Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1883-08-02
AN AsoETIC LUNATIU.
A wedding by Telegraph and a
Honeymoon In the vii.
derness.
From a California paper.

From a California Paper.
A case in Los Angeles has excited
much attention this week because of
the difficulty Of drawing the line be-
tween eccentricity andsinsanity. Fred
erick NJ. Shaw, who lives in the Ca
huengs mountains, nine miles from
Los Angeles, was declared insane By
the Superior Court, but on rehear.
Ing this judgment was set aside and
he was released. The charge was
brought against him by neighbor
who, it is shrewdly suspected, covets
his land. Shaw's history is so peculiar
that it is well worth recalling briefly.
de Is relative Of Chief JusticeShsw,
OF Massachusetts,, and was first heard of
on this coast ten years ago, when he
Issued q prospectus of hygienie coloA
ny to be founded inSouthernC California,
the members to live like himself on
strictly vegetable diet; he went to
England to float his scheme; but, al
though he received some encourage
ment, the enterprise was a failure.
This made Shaw mIsanthropic; be re-
turned to the Nicholas canon in the
mountains, made himself a house in a
tree top, and every night assembled to
his aerial tenement and pulled up the
ladder after him. He dressed in a
peculiar STYLE, wearing only a flannel
shirt and trousers, and lived on fruits
and nuts. The fruits of this commun-s
ion with nature were series of letters
on the creation of the human species
and the best methods of securing
health, which were printed in the Los
Angeles newspapers and gave him a
local reputation as half philosopher,
half crank. His fame even spread be-
yond the coast, and among
those who became deeply interested
in the philosopher was a New Jersey
school mistress named Margaret Carey
Wright. A correspondence sprang
up between the two. Shaw proved to
be an impassioned letter writer, and
the wooing which be carried on at
long range was appropriately ended by
a marriage by telegraph, on June 4,
1879. A dispatch was sent to Shaw
by the Rev, Q. s. Cook, of Newark, N
j. saying will you take Margaret
Carey Wright, of this city, now pres.
ent, to be your welded wife?" To this
Shaw responded, IL will" and two
witnesses being at each end of the
line, the marriage was accomplished
The bride was very slow about Joining
her husband, but at last, after he had
given up all hope of seeing her, she
appeared one day in Los Angeles.
and was taken out to the refuses
mountain retreat by mutual friend.
The latter went on in advance to pre-
pare the bridegroom, whom he found
clothed in a shirt and cap gathering
honey. He was prevailed upon to
don pair OF trousers to meet his
bride. The meeting was rspturous
and the couple set up housekeeping in
shanty which Shaw had built under
the branches of his fayorite tree. To
the bridegroom's store of waInutS and
honey was added the gift of a box Of
raisins from a mutual friend. In this
primitive fashion the couple lived for
two years, when the woman grew
weary Of fashions in fig leaf and
aesthetic diet aud took up her resi-
dence in the town. Shaw grew more
eccentric, and some of his utterances
in the presence Of a neighbor who
worried him led to the charge that be
was insane. The testimony on the re.
hearing was very conflicting, but it
was shown that the philosopher was
not dangerous: SO he has once more re- |
turned to enjoy his communion with |
nature.