St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1889-06-29
TORTURE IN DREAMS. :
Physical Changes Caused by Intense Suf-
fering in Nightmare.

| fering in Nightmare.
dread with great interest" writes cor
respondent of the Indianapolis NeWa, 1.-The
recent opinion of physician expressed in
your paper to the effect that death some
times occurs in sleep from fright in night
mare. | thought some of your readers
might be interested in my case, for l can re-
late an experience that seems to be phe-
| nOmenal.-
81 am twenty-seven years old; robust
and sound, and never knew of premature
age coming upon any of my people Yet l
am gray and old far beyond my years. 1t
all came about in single night. When I
was boy, hungry, poor and forlorn, l was
| tempted into crime. l saw in a window
| open packages of rich candies. By STEP
ping inside the door and watching my OPP
portunity | could reach one of them. l
thought nobody was looking, but when l
snatched one and fled I ran straight into
the arms of policeman on the pavement
outside. had a good mother, and the
thought came that had betrayed her and
ruined myself. I was almost crazed with
remorse. | begged to be released, but the
officer did his duty. Next day when l was
brought from jail and put on trial l saw
among the motley crowd in the police court
a man who did not seem to belong there.
He proved to be the owner of the store
from which had stolen the candy When
found this out my fright was increased.
You can imagine my surprise that this
gentleman, when called as a witness, with
drew all charges against me, and asked the
court as personal favor to discharge me.
This request was granted. My new friend
called me to one side after the trial, heard
my story and seemed to have faith in my
HI ,,,+o
and advanced me from one position to an
other as the years rolled on, and finally
made me chief clerk and gave me the keys
to his safe.
"One night, just year ago, found my
self down at the store at a late hour. We
had received a large sum of money after
banking hours, and this had been placed in
the safe in my keeping. For some reason l
was tempted to go down town that night. !
wandered into the store, sat around awhile
and finally opened the safe was trembling
violently all the time-Why | would not con-
Tess until the conviction forced itself upon
me that was about to commit my second
burglary. An Internal desire for that money
had complete control of me. Finally l took
out the money, put it in my pockets and
locked up the safe. Then l went to work in
a clumsy manner to conceal the crime ]
thought L could pry Off the lock and thus
make believe that the safe had been robbed
by experts. | was sweating at the felonious
task when l heard a step behind me, fol-
lowed by voice: What in the world are
you doing John?'
1T was the voice of my employer and old
friend-the man who had saved me from
prison and who had given me chance in
the world. Great heavens how suffered
Cold blood-sweat stood out on me, and the
thought of my treachery was agonizing be-
yond human endurance. l was suffering all
the torture that DR.. Jekyll must have
known in being transformed into Mr.. Hyde.
l felt the very elements of my body chang
ing. O! glorious relief, sweet delight, when
found that all of this real suffering had
been in nightmare only, and that 1 was still
the trusted employe of just man. Yet
when | looked lrto the glass next morning
/ found that the snow which comes upon
ordinary mortals in old age had whitened
my head during that struggle In my sleep"