See Note to Frontispiece, page 185.
 
 Robbery Under Law 
 
 OR 
 
 The Battle of the Millionaires 
 
 A PLAY 
 
 IN THREE ACTS AND THREE SCENES 
 TIME, 1887 
 
 TREATING OF THE ADVENTURES OF 
 THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 "WHO'S LOONBY NOW?" 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN ARMSTRONG CHALONER 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 SCORPIO 
 
 SUNDAY'S COMPLIMENTS TO SOCIETY WOMEN. 
 "We're always hearing about poor girls who go wrong, and sell them 
 selves to the Devil, and tempt men into sin. If you believe what some folks 
 say, you'd think it was only the six-dollar-a-week factory girl that filled 
 the joints, and wrecked the homes, and lured away mothers' darlings. As a 
 matter of fact, some of the most dangerous women, some of the most un 
 principled sirens, are to be found among the daughters of the rich; women 
 who will lie for money, steal for money, wear the scarlet letter for money 
 murder for money." William Sunday. 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 PALMETTO PRESS 
 Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina 
 
 NINETEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN. 
 TWO DOLLARS
 
 COPYRIGHT 
 
 PALMETTO PRESS 
 
 1915.
 
 1315* 
 
 PROLOOUE 
 
 Since finishing the play : ''Robbery Under Law," last Fall, 
 the undersigned has written another play found herewith, 
 entitled: "The Hazard Of The Die," a three act play in 
 blank verse treating of the conspiracy of Catiline during the 
 last days of the Roman Republic. 
 
 A word of explanation is germane to the matter in hand. 
 Upon finishing "Robbery Under Law," this last Fall, the 
 writer sent it to a friend a lady upon a large New York 
 daily paper. She in turn sent it to another lady a friend 
 of hers with the request that she bring the play to the at 
 tention t)f her friend's a large New York theatrical man 
 ager's play-reader. The letter below is an exact transcript of 
 the letter of the undersigned to lady number two. 
 
 In closing this introduction to an introduction so to 
 speak it might be observed that the length of the first play 
 a thing which can be remedied by a blue pencil and judicious 
 and experienced cutting, without in the least interfering with 
 the action of the drama the length has been retained even 
 added to since the letter below was written in order to serve 
 as a sort of propaganda towards the cause of Lunacy Law re 
 form, to which the writer has sacrificed the past eighteen 
 years of his life come March 13, 1915. All the characters 
 with the exception of the heroine's which is entirely an im 
 aginary one having been photographed actually so to speak 
 from life; and all the actions of all the characters bar the 
 heroine's having been practically copies from court records 
 as is indicated in the subjoined letter. To that end the writer 
 has left his comments unpruned, upon the abominable laws, 
 and the even more abominable administration of said laws, by 
 the New York Courts, both State and Federal, set forth in 
 "Robbery Under Law."f 
 
 |The object being to put before the papers the deadly disease 
 eating the fibre of our body-politic in vicious tLunacy Legislation 
 obtaining in 40 per cent, of the States of the United States; as 
 "Damaged Goods" put before the papers and public the deadly 
 disease eating the flesh of alas! but too many of the peoples of 
 the earth.
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 Charles Rcade's brilliant and powerful novel: "Very 
 Hard Cash," of some fifty or more years ago, revolutionized 
 the treatment of prisoners behind the bars of English Insane 
 Asylums. It is far too much to expect the same result from 
 "Robbery Under Law," but for what it is worth as a photo 
 graphic exposition of cold, hard, every-day facts, in our al 
 legedly humane, and civilized, and upright community of 
 the United States it is hereby launched upon the perilous 
 sea of literature. 
 
 JOHN ARMSTRONG CHALONER, 
 "The Merry Mills," 
 
 Cobham, 
 
 Albemarle County, 
 Virginia. 
 
 December 21, 1914. 
 
 Richmond, Virginia, 
 October 24, 1914. 
 
 Miss , 
 
 New York, N. Y. 
 My dear Miss 
 
 My letter from "The Merry Mills," Cobham. Va., and 
 yours with the play to Miss - , of the 'New York 
 
 ' '(naming that lady's newspaper), which she for 
 warded with the play to Virginia, crossed. My letter in 
 formed you that I had decided upon publishing the play in 
 book form, before producing same. Yours informed ">e 
 through Miss - , of its rejection by your play-re\ t der. 
 
 "For this relief much thanks" as Hamlet observes. 
 Nothing could be more timely, a propos, or pleasant to me 
 than said rejection. The reason being, that the reasons for 
 same given by the reader are so amusing when viewed in 
 connection with the stubborn facts in the premises that the 
 rejection becomes a literary asset of the first water to me; 
 and shall be printed sinking of course, out of courtesy to 
 Miss - - and yourself the name of the managers in 
 
 volved. 
 
 You see it's this way. Practically all the characters, and 
 all the scenes, in the play, are from life.
 
 PROLOGUE iii 
 
 This being so, the words of your reader: "far-fetched 
 and sensational in plot" become highly interesting. The 
 first Act is taken bodily characters and action from life. 
 
 This is the Act in which the shooting and death of one 
 of the characters occurs. 
 
 The proof of my statement is that said Act is merely the 
 gist of my deposition on the witness stand in the case of 
 Chaloner against the New York ''Evening Post" for $100,000 
 damages for libel in printing that I killed John Gillard, the 
 English wife-beater after the coroner's jury had found that 
 he met his death by a pistol in the hands of Gillard and 
 Chaloner, while Chaloner was, in good faith, trying to pre 
 vent Gillard from shooting his Gillard's wife. 
 
 So much for the "far fetched and sensational plot" of 
 Act I. 
 
 Act II is a thinly disguised statement of cold, hard 
 facts bar only the love-motive, which is entirely imaginary. 
 Scene I, of Act III, is almost verbatim, and actually from 
 life! Scene II, Act III, is practically so. Scene III, Act 
 III, is largely so. The only main differences being that 
 the fight with the "Bloomingdale" keeper took place in 
 my cell at "Bloomingdale," instead of in the wood at 
 "Bloomingdale": and, also, that I escaped from "Blooming- 
 dale" by flight unaided by support from outside that insti 
 tution outside the Insane Asylum as in the play. 
 
 Lord Byron wrote: "Truth is stranger than fiction." 
 
 Messrs. 's play-reader surely endorses that re- 
 ma of his experienced and brilliant lordship. 
 
 The play-reader continues: "This so-called play is 
 lengthy and diffuse." On the edge of the manuscript I 
 was at pains to write at the middle of Act II: "This should 
 be cut about two-thirds from here on." And in the same 
 place in Act III, I wrote: "This should be cut about three- 
 quarters from here on." So you see your play-reader and I 
 are in accord about it's being "diffuse in dialogue." 
 I did not cut for the solitary reason that I am not 
 experienced in catering to public taste as is a manager and 
 therefore he would be in a far stronger position than would 
 I. I merely exposed my Psychological wares for him to se-
 
 i\r PROLOGUE 
 
 lect from the public at last beginning to take a keen in 
 terest in that mysterious department of science. The amounts 
 I named could have been cut from the play without the least 
 injury to the action, though not to the Psychological value of 
 it as a study in the very latest and farthest advanced realms 
 of Mediumship. Since that is what I am a Medium in the 
 language of the late Professor William James, of Harvard 
 of whom you have doubtless heard. 
 
 In my sensational trial at Charlottesville, Virginia, No 
 vember 6, 1901, his opinion declaring me sane and also a 
 Medium, largely helped to win me the recovery of my good 
 name from the stigma cast upon it by the perjured arrest 
 and incarceration of myself in "Bloomingdale" as a maniac. 
 by my avaricious and unnatural brothers and sisters, who 
 lusted after my million and a half of real estate on Manhat 
 tan Island though each was a millionaire in his, or her. own 
 right. Professor James' words were: "Mr. Chaloner is of a 
 strongly 'mediumistic,' or 'psychic' temperament." I am no 
 spiritualist. Far from it. I denounce spiritualism as a fake ; and 
 charge all my interesting Psychological phenomena such as 
 trances and trance-like states to Psychology and nothing 
 else. Hence the "so-called play" deals with the most ad 
 vanced outposts of the great subject of Psychology. 
 
 This being the fact, the statement of your reader : "there 
 is nothing in the story that is worth considering," becomes 
 highly interesting. Which interest is accentuated by the 
 following closing and crowning climax of criticism upon the 
 part of your reader : "the behaviour of all the characters being 
 highly unconvincing under all cirmimxtances" Might I be 
 permitted to add "in particular that of the late John Gil- 
 lard, deceased." 
 
 So much the roof and crown of things is this last gem 
 of your reader, that I cannot and will not resist the temp 
 tation to appropriate this "Rajah's Ruby" of critical insight, 
 culture, and artistic and dramatic penetration and experience, 
 as follows: I have some two or three days ago completed a 
 very brief Prologue: and had sent it with the duplicate 
 manuscript I had of the play to the publishers who are 
 bringing out: "Robbery Under Law" in book form. I had
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 feared that the Prologue was too brief. Therefore it is with 
 pleasure that I add to it the admirably succinct, and yet com 
 prehensive, synopsis of "R. TJ. L.", rendered by your reader 
 at the top of the report thereon, together with his verbatim 
 entire hostile critique thereof, followed by my reply thereto, 
 in the shape of this letter to you, with, of course, your name 
 sunk; by way of comment and explanation to the critics who 
 will have "Robbery Under Law" before them in book form 
 before long. In this ivay I shall find out if Truth is so much 
 stranger than Fiction that it cannot and shall not compete 
 with Fiction in things theatrical. 
 
 Thanking you for your courtesy in the premises, believe 
 me, Very sincerely yours, 
 
 JOHN ARMSTRONG CHALONER. 
 
 P. S. You will pardon the length of this letter when 
 you consider that it is my new Prologue and unless I write 
 it to you I can't truthfully say that I did as I shall in the 
 Prologue. 
 
 J. A. C. 
 
 Author's address 
 
 Read September 30th, 1914. (C. E. W.) 
 "Robbery Under Law"; 
 
 or "The Battle of The Millionaires." 
 
 Play in Three Acts. 
 By 
 
 This requires three scenes and sixteen characters. 
 
 Hugh Stutfield, of Virginia and New York, a millionaire Art 
 Patron and Writer on Law, has an enemy in James Lawless, also a 
 millionaire, who conspires with his relatives to get him out of the 
 way. 
 
 Hugh and Lawless are rivals for the hand of Viola Cariston, and 
 fearing that he has little chance of winning her from the Virginian, 
 Lawless determines to resort to any means rather than lose her. 
 
 Constantia and Winston Blettermole, cousins of Hugh's, are bit 
 terly* jealous of him, and as they are the next heirs to his millions 
 if he does not marry, they listen readily to the criminal suggestions 
 of Lawless and his lawyer, Spink. Although Hugh has a certain clair 
 voyant sense which warns him of trouble, they manage to have him 
 shut up in an Asylum as a dangerous lunatic. From this place he 
 eventally makes his escape and by wit and courage gets the better of 
 his persecutors. 
 
 This so-called play is a lengthy and far-fetched narrative, very 
 sensational in plot and diffuse in dialogue. 
 
 The speeches are almost all pages in length and the authors are 
 apparently quite ignorant of the form in which plays are written. 
 
 There is nothing in the story which is worth considering the 
 behavior of all the characters being highly unconvincing under all 
 circumstances.
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 It is but fair to state that lady number two's play-reader 
 had not the remotest idea as to the identity of the author of 
 'Robbery Under Law." For he says in his critique. ; 'the 
 authors are." 
 
 Finally he is presumably unfamiliar with the stirring 
 cycle of events which for the past eighteen years has 
 been whirling around the head of "Who's Looney Now?" 
 
 INSET 
 
 To 
 
 "ROBBERY UNDER LAW" 
 JM : \m LI :ss ROMANCE. 
 Chorus loquitwr. 
 
 In Memoriam "THE WIZARD OF THE NORTH." 
 
 Thou think'st perchance Romance is dead and gone 
 
 That Science cold hath laid her fiery ghost 
 
 But glance within and thou'lt be told not one 
 
 But deeds of derring-do a serried host. 
 
 The Poetry of Business herein gleams 
 
 The sparkling projects of her darkling womb 
 
 And Death doth shed her shimmering moonbeam gleams 
 
 Athwart the ghostly portal of the Tomb. 
 
 Love lifts her radiant head and waves her hand ; 
 
 Whereat fell Rivalry doth draw his knife 
 
 Psychology then in the game takes hand, 
 
 And saves the hero in his howr of strife! 
 
 In short we show that Mystery to-day 
 
 Is as mysterious as she's been for aye.
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 OR 
 
 The Battle of the Millionaires 
 
 A Play in Three Acts and Three Scenes. 
 
 Dramatis Personae. 
 
 HUGH STUTFIELD of "Rokeby," Albemarle County, Virginia, 
 and New York. Millionaire Art Patron and Law 
 Writer. 30 years old. In love with Viola. 
 
 JAMES LAWLESS, of New York. Millionaire man-about-town. 
 30 years old. Rival of Stutfield, and his enemy. 
 Rejected suitor of Viola. 
 
 WINSTON BLETTERMOLE, of New York, millionaire. Cousin 
 and heir-at-law of Stutfield, and his bitter enemy. 
 30 years old. 
 
 BELISARIUS P. SPINK, of the New York County Bar. Family 
 lawyer of both Lawless and Blettermole. Learned 
 but unscrupulous practitioner. Hatches the plot to 
 have Stutfield basely declared insane to rid Lawless 
 of a rival in love, and enable Blettermole to obtain 
 control of his five million dollar estate. Known to 
 his intimates as "B. P.," since he frowns upon the 
 juxtaposition of such names as "Belisarius" and 
 "Spink." 50 years old, but wonderfully preserved. 
 
 CAPTAIN CARISTON, "F. F. V." and ex- Confederate Cavalry 
 Officer under Stuart in the army of Northern Vir 
 ginia. Since the war exiled himself to the coal fields
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 of West Virginia for twenty years, and as a result is 
 now worth half a million. Father of Viola, his only 
 child. About 50 years old. 
 
 AJLBERT WEDGE. Inventor. In employ of Stutfield, about 30 
 years old. 
 
 JOHN BULLARD. English machinist, 32 years old. 
 
 New York alienists. Employed by Lawless 
 ^ T. and Blettermole to visit Stutfield in New York 
 
 -T) i under false pretenses, garble his statements 
 and falsely testify as to his insanity. Fifty- 
 five and fifty-eight, respectively. 
 
 "Bosco." Stutfield's negro body-servant. 
 
 "WASH." Negro butler at "Elsinore," the three thousand 
 acre plantation of Captain Cariston in Albemarle 
 County. 
 
 PAT SLJGO. Keeper at "Fairdale" Insane Asylum. In 
 charge of Stutfield. 25 years old. 
 
 VIOLA CARISTON. Daughter of Captain Cariston. of "Elsi 
 nore." In love with Stutfield. 25 years old. 
 
 CONSTANTIA BLETTERMOLE. Wife of Winston Blettermole. 
 Viola's best friend. 28 years old. 
 
 MRS. BULLARD. Wife of John Bullard. 30 years old. 
 MONA BULLARD. Eight year old daughter of Mrs. Bullard 
 
 TIME, 1887. 
 PLACE, VIRGINIA AND NEW YORK. 
 
 tAllas Rumdumbagore, a falsely alleged Parsee fire-worshipper 
 from Bombay.
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 THE HAND or DESTINY. 
 
 The Dining Room at "Eokeby," Albemarle County, Vir 
 ginia, Stutfield's 400 acre estate. Three P. M., March 15th. 
 
 1887. 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 WEAVING THE PLOT. 
 
 The Drawing Room at "Elsinore," Captain Cariston's 
 3,000 acre plantation. Five miles from "Rokeby." Four 
 P. M., March 18th, 1887. 
 
 ACT III. 
 
 COUNTERPLOT. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 IN THE SHADOW OF THE LABYRINTH. 
 
 Stutfield's bedroom in his suite at the Hotel Kensington, 
 15th Street and 5th Avenue. Six-thirty P. M., April 12th. 
 
 1887. 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 THE LABYRINTH. 
 
 Stutfield's cell in "Fairdale" Insane Asylum. Time: 
 Afternoon, three months later. 
 
 The wood at "Fairdale" Insane. Asylum. Time: After 
 noon. Three weeks later.
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 THE HAND OF DESTINY. 
 
 ACT I. Dining Room at "Rokeby," Albemarle County, Vir 
 ginia. 
 
 (Stutfield, alone, dressed in riding costume cut-away- 
 coat, breeches and gaiters sitting at table in centre of stage. 
 Stutfield is a man five feet ten and three-quarter inches high, of 
 athletic build and weighs a hundred and fifty-four. His fea 
 tures are strong and regular. Eyes dark grey, hair thick and 
 curly and such dark brown as to appear black. He is clean 
 shaved. He smiles as readily as he frowns. Luncheon over, 
 except fruit. "Bosco," a powerful negro servant, enters and 
 hands Stutfield a letter, on a silver salver). 
 
 "Bosco": "From Miss Cariston. Sir. The groom brought 
 it and left." 
 
 (Servant retires. Stutfield opens letter, and reads.) 
 
 Stutfield. (Reading) 
 
 "Elsinore," 
 
 March thirteenth, 1887. 
 "Dearest Hugh: 
 
 This is the twelfth letter I have ever, ever written you. 
 my dear, and yet I am in the same state of uncertainty as re 
 gards accepting you as I was when I sat down to write the 
 first. Why is this? Why can't I make up my mind? You 
 satisfy my mental concept of a man, you satisfy my moral 
 concept, and my physical. You are blue-blooded. You are 
 rich. You are in the prime of life. You are a cosmopoli 
 tan a Londoner, a Parisian, and a New Yorker, as much as 
 you are a Virginian born, if not raised in the dear old State. 
 Why cannot I say, 'Come to me, and take me.' You who are 
 a metaphysician and a philosopher will probably say because 
 I do not know my own mind. But my dear, dear friend, the 
 tabulating of I shan't say all and sundry, but certainly 
 several of your attractive qualities in this letter, gainsays 
 that hypothesis, does it not, Hugh? I do wish I could screw 
 myself up to the stickinsr-place and say, 'Come.' But I can 
 not. I feel, Hugh, darling, that I am doing you a great 
 wrong in keeping you hanging in the offing like this that I
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 6 
 
 am keeping some nobler woman than myself away from you. 
 away from your charm, away from your manliness, away 
 from your high ideality and true Christian manhood. You 
 see, dear, I do know you pretty well for having known you 
 for so short a while barely three months after all, do I 
 not, darling? But try as I may, I simply cannot bring my 
 self to say 'Yes.' When I first saw you at that ball in New 
 York last January the 'Patriarchs' I had a feeling that 
 you were my mate. That may sound strangely but you know 
 I am a strange creature. That may sound unmaidenly but, 
 my darling, you know, at all events, I am not that. Yes, 
 Hugh, I felt that you were my mate, my man, my defender, 
 and champion against 'the thorns and crosses of the world' 
 as our Shakspeare says. You don't know how my heart went 
 out to you how it beat under my corsage you see, dear, I 
 am frank I do not conceal your attraction for me and yet 
 and yet . But there I know my vacillation irritates you, 
 dear, so I shall stop, with a prayer for guidance to that God 
 Whom we both so firmly believe in, and trust. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 VIOLA CARISTON." 
 
 (Upon reading letter Stutfield says:) "What wouldn't I 
 give to be able to win that girl!" 
 
 (Leans head on hand, elbow on table and gazes into fire 
 at right. After a moment) : 
 
 "I'd give anything anything anything an honorable 
 man could to win her." (Pause) "A girl like that needs 
 the imagination touched needs something that appeals to 
 the imagination to turn the trick. And what in G d's 
 name can appeal to a young girl's imagination in these drab- 
 colored, hum-drum piping days of peace! Nothing !" (A 
 pause. Sighs.) "Well, there's nothing to do for it but wait 
 waiting in a case like the present doesn't spoil anything, 
 doesn't endanger anything 'Patience and shuffle the cards 
 patience and shuffle the cards' (The negro, Bosco, enters 
 and says:) 
 
 "Miss Cariston, Sir, and a strange lady is outside in 
 Miss Cariston's runabout and Miss Cariston want to know 
 if yo' can see her and the lady for a few minutes."
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 Stutfield: "Miss Cariston !" 
 
