The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-07-16
QUEER DELUSIONS.
Men and Women Who Have Been
Victims to Strange Ideas.
From the London Standard.


Victims to Strange Ideas.
From the London Standard.
1t is almost inconcelvable that there are
persons living whose lives are dominated
by the delusion that they have never been
born. Yet a man died in Brighton asy
lum not long ago who had an idea that
he was never born and would never die.
The delusion took possession of him so
strongly that he more than once attempt
ed to take his life. At last he threw him
self from local station platform and
was cut to pieces by a train. His delu-
SIGN was not a common one, but 1t is not
unknown among doctors, and several sim
liar instances might be quoted An
equally uncommon delusion among luna
tics is the belief that dire poverty stares
them in the face when they may be the
unhappy possessors of huge wealth. Sin
gularly enough, an incident illustrating
this occurred at Brigton at about the same
time as the one already recorded, a de-
tired paymaster of the royal navy who
was very comfortably off, committing sui
eide IN the popular watering place under
the deluson that he was poor The Most
remarkable case of this kind, however
happened in Paris about a year ago 1t
is singular fact that the victims of these
decisions generally attempt to take their
own lives, and the case in question came
under public notice by the deluded man
throwing himself on the tram lines near
the Church of st. Augustine. Fortunately
the man was rescued by a policeman, who
on making Inquiries, was amazed to find
that his prisoner was a nobleman of great
wealth and a Viscount in rank, who had
suddenly gone mad under the delusion
that he had become pauper. 1t was ex-
planned by the Viscounts friends that it
was impossible to induce him 20 accept
money which he emphaticaIly refused 10
carry If bank notes were given him he
invariably burned them, and gold pieces
he as invariably threw out of the window
generally renarl6ing something to the eff
feet that he was being made a fool of -
as he knew he was pauper without a
penny in the world. The poor man ap-
pears to have been amazingly conscien-
tious, for since overtaken by the delusion
that he was pauper he had refused to
eat anything at all, and had been fasting
two days when picked up on the tram
lines.
girl in Worcester recently sacrificed
her life to the delusion that wax candles
are good for the complexion She died in
eating the candles. Her case was much
more rare than that of the servant maid
at continental hotel, who some time ago
set fire to her room and burned herself to
death, declaring that the Almighty COM
manded her to do it. The poor girl was the
victim of religious mania, and her delusion
was perhaps, the most common of all A
London barrister was the victim of a
much more unusual mania. He imagined
that crowd of people were throwing bill
hard balls at him, and at the inquiry into
his death not long ago it was stated that
on one occasion the deceased applied for
police protection, asserting that a crowd
followed him about assaulting- him with
| billiard cues. In his chambers the unhap-
py man jumped about from one room to
another, shouting that he had been turned
out of his lodgings and that they had
given him box full of stones and straw
and told him he was not fit to occupy a
bedroom" More distinguished persons
have been subject TO decisions, as. for ex-
ample, the explorer, Ross, who discover
ed" and actually named a range of noun
tains which never existed. Ross was in
command of an expedition to make the
northwest passage through Davis strait
| and on coming back reported that The
mountains had blocked his way.