdoch. The late mysterious disappearance of Mr.
Spoke from London was not altogether a sudden im-
pulse, but rather a deliberate detennination arising
from erroneous impressions which now seem happily
removed. The fact that he has been travelling on foot
during the last few weeks through the wildest parts of
Devon and Cornwall accounts for his ignorance as to
the excessive extent of the public alarm and anxiety as i
to his fate, and for his silence, which he now regrets.
It was singular that during his journey he should have
only once heard his name mentioned; and by this
circumstance he was confirmed in his belief that he
would soon he altogether forgotten. We are enabled
to state on indisputable authority that there has never
been any accusation of misconduct brought against
Mr. Speke, and that he is much loved and respected
by his parishioners. We trust he may soon be re-
stored to his life of usefulness. The immediate cause
of his illness was probably the mental shock he ex-
perienced in the melancholy death of his much-loved
brother, the distinguished African traveller.

We (Spectator) have authority for saying that while
be was absent, just after he entered Cornwall, the
death of a relative he can scarcely have known, an old
lady of ninety-six, gave him a new succession of some
kW() a year, strengthening at once his bonds to
Somersetshire and his reasons for quitting it. So far
from being a worse man than his parishioners took him
for, Mr. Speke seems to us to be a better, though a
feebler one, a man who will need looking after perhaps
for years, but who while master of himself is decidedly
a good man, who wants to become a better one. The
extraordinary outburst of public petulance against him
is perhaps natural, for what can be more annoying
than to find one has speculated for weeks on a natural
event as if it had been supernatural? but the feeling,
best expressed by the Wcstern Morning News, when it
says that Mr. Speke can hardly live in Somerset, is
unreasonable, not to say absurd. We do not know
Mr. Speke, or Mr. Murdoch, or any of his family;
but the story of his hallucination is, we have good
authority for believing, correct, and " the county"
might as well be fractious because he had broken his

We may add that one circumstance which created
much comment at the time has now been explained.
Mr. Speke purposely threw away his hat in Bird-
cage-walk in order to strengthen the belief in his
death ; but be did not recollect that his si.iter lived
near the spot. Therefore, the rumours occasioned by
the discovery of the bat in that place were due solely
to a curious coincidence.

AN EXPLANATION.

" Sir,— The family of the Rev. Mr. Speke, and also Mr.
Spoke himself, feeling deeply grateful to the public for the
interest that has been evinced on his behalf, and believing
that some explanation of his conduct is fairly demanded,
have desired us, who have been consulted in the case, to
fors ard you our opinion as to Lis present and former con-
dition.
• Mr. Speke appears to us to have been suffering for a long
time under a depressing form of hypochondriasis, which
dominated his whole mind. Unfortunately, those from
whom be sought advice were 'advertisers,' and they in-
creased his fears and aggravated his despondency.
"The distress calmed to Mr. Speke by the melancholy
death of his elder brother .the celebrated African traveller)
much added to his hypochondriacal perversion, so that
during the last two years Mr. Speke admits that he has had
a strong desire, and was at length impelled, to separate him-
self from all those to whom he was known, and hence his
strange and apparently inexplicable conduct.
• It is our conviction that Mr. Speke's recent actions were
beyond his control. Ile is stilt far from being well, soil that
he may have entire change we have recommended his leaving
England for a time. accompsnied by one of his relatives.
We do not doubt that by this course Mr. Speke will be re-
stored to health, and be able shortly to resume his termer
duties, which he has hitherto well and conscientiously per-
formed.
" We are, air, your obedient servants,
"THE I'IITSICIANS CONSULTED
IN TIIE CASE."

Mr. Speke Is said to be now in a private lunatic asylum,
where he has been placed because he labours under the de-
lusion that his family dislike him. This delusion, if it be one
at all, is common to many men beside Mr. Speke, and we
should have been glad to bear sonic more satisfactory reason
for his confinement."—Morning Star.