 Bosco: "Yes, Suh." 
 
 Stutfield: "Certainly, I'll go out at once." 
 
 (Enter Viola and Mrs. Bullard, and an eight-year-old 
 daughter. Viola Cariston is five feet eight inches in height, 
 of full but graceful figure. Has dazzling white skin with 
 two patches of colour in her cheeks. Her eyes are a red- 
 brown, so dark as to appear almost black. Her hair which is 
 very abundant and naturally wavy is a dark copper colour 
 almost black. She has a face of wining sweetness, shadowed 
 by a seriousness a gravity which makes her smile a rare 
 one. 
 
 Mrs. Bullard is an attractive, well mannered, lower-mid 
 dle class woman, modestly, but tastefully dressed. 
 
 Mona is a child of unusual attractiveness and refinement : 
 dressed with extreme care by her mother.) 
 
 Viola : "I came in uninvited, Hugh as you see but the 
 matter is marked 'Urgent' and ceremony must go to the wall. 
 Permit me to make you known to Mrs. John Bullard, late 
 of England. I come in the role of a damsel-errant, succour 
 ing distressed womanhood nothing else, you may well im 
 agine, could have induced me to invade the bachelor quarters 
 of Mr. Hugh Stutfield, of 'Rokeby' and New York." 
 
 (Stutfield, who has risen and crossed the stage to door 
 at left by which they entered only door in the room bows 
 politely but coldly to Mrs. Bullard, who returns the salute 
 quietly). 
 
 Stutfield: "One moment, Miss Cariston permit me. 
 Bosco, clear the table. Then tell Miss Cariston's groom to 
 take the horse to the stable but not unharness on account 
 of the cold." (Bosco bows, and with great alacrity, skill and 
 noiselessness places the plate and fruit-dish upon a tray no 
 cloth on the table, which is mahogany with fruit knife and 
 glass, and the table is cleared. He then disappears). 
 
 Stutfield: "Won't you ladies and the little girl please 
 seat yourselves before the fire and warm?" (Bringing up 
 two chairs. The little girl on the way to mount her mother's 
 lap spys an old Nile green velvet, Rugby School, England, 
 football cap of Stutfield's, on the table, and exclaims) : 
 
 Mona : "My, what a pretty cap !"
 
 ROBBERY UNDER ],AW 
 
 Stutfield: "Yes, young lady, rather Oriental, is it not? 
 That (holding it up) Miss Cariston, is a souvenir of my hard- 
 fought battles on the football field at Rugby Tom Brown's 
 Rugy where I was full-back for my team. I wear it only 
 about the house and only in winter and only in going 
 through the halls because as you may have noticed 
 though hot water is laid on here I never use anything but the 
 open wood fires, and therefore the hall-ways are cold. (Leav 
 ing the cap in the child's hands) . 
 
 Viola: "Mr. Stutfield, this lady met me as I was driv 
 ing home from a Ladies' Auxiliary meeting at Grace church. 
 She was on foot, accompanied by her little girl. She stopped 
 me and asked if I knew the way to Mr. Hugh Stutfield's. I 
 replied that I did. She then asked me if I would mind driv 
 ing her there, as she had business of importance which would 
 not brook delay. I willingly consented. As soon as she was 
 seated she said that she would like to speak to me privately. 
 I thereupon told Griffith the boy to get down and walk 
 ahead of the horse " 
 
 Stutfield: "Pardon my interruption, but I shall give 
 myself the pleasure of saying a general ever! You made 
 Master Griffith walk ahead of the horse. There's where your 
 generalship which you will bear me out I've always insisted 
 on, you inherited from your warlike sire there's where your 
 generalship came in, and made its rare presence felt ninety 
 women out of a hundred and ninety men even would have 
 allowed Master Griffith to walk behind and overhear you, or 
 anywhere he pleased, so long as he did walk." 
 
 Viola : "Merci. But no more interruptions, if you 
 please particularly upon such exceedingly trifling provoca 
 tion the matter in hand, Mr. Stutfield, is of the very gravest 
 possible importance/" 
 
 (Stutfield, who has at first smiled and bowed, now looks 
 grave and says) : 
 
 Stutfield: "A thousand pardons I shall not offend 
 again." 
 
 Viola: "Mrs. Bullard then told me one of the most 
 heart-rending stories I have ever heard, of marital unhappi- 
 ness. I should preface my remarks by saying that I have 
 known of her and her husband and little girl ever since they
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 arrived here some weeks ago Mrs. Bullard, you will pardon 
 my speaking frankly but the situation demands speed 
 
 Mrs. Bullard: "Certainly, Miss, pray suit yourself. I 
 only hope and pray you get it all explained to the gentle 
 man before my husband finds I've left home and follows me 
 here he is a wonderfully strong man and fast walker 
 thinks nothing of walking twenty miles in a day in his busi 
 ness of repairing clocks and sewing-machines in the country 
 and when he comes I don't like to think what may happen 
 
 Stutfield: "Pray don't be alarmed, Mrs. Bullard Oh ! 
 I'm offending again I'm interrupting but with your per 
 mission, Miss Cariston, I'll interrupt just long enough and for 
 the specific purpose of quieting the lady's fears." 
 
 Viola: "You have my full permission (with a smile) 
 to interrupt as often as you wish for so praiseworthy and 
 humanitarian a cause." 
 
 Stutfield: (Bowing and smiling) "I was about to ob 
 serve to this lady that she need not be concerned about what 
 will happen, so far, at least, as she is concerned, as I trust 
 I am capable of protecting women who have been driven by 
 stress of weather to 'Rokeby' 'any port in a storm,' you 
 know, Miss Cariston." 
 
 Viola : " 'Any port in a storm,' Mr. Stutfield, and now 
 please be quiet and permit me to finish my preface to Mrs. 
 Bullard 's most terrible and dramatic story." (Stutfield 
 smiles and bows. He is sitting at the head of the table). 
 "Mrs. Bullard is known as a quiet, respectable, God-fearing 
 woman. Her husband is regarded as a dangerous character. 
 He threatened to brain his first employer here with an axe 
 whereupon he was, very naturally, discharged. The dispute 
 was a trivial one about just where Mrs. Bullard's hens were 
 to be allowed to roam in search of food. Thereupon, they 
 left, and hired their present little house about two miles from 
 here, and he endeavored to support himself by mending ma 
 chinery of a light nature, such as Mrs. Bullard has just de 
 scribed. He is said to be a wonderful hand at that sort of 
 thing and has been able to get all the work there is to get of 
 that sort in this farming community, which, however, is far 
 from much, and scarcely sufficient to meet their daily ex 
 penses. Mrs. Bullard says her husband is a perfectly sober
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 man and he is known to be very industrious. At this point, 
 Mrs. Bullard can best take up the tale." 
 
 Mrs. Bullard: "Well, sir, my husband is a wife-beater 
 of the very worst description. Last night he beat me over 
 the shoulders and back with a poker gave me about a dozen 
 very severe blows with a small iron poker he generally uses a 
 poker because anything less strong than iron would break 
 under the force of his blows. He is always very careful not 
 to strike me about the head or face, where the marks could be 
 seen. He always hits me where the marks will not be seen. 
 He has been beating me off and on now for a year or more. 
 I have left him twice and gone to my relatives who are well 
 to do. Each time I forgave him and returned. I shall do so 
 no more. He will kill me one of these days if I don't leave 
 him. Last night he beat me dreadfully, and for no cause. 
 It isn't as though I didn't make him a good and faithful 
 wife, or didn't make him comfortable at home didn't cook 
 his meals properly, and have everything neat and tidy about 
 the home. For I do all these things 
 
 Viola: "Excuse me, Mrs. Bullard, but why on earth 
 does he beat you ?" 
 
 Mrs. Bullard : "To vent his spite, Miss to ease his feel 
 ings. He has awful ugly moods sometimes when he's sullen 
 and won't speak a word. He's not a great talker anyway, 
 but when he gets into one of those moods, he won't say a 
 word it's just a look and a blow just a look and a blow 
 and once he's begun he seems to get more and more fond of it, 
 and so gives me a dozen or more blows. It's the same with 
 little Mona here." (Pointing to the child on her lap). "He'll 
 strike her as quick as me in one of those moods but he never 
 takes anything to her as he does to me never uses a poker or 
 a pair of tongs as he does with me he seems to realize that 
 it might kill her. He never drinks nor has anything to do 
 with other women or other men, for that matter. He's 
 hard working but he doesn't care the snap of his finger for 
 me, nor for Mona here. He's never kissed the child since she 
 was born. He's a cruel man cruel to animals. He beat our 
 cow so with a poker one day that one of the neighbors said 
 she'd have him arrested if he did that again. I don't want 
 you to think, Miss, that I'm running him down for he has
 
 10 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 some good points. He's a good husband except in two 
 points he doesn't love me, and he likes to beat me saving 
 those two things he's as correct and proper a man as one 
 could find hard working and honest." 
 
 Stutfield: "Is he perfectly right in his mind?'' 
 
 Mrs. Bullard: "Perfectly, sir, no man with a harder 
 head on his shoulders, or a harder heart below his shoulders, 
 was ever born in England. We lived in Liverpool. He is a 
 railway engineer, and .good at any skilled work, most. We 
 came to this country a few months ago to better ourselves 
 he's not saving. I don't know what he does with the money, 
 he never smokes, drinks, nor gambles, but he never has any 
 laid aside. He first went to work in the Locomotive Works 
 in Richmond, and gave first-rate satisfaction but they laid 
 off about fifty or a hundred hands a few weeks ago and he 
 was among them. Miss Cariston has told you the rest. Now, 
 what I want, sir, is this. I'm told you are a lawyer and a 
 very kind-hearted gentleman the friend of the poor and af 
 flicted. Now, I came over here for protection from my hus 
 band, and to find out from you if I can get a divorce from 
 him in this country for wife-beating. I'm perfectly willing 
 to stay, with my little girl, at one of your married white 
 farmer's, and do anything in the way of sewing I used to 
 support myself with my needle in the old country before I 
 was married " 
 
 Stutfield : "Pardon me, how long have you been mar 
 ried?" 
 
 Mrs. Bullard : "Ten years. Mona is eight years old. I 
 am willing to do anything in the way of sewing you may 
 wish, by way of return for my board and lodging. Of course, 
 if you get a divorce for me I cannot repay you for I haven't 
 a dollar on earth. I had a little property when he married 
 me one thousand pounds five thousand dollars of your 
 money that's why he married me but he squandered it all- 
 made me compelled me to turn it over to him and then 
 squandered it 
 
 Stutfield : "You are completely under his thumb par 
 don my bluntness. Mrs. Bullard you are dominated and over 
 mastered by your husband, are you not? Besides being physi- 
 rallv afraid of him franklv in terror of vour life."
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 11 
 
 Mrs. Bullard: "Yes, sir." 
 
 Stutfield: "You are of a somewhat weak and yielding 
 disposition, are you not, Madam? Somewhat 'peace at any 
 price, even at that of a beating are you not? Pardon my 
 professional frankness, but if I am to have anything to do 
 with your case there must be no mincing of words between 
 us." 
 
 Mrs. Billiard: "Yes, sir. I suppose I am. I dislike a 
 row worse than anything in the world." 
 
 Stutfield: "Even worse than a beating?" 
 Mrs. Bullard: "I used to, but I do so no longer. Last 
 night's beating finished it for me. I'd rather risk death 
 rather risk death itself than see him come at me with iron 
 in his hands again " 
 
 Mona : "O ! sir, father beat mother dreadful last night. 
 It was as she was undressing and her back was all black and 
 blue and bloody after it." 
 
 Viola : "You poor child ! I declare, it's an outrageous 
 shame ! What a monster that man must be. Mr. Stutfield, 
 I do hope you can protect this poor woman and free her 
 from her awful bonds it would be a really charitable, Chris 
 tian act, of the first magnitude." 
 
 Stutfield: "I promise you to do both, provided the Vir 
 ginia law gives cruelty as a ground for divorce. If you will 
 permit me, I'll go into the library and consult my authori 
 ties. I shall not be gone long, and shall always be within 
 call. You know I am not a member of the Virginia bar, but 
 of the bar of New York, and am therefore not familiar with 
 the law here. 
 
 Viola : "You are excused, Mr. Stutfield." 
 Mona: "Oh! What a nice, kind gentleman." 
 Mrs. Bullard : "Hush, my child, he may hear you." 
 Mona: "Suppose he does, Mother, what 's the harm?" 
 Mrs. Bullard: "He would think you, perhaps, a pert 
 little girl." 
 
 Mona: "I don't think he would Mother he don't look 
 that way." 
 
 Viola : "You are right, my child, he wouldn't misunder 
 stand but I don't want you to think that I am finding fault 
 with your mamma."
 
 12 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 Mona: "Oh! No, Miss, I couldn't think that, for my 
 Mamma is a lovely Mamma so kind and sweet to me I only 
 wish my Papa was I hate Papa" (stamping her foot she 
 had meantime got down from her mother's lap and was stand 
 ing between the two women). 
 
 Mrs. Bullard : "Sh ! Sh ! Mona, you must not use such 
 language about your Father. I had to tell the gentleman all 
 about it, or he wouldn't know what to do, but that's no ex 
 cuse for you to act like a badly brought up little girl 
 (Enter Stutfield) 
 
 Stutfield: "It's all right, I'm glad to say Virginia's 
 all right. Cruelty is ground for divorce in this grand old 
 State." 
 
 Viola: "Oh! I'm so relieved." 
 Mrs. Bullard: "Thank God! n 
 
 Stutfield: "Now, Mrs. Bullard, this is what I am pre 
 pared to do. I'll put you up free of charge with my head 
 farmer, who has a wife and a little girl just j r our age, young 
 lady," (turning and smiling and waving his hand to Mona). 
 "It will put some roses in your pretty cheeks to get some of 
 the eggs and buttermilk off of this four hundred acre dairy 
 farm" 
 
 Mona: "I love buttermilk." 
 
 Stutfield: "You shall have enough of it to swim in if 
 you like, my child. To resume. Mrs. Bullard, I'll turn your 
 case over to be charged to my account, to my own lawyer in 
 Charlottesville fourteen miles from here the county seat 
 the home of Jefferson. Fancy wife-beating taking place 
 within a few miles of Monticello, Miss Cariston!" 
 Viola: "It's infamous!" 
 
 Stutfield: "I'll of course, charge you nothing for it. 
 Furthermore, this is confidential, ladies as I do not I am a 
 member of the New York bar though of Virginia origin 
 carry my heart on my sleeve, hence my caution. I put in 
 practice my religion. 'Bear ye one another's burdens.' hence 
 my proposition to act as if it were / who wanted the divorce 
 Miss Cariston as though it were / that wanted the divorce 
 Miss Cariston 
 
 Viola: "I heard you quite distinctly the first time you 
 made the observation, Mr. Stutfield."
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 13 
 
 Stutfield: "Thank you, Miss Cariston. To resume, I 
 shall, furthermore, Mrs. Bullard, pay your return passage to 
 Liverpool, first class, on a safe and comfortable line, running 
 every two weeks from Norfolk, and give you enough money 
 besides to make you comfortable from now until you land in 
 Liverpool, and leave you some over." 
 
 Mrs. Bullard : "I am sure the Lord will bless you for 
 all your goodness to a helpless woman and her little girl in 
 a strange land " 
 
 Stutfield: "I devoutly hope He will. And now, ladies, 
 please make yourselves at home while I give a few orders." 
 (Exit. Picking up the cap and holding it in his hand as he 
 exits). 
 
 Mrs. Bullard : "I am sure, Miss, I cannot ever thank you 
 sufficiently for bringing me to this kind gentleman. The Lord 
 surely has raised up a helper for us in the hour of need." 
 
 Viola: "He surely has, Mrs. Bullard; and Mr. Stut 
 field will carry out to the precise letter everything he has 
 promised." 
 
 (At this moment the door opens softly and John Bullard 
 glides into the room. There is a seven-foot Japanese screen 
 ten feet long, running alongside the whole length of the table, 
 completely shutting off the door, and several feet of the room 
 on either side. The door is in the middle of the room. Bul 
 lard is a powerfully built man, of medium height, with sandy 
 hair, a sweeping military moustache of the same color and 
 light blue eyes, dressed plainly, but neatly, in blue serge 
 clothes a sack suit with heavy brogans, such as working- 
 men wear, on his feet. His linen is clean, and his necktie 
 neatly tied in a small bow. The door is to the right, directly 
 opposite the fire-place, before which the women are seated. 
 Bullard swiftly but noiselessly despite his heavy shoes 
 glides round the edge of the screen between it and the audi 
 ence. Mona sees him first, and utters a little cry). 
 
 Mona: "Oh, Mother! There 's Father!" 
 
 Bullard: "Yes, you little brat, I've tracked you 'ere at 
 last, and your fine, dutiful Parent ha ! ha ! I've a little ac 
 count to settle with you. Madam, when I gets you 'ome 
 
 Mrs. Bullard: "You'll never do that" 
 
 Bullard: "Never do that, and why not, pray?"
 
 14 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 Mrs. Bullard: "Because I'm never going to your home 
 any more. You've beaten me once too often, Mr. Bullard. 
 The worm has turned at last. I go home with you no more." 
 
 Bullard: "Well, we'll see about that you may rest as 
 sured, Madam, we'll see about that. In the meantime 'ow 
 do you propose to live and where do you propose to live?" 
 
 Mrs. Bullard: "I propose to live at the head farmer's 
 here he has a wife and little girl, and take in sewing to 
 support myself." 
 
 Bullard: "Oh! You do, do you? A pretty notion that 
 a very pretty notion, indeed. Well, I'll have none of it, so 
 come along now, come along now !" 
 
 Mrs. Bullard: "I'll do no such thing." 
 
 (Bullard has been standing at the foot of the table, half 
 facing the audience, and facing the women. He thereupon 
 darts forward and seizes a pair of tongs at the right of the 
 fire-place, and raises them to strike his wife. She so soon 
 as he darts forward hastily retreats with Mona by the hand, 
 to a recess at the left of the fire-place between it and the 
 audience where there is a large, closed wood-box. She kneels 
 down by this with Mona under her. protecting the child, and 
 her head bowed, awaiting Bullard's blows. Meantime Viola 
 has darted toward the door and opening it screams). 
 
 Viola: "Hugh, Help! Help!" 
 
 (Bullard begins to rain blows upon his wife's head. She 
 has very heavy black hair, done up in a coil on top of her 
 head. This saves her life. At the second cry for help Stut- 
 field's voice is heard shouting). 
 
 Stutfield: "All right. I'm coming!" 
 
 (Bullard pays no attention to Stutfield's voice. Soon the 
 sound of Stutfield's feet is heard, and followed by Viola he 
 dashes into the room and hisses). 
 
 Stutfield : "Wife-beater ! " 
 
 (Stutfield darts round the end of the screen, rushes at 
 Bullard and seizes him by the collar, jerks him away from 
 his wife, and pinions him against the wall in the corner, by 
 the throat. Stutfield's left hand on Bullard's throat. Bnllard 
 has the tongs still in his right hand. A tug of war then en 
 sues between Stntfield and Bullard. Stutfield trying to keep 
 him pinned to the wall so that he cannot swing the tongs.
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 15 
 
 Bullard trying to push Stutfield from him so that he can 
 land a knock-down blow on top of Stutfield's head. Stut 
 field has the Nile green and silver velvet Rugby School, 
 England, football cap on his head on entering, and it is on 
 during the struggle. Gradually Bullard pushes Stutfield 
 away, and getting him far enough off for a half-arm blow, 
 swings the tongs and knocks Stutfield down. Viola screams 
 once, but stands her ground a few feet behind Stutfield. As 
 he falls, she darts forward, and bends over his head, spread 
 ing out her arms saying). 
 
 Viola: "Strike me, you bully you can't hit him when 
 he's down!" 
 
