Mexico weekly ledger., 1876-12-07
but unconscious burden noiselessly away
e-1~o %L~ -# ~

Uub uuCOISCtOuS OuEuCu AOISOi0ScAJ away
from the p%urSuers.
Twice the pursuing party came SO
near them that it was only by the most
adroit maneuvering that he escaped.
He heard them shouting his name
through the woods, but he passed on
and succeeded in getting his charge
safely home and in preserving the Sc
cret from the world. Shortly after
ward they were married, and the stories
of the "white lady, grew, and, spread
ing, attracted the attention of the
~chroniclers.
This in substance is Forse's narrative.
And it has pleased the world to accept
it as a pretty story of somnambuiism.
Petite adopted the current legend, and
reproduced from an old miniature the
portrait of the Lady Hampden. For
the purposes of art and poetry the story
might be properly enough left where
these workers have brought it. But
| there is another and a curious physi-
illogical side to it.
Lady Hampden died in 1928, and it
appears that one of her daughters in
herited her peculiarities. There is in
the Warwick Register of a succeed
ing year a curious account of an acct
dent which befel a lady living upon the
borders of Warwickshire. Her nude
body was found in a neighboring
| grove, one morning, and the post
norton examination decided that she
died of fright. This was the daughter
of Lady Hampden. In preparing the
papers which were subsequently pub
fished under the title of "The Night
| Side of Nature Mrs. Grove for some
reason rejected one which, in attempt
ing to throw q new light upon "The
White Lady of Watford," brought to
| the surface a number of extraordinary
facts.
This paper, prepared by a physician
who has since become eminent in psy-
cologic science, was afterward read be-
fore the British pneumatological socie-
ty, and is at present a part of their ar
chives. It purports to show that the
origin of the stories of the White Lady
of Watford and the cause of the death
of Lady Hampden's daughter are to be
found notin apparition, nor yet in SOM
nambuiism, but in what he calls Gu
timania, and he proceeds to give a
number of cases similar to that already
narrated, in which an irresistible desire
(amounting often to disease) to free the
body from it's conventional covering,
has given rise to the most ridiculous
and u~nwarranted stories. He also de-
clares that, while this ma
MIA has ~oftenest maifested itself
in women, it is not necessarily associ-
ated with immodesty. 1t is an organic
impulse which is some way connected
with the health of the individual, and
may be transmitted through a whole
generation. He says that several mem
bers of the Hampden family were we'll
aware of Lady Hampden's nocturnal
excursions, and that they did net at
tempt to interfere with them, but mere
ly took such precautions as prevented
her exposure. This reads c%uriously
enough, but, when the doctor declares
that she could not have lived if she had
not been allowed to take this bath of
freedom, or establishment is softened
into pity for the eccentric invalid.
How far the m~isadventure with the
savages in the Marquesas may have in
fluenced the progeny of the Hampdens
can safely be left to DIR. Oliver Wendell
Holmes to determine in fiction.-NeW
YORK. World.