Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-11-05
SINGULAR DELUsIONs.
Mono,naniacs Who Haunt the Courts and
NetcsDGper Offices.

NetcsDdper Offices.
New York Tribune.
The police central Office in this city, as
we'll as the courts and newspaper Offices, ap-
pears to have its special monomaniac. As
In the other cases, the deluded person is q
woman, and like the other, she is poor,
harmless creature, who excites pity notwith-
standing the absurdity of her disorded fam
cies and the sincerity and earnestness with
which she narrates her imagined wrongs.
She believes herself to be under espionage
of two thousand detectives, who follow her
in the interest of the German consul, who,
she thinks, has secret Offices in police head
quarters. and deep designs against her peace
and comfort. She tells all this with ration
al air and quiet manner until she preceives
that she is not credited, and then grows
little excited and becomes noisy. Some
years ago man with similar mania in
tested the station houses and newspaper
Offices. He imagined that he was pursued,
not by detectives, but by doc
tors who wanted his body for
dissection; and he would narrate to any one
who would listen long tales of the methods
they pursued to capture him. AS proof of
the truth of what he would relate he would
produce an old copy of the London Times,
In which was a report filling half column
of the trial of physician of London on the
charge of conspiracy against him. OF course
the report only disclosed that he was insane,
but this the poor fellow could not recognize.
He disappeared several years ago. HIS
atural successor seems to be the unfortun-
te creature who appeared at headquarters
Recently. Another unfortunate, familiar in
the newspaper Offices, is an old man who
claims to know where Stewards body rests,
but who says that the executors refuse to
take possession of it, rot to escape paying
the reward, he will tell you with great
earnestness, but because one of them wants
the grand mausoleum which Mrs. Stewart
built at Garden City reserved for himself.
He tells his story with such plausibility of
manner and incident and detail, too, that
one hardly suspects his sanity until he
reaches this astounding climax. when his
manner changes instantly to ferceness.
The little Miss Elite, of the court house
and city hall, is a woman of 40 or 30, and
evidently very poor. She visits the public
buildings once every month and makes
formal demand of the various officials for
her rent or the use of the buildings. Her
mania is that she is the owner of the public
property Of New York. In her demands for
her money she interrupts proceedings in the
courts and other Offices, but she is never
violent, and is easily induced to 60 away.
She accepts anything in the form or shape
Of check as payment, but if refused this
tender she threatens writ of ejectment.
A very remarkable mania is that possessing
a lady of middle age of this city, who is evi.
Il T. - -
stances. She is very handsome blonde.
She first developed this mania in 1873,
shortly after the publication of the cipher
one day in this Office aud stated that she
make, but would do 80 only
on the promise that if it were used
she should first correct and approve the re-
port. She then stated that she had inst1-
tnted three important suits, each for 81 ,OOO,-
0c0, one against President Grant, another
against the polioe commissioners and the
third against the Western Union Telegraph
company. This startling statement natur-
ally aroused attention, and when she added
that the suits involved and exposed the send
ing of the Republican ciphers during the
campaign of 1876, she was urged to tell the
story in its fullest detail. She then told
who she was, where she lived, her connec-
tons and her wrongs. just before the cleo
ton in 1876, while she was absent in the
country, the police commissioners, under
president Grant, had sent officers to her
house, taken possession of it, and protected
the agents and operators of the Western
Union Telegraph company while they
were putting a large number of
telegraph wires into the walls and
ceilings of the house. These were SO care
fully concealed that when the mistress of
the house returned she did not for long
time discover them. She did then only be-
cause of the effect of her health. When
asked how it affected her she stated that she
possessed the only electric voice in the coun-
try, which, for the purpose of sending their
cipher dispatches without fear of exposure.
the Republicans used, as the would use an
electric battery! Of course the wild story
revealed the mania which possessed her, but
nothing else in manner or language Undated
it. Informed that it was impossible to use
the information, she retired in quiet and
lady like manner to give this explanation of
the disappearance of the Republican cipher
dispatches to the enemy for the qualification
of the Democracy.
In all these instances the victim was abso.
lutely harmless, and generally patient and
sad of manner. Each would have made an
interesting study, and possibly these mere
outlines of their peculiarities may prove of
general interest.