 (Bullard sneers silently and disregarding Viola watches 
 the unconscious Stutfield attentively. In about two seconds 
 from the time Viola spoke, Stutfield opens his eyes, and be 
 fore either Viola or Bullard know, is on his feet and crouch 
 ing to spring once more at Bullard's throat. They watch one 
 another silently for a few seconds. Then Stutfield advances 
 straight at Bullard's throat with left arm outstretched stiff, 
 to its fullest extent. He has hardly made two strides when 
 Bullard brings down the tongs full on top of his head which 
 still has the heavy velvet cap on, with a silver knob the size 
 of an acorn of silver wire on the top. This knob saves his 
 life. It and the velvet break the force of the blow. Stut 
 field drops insensible in his tracks. Once more, Viola screams, 
 and once more stretches her arms over the prostrate Stut 
 field saying). 
 
 Viola : "Kill me, if you like, but you shan't touch him." 
 
 Bullard: (Sneering). "Your feller, eh? Well, I fancy 
 I done for 'im that time. 7> n 'im, interfering in my family 
 affairs! Now, I've got a little bone to pick with this lady." 
 
 (Bullard moves towards the still crouching but silent 
 woman save for her low moans when he struck her, and 
 frightened sobs from the little child. Just before he reaches 
 her. Viola gives a piercing scream, and cries out immediately 
 thereafter). 
 
 Viola: "Help! Murder!" 
 
 Bosco: (In low tones from the corner of the screen 
 the same round which Stutfield charged at Bullard). "I'se 
 here. Miss. I'se here, Miss. Bosco here. Bosco '11 do him
 
 16 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 watch Bosco! Lawd-Gawd! Is dat Mr. Stutfield layin' 
 there? Your murderin' villain!" 
 
 (With that. Bosco crouches like a tiger and springs upon 
 Bullard from behind, bringing Bullard down flat on his back 
 under him. By this time Stutfield has come to, and risen 
 to his feet). 
 
 Viola: (In a low tone). "Are you hurt, my darling?" 
 
 Stutfield: (In the same low voice). "No, my dearest 
 darling, not a bit. You precious child ! It took the threat 
 of death of my death to melt your frozen bosom. Do you 
 love me?" 
 
 Viola: "Yes, my hero. I do." 
 
 Stutfield: "Thank God then, for those two blows! You 
 saved the day though, dearie. As I went off into my two 
 sleeps your sweet, bell-like voice was ringing in my ears like 
 a silver trumpet-call, sounding the charge ! And by Gad ! my 
 black Bosco heard your bugle and "made good." Look at the 
 black rascal holding that murderous villain down." 
 
 I hereby crown you Queen of Love and Beauty of this 
 tournament this modern Ashby-de-la-Zouche of 'Ivanhoe' " 
 (Kissing her hand. Viola blushing, smiles, and half with 
 draws her hand hastily glancing towards Mrs. Bullard and 
 child, who, however, are too intent watching the group in 
 the corner just vacated by themselves to pay any attention 
 to the lovers. Seeing that there is no danger of being ob 
 served, she relinquishes her hand to Stutfield. and bowin-i. 
 smiling, says) 
 
 Viola : "The Queen of Love and Beauty accepts the 
 glorious crown placed upon her unworthy head, by thy glori 
 ous hand Sir Knight of 'Rokeby.' Whose head-dress sug 
 gests the oriental pomp of the dauntless, but ruthless Sir 
 Brian de Bois Guilbert: and whose character that of the 
 stainless Wilfred of Ivanhoe." 
 
 Stutfield : "My adored darling" (kissing her hand once 
 more) "You make me the proudest and happiest of men." 
 
 (Mrs. Bullard has risen, and with Mona has seated her 
 self as before. She is dishevelled, her hair hanging about 
 her waist, but no blood visible from the cuts afterward found 
 in her scalp, and no wounds on her face. The child is un 
 touched).
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 Viola: "How do you do, now, my poor woman?" 
 
 Mrs. Bullard : "Oh ! It was dreadful but he didn't 
 break my skull, my hair saved that. The negro came just in 
 time, though, for my hair was all that saved it, and that WOF 
 falling the last strands under the last blow, Mr. Stutfield, 
 came into the struggle on. How are you sir?" 
 
 Stutfield: "Very well, thank you. I'm delighted there 
 are no bones broken. I can assure you of your divorce 7 
 Madam with such witnesses to such an act, you could almost 
 I say almost get a divorce from Rome herself. How's the 
 little girl?" 
 
 Mrs. Bullard : "She's quite untouched, Sir. I knelt over 
 her." 
 
 Stutfield: "I saw that you did my brave woman I 
 saw that you did. You are a noble, self-sacrificing Mother. 
 Now. ladies, watch me direct the manoevres on the field of 
 battle with my heavy Numidian cavalry to use a bold meta 
 phor. Bosco!" 
 
 Bosco: "Yes, Suh." 
 
 Stutfield : "Let the dog up, and as soon as he rises take 
 the old hold you know what I mean the hold I've always 
 told you to aim for." 
 
 Bosco: "Yes, Suh." 
 
 Stutfield : "And hold it till death do you part." 
 
 Bosco: "Yes, Suh." 
 
 Stutfield : Now watch him close and strike him a knock 
 out blow on the point of the jaw if he tries any tricks in ris 
 ing but don't strike him unless he does. If he rises quietly, 
 simply get the old hold." 
 
 Bosco: "Yes, Suh." 
 
 (Bosco with right fist clenched and drawn back to strike, 
 rises crouchingly. Bullard rises slowly but warily. Bosco 
 makes a feint at him as Bullard gets his feet, and half turns 
 away from Bosco. This is the latter's chance. He, quick as 
 a flash, jumps behind Bullard and throws both arms round 
 him from behind, pinioning Bullard's arms to his sides. Bui- 
 lard's forearms are free, but not his arms. Bosco's head is 
 on Bullard's right shoulder, right next his face. Bosco's arms 
 are wrapped completely round Bullard. They whirl and 
 wrestle for some moments in silence. Suddenly, Stutfield
 
 18 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 whips out a .32 calibre Smith & Wesson revolver from his hip- 
 pocket, and lets it hang down, pointing to the floor, his finger 
 on the trigger). 
 
 Stutfield : "Pray, don't be concerned at the sight of this 
 little gun, ladies. I haven't the remotest idea of employing 
 it not the remotest but Bullard is a notoriously powerful 
 man. He is I hear known to have carried a railroad tie 
 always a job for two strong men on his shoulders, and put it 
 in place alone in the road-bed. So it doesn't do to take too 
 many chances with a gentleman of his strength of arm and 
 weakness of morality. Now, Mr. Bullard, a word in your 
 alabaster ear. You've heard what I said, because your ears 
 are open, and you very well know your own interests, or at 
 least what appear to you to be your own interests. I have 
 the determination presently to have you bound, hand and 
 foot, warmly wrapped in blankets, and laid in a bed of straw, 
 in the bottom of my four-mule wagon, and under an armed 
 escort of my hands who'll blow the top of your head off if 
 you attempt to escape haul you to Charlottesville, and turn 
 you over to the sheriff. I shall then institute proceedings in 
 Mrs. Bullard's behalf for a divorce, on the ground of cruelty. 
 Meantime, you'll have been tried, and condemned and sent to 
 the penitentiary for a term of years for attempted assault to 
 kill not only upon Mrs. Bullard, but upon my unworthy 
 self. Meantime, Mrs. Bullard will have secured her divorce 
 and with Mona will have sailed to England at my expense. 
 That is the programme that awaits you, Mr. John Bullard." 
 
 (During this speech Stutfield has inadvertently drawn 
 nearer Bullard than is discreet. For, all of a sudden, the 
 latter thrusts forth his left hand and seizes the pistol by the 
 butt and Stutfield's hand at the same time, fumbling with 
 the butt in order to prize it out of Stutfield's hand, pointing 
 the pistol and Stutfield's hand at one and the same time full 
 at Mrs. Bullard's face. Stutfield instantly swings the pistol 
 back by exerting all his force, and throwing his body into 
 the swing. They are now standing against the wood-box 
 the pistol pointing past Bullard's head, into the abutting 
 chimney. Bosco holds Bullard motionless. A duel to the 
 death is in progress a wrist-duel, so to speak, between Stut 
 field and Bullard. Suddenly Stutfield says) :
 
 19 
 
 Stutfield: "I see your fingers, Bullard, like a tarantula's 
 legs, stalking down the pistol barrel. I see your little game. 
 It 's this : to work your way down the barrel till your thumb 
 is inside the trigger-guard of this self-cocker. Then push 
 the barrel in one of two directions, either towards Mrs. Bul 
 lard, or, over backwards into my face. Whenever the muz 
 zle has reached whichever of the positions you aim at, you 
 will then press your thumb against my trigger-finger and 
 explode the piece and if your aim is as good as your gall in 
 meditating such a piece of impertinence to put it somewhat 
 mildly Mrs. Bullard or myself will drop dead. You will 
 then wrench the pistol out of my dead hand and kill Bosco, 
 and then Mrs. Bullard, and then Miss Cariston, and lastly, 
 your little daughter, and then jump for the woods and hope to 
 make good your "get-away." That 's your little programme. 
 But there 's one little difficulty in putting the same into exe 
 cution namely, that I'm your master when it comes to wrists. 
 Of course, you don't know it, but I'm an expert fencer with 
 both right and left hands, and nothing so steels the wrist, so 
 strengthens and hardens it while keeping the 'muscle flexible, 
 as fencing. You are stronger than I am at a tug of war. 
 You won the push of war when I tried to pin you against 
 that wall. You've won two rounds of this fight. I won the 
 first when I frustrated your attempt to murder your wife be 
 fore my eyes, and pulled you off your prey you won the next 
 two with a knock-down to your credit in each round so it 
 now stands, first round, Stutfield's. Second round, Bullard's. 
 Third round, Bullard's. Fourth and last round, (about to be) 
 Stutfield's." 
 
 (At that very instant the pistol explodes, and Bullard 
 leaps into the air, a dead man.) 
 
 Viola: ll My God! Hugh are you hurt, darling?" 
 
 Stutfield: "No, darling." 
 
 (Bosco lets Bullard softly down on his back). 
 
 Bosco: "He dade." 
 
 Stutfield: (Gravely). "Yes, Bosco. 'He dade'." 
 
 End of Act I. Scene I.
 
 20 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 "THE WEAVING OF THE PLOT." 
 ACT II. SCENE I. 
 
 Time : Four days later, 4 P. M. 
 
 i 
 t 
 
 (Drawing-room at "Elsinore." This room has door and 
 fire-place facing each other to right and left of stage. Win 
 dow in wall opposite stage opens onto conservatory. Sofa 
 between door and fire-place. James Lawless, in morning 
 suit tall, portly, good looking; about 30, blond, light blue 
 eyes, heavy blonde moustache. Discovered reading a news 
 paper, seated on sofa). 
 
 Lawless: "New York 'Herald.' March 17th, 1887, yes 
 terday's paper, eh? 'Millionaire Law- Writer and Art Pa 
 tron acquitted of killing John Bnllard. Hugh Stutfield. of 
 'Rokeby,' Albemarle County, Virginia, was freed of the re 
 sponsibility for the death of John Bullard, the English wife- 
 beater, who met his death in a struggle with Stutfield over 
 the possession of a revolver. It was brought out at the in 
 quest held in the dining-room at 'Rokeby' that Stutfield was 
 in the habit of carrying a revolver in the house but not out 
 of doors owing to the loneliness of the situation of 'Rokeby' 
 and the fact that he slept entirely alone in the house not 
 another human being in it not even a servant and the con 
 sequent danger of a burglar's slipping into the house at any 
 time and waylaying its rich owner, caused him therefore to 
 have the weapon on when Bullard invaded his home. Cor 
 oner's jury compliments millionaire on courage he showed in 
 voluntarily risking his life in a hand-to-hand struggle with 
 the fiend, instead of drawing the revolver and forcing him 
 under pain of death to desist from beating his wife or 
 summoning the powerful negro body-servant, "Bosco," who 
 subsequently appeared and mastered Bullard called to the 
 scene by the screams of Miss Cariston. who had met and car 
 ried in her runabout to 'Rokeby' Mrs. Bullard and her little 
 eight-year-old daughter, Mona, fleeing from Bullard and on 
 her way to 'Rokeby' to ask legal advice concerning divorce 
 and temporary protection. Widow lodged with millionaire's 
 married head-farmer. So soon as recovered from severe scalp-
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 21 
 
 wounds inflicted by her husband physician had to take three 
 stitches in her scalp will be returned to her brothers who are 
 well-to-do hotel keepers in Liverpool at expense of Law- 
 Writer. Heavy velvet Eugby football cap which Stutfield 
 used to wear when full-back on his team at Rugby School, 
 in England, saves his life. Verdict of jury : 'We, the jury, of 
 inquest, sitting on the body of John Bullard, find that he 
 came to his death by a bullet from a revolver in the hands of 
 himself and Hugh Stutfield, while the latter was, in good 
 faith, attempting to prevent Bullard from shooting his, Bui- 
 lard's wife.' r (Laying aside newspaper). 
 
 "The usual romantic fustian so dear to the heart 
 of the City Editor. But this farcical episode has a de 
 cidedly dangerous side to it for my hopes. Viola is a girl 
 who can only be reached through the imagination. Pve tried 
 every other way and found an icy barrier like that guarding 
 the Antarctic pole. This ridiculous flash-in-the-pan, fire 
 works at Stutfield's may just 'do the business' for me put a 
 spoke in my wheel and ruin my chances with the only girl I 
 ever saw for whose possession I would sacrifice the rights and 
 privileges of a bachelor life. It was most fortunate that I 
 foresaw possible complications in the return to his native 
 heath of Stutfield, after years of foreign wanderings, last 
 January, and his consequent propinquity to my fair inamor- 
 -ata. Fortunate, indeed, that I carried my cares concerning 
 disposing of a devilishly disagreeable factor in the situation 
 to my father-confessor in law if not religion Belisarius 
 P. Spink, attorney and counsellor at the New York bar, and 
 about the slickest rascal but at the same time, about the 
 most deeply learned lawyer practising in any court on Man 
 hattan Island. Belisarius unfolded a plot to me about as 
 damnably black and foul as Hell itself ever held short of 
 actual assassination. Hardened as I am in the ways of the 
 world as a man-about-town in New York, with practically 
 unlimited means for the purchase of the pleasures of the ap 
 petite no matter which appetite or what appetite sooner 
 or later is bound to become none the less, the plot unfolded 
 to my far from virgin ears and developed before my far from 
 virgin eyes, I am frank to say, appalled me. But necessity 
 knows no law. Hence I snatched at the straw held out to my
 
 22 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 drowning hopes of having Viola by fair means. Hence. I 
 am here to weave the final meshes of that plot which shall 
 forever free me from fear of competition from Stutfield. 
 And yet at times something, something resembling my old 
 college friend and visitant, Robert E. Morse, R. E. Morse 
 remorse visits me, and stands at the foot of my bed and 
 looks at me as I awake of a morning, as he used to do after a 
 night with the boys in my college days at Harvard but life 
 is short, and a man has but one life to live, so I decided to 
 face Robert E. Morse himself before IM forego the delights 
 awaiting me in the arms of Miss Viola Cariston, whom I have 
 been assiduously pursuing for orte calendar year " 
 
 (Enter negro servant, with telegram on tray). 
 
 Servant: "A telegram for Mr. James Lawless, Suh, and 
 a message from Miss Viola, Suh, sayin' that her horse done 
 cast a shoe on her ride this afternoon, and she won't be back 
 tell sundown. She's waitin' at 'Airly' de Miss Peytons 1 
 place, tell de nearest blacksmith shoe her horse." 
 
 Lawless: "Thank you, Wash. Here 's a quarter for 
 you." 
 
 Servant: "Thank you, Sufi." 
 
 (Exit servant). 
 
 Lawless: (Opening telegram and reading) 
 
 "Hot Springs, Virginia, March 18th, 1887. 
 James Lawless, 'Elsinore,' Cobham, Va. 
 
 Blettermole, Mrs. Blettermole and self arrive on his pri 
 vate car at Cobham about 4 P. M. to-day. Have instructed 
 local storekeeper to have conveyance ready to carry us to 
 'Elsinore' immediately without troubling Captain Cariston 
 to send for us he can send us back after our conference. 
 Blettermole enthusiastic over plan. M<n]<iri><' winced sharply 
 at first but the benefits accruing to the children brought her 
 round. I put forward that line of thought and won the day. 
 Congratulations. 
 
 B. P. SPINK." 
 
 "So far, so good." (Pulling out his watch). "They 
 should be here now. I'm glad Viola is detained. It will give 
 me ample time to conclude this little business here and now.'' 
 
 (Voices are heard in hall. Enter Winston Blettermole, 
 dressed in sack suit of very light, rough gray, dittoes almost
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 23 
 
 white with a rainbow-hued tie, tied in a bow. He is about 
 medium height and wears a brown beard, trimmed to a short 
 point French fashion and closely clipped at sides. His hair 
 is brushed straight off his forehead without a part. Bletter- 
 mole's eyes are brown. He is about thirty, and good looking, 
 with a good, trim figure. Without being in the least ner 
 vous Blettermole gesticulates gracefully and frequently. Con- 
 stantia Blettermole is a tall, elegant woman, with light gray 
 eyes and brown hair, and pale skin. Dressed in the mode of 
 the day. Her voice is what the French call trainante, and 
 has a peculiar drawl, not unattractive. 
 
 Spink is a man of fifty, splendidly preserved. Not a gray 
 hair in his jet black, thick head of hair, which is straight, 
 and parted on the side. His features are regular, but some 
 what sharp, and are accompanied by an expression of ex 
 treme shrewdness and coldness. His eyes are so dark as to 
 be almost black. He is dressed in a travelling suit of dark 
 brown dittoes a sack suit. His voice is hard and cold. He 
 never makes a gesture under any conceivable circumstances. 
 He speaks somewhat slowly and enunciates each word with 
 marked distinctness. Blettermole enters, followed closely by 
 his wife, and at some little distance by Spink. Lawless rises 
 and moves to meet them). 
 
 Lawless : "Welcome to 'Elsinore,' " my fair friend (bow 
 ing and shaking hands with Constantia) and you, too, Win 
 ston (shaking hands with him) and you, my guide, phil 
 osopher and friend (shaking hands with Spink). 
 
 Constantia : "As fond of 'Hamlet' as ever, James, I see." 
 
 Lawless : "Quite." 
 
 Blettermole: "Well, Jim, how goes it, old man, down 
 here in these bucolic wilds?" 
 
 Lawless : "Fairly well, thank you, Winston, fairly well." 
 
 Spink: "How doth my very good friend and respected 
 client?" 
 
 Lawless: "Fairly well, thank you. B. P., fairly well." 
 
 Spink: "I'm glad to hear that, for our affairs wag ex 
 ceeding well." 
 
 Blettermole: "Yes, by Jove, Jim, that 's a great scheme 
 of B. P.'s. It's the best I've heard yet for putting out of the 
 running that devil. Stutfield."
 
 24 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 Spink: "Caution proclaims a lower tone, my most re 
 spected client, and co-conspirator in this most deep plot." 
 
 Constantia: "Oh! Mr. Spink, please don't use such 
 words before me, at all events. You see, I am young at this 
 sort of thing, and it shocks me horribly/' 
 
 Spink: "Pardon, madam, my gaucherie. We limbs of 
 the law are apt to be brutally frank, when we are not beauti 
 fully vague, nebulous and dim in our meaning." 
 
 Constantia : "Nothing, so help me heaven, could induce 
 me to take a hand in a thing of this sort but the children's 
 interests. When I think of those innocent lambs at home, and 
 the wolves that prowl around the palaces of the rich unless 
 the rich have more than a million to call upon in case of 
 need I feel my mother's heart steel itself, and become deaf 
 to all interests but those of my lambs. I feel that I am pro 
 tecting them from the wolves every time I add a hundred 
 thousand onto the share each of my five chicks will inherit 
 from Winston and me you see, it takes a good, round sum of 
 money to go round and leave a hundred thousand dollars in 
 each dear little lap on its way. Hugh Stutfield I personally 
 always liked. He always struck me as a singularly mag 
 netic, a singularly forceful personality, besides being, of 
 course, what no one can very well deny when they claim to 
 be in touch with the times and therefore know his record his 
 monumental law book on Trial-by-Jury a law-writer of 
 renown." 
 
