St. Tammany farmer., 1906-12-15

IL HAS USeH SCruLlnlZeQ. In Ln1S way
he manages to borrow $1O-this mar
with an income of $4,000 year.
One day he does not return from his
daily walk. No, he has walked well
and faT-he has taken train to New
York from an obscure railway station
miles distant from White Plains,
where Bloomingdale now is BY night.
fall he is safe in Philadelphia.
And now what does he do?
Does he go into paroxysms of impo-
tent rage at those who incarcerated
him, as do many of the insane when
they escape? Does he try to kill
those whom he might imagine respon-
sible for his suherings? Does he
break out in incoherent rawlings
against fancied evils?
Under Scientific Observation.
No. He goes straightaway to san
ttarium in Philadelphia. He states
his case calmly to the physician in
charge and asks to be put under
scientific observation. After six
months voluntary confinement there
the physicians there tell him that he
is perfectly sane and has always been
SO. He is not even now content. He
goes to another institution and goes
through the same voluntary process
all over again. Once more the physi-
clans tell Mr.. Chanler he is we'll bal
anced. Then suddenly he appears at
his old home, Merry Mills, Gotham,
Va, where he has stayed to this day,
master of his ancestral estates.
Once safely LONE, this so-called
lunatic retained counsel. The matter
OF his sanity was brought up in the
Virginia courts and then and there
John Armstrong Chanler was pro-
nounced sane and competent. But
the greater part of his fortune was
here In New York state, and here it
is on record that John Armstrong
Chanler is hopeless lunatic. Should
he come here he would be deprived of
his liberty. And that is why he, is
suing in the United States court in
the hope of winning back his inheri-
tance and his standing as a man of
sound mind.
And why was John Armstrong
Chanler, Columbia 'S3, called insane?
Because, as the physicians said, he
had delusions-at least some of them |
said so.
Those who committed him to a liv.
ng grave declared that he had Shakes.
oeare's power, and could make himself
Napoleon by going into trance. That
le was possessed of the power Of
graphic automatism" and had devel-
'ped his X-faculty-type of subcon-
taken as another EVIL
lence of, insanity.
Yet some of the most prominent
writer's discuss this K
aculty in all seriousness and admit
hat there is such thing as graphic
utomatism." And all of this is told
d remarkable book which Mr.. Chan
er has just published.
He calls it -Four Years Behind the
lars of Bloomingdale; or, The Bank
uptcy Law in New York" In it he is
bitter toward his two broth
rs, William Astor Chanler and Lewis
tuyvesant Chanler.
'arried to AmeIie Rives.
John Armstrong Chanler first came
Ito the public eye when he married
melie Rives, who wrote that bril-
ant erotic "The Quick or the Dead"
which Is told the old love of a
eautiful widow for her dead husband
nd her newer love for another man in
le flesh. Jock Dering, the hero, was
anler.
Miss Rives was denounced ty some
ersons as a rather imprudent writer,
1T that didn't keep her book, which
)peared in 1886, from having a tre-
endous sale. Her marriage to young
r. Chanler only added to its popular
Y. She was beautiful, erratic, i'm.
,tuous. Soon their friends came to
.alize that there was nothing in
mmon between the grave, polished.
ter mystic New Yorker and the viii.
l, gifted Virginia girl. y
There was divorce, which the l,us. a
nd did not contest, upon the grounds b
incompatability and the Mrs. Chan
{ that WIS married Prince Troubet- q
oi, whom she had met abroad. II
'sThe more know men the more II
mire dogs" is the way Mr.. Chanler