River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1890-11-06
HE STOOD THE TEST.
A Prisoner Who FeIgned Insanity Until ~
| Deaths Door.

Deaths Door.
Speaking of the wife-murderer Smiths
case led Warden Berlin of the Allie
gheny County Jail to indulge in a few
"reminiscences, relative TO feigned in
sanity. The warden is evidently of the
| opinion that Smith is sane, and does nos
think the prisoner is even feigning in
sanity. Said the warden: I'VE had case
of feigned insanity in the Jail about
three years ago, the most extraordinary
that has ever come within my expe-
RE nee. The prisoners name was Brant
/ He had been convicted of trying to sell
goods under false pretenses. He was
| first sent to the work-house, where he
| lived twenty-five days without eating.
They brought him from the hospital de-
partment of the work house to the Jail
on a stretcher When he was first
| locked up he was a man weigh
/ ing two hundred pounds but
he starved himself until he be-
came like shadow. We stood him up
on the stone floor and he would fall his
full length as if he had been corpse,
bruising his forehead, and yet gave no
indication that he was in. pain. For
thirty-six days not a morsel of food
passed his lips. We placed milk in his
cell, but it remained untouched. He
would insist on keeping his knees bent,
and we thought to make him straighten
his legs by stringing him up in the air
and letting him hang there, but the po-
sition of the legs never changed.
1--WE tried every possible way to make
! inn friu h1t hn =
sane, but it was no use. Finally we got
a stomach pump and pumped milk into
him every day. In this way he was
kept alive while the doctors continued
their experiments with him. He was
an old soldier and the Grand Army
folks became intere ted in the
case. They visited him and they
were positive he was insane. They
| asked me for letter that he was de-
mented, but refused to give it because
| | was sure the fellow was shamming.
| We had information that he had been
convicted of crime somewhere in Mis-
souri,, was sent to the insane asylum,
and afterward discharged. The Grand
Army people became indignant at me
because / would not say that Brant
was crazy. In the meantime we con-
tinued pumping milk into his stomach.
lie was like a putty man. Anywhere
you placed him. there he would stick
Finally other prisoners attempted TO
catch Brant mapping, but without sue
cess. The Grand Army men secured a
commission in lunacy for Brant's case,
and the commission declc red him in
sane. He was then removed to the in
sane department of the city poor farm.
He had to be carried to the train on a
stretcher. / don't believe he Weighed
eighty pounds.
THE second day after he had ar
rived at the farm he commenced to eat,
and the pumping process was discarded.
Before a week he had splendid appe-
tite, and in a very short time his form
rounded out into something like its old
time proportions. One day Mr.. Brant
got hold of file, tried it on the bars on
his window, found it worked to charia,
| flied the bars in two, made a kno,te 1
rope from his bed clothes, let himself
down to the ground. and has never been
heard of from that day to this 1t was
| the most remarkable case of which I
have heard. Imagine the amount of pain
and suffering that man had to endure.
| He never fiinehed for an instant that a
person could detect We knew he was
shamming, but the proof seemed TO be
the other way. There have been other
prisoners in here who feigned insanity.
but few sharp, severe tests would
generally bring them to realization Of
their senses. Pittsburgh Post