 Spink: "Pardon my interruption. Madam, constitu 
 tional law is certainly widely and learnedly discussed therein, 
 but the subject of the book is: 'The Absolute Rights of the 
 Individual,' a subject dear to the heart of that great lumin 
 ary of our great profession, Sir William Blackstone. author 
 of the immortal 'Commentaries Upon The English Common 
 Law.' " 
 
 Constantia: "Thank you, Mr. Spink, for setting me 
 rieht and his nationwide plan for the application of Xn- 
 poleon Bonaparte's Prix de Rome his system of foreign 
 scholarships for the cultivation of painting, sculpture, archi 
 tecture, music the voice of both women and men. as well as 
 the piano and violin and finally, the art of acting to which 
 he subscribed so heavily himself all these things show the
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 25 
 
 brains and character of Hugh Stutfield. But, much as I appre 
 ciate the attributes of head and heart of Mr. Stutfield, they 
 wither and fade into insignificance beside the interests of my 
 offspring, who will, each of them get about a million by in 
 heriting Mr. Stutfield's property of about five millions." 
 
 Spink: "Spoken like Cornelia, the Mother of the Grac 
 chi, Madam Cornelia, that flower of Roman matrons, who, 
 when asked where her jewels were by a lady calling upon her, 
 and showing Cornelia her priceless gems replied, 'Here are 
 my jewels,' pointing to her two sons later, by their fame, 
 worthy of such a Mother." 
 
 Constantia : ''Thank you, Mr. Spink, you have a happy 
 faculty of bridging the 'dark backward and abysm of time' 
 of the immortal Bard of Avon, separating the tawdry pres 
 ent from the purple splendors of imperial Rome." 
 
 Blettermole: "Constantia, you make me sick with your 
 forever holding up the debauched epoch of Rome to the dis 
 advantage of our day, which you very well know is the very 
 topmost height civilization has yet reached." 
 
 Constantia: "Winston, you very well know, my dear, 
 that there were epochs and emperors of Imperial Rome which 
 were quite as marked for their law and order as our own 
 more enlightened days. For instance, one of the greatest his 
 torians that ever lived, maintained that the golden age of 
 the world or rather that which most approached that de 
 lightful period was the age of the Roman Emperors known 
 as the Antonines of which one was a philosopher and up 
 right man, who, from his acts and thoughts might well have 
 been a follower of the Founder of Christianity, namely, Mar 
 cus Aurelius the historian was Gibbon, author of that 
 mighty work 'The Decline and Fall.' r 
 
 Spink: "Mrs. Blettermole spiked your guns there, my 
 bellicose and pushful client." 
 
 Blettermole: "Oh! Constantia is pretty apt to be cor 
 rect in whatever she says or does, B. P., I'll admit that. Only 
 it does bore me to hear her mount her Roman and Greek 
 hobbies." 
 
 Constantia : "Winston, you are a mere boy when it 
 comes to anything outside the realm of sport ; or the certainly
 
 26 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 classic and literary, but very narrow vein of literature you 
 favor with your very difficile and eclectic regard." 
 
 Blettermole : "Well, Constantia, let's let the matter 
 drop, and get down to that plot of 13. P.'s. You are aware 
 that I am not much on head-work. I'd rather walk a mile 
 than think a minute ' 
 
 Spink: "A shameful confession, wittily put, my re 
 spected client, most shameful, and for a man of your nat 
 ural wit and strength of repartee." 
 
 Blettermole: "Drop your taify, Spink, and get down to 
 business. I caught Lawless yawning behind his hand a min 
 ute ago." 
 
 Spink: "So be it. I shall, as Julius Caesar says, plunge 
 in medias res into the midst of things, without more ado. 
 The plot is precisely this. The laws of New York State and 
 those of about forty per cent, of the rest of the States of this 
 grand and enlightened Union, lead the world with the pos 
 sible exception of England for rascality, ignorance, and vice 
 upon one important but rarely worked vein of human activity. 
 I allude to Insanity. Only those 'in the know' those, I mean, 
 who live in large cities and happen to have property thav 
 needs a lawyer's care, and also happen to have a lawyer who 
 happens to be in touch with the dark and tortuous ways of Lu 
 nacy Legislation the world over, as well as this nation over 
 only those far from numerous individuals may be said to be 
 'in the know' in regard to Lunacy Law. I happen to l>e very 
 much 'in the know.' Since I, Belisarius P. Spink, attorney 
 and counsellor, am the man at the helm of the Steering Com 
 mittee that guides all Legislation in Lunacy matters in Albany 
 touching Lunacy Legislation. The great Private Lunatic 
 A-ylums honey-combing the State of which 'Fairdale.' falsely 
 so-called for its real name is 'The Omnium Hospitr.l' with 
 hospital and offices on a side street, just west of Fifth Ave 
 nue 'Fairdale' is the flower and pearl, of course, are not in 
 business for the health of the owners and directors quite the 
 contrary, I do assure you. Well, now, what happens when n 
 powerful interest, which makes hundreds of thousands out of 
 the public yearly, gets its various heads together why. 
 that which happens when railroads steam or traction are in 
 the same juxtaposition there is something doing at Albany
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 27 
 
 by way of Manipulated Legislation in order to strengthen any 
 weak spots in the lines of battle so to speak or to reach 
 out and develop reach out after new business. So said in 
 terests keep an organization at Albany, which has its finger 
 on the pulse of any and all legislation taking place, or even 
 most remotely threatening to take place, concerning Lunacy 
 Legislation at Albany. Furthermore, the steering-committee 
 keeps in touch with the State Lunacy Commission at Albany 
 a body consisting of a physician, a lawyer and a layman,, 
 who have practically supreme power over the said chain of 
 Private Lunatic Asylums honeycombing the Empire State. 
 For instance : the Lunacy Commission has the duty to inspect 
 the Private Lunatic Asylums and visit each and every inmate 
 of either sex, and satisfy itself that he or she is properly con 
 fined as a lunatic. Also, the said Commission in Lunacy is 
 expected to set free a man or woman who recovers his or her 
 sanity after a certain amount of confinement. How honestly 
 and faithfully the said Commission does its work is vividly 
 illustrated by two instances to go no farther afield. The 
 head of the said State Commission in Lunacy, who is always 
 the physician on the board, was caught by the Governor of 
 the State of New York at bribe-taking from the heads of said 
 Private Lunatic Asylums or certain heads, at least. The plan 
 of the Doctor was ingenious. He didn't do so dull a thing as 
 take a money-bribe the money might have been marked, you 
 know, or the stub of the cheque tell-tale in its nature he did 
 no such dull thing. What he did was to ask these gentlemen 
 to subscribe to a certain snug number of shares of stock in 
 a gold mine he owned out in Utah. The ratiocination in the 
 premises is fairly obvious. The Doctor did not want his gold 
 mine inspected too closely by holders of its stock any more 
 than the heads of said Private Lunatic Asylums desired their 
 gold mines, their Private Lunatic Asylums, inspected too close 
 ly by the Doctor. The Governor promptly removed the head 
 of the State Lunacy Commission at Albany, from office we 
 having, at the time, a Governor who was actually, honestly 
 interested in pure politics politics that were pure I desire 
 to imply. The second and last instance of the strength of 
 the honesty and fidelity to duty of this all-powerful Com 
 mission is aptly illustrated as follows. A poor devil when
 
 28 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 I say 'poor devil,' I desire to be understood as alluding to :i 
 millionaire inmate of 'Fairdale,' who had the Devilish poor 
 luck to run foul of the man at the helm of the Steering Com 
 mittee of the private Lunatic Asylum Trust your humble ser 
 vant Belisarius P. Spink this aforesaid poor devil f had, 
 in the course of the four years he spent at Tairdale,' before 
 he died there, been visited but once by the said Lunacy Com 
 mission, and, upon that occasion by only one member of the 
 said Commission. I hope I have said enough to intimate to 
 this select and distinguished audience, that a man once in 
 carcerated in 'Fairdale' has about as much chance of ever 
 drawing a free breath of air again as though he were in 
 carcerated in Hell " 
 
 Constantia : "You surely have, Mr. Spink, you make me 
 shudder. Of all the places on earth that fill me with dread, 
 that place is a lunatic asylum. A person would be safer and 
 more sympathetically entouree if she were surrounded by 
 drunkards in all the horrid and various stages of intoxica 
 tion." 
 
 Lawless: (Aside to Spink). "B. P., be on your guard. 
 You have painted the situation so strongly that Mrs. Bletter- 
 mole's feminine susceptibilities have taken alarm. Beware 
 lest you destroy your own handiwork by the eloquence of your 
 pictorial powers. 
 
 Spink: (Aside to Lawless). "The point is admirably 
 taken. I am so utterly unused to take women into con 
 sideration except as play-things that it's next to impos 
 sible for me to take them seriously. I shall amend 
 the complaint." (Aloud). "Of course, you must make allow 
 ance for my professional habit of exaggerating the points in 
 my favor, and minimizing those opposed Mrs. Blettermole. 
 I do not intend to convey that there is really the slightest 
 similarity between a Private Lunatic Asylum and Hades. Far 
 from it. Nothing could be more luxurious than the grounds, 
 say. of 'Fairdale.' Expensive hot-house plants are set out 
 everywhere along the border of the closely cropped sward 
 looking more like one of the stately homes of England than a 
 
 tThe author is the "poor devil" referred to. Only once was he 
 visited by the Lunacy Commission in four years' incarceration.
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 29 
 
 place for the amelioration of the physical and mental condi 
 tion of those unfortunates whose minds are clouded." 
 
 Constantia: "Mr. Spink, you surely are a lawyer. You 
 surely are an advocate " 
 
 Blettermole : "An advocate ! I should say he was an 
 advocate. Ha! Ha! An advocate!. Why, doesn't he belong 
 to the Church of the Holy Advocate on Fifth Avenue, New 
 York, a recent million dollar edifice built almost entirely by 
 subscriptions from members of the legal profession of New 
 York City, not forgetting that conglomeration and .galaxy of 
 legal talent, the New York City Bar Association and isn't 
 he the Senior Warden of the Vestry of that most sacrosanct 
 congregation which Vestry is composed entirely of law 
 yers? Advocate! I should say Spink was an advocate!" 
 
 Spink: "A-hem, A-hem. My dear Mr. Blettermole, 
 permit me to observe, that I have been forced more than once, 
 in the course of our business relations, to curb your bounding 
 wit when directed against my religious proclivities. My re 
 ligion is something entirely aside and apart from my work " 
 
 Blettermole: "I should say it was!" 
 
 Spink: "Be good enough to permit me to conclude. As 
 I was about to observe, my religion is something quite apart 
 from my work and I cannot permit even a client for whom, 
 socially, and otherwise, I have so profound a regard as I 
 entertain for Mr. Winston Blettermole and his charming 
 wife one of the reigning queens of the Four Hundred to 
 make light of the most serious the most sacred thing to me 
 on earth " 
 
 Blettermole: "Pardon me, Spink. I shall not offend 
 again." 
 
 Spink: "To conclude rapidly my plan for the perma 
 nent, forcible retirement for life into obscurity, of that vig 
 orous and gifted personality, Mr. Hugh Stutfield, of Vir 
 ginia and New York. My scheme will sequester Stutfield, 
 sequestrate his entire estate, and to cap the delicious climax 
 one of the law partners of one of the most prominent mem 
 bers of the Board of Governors so-called of 'Fairdale' Pri 
 vate Insane Asylum, shall, by the act of a certain New York 
 Supreme Court Judge, whose ear I have as we lawyers say 
 be appointed the sequestrator of Stutfield's superb estate of
 
 30 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 some five million dollars, while brother Stutfield is wearing 
 out his vitality and indignation behind the bars of 'Fairdale' 
 on a charge of being a dangerous lunatic a maniac with sui 
 cidal and homicidal tendencies said charges to be preferred 
 by the gentlemen here present Mr. Winston Blettermole and 
 Mr. James Lawless the former, as his nearest blood-relative 
 and heir-at-law, the latter as his 'best friend,' as we term it 
 in law " 
 
 Lawless: "Permit a momentary interruption of your 
 most interesting and instructive dissertation, Mr. Spink but 
 the idea of my being under any conceivable circumstances 
 the 'best friend' or any kind of a friend to the tenth degree 
 removed, if there is such a thing of Mr. Hugh Stutfield, 
 is far from bad. Indeed, very far from bad." 
 
 Spink: "I agree with you absolutely, there, Mr. Law 
 less. But the law, you know, does not inquire too curiously. 
 The law, you know for a lawyer who really understands its 
 profound principles and is not a mere case-chaser a mere 
 authority-hunter, but stands upon and defends before more 
 or less unlearned and superficial judges while there are noble 
 exceptions as the vast majority of judges undoubtedly are 
 defends and stands upon the eternal principles of the law 
 for such a lawyer the law is the most marvellous engine for 
 achieving objects, contrary to the law contrary to equity 
 contrary to justice, and contrary even to common sense, 
 conceived by a mind less dazzling than that o\f his 
 Majesty 'himself. Fortunately for the peace of society, there 
 are very few such lawyers, and therefore the power /or ill of 
 the law is a closed book to the slothful, ignorant, ambition- 
 less gamblers who make up the rank and fie of my august 
 profession men for whom I have about as much respect as 
 a wolf has for a herd of sheep." 
 
 Lawless: "The New York City Bar Association would 
 be highly edified, my distinguished counsel, at your above 
 obiter dicta" 
 
 Spink: "Ah, my distinguished client, you are very right 
 there very right there. But you should differentiate and ut 
 terly bar apart as much so as sheep from goats my remarks 
 before that dignified as=embla<re. the New York City Bar As 
 sociation, and and my millionaire clients about to engage in a
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 31 
 
 war with a brother millionaire who for audacity and fertility 
 of resource is a foeman worthy of our steel." 
 
 Constantia: "Bravo! Mr. Spink. You fire my imagina 
 tion this is the Age of Gold if not the Golden Age and it 
 is right that in such an age, millionaires the historical heirs 
 of the Barons of old should war upon one another. I shall 
 assuage the qualms of my conscience by murmuring to my 
 self 'All's fair in love and war 7 and The Beetle af the Mil 
 lionaires is now on!" 
 
 Spink: "Brava! My fair client. Brava!" (Aside to 
 Lawless) . "Gad ! That was a lucky shot of mine she's ours 
 from now on mark my words we'll have no more backing 
 and filling upon Constantia Blettermore's part but, on the 
 contrary, the iron will and inflexible purpose of a Lady Mac 
 beth." " 
 
 Lawless : "By Jove ! I believe you're right. My f elicita 
 tions." 
 
 Spink: (Aloud). "There's nothing more to be un 
 folded of this most warlike and romantic mediaeval plot 
 not another solitary word. Trust me to look to the details 
 it would take off the cream from your interest, Mrs. Bletter- 
 mole, were you to know it all on the very brink of the in 
 ception of hostilities. No. Be advised, and permit me to de 
 velop my work before your eyes as though you were a spec 
 tator in a theatre who was unaware of the turnings and 
 windings of the sufficiently tortuous and devious plot upon 
 the boards." 
 
 Constantia: "The only objection I see to your deeply 
 laid and superbly prepared plot, Mr. Spink, is its absurdity." 
 
 Spink: "Pardon me, I do not quite catch that." 
 
 Constantia: "The only objection I see to your deeply 
 laid and superbly prepared plot is its absurdity." 
 
 Spink: "You amaze me, Madam. My plot absurd f 1 
 
 Constantia: "The most absurd I ever heard, to be as 
 sound and thoroughly prepared outside of its absurdity." 
 
 Spink: "Please oblige me, Madam, by naming a few of 
 the absurdities." 
 
 Constantia: "With pleasure. First, no man in the 
 United States I except no one has given such infallible 
 proof of reasoning power of the highest order as has Mr.
 
 32 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 Stutfield, in his legal work before referred to. One of the 
 leading lawyers in New York said to me: 'Mrs. Blettermole, 
 your cousin has revived the Lost Art of Reasoning in his dis 
 quisition on the right to trial by jury as the sine qua non, the 
 essence of due process of law as laid down in the Constitu 
 tion of the United States and supported by Blackstone and 
 Magna Charta : it is the most masterly piece of pure, scientific, 
 syllogistic, Aristotelian reasoning ever put forth by a citizen 
 of the United States, since the United States existed. There 
 is not a Professor of Logic in any University in the United 
 States to-day or anywhere else on earth to-day, for that 
 matter who could carry pure argument to the Andean, the 
 Himilayan heights of Thought he has, for the reason indicated 
 above, he has revived a Lost Art in a word, the Aristotelian 
 Method, once the glory of the Universities is now 
 swept aside in the speed of modern mechanical con 
 trivances, and THOUGHT, which rules the world, 
 is forced to take a back seat. The Admirable 
 Crichton could have done it. and Professors of Logic 
 at Padua, Cordova, and the Sorbonne could have done it. for 
 they were trained to use that marvellous scientific guide and 
 only guide to correct Logical Reasoning in their daily work 
 whereas not a man on earth to-day thinks of opening a Text- 
 Book on Logic from the day he secures his sheepskin the day 
 he gets his diploma. The consequence is th(tt Judges are the 
 laughing stork of Logicians. Thus. A Judge dare not and 
 never does, unless compelled by practice or statute to do 
 BO give a reason for his opinion. The reason is as follows. 
 The following instance is cited in Jevon's Higher Logic. A 
 certain wary old English Judge spoke as follows to a 
 lawyer just appointed by the Crown to a judicial position in 
 Jamaica : 'My friend never by any chance do you dare 
 to state a reason for your opinion. For the following rea 
 son. Your opinion may very possibly, even probably, will be 
 right whereas your reason for giving it will invariably be 
 wrong.' Rather droll comment by a man like Jevons the 
 author of the modern Text-Book in use in all Universitise em 
 ploying English, on both sides the Atlantic. This fatal flaw 
 in modern education this he used too strong a word for me 
 to repeat abominable slaughter of the Aristotelian Method
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 33 
 
 of Reasoning, is the cause of ninety per cent, of the ignorant 
 and fallacious, vain and foppish opinions from the American 
 Bench I except only the Supreme Court of the United 
 States.' Thus spoke the lawyer. 
 
 Spink: "Powerfully put, my fair client with your per 
 mission, Mr. Blettermole my fair Portia. And I say 'Amen' 
 to both premises, namely, that Mr. Stutfield is a Logician with 
 out a peer in the United States to-day, and that the average 
 American Judge is a Sophist without a peer in the United 
 States to-day. But what has that to do with the case? It 
 i* no more essential or necessary that a man should be In-sane 
 in order to imprison him for life on a charge of Insanity, in 
 forty per cent, of the States and Territories of the United 
 States to-day, than it is that he should have red hair that 
 he should l)e red-headed" 
 
 Constantia: "In that extraordinary event, I have noth 
 ing farther to say except 'So be it' with, .of course, the con 
 sent of these gentlemen." 
 
 Blettermole : "O. K. for me." 
 
 Lawless: "I agree, provided one sole thing. You know, 
 Blettermole, that the only reason I came into this thing was 
 to free my field of the only dangerous rival to Viola Caris- 
 ton's hand that has ever entered it namely, Stutfield. Your 
 secret is safe with me; and if the condition I now am about 
 to name is not fulfilled, and I am forced to withdraw, all 
 you will have to do will be to hunt up another 'best friend' 
 from among Stutfield's worst enemies to take my place, and 
 the trick will be turned. Don't look so black, Blettermole. 
 And you, Spink, reserve your sarcastic smile till you hear. 
 Perhaps my condition will prove no barrier, but by Gad ! an 
 added incentive to my zeal to join with you to the bitter end. 
 I shall propose once more to Miss Cariston upon her return 
 this afternoon she's expected any moment now. If she ac 
 cepts me which is damnably pardon me that slip of the 
 tongue, Constantia doubtful I withdraw. If not, I'm with 
 you to the death. 
 
 Blettermole: "Agreed." 
 
 Constantia : "Agreed." 
 
 Spink: "Agreed." 
 
