The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-11-01
THE SPIDER WOMAN.
BY H. s. CANFIELD.

1901. by Daily Story Pub. Go. ; $ i E & < & & # < s s < % & g s. packed my trunks. In shaking a coa the envelope fell out. I opened it am read.
 He will be dead before winter.'
 '"Too much absinthe!" I said in refer ence to the Doctor. and threw the paper
 in the grate. That evening at the Troii
 Freres restaurant l glanced through 2
 copy Of The Temps. Straightway an6
 unconsciously my eye fell on the deatl
 notices and I saw:
 Died. at Bigorre on Tuesday, November 10th. Basccm Canning, in the twenty
 ninth year of his age. The disease was
 hamilton, complicated with failure ol
 nerve force. The remains were inferred
 at Bigorre.'
 I went to see Armand, the paper in my pocket. He clicked his teeth together savagely and muttered a mild French oath. Then he took to striding up and down the room: Then he stopped in front of me and said:
 The woman is In Paris. saw her today on the Bois. No charge can be pre- mured. Canning was her seventh vic- tim and she is not yet middle-aged. Luckily in France we do things differ- ently from you Americans and English. of the secret service bureau
 Bet how-how?" I stuttered. Why
 Armand laid slim white hand on my arm and stopped over me. speaking rapidly and intensely:
 My friend. the woman is a human spider. It is not her fault. and 1t is not the. spiders fault, but we kill spiders and she must be killed. She is the fifth known of thls--this. what shall call 1t?
 ohvsical ldiosyncrasy. pecunarity. ab- normal function for three years and have toreborne to proceed against her be- cause wished positive proof. She has married three men here in Paris. The man before the American millionaire was Russian. Each of her slain has died from hamilton and nerve trouble.
 "Clcse association with her is fatal. Consciously or unconsciously-I am in- clined to think consciously-she takes life and v'"or from another as spider sucks the blood of insects he entangles Ihe vital force of man goes out to her steadily bdt constantly. The pro- cess of this strength h-transierring is slow but sure. While the victim wanes she increases in vitality. During her periods or widowhood she decreases in weight and mental force. If you saw her six months before she married Canning you must have noticed her gained power in the church. The devitalizing of the man had th9a begun already. l can net explain all known r.hysical and mental laws. l know only that 1t exists
 This kind of woman has lived occa- si ally since the beginning of our race, she has given rise to many legends. It Is possible that in time science will arrive at ability to detect them in in- 'ancy and so extirpate them before they each a capacity to do harm"
 Lydia Remyng- Canning was arrested nat night. She dId not seem alarmed 'r surprised. The arrest was secret she vas not told of any charge against her; she seemed unwilling to ask. Confined n private sanitarium as patient whose mind was slightly affected. she vas subjected to constant surveillance y Armand and staff of brother phy- | icians. They noted her as carefully as | hey would have noted a wild animal of | are species dying in a cage, for the | benefit of knowledge. Almost from the | Irst she exhibited loss of strength. Rich | oods had no power to sustain her, rich | vines no power to stimulate. More than nee the experiment of holding her hands 'as tried On such occasions she always while the physician who vol inteered felt himself depressed and ,eakened. From him to her was a trong. steady outflow of vitality. She ever complained. Evidently she recoe- ized the justice of her ending She jed within a year, faded To a mere hadow Truly they do things differently