The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-03-18

rest night or day.
 "Is that the very worst?" I questioned. He shook his head in despair. 'Then tell me the very worst of all?" He looked wildly around and then at me, and gasped the word "h-o-r-s-e-s!"
 Why, don't see anything very bad about horses" said,
 70 my God! These are terrible 'horses'-Skeleton horses, he continued in 8 hoarse whisper, telling me how frightful they were to look at and how they rattled their bones at him and showed him againnst each other and knocked him down and trampled on him and never had any mercy on him.
 Call Jim'
 One patient with iron-grey hair and thin, pale face, had passed the stage of delirium-exhausted to the point of death. His straight jacket had been removed. It was good face, with all traces of dissipation gone. During the early part of the night he called me and asked me to draw up a chair and sit beside him SO that he could talk to me in confidence.
 He asked If I would be in the ward all night, and when I said that I would, he whispered that I could do him 8 great favor, I know I'm going to die," he said. I'm expecting my boy, Jim, be- fore morning, He has to come a long way They've telegraphed him--And Jim would start the minute he got the message-He didn't know anything about this why I'm here-And I don't want him to know-Don't let anybody tell him-Please don't let any, one tell him. When Jim's mother died she wanted us always to be together, but 'Jin's' work took him away, and we have been sepa- rated for long time."
 I told the head nurse, and she had the patients bed moved into another ward, so Jim wouldn't need to know the cause of his fathers sickness. For this the father was very grateful, and gave me message to give to Jim in case he could not hold out till Jim came.
 AS the hours passed he grew weaker and before midnight lost consciousness.
 An hour later Jim arrived a big, manly fellow in his mid- twenties, that any man would have been proud of for son.
 Told that his father was un- conscious and not expected to recover, he reproached himself for not coming to see him oft ener. He is all I have and I prom ised mother to take good care of him."
 Then there was a pathetic scene of Jim kneeling at his fathers bedside-all the tender ness of wife and mother in 'Jim's' pleading voice and caressing hand Father, don't you know me- I'm Jim." oft repeated but never answered.
 Sad Vigil
 While Jim was keeping his sad vigil, a new patient arrived for the alcholic ward, brought in the po- lice patrol He was about 35, hand some, well dressed, of refined ap- pearance-on the verge of delir- ium. It was now past 2 o'clock.
 At the patients request stayed with him while the orderly was giving him a bath and pre- pairing him for bed. He knew that delirium would soon overtake him. and told me in confidence that he had not given his real name and address, and that he would not have his wife and chil- dren know this for the world
 After he was in bed, under a ht-jacket. and we were alone behind the screen, he asked, Am I going to get over this?" "Of course you are," I answered, with out knowing anything about it.
 "Oh, if I do get over this," he declared in anguish. T VOW to God that I never will touch the stuff again-Why have I been such a fool? Oh. my dear wife and my little children!"
 left him promising to come and see him again before I went away in the morning.
 At breakfast time went to the ward to bid him goodby-As I opened the door I saw a wild commotion-nurses and orderlieS running to the further end of the room-where stood a figure in his night clothes brandishing a razor, and before anyone could reach him he drove the blade with ter rible force across his own throat and nearly severed his head from his body. It was he.
 The End!
 In violation of the rules of the hospital, nurse had been coaxed by him to loosen his straight jacket. Another patient nearby had just been released. He was dressed for the street and was sorting over the contents of a hand bag which was placed on the table at the head of his bed. Among the articles spread on the table was razor. The suicide had seen it-and in the strength of his madness had torn himself loose from his straight-jacket,