 Lawless: "Many thanks. Now there's going to be no
 
 34 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 Romeo and Juliet business about my venture in the Field of 
 Love- presumably in a few minutes. I'm neither in the 
 mood for Romeo's part, nor is there occasion. Romeo's part 
 will very well keep. I shall make occasion to see Miss Caris- 
 ton privately upon her return from riding and promptly pro 
 pose. Whereupon, she will either refuse or accept me. I've 
 been there before she does not dilly dally over the cere 
 mony of decapitating rejected suitors 
 
 Constantia : "Viola is a dear girl, and my very best and 
 sweetest and one of my oldest girl friends on earth; I'd 
 have you understand, James, and I cannot and will not per 
 mit even a breath against her." 
 
 Lawless: "My dear Constantia, I hadn't the faintest 
 idea of breathing so much as a syllable against the woman I'm 
 risking my soul for if I have a soul, which at times I very 
 much doubt " 
 
 Constantia: "You stand excused." 
 
 Lawless: "If she accepts me, all well and good. Mr. 
 Spink can hunt up another 'best friend.' If she refuses, I re 
 turn with you in your car to-night, and hostilities begin to 
 morrow in the offices of Belisarius P. Spink. Esq., attorney 
 and counsellor, Wall street, New York. I shall deputize you, 
 Constantia, as my fair ambassadress with Miss Cariston I 
 trust to your woman's tact to get her to me, and keep Cap 
 tain Cariston off, and herd these men in the library for the 
 five minutes necessary for me to learn my preliminary fate 
 for my real fate will not be in issue until Stutfield has been 
 put out of the way then I shall lay siege to her hand in 
 true style." 
 
 Constantia: "With pleasure. James. And whatever the 
 prayers of a poor, sinful, temptation-tossed mother like me, 
 are worth are at your disposal." 
 
 Lawless: "I thank you, Constantia, from my heart." 
 (Kisses her hand). 
 
 (The light has been gradually lowering till it is now 
 dusk. Spink goes to the fireplace and pokes the logs. A 
 bright blaze bursts up. As he does so, the door opens and in 
 walks Viola, followed by Captain Cariston, in riding cos 
 tume. He is a rather tall, slender man with grizzled mous 
 tache and imperial short imperial with acquiline features
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 35 
 
 and erect, military but courteous, but non-pompous, non- 
 exaggerated bearing. Viola is dressed in a ball gown in the 
 style of 1887. In other words decolletee but without the un 
 sightly and hypocritical gauze fringe or, so to speak, panta 
 lets which nowadays shroud the outline of the bust as 
 though it were a shameful thing: while throwing into relief 
 the armpits and navel or, at the very least, near-navel of the 
 lady. We are Pro-Allies to the last degree, in the present 
 European unpleasantness; but we do earnestly wish that bet 
 ter men may be spared, and that German bullets may find 
 a lodgment in the degraded and degenerate carcasses, as re 
 gards taste in female apparel, at least, of Paul Poiret and 
 the rest of his Pirate Crew the balance of the randy French 
 men who bedeck our dames; so that they make a man-about- 
 town think of a group of soiled doves, "sitting for company" 
 in the parlour of a "sporting-house," upon glimpsing, a bevy 
 of society maidens and matrons at the opera, or other social 
 function, nowadays.) 
 
 Viola: "Connie!" 
 
 Constantia: "Viola!" 
 
 (They hurriedly move towards each other and embrace 
 affectionately. ) 
 
 Viola: "I slipped this dress on to save dressing twice, 
 after my ride with Papa since I'm booked to a ball at the 
 Country Club to-night." 
 
 Constantia: "How well you're looking, dear. I haven't 
 seen you since the Patriarch's in January " 
 
 Captain Cariston : (After shaking hands with the men, 
 and later, Mrs. Blettermole) . "How d'ye do, gentlemen. De 
 lighted to welcome you to 'Elsinore.' How do you do, Mr. 
 Lawless, and you, Mr. Blettermole?" 
 
 Lawless : "Permit me to introduce to you a legal friend 
 of mine, Mr. Belisarius P. Spink, of the Metropolitan bar." 
 (Captain Cariston and Spink shake hands). 
 
 Constantia: "Now I want you to show me once more, 
 and particularly Mr. Spink, those old Shakspeares you have 
 the folio edition that has been in your family for ages " 
 
 Captain Cariston: "With pleasure." 
 
 (They start out, and Lawless catches Viola's eye and 
 makes a slight motion with his right hand the others all
 
 36 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 studiously avoid looking at Viola and Lawless. She under 
 stands and says) 
 
 Viola: "Mr. Lawless and I will join you in the library." 
 
 (So soon as the door closes, Lawless says gravely, as he 
 leads Viola towards the sofa the room is still only lit by 
 fire-light). 
 
 Lawless: "Viola, I seized this opportunity because I 
 am called to New York to-night, on Blettermole's car 
 
 Viola: "Why, James, I thought you were going to be 
 with us for several days longer, and dance with me at the 
 ball to-night." 
 
 Lawless : "I may dance with you, after all I may throw 
 up this vitally important or rather very almost vitally 
 important matter. It all rests with you." 
 
 Viola: (Gravely). "I trust, James, that it is in my 
 power to grant what you desire " 
 
 Lawless: "It is utterly and absolutely so." 
 
 Viola: (Unconsciously drawing slightly away from 
 him). "Let me hear it." 
 
 Lawless: "Your hand." 
 
 Viola : "Oh ! James, I am so sorry you know how 
 much I admire your brilliant mind, and cool, calm person 
 ality. But. as I have told you once before, a man of your 
 temperament can never be my husband." 
 
 Lawless: "And why my temperament?" 
 
 Viola: "Not to be too pointed, because you are too cool 
 and off-hand, and utterly unenthusiastic not. to be perfectly 
 fascinating to many, many women which a little bird has 
 told me you have been and still are but out of the question 
 for poor little me. You see. I am so constituted I must have 
 enthusiasm in a man \Voila tout" 
 
 Lawless: "If that's all you want, I can be as enthusi 
 astic as the freshest tyro in the Bowers of Love you ever 
 dreamed of." 
 
 Viola: "But in that very unusual event, James, you 
 would be acting." 
 
 Lawless: "So be it. I take my conge. Do not think I 
 part in anger. I firmly believe I shall win you in time. 
 Good night, and for the present good-bye, Viola, good-bye. 
 With your permission, may I kiss your hand ?"
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 37 
 
 Viola : "Certainly, James. You know I will always care 
 for you as. and value you as one of my most valued friends." 
 
 Lawless: (Kissing Viola's hand) "May the Gods forbid!" 
 
 (They leave the room together. The door opens shortly 
 thereafter and enter Stutfield, in evening dress, with a pair 
 of saddle-bags over his arm. Stands leaning on mantel 
 piece). 
 
 Stutfield : "As close a shave as I care to experience ! 
 Phew ! As soon as I drove in on one side of the oval before 
 the house, the Blettermole gang and that crafty rascally but 
 deeply learned shyster, Belisarius P. Spink, Esq., attorney 
 and counsellor and pillar of the bar of Manhattan Island, 
 with his hopeful client, that cold-blooded rogue and delicate 
 debauchee, Mr. James Lawless, multi-millionaire, drove out 
 on the other. A close shave, indeed. The moon came out 
 from behind a cloud and shone full in their faces in the open 
 carriage they saw me, and I saw them " 
 
 (Door opens, and Viola enters). 
 
 Viola: "Hugh! You here?" 
 
 Stutfield: "Yes, darling. I slipped into the house after 
 the others left, and slipped a quarter into Wash's hands to 
 keep 'mum,' and get you in here at once by hook or crook " 
 
 Viola : "Oh ! I see now the cause of Wash's mysterious 
 looks and words. He said: 'Miss Vi, Mr. Lawless tol' me 
 befo' he leff to ax you partickler, Miss, to go in de drawin' 
 room an stan' befo' de fire for a minute, tell you foun' a note 
 he leff for you under de clock on de mantelpiece ' ' : 
 
 Stutfield: "Good for Wash he 's got the imagination 
 of a darkey, all right. Now, dearie, just slip out and see the 
 Captain and tell him I have important business with you, 
 that won't brook delay and will not long detain you from 
 dinner possibly dinner's not impending immediately " 
 
 Viola : "It is not." 
 
 Stutfield: "Good! I'll only detain you about fifteen or 
 twenty minutes." 
 
 Viola: "Then you must stop to dinner, and go to the 
 ball with us after." 
 
 Stutfield: "Delighted provided you will honour me 
 with a dance in fact the majority of them." 
 
 Viola : "With pleasure." 
 
 449014
 
 38 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 Stutfield: "Now that I've protected my lines as they 
 say in military parlance I'll do what I've not had time to do 
 before." (A pause). 
 
 Viola: "And what might that be, my dear Hugh?" 
 
 Stutfield: "That might be almost anything speaking 
 by and large but it happens to be but one thing and that 
 is kiss you, my precious sweetheart." (They embrace). 
 
 "Now, darling, please post the pickets with the Captain 
 so that we shall not be interrupted." 
 
 Viola: "I sha'nt be a moment, Hugh." 
 
 (Stutfield sits down and gazes thoughtfully at the saddle 
 bags). 
 
 Stutfield: "One hundred thousand two hundred thou 
 sand" 
 
 (Enter Viola). 
 
 Viola : "It's all right, darling. Papa's immersed in some 
 papers connected with his live-stock you know this is a three 
 thousand acre stock farm, and he raises beef for the Northern 
 market we have very fine corn and grazing land blue 
 grass and it's his delight. He won't budge till we go to him." 
 
 Stutfield: "Good. Now my angel darling " (kissing 
 both her hands and putting his arm around her and 
 taking both her hands in his left as they seat them 
 selves on the sofa) "what I am about to say sounds 
 more like the Arabian Nights or Monte Cristo and 'The 
 World is MineT with that supremely good romantic actor. 
 James O'Neil, in the role, than anything you ever heard of 
 in modern life. I should like nothing better than to sit here 
 and fondle and caress your lovely, bewitching self for the 
 next twenty minutes. But I have matters more unattractive, 
 but now that I'm your accepted suitor, and the engage 
 ment known only to you and me, and to be announced 
 shortly more important. It is this. You know that I am 
 a student ever since my Columbia University days in old New 
 York, of Psychology and fExperimental Psychology at that. 
 Now I am going to tell you a secret. I am what they call, 
 
 tThe statements concerning Experimental Psychology found above 
 are taken almost verbatim from the "Statement by Dr. Horatio Curti* 
 Wood. Deo. 1O, 19OO," found on pages 68-73, inclusive, of "Four Yearn 
 Behind the nar* of Rloomlnfrdale," Dr. Wood being one of the Plaintiff's 
 alienists in the case of Chaloner against Sherman, being at said date Pro 
 fessor of Nervous Diseases in the University of Pennsylvania.
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LA/W 39 
 
 vulgarly, a Clairvoyant the sort of thing generally, if not 
 always of your charming sex nearly always women you 
 see advertised in the Sunday 'Herald' and even week day 
 'Herald' not to say 'World,' 'Sun,' 'Tribune,' 'American,' 
 'Globe, and 'Telegraph' to name but a handful of the big 
 New York dailies. I've never been to one, but I know people 
 who have I don't believe in them if they were bona fide 
 clairvoyants they'd make more money on their own account 
 than pretending to mind other peoples' business for them. To 
 resume. Not a human being knows of this faculty of mine 
 but you. For one reason because I've been investigating it 
 secretly until I could produce results worth while giving to 
 the scientific world in book form you know that I am a 
 Master of Arts as well as a Bachelor of Arts " 
 
 Viola: "I knew that, Hugh." 
 
 Stutfield: "I've been at work on this thing for three 
 years and am only at the outer door of the mysteries of the 
 human mind the normal human mind. I cannot go into a 
 trance or even a trance-like state as yet such as these Clair 
 voyants do they don't go to sleep, but lie back in a chair and 
 in a dreamy, slow voice speak at the instigation of their Sub- 
 consciousness. I can't do that as yet. But I may do so in 
 time. What I can do is just this, and that is why I am here 
 contrary to all the rules of Hoyle, with a rival in the house 
 or I thought was here when I came but I was bound to see 
 you but alone, of course so it made no difference to me 
 whether Lothario Lawless my nick-name for him whether 
 the gay Lothario were here or no. Now here's the point. 
 I've got Intuitions or Premonitions down to so fine a point 
 finer than those recorded in any of the scientific works on 
 Psychology, even including The Society for Psychical Re 
 search of England, of which Professor William James, Pro 
 fessor of Psychology at Harvard was once President, as well as 
 Arthur Balfour, late Premier of Great Britain, and Sir Wil 
 liam Crookes, inventor of Crookes' Tubes without which there 
 would be no X-Ray I've got it down so fine that I can tell 
 for twenty-four hours in advance whether I am going to have 
 good luck, bad luck, or 'nothing doing' good or bad. Now, 
 this is done thus. When I wake in the morning I take ac 
 count of stock the instant I recover consciousness. I ask my-
 
 40 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 self how I feel I don't mean physically for I'm a very 
 moderate, careful liver and always wake up feeling physi 
 cally the same O. K. that is to say but how I feel as 
 regards my spirits am I depressed exhilarated or neither 
 one nor the other, just a flat calm. If I feel exhilarated 
 three years carefully kept written record proves that I will 
 surely have good news that day in the next twenty-four 
 hours a favorable telegram or letter will surely arrive, or a 
 messenger will bear me a favorable message. If I feel de 
 pressed it is just as sure as 'eggs is eggs' that a bad letter or 
 wire will arrive : if neither hilarity nor depression, that noth 
 ing will arrive and I may take a day off from business. I 
 have been working this rabbit-foot in my large and multi 
 farious business affairs to the Queen, her most gracious Maj 
 esty's taste, for the past year or more. My brother Directors 
 on Boards wondered why I pursued so bold or on occasion 
 so wisely cautious a course, fighting for the control of each 
 and every Board I am on, and invariably achieving that de 
 sired end. But I did not oblige them by informing them. 
 Now, on waking this morning I was most extraordinarily de 
 pressed. You know, my darling, no man on earth has more 
 cause for heartfelt joy than your devoted and proud accepted 
 lover." 
 
 Viola: ''Dear Hugh!" (He kisses her). 
 
 Stutfield : "So I acted accordingly. Now, I am not able 
 to foretell as yet the future, for more than twenty-four 
 hours. Nor am I able as yet to foretell a solitary detail there 
 of beyond the fact that something good is going to occur 
 something bad is going to occur or, lastly, that nothing is go 
 ing to occur good or bad in my personal, private affairs for 
 the ensuing twenty-four hours. I, of course, before going to bed 
 the night before, know whether I have cause to wake up this, 
 that, or the other way, next day depressed, exhilarated, or 
 neither but that, of course "cuts no ice" whatever. It is en 
 tirely outside and beyond known and recognized causes for 
 exhilaration, depression or stagnation in my affairs, that these 
 premonitions or intuitions work. / can by them foretell, pro 
 phesy, or what you will, with mathematical accuracy the 
 accuracy of a ship's barometer, which foretells within twenty- 
 four hours the approach of the hurricane, or the change of
 
 41 
 
 the hurricane into fair weather regarding storm, favoring 
 gale, or calm, in my private affairs. In a word, I am a hu 
 man barometer, as regards one sole thing namely my own 
 personal affairs and only one of three aspects of them, name 
 ly, success, threatened difficulty, or 'nothing doing, Mr. Stut- 
 field, to-day.' That is the mysterious and highly valuable in 
 formation telegraphed me so to speak on waking from a 
 distance of time twenty-four hours removed from my waking 
 hour by my Subconscious-ness. An extremely useful asset I 
 have found it, Miss Cariston and I hereby go on record and 
 stake my reputation as an embryo ^Clairvoyant that the time 
 will come when you will admit that I did well to follow the 
 promptings of my Subconsriousness and bring these saddle 
 bags here to-night absolutely outside and beyond the reach 
 of any judge for I can well imagine contingencies when it 
 would pay me to go to jail for contempt of court for an ex 
 tended period, rather than divulge the whereabouts of so 
 tempting a thing as their contents." 
 
 Viola: "Do they contain Aladdin's Lamp, Hugh?" 
 Stutfield: "Something very like it, my child. Now to 
 wind this weird talk up. Here's how I act on my Premoni 
 tions. On waking, I take instant account of stock as to my 
 feelings. If exhilarated, I push sharply all plans of action 
 made before going to sleep the previous night. If depressed, 
 I ride for a fall, pull in my horns, fight a rear-guard action. 
 close reef my sails or even prepare to scud under bare pol~- 
 before the storm. Now if it so happens that I have no im 
 mediate plan of action I carefully scan my personal horizon 
 and see where ill chance might injure me. Instantly, like a 
 ship in a storm I make for port with whatever might be in 
 jured by ill fortune. That's why I'm here so hastily to 
 night. I have here the tidy sum of two million two hundred 
 and fifty thousand dollars," (touching the saddle-bags with 
 his foot), "in these good old saddle-bags, twenty -two hun 
 dred thousand dollars in Government bonds and the balance 
 in cash fifty thousand dollars in cash in one thousand dol 
 lar bank notes, neatly tied in packets of ten thousand dollars 
 each." 
 
 Viola: "Hugh!"
 
 42 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 Stutfield: "A fact, my darling. Now give me a sweet 
 kiss. A kiss for two million and a quarter " 
 
 Viola: (Putting up her lips, quietly). "There. Now 
 why is all this money here?" 
 
 Stutfield: "I prefaced this interview by saying you 
 will remember my darling," (kissing her two hands, still held 
 in his left while his right arm still encircles her waist) ''that 
 it smacked of Monte Cristo and the Arabian Nights." 
 
 (Viola smilingly bows assent). 
 
 Viola : "I was somewhat struck by that remark, my darl 
 ing, and am therefore not so overwhelmed with surprise at 
 the contents of those saddle-bags as I most assuredly other 
 wise would have been." 
 
 Stutfield: So far, so good. The reason for this extra 
 ordinary act is this. This is the result of a sale I have just 
 put through of a patent I bought for about sixty thousand 
 dollars, some five years ago. I saw the possibilities in it. It's 
 what they call a 'basic patent,' which means an elementary 
 new principle in mechanical devices, as the original sewing- 
 machine invented by Howe was a basic patent. If proper 
 ly covered it could not be got round by any improvement 
 whatever for the seventeen years of life patents have to run. 
 Any improvement on a basic patent can only be used by 
 paying a royalty to the inventor. Well, I met the inventor 
 an honest, amusingly shrewd and original real genius all 
 basic inventors are geniuses and backed him to develop the 
 patent which then looked about as much like the compact, 
 graceful thing a man can now carry in his waistcoat pocket, 
 as a mowing machine looks like a lawn tennis racquet. It 
 was cumbersomeness, complexity, and clumsiness itself. But, 
 pardon my saying so, I am something of a judge of my fel 
 low man, and spotted Albert Wedge of 'Up State' New 
 York ns an original genius, and therefore capable of devel 
 oping the patent sufficiently to sell. My friends some not 
 all thought I was a damn fool excuse me. Viola, that slip 
 ped out- 
 Viola : "You are excused, my dear." 
 
 Stutfield: "A thousand thanks. Some of my friends 
 thought I was a fool to blow in sixty thousand dollars on an 
 undeveloped patent. I stuck to it for five mortal years, and
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 43 
 
 spent the sixty thousand in developing it, and, at last was 
 rewarded by Wedge's out-Wedging himself and producing 
 something so supremely simple, cheap and easy to make, so 
 light, and of so small compass and of about as wide a market 
 demand as the world holds, namely, an attachment for the 
 sewing-machine by which the needle is threaded by a pressure 
 of the foot" 
 
 Viola: "The needle threaded with one's foot." (Laugh 
 ing). 
 
 Stutfield: "Precisely it's an open-eyed needle with at 
 slot, and the thread is pushed into the slot by a simple con 
 trivance every time the needle enters the goods and is released- 
 from the thread the instant it leaves the goods ; thus the bore 
 of threading the needle and the expense of breaking needles 
 by bending them, by inadvertently pulling the goods from, 
 under the pressure-bar, is entirely obviated since the needle 
 is never in the goods. I owned ninety per cent, of the stock of 
 the company buying the patent to develop. So after five 
 years of the most fearful care and constant anxiety, I have 
 turned my sixty thousand dollars into two millions and a 
 quarter not bad for a young fellow spending most of his 
 time in Paris, and pushing Wedge by flying visits and con 
 stant letters and cablegrams. Wedge's genius pulled me 
 through saved the day and my sixty thousand and I now 
 take care of him for life. Of course, like all inventors, he 
 had sold his interest early before I got hold of him and 
 for a song." 
 
