Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1906-11-30

daily walk. No, he has walked well
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 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 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
tance and his standing as a man Of
sound mind
And why was John Armstrong
Chanier, Columbia 'S9, called insane.
Because, as the physicians said, he
had delusions-at least some of then
said so.
They called him a hypochrondiac-
a person who thinks he is always i'll
AS matter of fact he did have spina
trouble and gout He took to vege
tarianism to get rid of his gouty con
dition. He got we'll Today he eat
nothing but dry bread, well sprinklet
with salt, with an occasional piece o
cheese, and sometimes ice cream o
candy. This is given as a symptom
that he is insane.
Those who committed him to liy
ing grave declared that he had Shakes
peares power, and could make himsel
Napoleon by going into trance. Tha
he was possessed of the power c
graphic automatism" and had deve
oped his X-faculty-type of subcoI
sciousness-was taken as another ev
dence of insanity.
Yet some of the most prominer
psychological writer's discuss this
faculty in all seriousness and adm
that there is such thing as "graphi
automatism." And all of this is tol
in remarkable book which Mr.. Cha
Ter has just published.
He calls it -Four Years Behind ii
Bars of Bloomingdale; or, The Ban
ruptcy Law in New York" In it he
extremely bitter toward his two brot
ers, William Astor Chanler and Lew
Stuyvesant Chanler. He calls Bloor
ingdale "The Bastile of the 400" al
asserts very positively that 1t is 6
easy matter to put anyone behind Il
] bars forever as insane, just as Reat
contended in his Very Hard Cash
Married to Ameie Rives.
John Armstrong Chanler first can
! into the public eye when he marie
, Amelie Rives, who wrote that br
) liant erotic "The Quick or the Dead
r in which is told the old love of
beautiful widow for her dead husbal
. and her newer love for another man
. the flesh. Jock Dering, the hero, w
e hanler.
B MISS nlVeb WIS ueliOuHceu Cy sol
l. persons as a rather imprudent writ,
!. but that didn't keep her book, whi
q appeared in 1886, from having Il
8 mendous sale. Her marriage to you
Mr.. Chanler only added to its popul;
:. ity. She was beautiful, erratic, 4
: petuous. Soon their friends came
n realize that there was nothing
i. common between the grave, polishe
rather mystic New Yorker and the W
a full. gifted Virginia girl.
g There was divorce, which the h,
n band did not contest. upon the groun
Q of incompatability and the Mrs. Cha
n Ter that was married Prince Troub
& skoi. whom she had met abroad.
II "The more | know men the more