The Washington critic., 1885-11-20
arCuLLnrGHs INslNLrY.


His Mental Disorder the Result of
Heredity and Not Dissipation.
EDITOR CmriC: Yom paper Of the 10th
instant contained paragraph relating TO
the late John Mccullough and myself,
which contains not solitary fact, except
that the tragcdian and myself were "once
very good frends.n ! never wrote u note
to Mccullough asking to borrow twenty
dollars or any sum. ! was never his
enemy--so far from 1t that among my
treasured letters is one from John McCul-
Tough, written not long before he broke
completely down in Chicago, asking about
my health, and hoping that would be well
enough to sec him play SpaHacu@ when next
he visited Washington. Again, only the
day before THE CRITic's well-informel and
kindly-naturcd informant brought me again
into public notice, for fear, probably, that
so good newspaper writer might be too
soon forgotten, had written in Il letter to
New York weekly. of which am the reg
ular correspondent, defense of John Me
| Cullough from the ISLANDERS set aloat that
| he owed his death to disease supernduccd
| by dissipation. | said that Manager James
| Collier of the Union Square Theatre, Mr..
| Sam Kinslcy of our National, Ike Bromley
and William Winter, ON the stalr of the
| New York Tribune, all OF whom were his
intimate friends, would testify that the best
representative of heroic Roman parts on the
stage was neither n drunkard nor a liber-
tine. | added what will appear for the first
| time in the columns of THE CRITIC, aud has
| been strangely overlooked by the press,
| /. e., John McCullough's mental disorder
| was the result OF heredity. He had a sister
| who died in an asylum from the same cause,
| and 1t was developed In other members of
his family
The other statement that was sentenced
| to the workhOuse is what my esteemed
friend Editor Dorshemer Of the New York
| star, would call q - lie. | was sent to
| this hospital by Judge Smell at my own re-
| quest to be cured of rheumatism, superin-
| duced by exposure in New York during the
| campaign In October, which, you may have
| been informed, resulted In the election of
| Governor Hill. Once before came to this
| hospital at my own request by the kind in
tervention of Judge Smell, and had to con-
tradict a similar injurious statement in a
| Philadelphia paper. | was not sentenced,
nor was | sent, to the workhouse for six
months, nor six hours, nor six minutes, but
| to a free hospital, because / was a
| sick man and was broke As to
| my intellect being clouded and my
faculties impaired, | have nothing to
say-brains like beauty are purely a matter
Ol lusle-uuNHON IL Is u TclTcsulIg TSllleUl-
| brance that j once had them; but although
stand in no awe of public opinion, nor do
/ covet its lleeting approval, | emphatically
| refuse to he made the enemy of my dead
| friend and then have that bogus enmity at
tributed to motive which is far more prev
alent among reporters than In the guild of
| correspondents or even dramatic critics, at
least so John Chamberlin says, and he
| ought to know
You unintentionally did me an injury
calculated to possibly seriously affect my
business interests. | therefore ask you to
print this IN refutation. | have made 1t O
sort of a tetiUctOR letter in order that the
general readers of THE CRITIC may not be
as much bored by the unrelieved discussion OF
my personal affairs as | would be If / had to
| read In my favorite newspaper about the
concerns Of some other fellow of as little
importance in the worlds social and com
mercial mechanism as myself, but ] can't al
low my bread and butter to be intcrfered
with without protest.
GEORGE. II. BUTLER.
Washington Asylum Hospital, Nov. IS.