 Viola: "I should say, indeed, not at all bad, Hugh, for 
 a young fellow." 
 
 Stutfield : "Thank you my dear. Only a few days ago a 
 London syndicate bought the entire world-rights of the pat 
 ent for five hundred thousand pounds, or two million five hun 
 dred thousand dollars. They handed me that amount which 
 I converted pro tem into Government Bonds, after deduct 
 ing ten per cent, or a quarter of a million dollars for the 
 other stockholders in the patent and paying the same over 
 to them and placed the two million and a quarter in my fire 
 proof safe at 'Rokeby' to await investment; and, mark you r 
 darling, be meanwhile quite out of the highly improbable 
 but possible reach of absconding bank presidents."
 
 44 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 Viola: "It certainly sounds like the Arabian Nights." 
 
 Stutfield: ''With this difference, my darling. It's no 
 dream; but two million and a quarter of the good 'long- 
 green.' " 
 
 (Viola laughs merrily and he kisses her on the lips. He 
 then goes on) 
 
 Stutfield: "I had sold forty thousand dollars worth of 
 the Self -Threading Sewing-Machine attachments, in the first 
 six months the mechanism in its final perfected form by 
 Wedge was ready for the market. We booked and filled 
 forty thousand dollars worth of orders, at five dollars an or 
 der, five dollars a Self -Threader, within six months last past. 
 These sales were made without going outside of New York 
 City. A sewing-machine drummer or sewing-machine repairer 
 was given a grip-sack full of 1 S. TVs Self -Threaders and 
 turned loose on New York. They are as simple to attach to 
 the sewing-machine as any other attachment. Hence they 
 went like hot cakes forty thousand dollars culled, reaped, 
 garnered, out of hard old New York, inside of six months, 
 and not one dollar for advertising agents, traveling expenses, 
 or even salary. We gave them fifty per cent on the first 
 twenty-five 'S. T.V each sold, and twenty-five per cent, there 
 after. It was on the strength of this marvellous showing, and 
 the basic nature of my patents I'd girdled the world widv) 
 scope and reach of patents I'd girdled the world literally 
 girdled the world with 'S. T.' patents it was on the strength 
 of the quick spot cash sales of 'S. T.', the strength of her pat 
 ents, and the reach thereof that clinched the deal with the 
 big British Syndicate. That's capitalized at ten million 
 dollars, and is going to make things hum. My darling, I de 
 spise a man that exaggerates a man that exaggerates is sim 
 ply a more or less good-natured non-malicious, but none the 
 less, liar. So I shall recapitulate the countries in which 'S. T.' 
 is covered by patents. The whole of Europe down 
 to so small a country as Belgium and Switzerland. All of 
 South America, Central America, and Mexico except Pat 
 agonia, where they produce ostriches but not patents. In 
 dia, China and Japan, New Zealand, Australia and South 
 Africa winding up with Canada and the United States." 
 Viola: "A comprehensive purview of the world, surely,
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 45 
 
 my dear Hugh it revives one's knowledge of geography to 
 go over the list of S. T.' " 
 
 Stutfield: "It surely does, my dearie. The handful of 
 other stockholders were amazed at the scope, and the thou 
 sands of dollars it required yearly to keep patents alive 
 throughout the world, but they were confident of my business 
 judgment, and now are rewarded. Now, to wind up this un 
 usual interview, and go in to dinner. My reason for doing 
 this extraordinary thing bringing two and a quarter mil 
 lions in securities and cash to you by night, in a pair of sad 
 dle-bags, in Government bonds and bills is briefly as follows. 
 My property is divided into three divisions. When I say that I 
 ignore for the moment the saddle-bags and their interesting 
 contents. Division One is the largest. It lies in New York. 
 In New York real estate all on Manhattan Island, and all 
 choice, picked parcels of land. There is but one exception to 
 this that is a 362 acre villa site on the Hudson, opposite the 
 Catskills, in the township of Rhinebeck. The loveliest and 
 lordliest view of mountain and river on earth it dwarfs the 
 magic Rhine even. That has no house but a farm-house on it. 
 My father bought it years ago. All the rest of my property 
 is on Manhattan Island. It amounts to one and a half mil 
 lion dollars. Of this, one million is in fee simple is mine 
 out and out. The balance is about half real estate and half 
 gilt-edged securities the balance is in trust, and, in the event 
 of my death without issue, goes to my dearly beloved cousin, 
 Winston Blettermole, the only relative I have. Division Two 
 and Division Three are almost exactly equal in value. Divi 
 sion two, consists of five hundred thousand dollars worth of 
 real estate and water-power rights on the Roanoke river in 
 eastern North Carolina. This is a property with an enor 
 mous prospective value when the South comes into her own 
 that is, becomes the cotton manufacturing centre of the 
 United States. This place is the extreme northern limit of 
 the cotton belt, so no one can cut in between us and the 
 Northern markets. Also, besides having two competing rail 
 roads the Atlantic Coast Line and the Seaboard Air Line 
 which salutary fact assures low freight rates it is within 
 five miles five miles below us. on the Roanoke of water 
 transportation on the Roanoke to Norfolk via the Dismal
 
 46 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 Swamp canal and thence to Europe. Cotton grows up to 
 the very doors of the mills there, is ginned on the spot, and 
 carried into the mills." 
 
 Viola : "It must be a wonderful sight to see cotton first 
 grow before your eves, and then turn before your eyes into 
 cloth." 
 
 Stutfield : "It is highly interesting. But the great thing 
 about it is the water power, which does away entirely with 
 the necessity of coal; and besides saving an enormous num 
 ber of thousand dollars per annum in coal, puts the manu 
 facturer beyond the reach of slow delivery of coal, during 
 strikes." 
 
 Viola: "I had no idea you were such a variegated man- 
 of-affairs, Hugh. I knew you were of professional, legal and 
 literary, and publicist bent, but that you were a man-of -af 
 fairs of such world-wide scope, I had not the vaguest idea." 
 
 Stutfield: "Very probably, my dear. I've always kept 
 my business affairs pretty strictly to myself. Lastly, Division 
 Three consists of gilt-edged securities to the extent 
 of half a million, tucked a.way in several large, deep, 
 and commodious safe-deposit boxes, in the vaults of 
 the leading Trust company in Richmond. When I 
 say gilt-edged, I desire to qualify that statement to 
 the following extent. I do not mean high-priced 
 securities, so near par or so far above it, as to loudly pro 
 claim that they have seen their best days, by which I mean 
 their days of vigorous growth. In a word, securities which 
 are now at or about at the top notch. I've no particle of 
 use for such no use on earth. Marshall Field a merchant 
 prince for whom I have a high regard, and whom I know 
 personally Marshall Field, of Chicago than whom an hon- 
 ester, 'whiter,' business man never breathed quite different 
 from certain other of our hundred million dollar million 
 aires for that's Marshall Field's figure a hundred mil 
 lionMarshall Field once said to me after dinner: 'Stutfield, 
 the stocks you've just mentioned are too high-priced for me 
 I can't afford to buy them. Tin not a rich enough man to be 
 able to afford to own such stocks. The stocks I buy are stocks 
 that are sound, but are around thirty or thereabouts have 
 never been any higher and have, therefore some 'come out'
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 47 
 
 to them some growth some development. Some day, they'll 
 reach 75 or 100. Then I'll sell them and buy other stock at 
 say thirty or thereabouts.' I took my cue from Marshall 
 Field and carefully invested half a million taking several 
 years to do it in vigorous young stocks so to speak and 
 therefore the half million in my vaults in Richmond, bids 
 fair to be a million or more one of these days. That makes a 
 million and a half in New York; a half million in North 
 Carolina, and a half million in Eichmond, Virginia that 's 
 two millions and a half. Now we come to the milk in the 
 cocoanut the two and a quarter millions in these saddle 
 bags, and just why they are in these saddle-bags. Here 's 
 the very simple if very unusual reason, my darling. For 
 the present I want the two million and a quarter I have just 
 brought into this room (slowly) where no court order 
 can reach it. The law is a queer thing. In the hands of 
 learned and honest judges it is next to the actual personal 
 presence of Jehovah of God Almighty on earth for good, 
 for the good it brings about. But, on the other hand, with 
 ignorant, self-indulgent, or dishonest judges, it is one of the 
 cruellest, wickedest and most Hellish instruments in the whole 
 armoury of Hell. Now, when I met you on horseback yester 
 day afternoon followed by your groom you told me in 
 answer to my question that you had a large safe of your 
 very own that no one but you knew the combination of, I 
 mean for the safekeeping of your splendid Stradivarius 
 violin upon which I desire to hear you play one of these 
 days for I heard in New York that your tone and execution 
 are really remarkable quite professional, in fact " 
 
 Viola: "If that's so. Hugh, it's the result of my two 
 
 years with Mamma and Papa in Paris, just before I came 
 
 out two years under the great French master Vieuxtemps." 
 
 Stutfield: "I was told, my dearie, that it is literally 
 
 true that your playing has a passion and strength joined to 
 
 a delicacy and feeling which appears to join the two sexes as 
 
 you play, and give masculine force and feminine tenderness." 
 
 Viola : "Again, I have only to say, my dear Hugh, if 
 
 that is so thank my great master." 
 
 Stutfield : "To resume. Now I want to get into that big 
 safe not personally but two million and a quarter of me
 
 48 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 to do that, I shall have to ask you to take the Strad. out and 
 sleep with it alongside you, so that in case of fire you can 
 escape with it that's the only possible danger in this quiet, 
 peaceful section of Virginia, not thieves but and that dan 
 ger no greater than anywhere else in the county fire.*' 
 
 Viola: "I shall, with pleasure." 
 
 Stutfield: "Many thanks, indeed, my dear, for I know 
 how you value that violin. Here is my will and one or two 
 other important papers in the same envelope. In my will I 
 have left you the income of these two million and a quarter. 
 The balance of my property bar the half million in New 
 York goes to Educational Institutions when my estate 
 vests., upon your death that is to say and another, who 
 with you form what is called in law the cestuiquitrusts the 
 two people at whose death property left in trust vests or is 
 turned over to the heirs. I want no receipt from you, my 
 darling. I only want you to keep this money till I can have 
 time to invest it in something in neither New York, Virginia. 
 nor North Carolina, so that I may have an entirely new set 
 of courts ruling the money for the Judges are our Rulers 
 our modern Kings, my dear, whatever fustian-talk ignorant 
 politicians may vamp up about this being a Republic. The 
 courts can defend or destroy your property, and I want to 
 have as large and varied a line of judges bossing my goods 
 as my property is large and varied. Verbum sap a word 
 to the wise." 
 
 Viola: (Smiling). "You, a distinguished law-writer, 
 appear to look upon the judges much as a criminal might 
 you appear, my dear Hugh, to be afraid of them." 
 
 Stutfield: "Because as a law-writer I know their igno 
 rance. I am afraid of them, my darling of their ignorance, 
 their dishonesty, or their favoritism or prejudice. How many 
 judges have a college education ? It varys in different sec 
 tions. In New York, for instance about 33 1-3 per cent., at 
 a rough estimate ! In other words an educated client or suitor 
 has to lay his case before an inferior "counsellor"; or an in 
 ferior garbed in ermine and throned on a bench. Should said 
 rule, developed further on; namely, that a judge must possess 
 not only a, College education, but the only possible receipt so 
 to speak for possessing same to-wit the degree of Bachelor
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 49 
 
 of Arts ever become general it will work havoc with such a 
 college say as our own University of Virginia founded by 
 our own, Albemarle County, Thomas Jefferson himself ! For in 
 that splendid institution of learning the short-sighted, selfish 
 and cruel rule exists by which every degree given by the Uni 
 versity is practically an honour degree by which I mean 
 the percentage required to get the degree is almost as great 
 as the percentage required by such universities as Columbia 
 and Harvard to obtain an honour degree. This is all wrong. 
 There should be an honour degree and a degree for the gen 
 tleman of leisure or professional man not after honours, but 
 after a degree from, his Alma Mater. The consequence is that 
 the percentage of men who have matriculated at the Univer- 
 s 'tty f Virginia and get degrees is about the smallest in 'the 
 country. The average student of the University of Virginia 
 never dreams of taking a degree! If my rule comes to pass 
 no lawyer would ever think of going to the University of Vir 
 ginia for a college education, but to the fine Colleges of Wil 
 liam and Mary, and Washington and Lee, of the same State. 
 The term, 'learned judge' is in every sycophantic lawyer's 
 mouth and yet the infernal rascals know that they lie when 
 they use the term because why ? Because Judges are bar the 
 rarest exceptions never learned they are as ignorant of the 
 law in the case as any shyster law r yer that ever bluffed a fee. 
 Until what time? Why until the lawyers have taught them 
 what the law in each given case is by their opposing briefs! 
 The judge is a mere student, a mere law-student to the law 
 yer, who instructs his honour in the premises. I'll tell 
 you all that the so-called "learned judge" dwindles down to 
 and that is a good guesser the most respected judge among 
 lawyers is he who can guess best. The best judge is the best 
 guesser! The judge who oftenest guesses right which side 
 has the law with them, as shown by that side's lawyer's 
 brief is the most respected judge in the legal community's 
 purview. The wise remarks you read in judges' opinions, as 
 well as the learned cases cited, are bodily copied verbatim from 
 one or other o>f 'the lawyers' briefs! This sounds strange but 
 it is true. I am divulging a professional secret in lifting this 
 sombre veil. No man should be elevated to the Bench who 
 has not received a college education from a reputable incor-
 
 50 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 porated college. Lawyers may he admitted to the har on a 
 mere common or high school education, but not so men who 
 have the power of life or death, and the fearful responsibility 
 of holding the scales governing property. These men should 
 boast as fine an education as the Civilization and culture of 
 the nation affords, then would the slogan 'Learned Judge* 
 be true." 
 
 Viola: "I thoroughly agree with you, Hugh." 
 
 (Stutfield bows his acknowledgments). 
 
 Stutfield : "Any lawyer who ever hopes to qualify him 
 self for the august office of judge should be forced to acquire 
 a college education by which I mean the degree of Bache 
 lor of Arts. As aforesaid as about at a rough guess one- 
 third of the legal profession has the Bench as the goal of 
 their professional ambitions, consequently, about one-third 
 of the legal profession of practising lawyers will be well edu 
 cated as well educated as their clients for instance! No 
 man could hare a more profound admiration and respect for 
 the mighty office of judge, than your devoted lover, my darl 
 ing Jehovah Jah was a judge Abraham that 'mighty man 
 of valour' when pleading for the lost inhabitants of Sodom, 
 exclaims: 'Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?' or 
 words to that effect. Jesus Christ was a lawyer. He is 
 called 'Our Advocate with the Father,' or words to said ef 
 fect. As the Judaic law was a canon or religious law the law 
 of the Rabbis, the law of Moses Christ in arguing with the 
 Rabbis and Scribes who were lawyers, had to be proved 
 himself to be a lawyer of the highest learning and dialectic 
 and forensic skill. Therefore nothing could be higher than 
 the august professions of Judge and Advocate ! It ?.<? the 
 damnable prostitution of these God-like offices to-day, which 
 disgusts, dismays and appalls me. Instead of a judge being 
 selected because he towers above his brother lawyers for the 
 logic displayed in his briefs, and the uprightness of his con 
 duct of a case the absence of chicanery, mendacity, or as is 
 but alas! too often the case flat perjury upon the part of his 
 witnesses industriously trained therein after having been 
 deeply suborned by himself instead of that a judge is a 
 'good fellow,' a 'good sort.' a 'popular man in the profes- 
 'sion: always kotowing as lawyers always do to a brother
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LA<W 51 
 
 lawyer, always hat in hand to one another, and always crawl 
 ing on their bellies to the court to the judge and cringing 
 before him. Instead of being an honour to his profession the 
 modern judge is but too often a man who "stands-in" with the 
 machine and has a powerful political pull and "stands-in" 
 in New York with the malodorous boss of Tammany Hall 
 who at a breath can unmake any judge of the New York Su 
 preme Court, as by said bosses' breath said judge was made. 
 It is this damnable state of things which makes me despair of 
 the future of this country and see our government burn up 
 as a scroll in the fires of the Day of Doom. The people are 
 gradually awaking to the chicanery, tyranny, and dishonesty 
 of the Bench ! Labour, particularly, has it's 'red right eye' 
 on the courts, and their iniquitous injunctions; and labour, 
 will have to be reckoned with when the battle of Armaged 
 don, for the United States, dawns. I am in favour of the 
 Initiative, Referendum and Recall of Judges, but not of the 
 Recall of Judicial decisions. Because law is as much above 
 the heads of laymen to steer a course safely and justly 
 through, as is astronomy. We must always have judges, 
 and the people cannot be judges as to reversing and re 
 calling Judicial decrees. Where would the right of 
 life and of property go if a decision made one day, 
 could be recalled by what amounts to a mob, so far only as 
 law is technically concerned could be recalled by a mob 
 the next? No: Judges must be recalled for misconduct: but 
 not their opinions. The subject of Logic which is the compass 
 by which only a judge steers his course where two legal au 
 thorities conflict, where two decisions by former judges upon 
 the point then up before him for decision conflict the study 
 of Logic needs a National Professional revival. Provided a 
 judge is a sound Logician which means a man trained in the 
 intricacies of the Aristotelian Syllogism, which means again 
 a College-bred manf and, a College-bred man only he can be 
 almost infalliby trusted to give a just and learned decision. 
 For the opposing lawyers have hunted up the law governing 
 the case in their briefs. So all he has to do is to balance the au 
 thorities and see on which side the weight of authority lies 
 
 tA man possessing the degree of A. B. from an incorporated 
 College of repute.
 
 62 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 and where authorities conflict as aforesaid steer his course 
 by the compass the pole star of the Aristotelian Syllogism. 
 There's no word in English oftener in a lawyer's or judge" 1 * 
 mouth than the word ''logicj than the words 'logical? ''illogi 
 cal] 'fallacious,' 1 fallacy*! And yet, there's no book le*s often 
 in the hands of judge or lawyer than a Text Book on Logic! 
 by which alone the intricate rules of that mighty science may 
 be kept fresh: by which rules alone the highest reasoning is 
 guided and kept right, as the sextant guides the mariner by 
 showing the position of the sun. Logic to-day is a joke! a 
 dead dog! a stinking carcass floating down a canal. Hence 
 the damnably unjust, ignorant, and dishonest opinions of but 
 too many of the judges of this fair land both State and Fed 
 eral. Logic should be revived as it was in the Middle Ages 
 so that a judge may stand on his own feet when authorities 
 conflict. No candidate for a judgeship should be permitted to 
 mount the bench until he had proved himself by briefs of his 
 in litigated cases, that he was a Logician of the first rank 
 and the burden of proof would be on him to show that he 
 actually wrote each brief. If an illogical, fallacious or ig 
 norant brief could be thrown up at him from the past years of 
 his professional work it should disbench him. All briefs should 
 be filed under control of a special court officer that is to 
 say all those of lawyers who put themselves in line for ju 
 dicial honours and upon these briefs would the professional 
 record of the candidate for judicial preferment be based. A 
 crooked or fallacious brief would ipKo facto disqualify him 
 for the bench. He would have to draw his own briefs and 
 every brief he had ever drawn would have to be filed, as well 
 as the opponents' 1 brief! Ha ! Ha ! My dearie, it makes me 
 laugh when I think of the wry faces such a rule would cause 
 among the suave followers of Ananias, who form so large 
 a part of my august profession ! What a salutary effect it 
 would have upon brief-drawing to know that the foul birds 
 of lying briefs of per jury -punctured briefs would surely 
 come home to roost one of these days, when the question of 
 the ermine came to be considered! Hence courts would scru 
 tinize briefs of non-candidates for the ermine, far more care 
 fully for lies, perjuries and follies than those of candidates- 
 for-the-ermine. Gradually the people would get to employ
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 53 
 
 candidates for the ermine lawyers qualified to write 'C. F. E.' 
 after their names for the above reason and so by the time 
 the Millennium dawns we should have in America, a highly 
 educated, and, outwardly, at least, upright Bar and ditto 
 Bench. If some such thing does not take place, this coun 
 try will, and will rightly be placed forever under martial 
 law, by the Military Dictator of the United States, which our 
 aforesaid Armageddon is bound to produce. Who wouldn't 
 rather have one big Boss, one Oliver Cromwell one grand 
 Boss of genius than the ten thousand vulgar-born, ignorant, 
 piffling, plug-uglies that boss the United States to-day? 
 Pardon my professional zeal, darling only a d n fool! 
 Permit me to briefly enumerate our rulers. AVe have in every 
 County in the United States to-day in the country: the Pre 
 cinct Boss, the District Boss, the County Boss. In the city the 
 Ward Boss, the District Boss, the City BovSS, the Boss. Fin 
 ally the State Boss! As Herbert Spencer said in effect, 
 when he held the mirror up to the people of this great and 
 mighty nation, on his recent visit to us of a few years ago, 
 * Republic is the most ideal form of government, but it is the 
 most difficult to live up to; for it expects every man to do his 
 duty without coercion, or the fear of death^ or jail before his 
 eyes; and that's something that the delectable race of man 
 flatly refuses to do." 1 Hence, instead of being the best form, a 
 Republic is practically the foulest, most corrupt and tyranni 
 cal form of government possible. You know that it's a by 
 word for ingratitude!" 
 
