Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-08-22
A RIcH MANS CRAzY sos.
Confined aud Treated Like Beast in
HIS Fathers House.

HIS Fathers House.
The Times, of Philadelphia, Aug. 10,
prints the story of the latest insanity hor-
ror which the rural districts of Pensylva-
mia has yielded up. The story CONS from
the aristocratic suburb of Chestnut Hill.
The victim is George Streeper, who has
been crazy for 10 years and who was con-
fined by economy three years in the house
of his father, Charles Streeper, man
worth $50, 900, living oue-quarter of mile
out of Chestnut Hill, on the Flour
town road. In the year 1859 George
Streeper was boy Of Is living in his
fathers house. 1t was in that year that
he went harmlessly crazy. The few peo-
pie living about ''the wheel pump" inn,
the centre of the settlement, and who re-
member him at that time, say that the
cause Of his insanity was love. He was
infatuated with Mary Potts, of Chestnut
Hill. His father opposed his suit, forbade
the boys attention TO the girl. logged him
about the country from place to place
when he thought that his son sought a
meeting with his sweetheart, and cursed
him roundly whenever he thought his
mind or his footsteps were bent in her di-
rection.
1t is the sound of the fathers curses to-
day, when he hears them (Which is not
seldOm), that eXcites the boy, now
middle-aged man, from melanchoha into
mania. Years went on, the father, con-
tent in having mastered the sons inclina-
tions, kept on with money getting. The
boy grew more and more ''the village
idiot" He ran away, but the father
followed him to NewtOwn, Delaware
county, and brought him back. Things
went ON much the same way as before for
another five years. The only sign of an
ever growing impairment of the sons
mind was his increasing irritability
when the father swOre. 1t was in the
harvest time of 1881 that the son leaped
at the old man after he had delivered
an unusually heavily-charged v0lley of
abuse in the corn field behind the
house in which he hved-One of the
owns. The father had the corn cutter in
his hand. ''If he hadn't had it," said an
eyewitness yesterday, "there would have
been another acquittal in a murder case
on the ground of insanity" As it was,
the "bOy," then grown through years of
mental darkness to a man of 80, snatched
bundle of cornstalks and thrashed his
father like sheaf of grain. 1t was the
last free exercise of his muscles. Save
for his father, mother and little brother
the barber who was brought in to shave
him, and Robert Gordon, host Of the
''wheel pump" who was called in to coax
him down stairs to let that barber shave
him, no mortal eyes have since seen his
face.
The buried man has two rooms. One is
garnet with tin roof. 1t has no stove
In winter, and it gathers all the heat that
the cool villas of Chestnut Hill escape in
the summer. The other apartment is a
little room over the kitchen. Geo. Stree
per has gone naked in the little room
above the kitchen during the brOiling
heats of the Julys and Augusts which he
has spent there. His vacations are passed
in the garnet. The reason why he has the
garrett for change is that on account of
his not being allowed out Of doors the
room over the kitchen gets into
such a condition after a few days
that he has to be moved out of
it until it is cleaned. Then he is put
in the room over the kitchen until the
garnet is cleaned. So it has gone on for
three years. The mans insanity grew
deeper, but it kept its melanchOlia form
save when the fathers harsh voice was
heard in the household beneath. Then
the lost one would shrek and beat him
self against the walls of his prison. At
night his cries have frequently aroused
the households of the hill and valley.
Until two weeks ago the neighbOrs, be-
yond protesting to Charles Streeper, did
not interfere with this treatment of his
son. The reason was this: The mother
of the lunatic still inhabited his prison
house. 1t was she who fed and washed
and dressed him, and everybody knew
that his care was all that could be had
in the miserable inadequacy of the sur
roundngs. But the woman had grown
fearful of her life, it is said. She left her
home and went to her fathers house, a
| mile further toward FlourtOwn, on the
same pleasant road. No one was left in
the pitch-roofed farm house but the
lunatic, his strange father, and a boy Of 8
years of age, who tried his best to carry
| on the gruesome duties which his mother
| had before performed. Fearing the out
| come the neighbors of the Streeper family
consulted. As a result the Lunacy Com
mission will tomorrow be informed by
letter of the state of affairs