The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-02-19
KREBS THE SLASHER.
New Type of the Modern Degenerate
Found in Paris.

New Type of the Modern Degenerate
Found in Paris.
From the Cleveland Plain Dealer
Krebs, the slasher of women's dresses,
is one of a type of degenerates of which
group of physicians in Paris have made
curious and interesting study. In
stances of this and of other forms of hys-
terra in the male human being are sought
eagerly, and the circumstances inquired
into infinitely. As a result, after five years
of record-making, DR.. Louis Latour and
his associates have made remarkable
collection.
Krebs belong to a class frequently met
with. To him, as to all others afflicted
with similar mental perversion, the cut
ting of a silk dress with a penknife gives
as much pleasure as the listening to
symphony by a devotee of music but it
must be silk, and must be worn by
woman on cloudy day. The pleasure Is
lessened if the day is bright and clear,
and the slasher, except in rare instances,
find no satisfaction in cutting any other
sort Of dress goods.
In 1894 a man was captured in Vienna
who confessed that in one year he had
ruined no less than sixty-one dresses with
a peculiarly shaped knife which had been
made for the purpose. 1t had a handle
and an elastic cord concealed inside his
coat sleeve enabled him to snap the knife
out of sight in an instant after he had
used 1t. He was member of a respecta-
bic family and had a comfortable income,
but he said the temptation to cut every
silk dress he saw was irresistible The
sight OF one caused him to break into a
profane perspiration ana tremu.ousness
that he could not control.
The nbUeioaI Oh.
served in a young Persian of good family
who for years pursued the strange pleas
ure of running silk dresses. He used an
ordinary penknife and invariably selected
black silk. Like the Viennese slasher
he perspired profusely whenever he saw
woman wearing a dress of that de-
scription, and it was that which ultimate
ly led to his detection.
Allied to the slashers are what the
French doctors call "treaders.' These are
men who find delight in treading on the
trailing skirt of a womans dress and
causing it to rip or tear. They become
wonderfully expert and can pretend so
easily that their action was an accident
that few of them have been arrested.
1t will doubtless interest many American
women to know that the proportion of
accidents in stepping upon the hem of
their garments is about seven in ten.
DR.. Latour figures out that in three cases
out of ten the dress tearing is by design,
and that of all American cities New York
and Boston present the largest population
of this class. They are not known as the
| slashers are-indeed, il is doubtful if the
majority of people are aware of their ex
| istence at all. The American correspond
| ents of the French scientists assert that
| they are all over the country, and in
great numbers in the large cities De-
lection is difficult, because the defense of
accident is always difficult to disprove.
There is in a Massachusetts Sanatorium
a man who two years ago in Boston en-
| joyed a fair degree of prominence in mer-
| camille circles. He is a bachelor and gave
| frequent entertainments to friends in his
handsomely appointed apartments. He was
| a man about town, a bon vivant, and en-
joyed the friendship and esteem of many
of the leaders in art and literature in Bos
| toms exclusive set. He had one peculiar
| ity known to his intimate friends, and that
| was a violent antipathy 20 red apples.
| They made him ill and he was known to
avoid certain streets where he knew there
were stalls on which red apes were dis
| played.
1t was often remarked that, while
charming companion he was one of the
clumsiest and most awkward men in the
city of Boston. He was forever falling
over women's skirts and his confusion and
| apologies were painful because they were
so frequent. He never went to any public
place that he did not tear a dress at the
waist or rip the lower part of the skirt
| off with his feet. This happened so often
| that he became known as "Old Clumsy
| Foot"
In the early part of 1896 this man called
| on a weli-known alenist and asked if it
were possible to cure man of a mania for
| tearing women's clothes. II was his own
complaint. he said, and had grown upon
him so that ne became alarmed and deter
| mined 10 seek medical advice. His story
| was remarkable one and opened up an
| entirely new field of investigation into per-
| verted mental conditions. He had no other
within or vagary, he said, except strong
| dislike for red apples and constant de-
| sire 10 tread on every long skirt he saw.
| What was supposed to be clumsiness on
| his part was design. The pleasure he
| experienced was when he heard the goods
| rip. He would work whole afternoon
exercising all his ingenuity to find dress
| that promised to tear instead of becom-
| ing displaced. In year he had trodden
| deliberately upon between 1000 and 200
/ skirts. rs
When the Frenchmen came to examine
| into this new phase they found "treaders"
| in all the big cities where they had corre-
| spondents There are hundreds of them in
| Paris and in Berlin and London and in the
large cities of the United States.
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