 Viola: "I sadly do, my dear Hugh." 
 
 Stutfield: "You are an inspiring auditor my darling 
 but I must hurry on. This question o\f reform of Bench and 
 Bar is the question of the cancer eating the heart out of the 
 country of Washington and John Marshall. To resume and 
 conclude. This is the motto of a Republic, 'What's every 
 body's business is nobody's business.' So there you are ! So 
 after the rottenness which reeks to Heaven from the United 
 States, has brought down the purifying flames that did the 
 business for Sodom and Gomorrah the two prototypes of 
 the cities of New York, Chicago and Philadelphia figura 
 tively speaking, all this, of course, regarding the flames and 
 the bloodiest revolution the world has ever seen has ensued
 
 64 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 between the forces of Labour on one hand, and Capital, sup 
 ported by the Bench, the Bar, and the Churches, on the other; 
 in which Labour will eventually win, by means of the acces 
 sion to her side of the great mass of the people, who stand 
 betwixt and between and a compromise has resulted not 
 between Labour and Capital, far from it that fight's to a fin 
 ish! but a compromise between Labour and the said vast body 
 of neutrals. After the thunder, and the smoke, and the blood 
 of the aforesaid Armageddon shall have cleared away l a new 
 heaven and a new earth' again strictly figuratively will 
 appear; and the folly and vice, now only too frequently en 
 throned on the Bench will be forever done away! Pardon 
 the length of this dissertation, darling, but something solid 
 was needed to support the extraordinary spectacle of a Law- 
 Writer's standing in dread and horror of the courts, and 
 scheming to get as long a line of judges strung out along 
 his property as might be ! In the desperate hope of finding a 
 learned or an honest one or by a miracle almost both 
 learned and honest in the lot!" 
 
 Viola: "Br-r-r! My dear Hugh, you make me feel cold 
 all over! It's like listening to a page from Carlyle's French 
 Revolution, to hear you sum up the virtues of the American 
 Bench and Bar." 
 
 Stutfield: "I don't wonder at your chill. The French 
 Revolution is what is going to repeat itself in this country. 
 / am no prophet, but I am a student of History r and as such 
 I judge the Future by the Past. Some duffers say, 'How can 
 there be a revolution in a country where the majority rules?' 
 The Fools! That's just it! Suppose the majority is no 
 larger than the 'majority' that differentiated the followers of 
 Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden! And suppose 
 the so-called 'minority' prefers to fight to remaining a tech 
 nical 'minority' what then? Armageddon!" 
 
 Viola: "You make me shiver, but I'm afraid you may 
 be right." 
 
 Stutfield: "Thank you, my darling, for giving me the 
 benefit of the doubt. Nobody dislikes the idea of blood 
 shed, wounds and death more than your humble servant: but 
 History shows that that is the only avenue possible to funda 
 mental political and judicial change. There are noble ex-
 
 ROBBERY UNDER I, AW 55 
 
 ceptions to the dark rule I have laid down exceptions 
 among lawyers and exceptions among judges but alas! my 
 dearie they are few and far. There are noble exceptions, 
 ~but they are few and jar. To resume and wind up. I may 
 invest in a half dozen different States. No Virginia Judge 
 or any other judge, for that matter can rule on these two 
 million and a quarter I now hand you." 
 
 '(Raising saddle-bags and handing to Viola, who places 
 them on the floor before her, touching her feet.) 
 
 "For / no longer have them you have them but nobody 
 does, or will, or can since torture is abolished in court 
 procedure know that valuable fact. The future is ominous 
 of war in my affairs. Blettermole lusts after my prop 
 erty only less fiercely than he does after my life. He 
 actually hates me with a fifteenth century Benvenuto Cellini 
 hatred it's laughable, but a fact. I could never understand 
 it he's always attracted me he's a charming man super 
 ficially, at least and goodness knows, I've never injured 
 'him one's not generally given to injuring people who are 
 attractive to one." 
 
 Viola : "I can unravel that mystery, my dear." 
 
 Stutfield: "Can you. darling? Well, you will set at 
 rest a care that has been disturbing me for years and years." 
 
 Viola: "You know, Constantsa's almost my most inti 
 mate and beloved girl friend. She was in Paris finishing her 
 musical education you know she is a remarkably talented 
 pianist " 
 
 Stutfield: "I do. But her playing to me is cold fin 
 ished, but cold like herself, in fact." 
 
 Viola : "Well, Constantia attracted me by the extreme 
 artistic, literary and musical bent of her really unusual mind 
 beside her refined and charming personality. I saw her 
 constantly during those two years. We, with Papa and 
 Mamma used to go to the Franqais every Saturday night 
 when the plays were not too dreadfully risque other nights, 
 we were at work on our instruments, she the piano, I the 
 violin, for we each worked about eight hours a day except 
 Saturdays and Sundays, during those two years allowing 
 two hours for outdoor exercise daily. The consequence was 
 that when she married, she confided in me and I do not think
 
 56 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 I am betraying that confidence in saying what I am about 
 to now. She said to me once: 'Viola, I am sometimes con 
 cerned about the hatred Winston has for Hugh Stutfield. It 
 is the most intense and persistent thing in his cool, indiffer 
 ent, charming, inconsequential temperament. It's absolutely 
 ferocious! I've questioned him, and questioned him upon it, 
 but in vain. His answers are always unsatisfactory and 
 vague. At last I am compelled to believe that it springs from 
 jealousy. Years ago, when they were boys at College dif 
 ferent Colleges different Universities Hugh got in without 
 conditions and achieved his College career and subsequent de 
 grees without one, although he had to work like a Trojan to 
 do so for the Classics and Mathematics always came hard 
 to him; whereas Winston, who had a natural talent for Lan 
 guages, and to whom Mathematics came easier than to Hugh, 
 got conditions upon entering Harvard, got new conditions 
 each year he was there and finally in order to get rid 
 of them, had actually to take five years to complete the four 
 years' course. This was a case of the hare and the tortoise. 
 Winston neglected his superior talent for Languages, for 
 Latin and Greek, as well as for Algebra, Geometry and Trig 
 onometry, and suffered severely thereby. Hugh Stutfield, on 
 the other hand, toiled and won. Now, strange as it may 
 seem, this boyish incident has been the fo-ns et origo, the 
 fountain and source, of a growing animosity in manhood's 
 years." 
 
 Stutfield : "Lord ! Is that the only reason for his Renais 
 sance hatred of me. Well, great oaks from little acorns spring 
 sure enough! Now. to conclude. Lawless desires my disap 
 pearance, owing to his being a suitor for your hand. Beli- 
 sarius P. Spink knows more law than any man in the United 
 States, and has less scruple than any lawyer, yet outside the 
 bars. Behind Blettermole and Lawless are their millions, 
 and behind their millions, is Belisarius P. Spink like Beli- 
 sarius of old the great general of the Roman Emperor Jus 
 tinian ready to lead their massed cohorts their ready mil 
 lions to any goal they may select. A powerful combina 
 tion not to say, a dangerous one you must admit." 
 
 Viola: "Hugh, you frighten me!" 
 
 Stutfield : "Do not be alarmed. I am my own Beli-
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 67 
 
 sarius my own lawyer and I'll back myself against 
 or any other lawyer in or out of shoe leather. Second. I'm 
 not a pauper by any means." (Kicking the saddle-bags). 
 Third. I'm so near being a Clairvoyant a Prophet in the 
 modern sense that there's absolutely nothing funny in it. 
 Fit back my Subconseiousness to warn me of all their damna 
 ble plots in time to prepare against them, and in the end 
 frustrate them. Now, my angel, will you take my will, my 
 private papers, and my two million and a quarter, and prom 
 ise me that you will neither admit you have them, nor sur 
 render them to anyone without a written order from me?" 
 
 Viola: "Certainly, Hugh, I will accept this grave re 
 sponsibility if you desire it. Shall I inform my father?" 
 
 Stutfield; "Not for the present. I have the highest re 
 gard for Captain Cariston's war record, and business record, 
 since the war, by which he made half a million in a twenty 
 years' exile in the wilds of the West Virginia coal fields, 
 exiling himself to that wilderness in order that you and 
 your Mother his only kin might live here at 'Elsinore' in 
 comfort meanwhile, and be independent for life at the end 
 of his twenty years in Siberia. He achieved his end, and 
 now has the sturdy sum of a round half million salted down, 
 in improving real estate in Richmond and Atlanta. But the 
 very fact that he is such a sound and yet bold business man, 
 makes me shy at putting him in touch with this highly un 
 usual performance to-night." 
 
 Viola: "As you prefer, Hugh, dear: it's true that he 
 does not yet know of our engagement." (Smiling). "He has 
 hardly had time to learn of it." 
 
 Stutfield: "A thousand thanks. Then you promise me 
 that you will neither admit you have my will, private papers, 
 and two million and a quarter, nor surrender them to any 
 one without a written order from me?" 
 
 Viola: "I do, Hugh. And now, one word with you. I 
 have had a frightful dream. Last night I seemed to be stand 
 ing on the edge of a broad, moonlit stream with you at my 
 side. Suddenly a large, funereal looking barge draped in black 
 appeared. Three ancient women resembling the Three Fates 
 stood on the deck. Before them facing you stood a man in 
 antique armor. As the barge approached a most terrific shout
 
 58 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 as of a mighty host smote the air, and the figure on the 
 barge drew his sword and saluted you. I felt you straighten 
 yourself. I then glanced at you, and found to my surprise, 
 that you, too, were in antique Roman or Greek armor. So 
 soon as the man saluted you, you returned his salute with 
 your sword; whereupon, a second appalling shout as of a 
 mighty host, smote the air. The barge reached us. You 
 turned and said: 'Viola, I go, but I return.' Thereupon, you 
 mounted the deck, and disappeared. It frightened me hor 
 ribly I'm not in the least superstitious and disbelieve in 
 dreams; but I never had one so vivid as that." 
 
 Stutfield: "My darling, I'm a fatalist. I believe that 
 whatever is to be will be to the fall of a cock-sparrow." 
 
 Viola: "I share that belief, largely." 
 
 Stutfield: "Let that belief buoy you, my darling, until 
 we are one." (Embraces her). 
 
 End of Act II.
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 59 
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF THE LABYRINTH. 
 ACT III. SCENE I. 
 
 Stutfield's suite in the Hotel Kensington, 15th Street and 
 Fifth Avenue. Stutfield in bed. Bed head to right of stage. 
 Small room. Door to right leading into drawing-room. 
 Door to left leading into bath-room. Window at foot of bed. 
 No fireplace in room heated by a flue. Bureau between win 
 dow and bath-room door. Time, one month later, April (12th y 
 1887, 6 :30 P. M. Stutfield wears a green sack coat, though in 
 bed ; as curtain goes up. a man, Dr. Barkus, enters. Weather 
 is cold. Backward spring, snow on the ground. Barkus above 
 medium height, strongly knit. About 55, grayish hair, slight 
 ly bald. Sharp, keen face; very cold. Wears glasses. Light 
 gray eyes, square cut beard, turning white. Stutfield is read 
 ing a morning paper as he enters. Barkus affects a solicitous 
 air, and approaches bed with both hands extended and close 
 together. He has black frock coat on overcoat and hat left 
 in drawing-room). 
 
 Barkus : "Ah ! my dear Mr. Stutfield, I am so distressed 
 to see you thus. I met Mr. Blight in the lobby on my way 
 into the hotel, and he told me that you were ailing " 
 
 Stutfield : "Blight's far too fresh. I've only got a 
 slight cold, Doctor. The only reason I go to bed for a cold 
 is that I inherit a tendency to pneumonia both my Parents 
 died of it, my Mother in perfect health, and with a magni 
 ficent constitution at thirty-four .and my Father ditto at 
 fifty-two within two years of her. I have lungs like one 
 of my registered Jersey bulls but like my bull, am suscep 
 tible to pneumonia to the scourge of the strong up here 
 in New York with its treacherous humid climate/' 
 
 Barkus: "You appear to be quite learned in the care of 
 the human frame." 
 
 Stutfield : "Oh ! I don't know every man's his own 
 physician or a fool at forty, .you know I'm just thirty, but 
 I like to be ahead of the game in such an important factor 
 in the game, as life and death."
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 Barkus: (Frowning). "You can hardly expect a physi 
 cian to subscribe to that alleged maxim, Mr. Stutfield." 
 
 Stutfield: "No, scarcely. You gentlemen would practi 
 cally starve to death if there were not so many millions of 
 fools. For men and women under forty of normal health 
 are rarely under the weather, whereas those over, you may 
 almost say, are always so, now and then to commit a bull- 
 through their abominable, fool-carelessness. The average man 
 takes more care of his horse or dog than of himself and 
 this through no spirit of unselfish devotion far from it 
 but from a fool spirit of carelessness and laziness." 
 
 Barkus: "Permit me to observe that you are somewhat 
 severe upon your fellow man. But I am not here to bandy 
 'words with you, Sir." 
 
 Stutfield: "You are very correct." 
 
 Barkus: "Now our Oriental friend, Rumdumbagore, 
 "will be here shortly and prepared to assist at the proposed 
 interesting experience of observing you enter a trance. Per 
 mit me to inquire your opinion on the distinguished Parsee, 
 Rumdumbagore ?" 
 
 Stutfield: "To be perfectly frank. I think he's about the 
 biggest faker I ever saw his name should me Rumdum- 
 /flkore." 
 
 Barkus: "Again, I must observe that you are some 
 what severe upon your fellowman." 
 
 Stutfield: "Why, the jargon the man talks is enough to 
 turn one against him. It sounds precisely as though he had 
 spent a number of years in the French colony in McDougal 
 Street, and caught the French way of pronouncing 'th' and 
 rsaying 'zat' for c that ;' and had then gone to Mulberry Street 
 and resided among our Italian citizens long enough to learn 
 how to clip the end off of a word, as, for example, to clip 
 'banana' into 'banan' and 'money' into 'mon'; and finally 
 wound up in the neighborhood of Tattersall's, or some other 
 Horse Exchange, and learned from the Cockney grooms how 
 to decapitate the letter 'H'. " 
 
 Barkus: "But, my dear Mr. Stutfield, I was at pains 
 to inform you prior to the first two visits to you of Mr. Rum 
 dumbagore and myself, two or three days subsequent to 
 your arrival here, about two weeks ago from the South, with
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 61 
 
 your intimate friend, Mr. Blight, the distinguished New 
 York sculptor, who suggested to you that you permit my 
 self, as a dabbler in oriental trances and trance-like states. 
 and Mr. Rumdumbagore, who knows all about them coming 
 direct from India, to lecture upon that very subject before 
 learned societies throughout the United States suggested 
 that you permit us to observe you enter a trance, 
 since he had walked in on you as you were first 
 learning how to do so at 'Rokeby' and suggested your 
 coming on to New York and getting some Psychologist who 
 was more familiar with trances and trance-like states than 
 yourself, to advise with you about them, and act as your as 
 sistant in carrying on your most interesting investigations 
 in this mysterious domain of the brain. Upon your con 
 senting to both Mr. Blight's propositions. I was introduced to 
 you by him, and in turn introduced you to the distinguished 
 Orientalist who expressed himself as interested in your inves 
 tigations, and willing to assist for one or two seances before 
 leaving for Chicago to lecture before the faculty of the Uni 
 versity of that city I was at pains to inform you that Mr. 
 Rumdumbagore had had the misfortune to be first initiated 
 into the mysteries of English pronunciation so difficult to 
 the subtle oriental tongue when a child in Bombay by an 
 Italian nurse w T ho had married an Englishman, after being 
 first divorced from a French dentist. The Englishman was 
 not high type he was a coachman and born within the sound 
 of Bow bells hence he hadn't art 'h' in his head. The re 
 sult is the unfortunate, somewhat polyglot patois, somewhat 
 mixed accent of our distinguished friend." 
 
 Stutfield : "Your explanation, Doctor, is as unusual as 
 is the appearance, aspect, and actions of Brother Rumdum 
 bagore." 
 
 Barkus: "You are as suspicious of men as most law 
 yers, my distinguished patient." 
 
 Stutfield : "Permit me to observe that I'm not your pa 
 tient, nor am I suspicious bv nature. But I am not a damn 
 fool." 
 
 Barkus: "Well. I hear his voice in the hallway, and 
 shall usher him in." 
 
 Stutfield: "Prav do." (So soon as the door is closed
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 and he is alone, aloud, meditatively). "This is a very rum 
 state of affairs here. I can't quite make it out. Blight has 
 always been a close friend of mine and one in whom I've al 
 ways had the utmost confidence. He walked in on me at 
 'Rokeby,' as Dr. Barkus remarked, just as I was in the very 
 act of pushing my investigations of Institutions into the 
 Trance form, mentioned in my last talk with Viola, as em 
 ployed by Trance-Mediums or Clairvoyants. Spiritualism I 
 despise and utterly disbelieve in as the haunt of fakers and 
 cheats; but undoubtedly the Trance, or Trance-like slate, is 
 the work shop, in which to experiment in the mysteries of 
 the human brain. For instance, Hypnotism is the direct re 
 sult of a state closely allied to that of the Trance, but differs 
 from it in that while consciousness is clouded or entirely 
 submerged in the Hypnotic Trance, in the Mediumistic or 
 Glairvoyant-trance, nothing of the sort occurs. In a Trance 
 or Trance-like state I am as normal and keenly alive as 
 when eating breakfast. Therefore I am willing to go 
 through the d d bore of entering the Trance or Trance- 
 like state before witnesses since my Subconsciousness in 
 forms me that it will not operate the Trance or Trance- 
 like state for me in relation to my business affairs 
 unless I enter it twice before scientific men. Otherwise I 
 can't get the Hloomiri 1 perizhin 1 Trance to operate. For oper 
 ate it without the co-operation of one's Subconsciousness is an 
 impossibility. Blettermole may be at the bottom of this. He 
 is my inveterate enemy, and would stop at nothing. What 
 his object can be, I fail to see, but I shall without hesitation 
 allow him all the scope he wants, for I understand that this 
 is a law-abiding community this fair City of New York 
 and therefore the law can redress any injuries I may sustain 
 in pushing legitimate, scientific experiments to a conclusion." 
 (Enter Dr. Barkus and Rumdumbagore. The latter is a 
 tall, stout man, dressed in a black frock coat, waistcoat and 
 trousers, high collar and dark fcur-in-hand tie. The only 
 thing out of the way about his costume is a turban, of large 
 dimensions, and snowy whiteness, wound round the top of 
 his head. His skin is a dark olive, and he wears a heavy black 
 moustache. His motions are slow and pompous and so is his 
 intonation. He bows with oriental depth to Stutfield stand-
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 ing on the threshold, bringing both palms towards his mid 
 dle. Stutfield carelessly returns the salute and says) : 
 
 Stutfield" 'Day, gentlemen." 
 
