Los Angeles herald., 1907-08-26


by years of experience. admit that do
not know what sanity is Many of us may
be insane and do not know II.
Admitting this. there may be time,
as DR.. Winslow predicts, when all of us
may be lunatics.
I'm looking forward to this time, how
ever, we may comfort ourselves with the
thought that nature will adapt herself to
the circumstance and If we are all in
sane she will make us just as contented
as If we had good sense.
No Actual Statistics
'The statistics DIR. Winslow speaks of
cannot be accepted as disclosing actual
conditions To arrive at such a conolu-
sion he must necessarily have compared
figures of today with those of decade or
two ago.
This is unfair Years ago, when the
straight jacket and the Oregon boot were
popular playthings with the superinten-
dents Of insane asylums. at least one-half
of the worlds insane were hidden from
the authorities by friends or relatives or
were placed in private sanitariums where
cruelty could be guarded against
To-day, with humanitarian methods
prevailing and the insane of the city and
state treated with kindness and patience,
nearly all the insane find their way into
the asylums and thus contribute to the
statistics where previously they did not.
Thus can be seen that the great in
crease in the insane census Is only
matter of figures, not an actually.
.Stiil it is true that the number of in
sanity cases are Increasing so alarmingly
that what to do to stop them is indeed
burning question"
Many Insane at Large
Asked If he believed that there were
a thousand persons outside the asylums
living their daily life undisturbed yet
insane, he said
There are undoubtedly great number
of insane persons at large. Some of these
are merely feeble-minded. able perhaps to
sell q paper or do some easy work wnlc en-
keeps them alive. They are harmless and
so nobody bothers about them as long
as they are self-supporting.
'And then there large number, II L
said how large a number. would be con-
sidered exceedingly extravagant, OF per-
sons who are hopelessly insane. who are
seemingly rational. transacting their BUSH
ness daily, unsupported by their assocl-
ates or families.
These persons, many of them business
men whose names are familiar common
cially or on change, are sufferers from
dementia paralytica, commonly called
paresis, a form of insanity, the incipient
stages of which have been but recently
recognized.
Mansfield Has II
There is no doubt in my mind that
Richard Mansfield is suffering from this
peculiar affection of the mind MeCul-
Tough and Barrymore both died in Its ad-
vanced stages.
SIT is not only the business men or
the men who make their living by their
brains that this peculior insanity set
ties upon, but those in all walks of life
The moral suddenly become immoral;
the quiet and uncommunicative astonish
their associates by suddenly taking them
into their confidence on every possible
occasion.
"a number of these cases become so
developed in 20 or 80 months that they
are recognized and shut up In one OF
the institutions.
More often the malady does not De-
come advanced before some other dis
cas-. takes hold with fatal results.
Suggestion Causes Crime
New Yorks recent terrible wave of
crime was due to criminal hypnotic sug-
gestion," according to Prof. Macdonald
New York citys awful experience OF
series of repulsive and degenerate crimes,
which have shocked the civilized world
more acute by the fact that they were
widely known. New York merely inten-
SITES such a situation by its very i'm
mensity That is the only difference be-
tween the ordinary occurrences known 10
the police of smaller cities and those
which have recently startled the metrop-
oils of the country" said Prof. Mac
Donald.
81 venture to say that not all OF the
men who were caught in the commission
of these fearful and unnatural outrages
are criminals at heart. One real criminal
or pervert would mistreat a little girl or
a Young woman and the knowledge of
such a crime spreading over large city
impelled numerous other men to like
crimes.
Criminal suggestion is the immediate
cause. Few persons realize this outside
of the scientific word.
Criminal Suggestion Morbid
For instance, it is a common expert
ence that when one of a party yawns,
another is liable to do the same. There IS
an instructive suggestion to look when the
crowds are gazing on the street. This eie-
nentary power of suggestion becomes
morbid in the case of a criminal.
THE will of an enormous crowd, such
as one will find in a large city, is the
result of all the actions ana reacuohs ol
the Individual wills in contact. This col
lective will can be led by suggestion to
act contrary to the principles of many OF
the individuals who comp ose 1t.
What many men in an excited crowd
will do no one can predict. lie most
timid or most moral man becomes In an
instant beast.
1.-THE influence of criminal suggestion is
proven by the fact that in almost every
instance a crime of perversion is imme-
diately followed by others OF the same
nature.
1T may be said that there is no specific
method of procedure in order to prevent
such crimes. The propositions advanced
by most persons to increase the police
force, patrol alleged vicious sections and
in other ways suppress such waves OF
crime against women and children by
force are simply absurd and ineffective.
Ten thousand police could not ferret out
or control the offenders in the recent
series in New York.
I'm social as in bodily diseases, there
/ are certain conditions that no remedy can
reach.
Train the Weak
1.-THE only good remedy is education
SLOW general gradual and constant 1t