The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1914-06-22
LONG LOVE LETTERS
hypothetical Question Relative TO
Sanity Of Mrs. Holman


Hartford. June 19.-At hypotheti-
cal question that required IA minutes
for propounding was asked yesterday
afternoon of DR.. Whitefeld n. Thomp
son of the Hartford Retreat for the
insane. II had to do with the mental
condition of Mrs Elizabeth A. G. Hol-
man on September 8, 1912. the date
on which she was taken from her
home in this city TO an asylum at
Bfattleboro. Vt. She Is suing the
Rev. DR.. Cranston Brenton, then her
husband: DR. Paul Waterman and DR..
Oliver c. Smith for damages, alleging
they conspred to confine her until
she should admit misconduct with
Frederick f. Holman, her present
husband, and so enable Or. Brenton
to get a divorce.
The hypothetical question ended:
Would you say this woman's mind
was impaired on September 3, 1927
Dr. Thompson answered yes. TO
the apparent satisfaction of the de.
Tense. The chief suggestions of the
question we're the following:
Suppose a woman born in 1878,
when her mother was thirty-fve years
of age and her father fifty-five years
of age, an only child, brought up
among refined people, and suppose
the woman was married at the age of
| twenty-five to man Of culture; and
suppose the woman, five or six years
after her marriage, entered into a
| secret CORES pondence with n man
she had never seen. and that for a
period of about four years she secret
ly received and treasured letters from
| the man. many of the letters of great
length, in one case as long as forty
four pages.
"And suppose that the correspon-
dence rapidly became very passionate
and erotic, and that the mans letters
contained such passages as these:
"Ah, that dark-eyed. black-haired
baby that some time shall run out
from some group of baby angels, and
greet us.
my real. real wife, with all the
name implies"
And suppose the letters of the wo-
man to the man were also passionate
and erotic, and that the woman and
the man signed themselves 'Bess,
Wife Girl and Ernest, Boy Husband
and that the man and the woman Sec
reilly exchanged kilograms and called
each other on the telephone between
Hartford and Rockland, Me-, and OBJ
tanned elaborate horoscopes of the
destnies of themselves, and after a
certificate of mystic union, or mating,
entered into a mystic marriage, and
later the woman received from the
man a letter with the following pas
sage
Wife of Dreams: | desire you to
do this-when you go home do not
tell your mother about our marriage;
she would not understand, but do tell
her that you are absolutely reconcil-
ed to your life as il is; that it is to
be with all of you as it was at first"
ANU SuppOSc thdI III tllC luii Va
1908 the woman met the man for the
first time, secretly in one of the
parks of Hartford, while her husband
was away, and that she and the man
caressed and embraced each other in
a passionate manner; and suppose
that in the summer of 1911 the man
and the woman planned for further
secret meetings in the absence of the
woman's husband and mother, and
suppose the woman wrote letters to
the man, closing as follows:
Husband, | give thee all I have,
thy Bess-wife'; All must and will
so right for us on Monday. Till then
lfe's JOY, till can hold thee and com
fort thee, husband, the eternal life