The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-08-10
MRS. ATCHERLEY MAY
NOT BE DRUG BEARER

Mrs. Mary Ateherley is not to be al
lowed to go to the asylum and feed her
paranoiac husband with cocaine and
morphine. Judge Robinson yesterday
afternoon denied her motion that she
be granted that privilege, and the
woman who is fighting her husband s
battles so vigorously is once more in
despair.
Mrs. Atcherlev presented the motion
herself. Attorney Harrison was on
hand, but apparently did not have the
nerve to sign his name to SO prepos-
ferrous petition, and it was left for
Mrs. Atcherley to act as her own law
yer.
Her motion, as presented, was that
Peterson, superintendent of the Insane
Asylum, directing him TO allow DR..
Atcherley to select his own physician
and to allow Mrs. Atcherley to visit
her husband at any and all regular WIS.,
iting hours and act as the bearer of any
treatment prescribed by the physician.
What this treatment was to be was
indicated by an appended affidavit. sign
ed by DIR. C. O'Day, stating that DIR.
Atcherley is capable of deciding at all
times the amounts of cocaine and opium
he ought to take and of administering
them to himself.
Another affidavit was signed by Mrs.
Atcherley herself, in which she stated
that DR.. Peterson had denied any fur
ther admittance of herself or any mem
Der of her family to the asylum. She
alleged also that DR.. Atcherley needs
cocaine and opium and suffers intense
ly without them. Acting as she thought
entirely within her rights, she had
taken these drugs to DR.. Atcherleys had
been detected in so doing by DIR. Peter
son, and had been elected from the
asylum with orders to stay elected.
Judge Robinson, of course, denied
Mrs. Atcherley's motion, very much to
her annoyance. She tried to argue the
matter after it had been decided, but
was shut off by the judge.
Judge Robinson says that he is pes
tered to death by Mrs. Atcherley. She
haunts him worse than the Punehbowl
ghost did the doctor. When she can
not find him in his chambers, she fol
lows him home and besieges him there
with her opportunities.
Mrs. Atcherley's latest complaint is
that DR.. Peterson has confined her hus-
band on the third story of the asylum
so he can pitch him off some dark night
and break his neck and then have it APP
pear that the natient committed suicide.
DIR. Peterson gives as his chief rea-
son for shutting Mrs. Atcherley out of
the asylum is that she has been coming
nearly everyday, bringing the entire
family of FIVE or six children with her,
and their lunch, and staying from nine
clock in the morning until they were
chased out at four in the afternoon
" | have about 275 patients here" he
says. "Suppose each of them was mar
ried and had husband or wife and six
children and the whole outfit should
come here with their lunches and stay
all day, I'd have about two thousand
people running over the grounds here
every day.
DR.. Peterson caught Mrs. AtcherIey
carrying drugs to her husband, and that
was one of the reasons why he ordered
the guards not to admit her any more.
She might go about and feed opium
to the other patients with a spoon for
all I know he says. The superin-
tendent also expresses the fear that DR..
Ateheriey might take an overdose some
day or night and die, and then Mrs.
Atcherley would be sure to claim that
he was poisoned by DIR. Peterson. So
she will have to stay outside the asylum
for the present. anyway.