Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1906-12-08
John Armstrong Chanler Seeks to Regain Con-
troll of Fortune Amounting to More
Than One Million DoN-rs
PLAINTIFFS SANITY is In QUESTION
Extraordinary Life Story the Former Husband of the Princess
Troubekoi Who Is Legally Sane in Virginia Legally Insane
in New York, and Who Writes Startling Narrative Of
His Struggles for Liberty and Inheritance

he manages to borrow S10-this man
with an income of $4,000 a year.
One day he does not return from his
daily walk. No, he has walked well
and far-he has taken a 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 sufferings? Does he
break out in incoherent rawlings
against fancied evils?
Under Scientific Observation.
No. He goes straightaway to san
itarium 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 well 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 home, 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 a 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-
lance 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.
They called him a hvpochrondiac-
! a person who thinks he is always ill.
AS matter of fact he did have spinal
trouble and govt. He took to vege-
tarianism to get rid of his equity con-
dition. He got well. Today he eats
nothing but dry bread, well sprinkled
with salt, with an occasional piece OF
cheese, and sometimes ice cream OF
candy. This is given as a symptom
that he is insane.
Those who committed him to a liv
ing grave declared that he had Shakes
| peare's power, and could make himself
Napoleon, by going into a trance. Thai
he was possessed of the power OF
graphic automatism" and had deveI
oped his X-faculty-type of subcon
sciousness- taken as another evi
dence of insanity.
Yet some of the most prominent
psychological writer's discuss this x
faculty in all seriousness and admit
that there is such a thing as graphic
automatism.'' And all of this is told
in a remarkable book which Mr. Chan
Ter has just published.
He calls it -Four Years Behind tn,
Bars of Bloomingdale; or, The Bank
ruptcy Law in New York In it he 1.
extremely bitter toward his two broth
ers, William Aston Chanler and Levi,
Stuyvesant Cnanler. He calls Bloom
ingdale The Bastile of the 400 ant
asserts very positively that it is al
easy matter to put anyone behind tn,
bars forever as insane, just as Read,
contended in his Very Hard Cash
Married to AmeIie Rvcs.
John Armstrong Chanler first cam,
into the public eye when he marriet
Amelie Rives, who wrote that bril-
liant erodc The Quick or the Dead,
in which is told the old love of
beautiful widow for her dead husban,
and her newer love for another man il
the flesh. Jock Dering, the hero, wa
hanler.
Miss Rives was denounced by SOM
persons as rather imprudent writer
but that didn't keep her book, which
appeared in 1886, from having a tire
mendous sale. Her marriage to youn,
Mr. Chanler only added to its popular
ity. She was beautiful, cratic. i'm
| petuous- Soon their friends came t,
realize that there was nothing il
common between the grave, polished
rather mystic New Yorker and the vii
full. gifted Virginia girl.
There was a divorce, which the hus
band did not contest, upon the grounds
of incompatability and the Mrs Chan
| Ter that was married Prince Troubet
| skoi- whom she had met abroad.
The more l know men the more
| admire dogs" is the way Mr. Chanle