Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1880-03-24
A CURIOUS CASE.

curious cdsC VI RtlottooAC' SA-
the mails has come to light IN New
York The victim is the Reverend
Morgan Dix. of Trinity Church, and
who the heavy villain is something
the Reverend Morgan Dix and a corps
of able detectives would very much
like to find out. The annoyance be-
gan abou, the middle of last month
aud has been kept pretty steadily up
until within few days. Between
The fifteenth and the twentieth of Feb
ruary manufacturers in nearly every
city in the Union, including Cleveland
began to receive letters purporting to
come from DIR. Dix inquiring about
their articles of manufacture and ask
ing for full details, circulars, &c. Or
course such q letter from so distln-
guished a man as Dr. Dix was prompt
" answered, and the consequence was
that the worthy Doctor, to his IN
bounded astonishment, found himself
literally deluged with circulars, pamph-
let's. and letters describing and eX-
tolling every conceivable variety OF
manufactured article. The makers OF
stoves. threshing machines, steam
plows. mowers, reapers, rakes, shovels,
safes. locks. shoes, billiard tables,
overwhelmed the unfortunate divine
with epistolary attentions. The num-
berless and awful legions OF sewing
machines were turned loose upon him.
The postman came to his door every
morning staggering under the enor-
NOUS burden of the Doctors astound-
ino CORRESPONDENCE. This continued
for days and days, and seemed appa-
rently to be never going to end, and
Doctor Dix, bewildered and in despair,
soon ceased attempting to explain 10
the circular-sending hosts that they
had been imposed upon. And while
this state of affairs was in full progress
there suddenly opened another vast
field of correspondence. The manu-
facturers were reinforced by the keep
ers of the boarding schools. The Doc
tor. to his amazement, learned that he
had two or three little girls whom he
wanted to put in boarding school.
Myriads of boarding school proprietors
had, as they supposed, received letters
from him, written of course by his
fiendish tormentor, and they inno-
ceutly added to the misery OF q
thoroughly miserable man by opening
their circular and pamphlet and letter
writing batteries upon him. The nui-
sance became all but unbearable,
but it did not stop there. Old friends
of the Doctor were dumfounded to re-
ceive letters from him couched in the
most insulting terms, and stating that
he had commenced legal proceedings
against them. And so in addition to
the manufacturing and the boarding
school correspondence there developed
another enormous branch of literature
in the shape of protests, expostulations
and demands for explanations from in
iured friends. And in addition to this
guests began to arrive who had been
invited to imaginary banquets. Then
vendors of various articles called in
response to postal invitations. There
was one day set apart for pawnbrokers
and their actually called at the Doc
tors door twenty-one specimens OF
that variety of merchant, all of whom
had been informed by postal card that
DR.. Dix desired to sell his wardrobe.
In word, every annoyance of this
nature that an ingenious and malici-
GUS person could invent was practiced.
The matter was put into the hands OF
detectives, and from that time the
trouble greatly diminished, as it was
evident that the guilty person knew
that he was being sharply looked after.
In addition to DR.. Dix, one Buckley,
q Third avenue saloon keeper, has been
similarly annoyed. What the motive
is, is difficult to conceive, as it is not a
promising was of conducting black
mailing enterprise, DR.. Dix is inclined
to think, and with some show of rea-
son, that the author of the annoyance
is some half-crazed person with a
mania and the cunning which often ac-
companies certain kinds of mental dis
turbance.