The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1900-08-08
WAS NOT A SURPRISE
Prof SpindIer Writes of Herb
ert Simpsons Suicide.
SPENT MONEY LAVISHLY
Was Different From the Aver
age American.

| Prof. Frank N. Spindler, of Mount
Vernon, Ohio. who was a member of
Paramount faculty last year and who
was well acquainted with Herbert Stimp-
son, the suicide, has addressed letter
i to the Eagle on the criminologist' s
peculiar ending. The letter follows:
Mt Vernon, Ohio, Aug. 5, 1890.
Dear Sir: 1t was with unfeigned sor-
row and regret that I learned OF the
unfortunate end of Mr.. Herbert Stimp-
son. The fact of his suciding did not
surprise me, but his peculation was 1
confess great surprise and sorrow to
me. 1t was my lot to become quite " ell
acquainted with Simpson during my say
in Wichita this last year and I had many
very interesting talks with him on all
sorts Of topics. He being an expert in
mental pathology was interesting to me
since my study has been somewhat in
the same line although not so especially
in pathological psychological lines. Stimp-
son to me was a most curious problem.
have met many foreign scholars and
students, so his general type was not so
strange to me as perhaps to some, but
his particular character was, think, alb
normal
1t is certainly a strange thing, that a
man who had made a life study Of GRIM
mails and suicide, should end by becoming
such. Was it the power Of suggestion
and long familiarity with abnormal lives,
that led Simpson to follow the road
which his own favorite subjects of study
are prone to follow? Or was he himself
an abnormal type, a genius OF a jegen-
crate neurosis, such as Max Nordan so
Interestingly describes in his book on de-
generates? Many of Simpsons actions
and conversations lead me to the con-
viction that he was of a neuratic and
somewhat unbalanced brain make up and
was tending at the last to paranoia.
I always found in him most keen
sense of honor, true 1t was the European
idea Of honor, somewhat Quixotic, yet
nevertheless real, and it Is almost i'm
possible for me to believe that he could
have sulIied himself by peculation, ex-
cept he was actually in desperate cir
cumstances and also somewhat mentally
unsettled.
The glaring white light OF the great
west, it's materialistic and ungarnished
CLINT was to his eyes most painful. He
lived in the reco1lections of the soft
light and mellower and more ideaAstic
glow Of Italy. and in his eyes he still
carried the glitter Of the beautiful boule-
wards of Paris. I can readily conceive
how intolerable in his lonely and Isolated
life the garish light Of western AmeTi-
can life seemed.
He only saw the crudeness and the
materialistic. the compatine aesthetic
emptiness OF our American life; he neer
caught the real underlying moral purpose
the broad idealism and hope OF great
future commemorative which really is in
every Americans heart, no difference
how ruatrialistic and practical he seems.
Simpson had many admirable traits;
he had ideals OF friendship. and would
share his last dollar with a friend in
need. He was generous to a fault I
must also say that although he WAC M
doubtedly a man Of the world. yet he
had most chivalric and pure minded
attitude towards women, and IN = con |
siderable acquaintance, and many con- !
ersations, I never heard him tell q sug-
gestive story or make an impure remark 1
He had evidently once been IN financial 4
plenty. He said once that be RAD. when /
quite young, q fortune which Re foollshly /
spent Thes last time I saw him he said 4
he was awaiting the settlement ot his /
uncle's estate when he expected 70 pay /
Up all his debts and leave Wichita for
ever He said re was going back -
Paris.
Let Us hope he has reached better