, 1890-10-25
HE o THE TEST.
A Prisoner Who successfully Feigned In
sanity Unul Mt Deaths Door.

I a prisoner VINO successfully EeiCnCd IN
sanity Until Mt Death Door.
We had a Ease of feigned insanity in
the jail about three years ago, the most
extraordinary that has ever come with
in my experience. The prisoners name
was Brant He had been convicted OF
trying to sell goods under false pre-
lenses. He was first sent to the work.
house, where he lived for twenty-five
days without eating. They brought
him from the hospital department Of
the workhouse to the jail on a stretch
er. When he was first locked up he
was a man weighing 200 pounds, but
he starved himself until he became like
a shadow. We stood him up on the
stone floor, and he would fall his full
length as il he had been a corpse, bruis-
ing his forehead, and yet gave no indi.
cation 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 straigbten his
legs by stringing him up in the air and
letting him hang there, but the posi-
ton OF the legs never changed.
We tried every possible way to make
him give some evidence that he was
sane, but 1t was NJ use. Finally we
got a stomach pump and pumped milk
into him every day. In this way he
was kept alive while the doctors con-
tinued their experiments with him. He
was an old soldier and the Grand Army
folks became interested in the case.
They visited him and they were positive
he was insane. They asked me for a
letter stating that he was demented,
but | refused to give 1t because l was
sure the fellow was shamming.
We had information that he had
been convicted of crime somewhere in
Missouri, vas sent to the insane asylum
and afterward discharged. The Grand
because ! would not say hat Brant
was crazy. In the meantime we con-
tinued pumping milk into his stomach.
he was like n 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 gentlemen Sc
cured a commission in lunacy for
Brant's case, and the commission de
clared him insane. He was then re-
moved to the insane department of the
city poor farm He had to be carried
TO the train on a stretcher. l don't be-
leve he weighed eighty pounds.
The second day after he had arrived
at the farm he commenced to eat, and
the pumping process was discarded.
Before a week he had a splendid APP
petite, and in a very short time his
form rounded out Into something like
its old time proportions. One day Mr..
Brant got hold of a file, tried it on the
bars of his window, found 1t worked to
a charm, fled the bars in two, made a
knotted 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 / have heard. Imagine the
amount of pain and suffering hat man
had to endure. He never hinched 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 hero
who feigned insanity. but a few sharp,
severe tests would generally bring them
to n realization of their senses. Inter
Wow in Pittsburg Gazette.