Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1876-07-26

And now before / leave you, Alfred,
there is one question | would like to
ask, Have you ever been seen or known
to walk in your sleep before?"
Never to my knowledge, Frank,
though to be quite open with you, the
revelations of last night may possibly
tend to throw some light on a strange
incident that occurred in my fathers
house some eighteen months ago. and
to some minds perhaps might suggest
the possibility that the present may
not have been the only occasion on
which had been guilty of walking in
my sleep.
| r,MygAunt Lady Arding, had just ar
rived on, a visit to- my parents She
had been beautiful woman in her
day, and though then past seventy still
retained abundant traces of her form
er beauty. Her personal charms at
that period were much enhanced by q
superb set Of artificial teeth, which she
thought it no sin to palm off as her
own; they were, in truth, q first-rate
specime of art, and had greatly ex-
cited my admiration from the day
1rst saw them.
| My aunt was in the habit, as nv
mother had told me, Of removing her
teeth from her mouth on going to bed,
and depositing them on her dressing
table. Well, it happened one morning
1t was the day Lord A., an ex-
Cabinet Minister and Privy Councillor
had been asked to dime, that my
aunt's teeth were reported to be miss
ing. She was almost beside herself
with fury and vexation, insisting that
some evilly-disposed person had de-
signedly, and from motives of spite,
carried them off. Every endeavor to
mollify her, or disabuse her of this idea
had proved fruitless, and she left my
fathers house In a perfect frenzy,
avowing she would never set foot in it
again, and she kept her word; but this
was not all, she altered her will, and
instead of leaving her money to my
fathers children, as she had intended
doing, she left the whole of it to an
hospital. Not many months ago, and
not long after my aunt's death, whilst
engaged in packing my valise for a
railway journey, l discovered at the
bottom of the bag a set of teeth CORE
spending In some respects with the set
my aunt had lost, but whether they were
hers and whether placed them there
or not. am not prepared to say, though
after what has just happened, it is not
impossible / may have done 500
Heathcote, who till now had buoyed
himself up with the hope that his
friends peripatetic vagaries might be
the effect only of a partial aud tenn
porary disturbance Of his mental euui-
librium, and not a confirmed constitu-
tional infirmity, after listening atten-
lively to the above incident could come
] to no other conclusion than that the
malady under which his friend labored
was one that was habitual to him.
and he dismissed at once from his
mind all hopes Of his ever marrying
his sister Julia"
1t only remains for the writer tosadd
that the missing shirts were speedily
exhumed, and consigned to Mr.. Jack
sons trunk, and that that gentleman
lost no time in quitting Heathcote Hall,
and In returning to his own home, dis
tant only few miles off, where he ar
rived only just in time to enable him
to put stop to the preparations of his
family for their journey to Mr.. Heath
cote's house and attendance at their rel
| atives nuptials, now broken off and at
an end for ever.
The writer had heard nothing of Mr..
Alfred Jackson and his somnam bulistic
propensity for several years, when hap
pening one day to take up newspaper
he noticed, under the heading "Police
Reports" the name of one Alfred
jackson, who was charged, while stay
ing In a hotel at Plymouth, with hav-
purloined ar embroidered satin waist
coat, the property of an Am erican gen
tleman residing in the same hotel, and
occupying the chamber adjoining that
of the accused.
10 The stolen property, which was mark
Led with the owners name In full, was
traced to the defendants possession,
and discovered in his portmanteau
among his clothes. He admitted that
the article did not belong to him, but
was unable satisfactorily to account for
it being found in his trunk; and his
suggestion that he might have appro-
priated it and placed it there during
his sleep not, seeming to satisfy the
Bench, the case was remanded to en-
able the defendants medical man, and
some other parties of high respectable
ty, to be called for the defence; and as.
among the latter, appeared the name
of Frank Heathcote, the writer enter
tanned no doubt as to the identity of
the accused with the subject of the
foregoing tale; a view of the matter
that was subsequently confirmed by the
evidence of the above-named gentle
men and the other witnesses In the
| case, whose testimony went to show
that the somnambulistic infrmity of
the defendant from long habit had ac-
CURED such a mastery over him as to
preclude all hope of it's being cured. or
even lessened, by any known system of
medical or other kind Of treatment.
Too Soon for Him.
A young lady in this city, says the
Herald, of Helena, Montana, talks in
her sleep, and will answer unconscious
ly questions put to her. She is courted
by a tinoid young man who has never
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