 Rumdumbagore : " 'Ow does my young f rien' find 'e 
 zelf to-day? I trus' zat ze indizbozish iz not acute?" 
 
 Stutfield: (Smiling pleasantly). "No, 'ze indizpozizh 
 iz not acute 
 
 Rumdumbagore : "Ah ! My young f rien' mock me." 
 
 Stutfield: "Your young 'frien' is tickled to death over 
 your accent, my learned Sir 'zat's all ''zafs all" 
 
 Barkus: "Mr. Stutfield, we will proceed to go into the 
 trance, if you please, and cut short this unseemly ridicule of 
 my learned friend who suffers through no fault of his own " 
 
 Stutfield : "No, by Jove, it was no fault of his own, but 
 of that much married Italian-French-Cockney-English-nurse 
 eh?" 
 
 Barkus: "I beg of you to proceed to enter the trance." 
 
 Stutfield: "Very well, Doctor. But I should very much 
 like to know why our learned friend wears that turban on his 
 head, right here in New York." 
 
 Barkus: "Mr. Rumdumbagore is a very devout follower 
 of his cult fire-worshipping the Parsees, you know, are 
 Persian Fire-worshippers refugees who, centuries ago, 
 were expelled from their native land by the sword of the 
 Prophet the conquering Mahommedan and sought and ob 
 tained asylum in India. They worship fire still. Now as to 
 just why he wears a turban here in New York. Mr. Rum 
 dumbagore is under a vow he is a very devout Parsee 
 never to appear in public without a turban no matter where 
 he may be until India is rid of British rule." 
 
 Stutfield : "Ah ! ha ! A patriot ! I had no least inkling 
 that so rare a fire as unselfish, unpolitical, patriotism burned 
 within that brawny bosom. Now for the experiment. What 
 goes on inside the head during a trance how it is operated 
 is shrouded in mystery so jar as Science knows at present 
 as deeply shrouded as the nature of electricity or the cause 
 of the X-ray outwardly, however nothing could be simpler. 
 You cannot detect the slightest difference in me physically 
 when in a trance, or when out of a trance except im- my 
 language. I need not warn scientists of your standing that
 
 64 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 I am no more responsible for Trance-utterances than for sleep- 
 talk talking in my sleep to which it is closely allied all 
 Trances being merely a form of Somnambulism or Sleep-Walk 
 ing. The first hint I gave of being what is vulgarly called a 
 Medium was when I was a child, by Sleep-Walking. That has 
 passed off with the lapse of time and taken on the rarer phase 
 of Trances and Trance-like states. From the moment I say: 
 'Here goes!' I'm wholly irresponsible for my utterances. 
 'Here goes!' 'Hugh Stutfield, you are in the hands of the 
 Philistines. These hoary old rogues are bought, body and 
 soul, by certain persons. Who or what said persons are I re 
 fuse to say. But be not concerned. Your destiny like that 
 of every man, woman and child on earth was fore-ordained 
 from the beginning. Nothing these two bloody-minded, soul 
 less, sordid, old reprobates can do or say, can alter or change 
 your destiny one jot or tittle they are necessary that your 
 destiny may be fulfilled. Proceed as though they did not 
 exist, and know that in the end you will triumph over these 
 two disgraces to the Medical Profession to the noble Art of 
 Healing, and those back of them. I say no more. Farewell.' 
 Well, gentlemen, what do you think of the trance?" 
 
 Barkus: "Infamous! Infamous! The most absurd and 
 slanderous utterance I ever heard." 
 
 Rumdumbagore : "My young frien' it grieve my 'eart 
 to 'ear you zay zuch zings it grieve my 'eart. But in my 
 'eart ze deep warm 'eart of an Oriental I know it is not 
 you zat zay zuch zings it is not you but ze trance, ze trance. 
 Zo nudding 'ard, no 'ard veeling rests in my great warm 
 Oriental 'eart towards zee, towards zee. My young frien', I 
 take my leave. May ze spirit of ze great founder of our 
 Faith, Zoroaster, ze great Zarathustra 'imzelv, 'oo shed ze 
 light of 'iz countenance over ze land of ze Medes and ze Per 
 sians one thousand years before ze Christian era, watch over 
 and guard your steps in zis wicked but populous city." 
 
 Stutfield: "Amen to that, my learned fire-eater beg 
 pardon fire-worshipper Amen to that." 
 
 (With a profound salaam Rumdumbagore leaves, fol 
 lowed by Barkus, who merely bows slightly. The door has 
 hardly closed before heavy footsteps are heard in the hall-
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 65 
 
 way, and there is a loud knock at the door of Stutfield's 
 bed-room). 
 
 Stutfield : "Come in." 
 
 (The door opens and Barkus and Rumdumbagore ap 
 pear at the head of three burly, rough looking men). 
 
 Barkus: "You must get up. Resistance is useless as 
 you see, and dress and follow me. You are insane." 
 
 Stutfield: (With a sarcastic smile). "On what 
 grounds?" 
 
 Barkus: "On the grounds of what you said when in a 
 Trance, or Trance-like state just now." 
 
 Stutfield: "But I was at pains to explain to you, only 
 a few minutes ago, that that was not my mentality talking, 
 but my Subconsciousness." 
 
 Barkus: "I'm quite well aware of that." 
 
 Stutfield: "Who's back of these proceedings?" 
 
 Barkus: "Mr. Winston Blettermole and Mr. James 
 Lawless." 
 
 Stutfield : "Ah ! My two worst enemies. Well, gentle 
 men, what do you propose to do about it?" 
 
 Barkus: "Propose to do? Why, that you obey my or 
 ders." 
 
 Stutfield: "You haven't brought enough men with you, 
 Doc." 
 
 Barkus: "Seize him!" 
 
 (The men dash towards Stutfield. There is a small table 
 with a pile of large, heavy books on it at his bedhead, which 
 prevents direct attack, so they come round that and are about 
 to spring upon him the head of the bed is towards the door 
 of the drawing-room when Stutfield whips out a revolver 
 from under his pillow and says sharply) : 
 
 Stutfield: "Hands up, you blackguards, hands up!" 
 
 (The roughs at once obey. Barkus and Rumdumbagore, 
 who are standing at the foot of the bed, shrink away from 
 the pistol). 
 
 "Now then, you bloody villains you East Side thugs 
 and mid-night assassins, make tracks out of here or I'll fill 
 you full of lead." 
 
 (It is now dark and the electric light has been turned on 
 for some time. The roughs leave hurriedly).
 
 66 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 Stutfield: "Now then you two promising specimens of 
 medical rascality for of course, you're a brace of alienists 
 in disguise, lying as fast as you can open your dirty mouths 
 now then, you two apostles of perjury and crime, why 
 shouldn't I put a bullet into each of you and rid the world of 
 two such human hyenas? Come pull yourselves together 
 and answer me that. First throw up your hands you, too, 
 Rumdum." 
 
 Barkus: (Clearing his throat and 'showing all signs of 
 fear after swiftly throwing up his hands Rumdumbagore 
 does the same). "I trust, my dear Mr. Stutfield, that you 
 will not take any unfair advantage of me." 
 
 Stutfield: "No, I never take an unfair advantage of 
 any man. But I shall particularly well see to it that you 
 don't succeed in taking an unfair advantage of me. I'd have 
 you understand that I hold a license to carry a pistol in New 
 York." 
 
 Barkus:- "What are you willing to do?" 
 
 Stutfield : "I am willing to discuss this interesting situ 
 ation with you to-morrow, say, at 3 P. M." 
 
 Barkus: "But how do I know that you're not going to 
 run away?" 
 
 Stutfield: (Bursting out laughing). "Run away! That's 
 something I'm not in the habit of doing." 
 
 Barkiis: "In that event, I'll be very glad to meet you 
 to-morrow at 3 P. M." 
 
 Stutfield: "So be it. And now you may permit your 
 hands to assume a normal position, and retire." 
 
 (Both leave rather hurriedly. As soon as the door 
 closes) 
 
 Stutfield : "Well, here's a how de do, sure enough ! 
 Viola's dream has come true!" 
 
 End of Act III. Scene I.
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 67 
 
 THE LABYRINTH. 
 
 ACT III. SCENE II. 
 
 Time : Three months later. July 12th, 1887, 4 P. M. 
 
 (Stutfield's cell in 'Fairdale.' A dark, gloomy, small 
 room with heavily-barred, small windows. Room scantily and 
 barely furnished. An engraving or two on the wall; a small 
 dressing-table with mirror, washstand, and some common 
 chairs. Stutfield in bed, dressed in a striped blue and white 
 flannel outing jacket, with no tie on, over a silk gauze under 
 shirt. The bed is brown wood, and has a canopy over it in 
 the shape of a mosquito-netting on four slender rods. By 
 his bedhead is a table, covered with ponderous books. He has 
 just finished a letter as the curtain rises. There are three 
 doors to the cell; one leading to his keeper's adjoining cell, 
 and one to a bath-room, and one to the hall. He begins to 
 read the letter he has just written in blue pencil) 
 
 Stutfield: (Reading hastily, and with frequent glances at 
 the door). "My own darling Viola: It seems ages since I've 
 seen your sweet face, and heard your silvery voice, buried 
 alive as I have been for a quarter of a year amid dangerous 
 lunatics, even maniacs. This is how it all happened. Blet- 
 termole and Lawless put their heads together, and one as my 
 nearest blood relation, and the other as my 'best friend' signed 
 and swore to a Petition saying that I was insane, and dan 
 gerously so. They were evidently steered by Belisarius P. 
 Spink, who is the lawyer of both Blcttermole and Lawless, 
 for the game has been worked to the Queen's taste from the 
 start not a blunder anywhere except that crime is always 
 a blunder in the long run, and both Lawless and Blettermole 
 have rendered themselves liable to a term at hard labor at 
 Sing Sing for perjury. So far, so good. Now I shall de 
 scribe how I come to be here, flat on my back. Before doing 
 so, knowing your sweet solicitude for my health, I shall 
 touch briefly upon that. I never was better in my life. I 
 once overworked and consulted a specialist on overwork and 
 the preventive and cure thereof. He said: 'Lie down for
 
 68 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 twenty-two hours out of the twenty-four and rest your spine, 
 which is the trunk-line of the nervous system, and exercise 
 for the other two hours not severely, but lightly even for 
 much less than two hours if you feel disinclined for any 
 cause not slothful in its origin.' So I stay in bed, for 
 twenty-two hours out of the twenty-four. I even take my 
 three meals in bed, and after luncheon walk for the greater 
 part of two hours this walk is, of course, with a strapping 
 six-foot, fighting, Irish keeper come in, bathe, and go back to 
 bed. I sleep for at least nine hours. The balance of the time 
 I keep my mind constantly occupied by reading five daily New 
 York morning papers, and two daily evening papers from 
 first page to last, including the most amusing of the ads, 
 and some of the ads. are distinctly amusing. I find that 
 nothing taJtes one out of oneself so easily, so without effort of 
 thought or brain work of any description, as newspaper 
 reading. It is like eating the lightest, flimsiest kind of pastry 
 in place of solid food. I do not refer to the editorials when 
 I say no effort of thought or brain is needed to master the 
 contents of a newspaper. Editorials do necessarily excite 
 thought the only question is as to the nature of the thought 
 thus excited. I find that in the vast majority of cases the 
 nature of the thought thus excited is amusement. But amuse 
 ment is enlivening and restful for the human mind in the 
 extraordinary situation in which I find myself, looked upon, 
 and treated and spoken of to my face, as being a hopelessly, 
 insane dangerous maniac ! I often wonder if I am not dream 
 ing, and pinch myself until I am convinced that I am awake. 
 So you see, anything that can minister to a mind so situ 
 ated is surely to be classed with poppy and mandragora and 
 'all the drowsy syrups of the East' as a first aid to the in 
 jured by the illegal and vicious laws of this great State, 
 touching Lunacy Procedure. You know, my darling, that my 
 Mother was born and bred in New York, and that I was 
 reared here, and largely educated here, therefore it is natuml 
 that I should feel the strong affection for this great and 
 beautiful city which I do. It is not with the people of New 
 York City or New York State I have a quarrel on account 
 of these Lunacy Laws, but with the rich rascals high in the 
 councils of the Four Hundred, who make money out of
 
 ROBBEUY UNDER LAW 69 
 
 them. Now you are prepared to hear how I came here. First 
 and foremost, I desire to state, my precious darling, that it 
 is through no lack of strategy or generalship upon my part 
 that I am here. I had the situation entirely in my hand in 
 New York, from the simple fact that I had had the foresight 
 to make use of my license to carry a revovlver in New York, 
 by having it under my pillow when they tried to overpower 
 me by sending three strong-arm men into my room at the 
 Kensington after dark to carry me off. There was a sinis 
 ter purpose lurking behind the act, namely, their desire to 
 make me catch my death of cold by hauling me out of a sick 
 bed to dress and take a cold drive in a cab to the train, and 
 , colder one after the hot train from the White Plains sta 
 tion here, there being snow on the ground. But I decided to. 
 so to speak, go as a lamb to the slaughter; or to play 1 detective, 
 and get an insight into the working of this gilded Hell, 
 'Fairdale ; ' from the inside, in order that I may devote my 
 life to wiping infamous Lunacy Laws off of the Statute Books 
 of about half of the States and Territories of the Union, 
 founded by George Washington and safeguarded by Abra 
 ham Lincoln. That was my wish and aim, in risking my life 
 coming here. For I could easily have walked down the fire- 
 escape from my window and got away, had I cared to do so. 
 But liberty to me is as sweet as life, and I am willing to risk 
 my life to insure liberty for the rest of my countrymen and 
 country-women unable to fight for it, in this labyrinth, from 
 the fact that they are not professional fighters that is to say. 
 lawyers. Now, I shall wind this long letter up by saying that 
 It will be handed Captain Cariston addressed to him by a 
 man I have complete confidence in, the inventor of the Self- 
 Threading Sewing Machine Attachment, that brought me so 
 much money his name is Albert Wedge. He is still in my 
 employ because I promised to support him for life, so soon 
 as I sold the mechanism. I promised him twenty-five hun 
 dred dollars a year for life, besides a present of twenty thou 
 sand dollars. I have had no chance to pay him more than a 
 portion of the first year's allowance. He is let through the 
 lines here because before surrendering to the police they sent 
 to take me next day from the Kensin-gton Barkus, one of 
 the Doctors in the plot lied and broke his word and instead of
 
 70 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 coming sent a brace of plain-clothesmen from police head 
 quarters in Mulberry street I had sent a wire to Wedge at 
 his place at Allendale, New Jersey, to come in the first thing 
 in the morning. This Wedge promptly did. Whereupon I 
 told him the situation and that if he ever expected to put 
 his hands on that twenty thousand dollars he must co-operate 
 with me, and get me a lawyer to bring habeas corpus pro 
 ceedings to get me out. Well, my dear, what do you sup 
 pose, Wedge supported by full credentials from me has 
 been utterly unable to get a solitary New York lawyer to 
 take my case and bring the habeas corpus proceedings ! They 
 hem and haw 7 but do nothing. The authorities* here know 
 that Wedge may try to get counsel for me, but will you be 
 lieve it, so sure are they of their position that they are in 
 different, knowing that he will not be able to get a lawyer in 
 New York with the courage to take my case. They hold 
 back for three reasons. First: Because of the old maxim, 
 'Give a dog a bad name and hang him.' Being once inside a 
 Madhouse I am supposed by the intelligent public to be mad. 
 No matter what crimes and villainies were perpetrated to 
 falsely put me there. Second : New York lawyers shy at 
 the case because of fear of Blettermole and Lawless. Bletter- 
 mole is a millionaire several times over, and Lawless is a 
 multi-millionaire has at least seven millions at a safe esti 
 mate. They are afraid of the serried ten millions opposed to 
 me. Third : New York lawyers shy at the case because 
 they are afraid of antagonizing the powerful array of pluto 
 crats on the Board of Governors as it is pompously termed 
 of this Bastile of the Four Hundred, where is buried alive 
 for life any member of the Four Hundred who has had a 
 falling out with his family or next of kin. The most power 
 ful men in Finance, Law and Society are gathered together on 
 the Board of this Private Insane Asylum in ord-er to overawe 
 the New Xork <Cownty Bar. So here is what I propose 
 to do. Wedge is absolutely devoted to my interests. 
 He is a bachelor alone in the world and entirely de 
 pendent upon me for the means to carry on his experiments 
 and like all inventors, he is never happy except when 
 inventing. So he is willing to risk State's prison to 
 get me out of here. I am willing to risk my 
 life to get out of here, and here is what I propose. Wedge
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 71 
 
 comes up about once a fortnight. He is due to-day. I'll give 
 him this. He has money enough to pay Tiis way to Virginia. 
 So soon as you have read this letter, read it to your Father. 
 I am enclosing this sealed and addressed to you in one to 
 Captain Cariston, briefly stating that the bearer is an in 
 ventor in my employ and patentee of the Self Threading 
 Sewing Machine Attachment and has access to me is thor 
 oughly trustworthy and able to shed light on my present 
 predicament. Then, please ask him to do as follows. I do 
 not intend to stay here until I go crazy from my health break 
 ing down. I'd much prefer to die with my boots on attempt 
 ing like an American citizen worthy the name of an Ameri 
 can citizen to escape. Or if I should be forced to kill a 
 keeper in my dash for liberty, and the jury went back on 
 American love of freedom and sent me to the electric chair, I 
 would much prefer that quick and easy death to lingering 
 here for years. There is no warrant in law for this out 
 rage against an American citizen. Now a man would be per 
 fectly justified in killing a 'Black-Hander' who held him in 
 perpetual life imprisonment as I am being illegally held for 
 a five thousand two hundred dollar yearly ransom not 
 counting extras and making his escape. Further argument 
 in support of my contention would be a work of supereroga 
 tion. I hope and believe it will be unnecessary to put Pat 
 Sligo out of business permanently, but the Law-Giver, Moses 
 himself, had less warrant in Law or Equity I highly approve 
 of Moses's noble act, mind you but Moses the Law-Giver 
 had less warrant in Law and Equity for killing that Egyptian 
 task-master, than I would have in killing Pat Sligo when he 
 bars with his bulky carcass my road to freedom and any 
 American who disagrees with that sentiment is unworthy of 
 the spirit of the founder of this mighty Republic. ''Blood 
 will tell] is an old and true maxim. My blood is Revolution 
 ary to the last drop. I am related by blood to three lead 
 ing Generals in the Revolution. First: General Nathaniel 
 Greene the second greatest General on the American side 
 after Washington. Second: General Marion, of South 
 Carolina, known as the 'Swamp Fox.' Third: General 
 John Armstrong, author of the "Newburgh Letters." Not only 
 American Revolutionary blood runs in my veins, but French
 
 72 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 Revolutionary blood I'm not descended from her for she 
 died a maid on the scaffold under the guillotine but I am re 
 lated by blood to Charlotte de Corday, the slayer of one of 
 the bloodiest villains who ever disgraced the earth, namely, 
 Marat, of the Bloody Triumverate, Danton, Robespierre and 
 Marat. Now you way well imagine how such blood would 
 brook such treatment as I have received for three months, and 
 am intended to receive for life. As Charlotte de Corday 
 struck a blow that forever freed France from Marat, with u 
 simple dinner knife, so I propose to strike a blow that shall 
 forever free Lunacy Legislation in the United States of the 
 crime masquerading under the guise of law therein. The 
 blow possibly may land me on the scaffold as it did her, but 
 not if American Judges and American Juries have a spark 
 of the spirit of '76 in their veins. But, however, that may 
 be, whether I mount the scaffold or not, Lunacy Law will be 
 brought before the rulers of this country the people in a 
 way so plain and striking that they will be more than apt 
 speaking guardedly to set their house in order and give a 
 man, accused of lunacy as fair a run for his money, as fair a 
 trial before a Judge and Jury in open Court as is now given a 
 man accused of burglary, rape, or murder. I dislike to go 
 over such gruesome things with you, but it is essentially neces 
 sary for you and Captain Cariston to know just what I am 
 prepared to do in the event of your not rescuing me. I have 
 the means of killing the brawniest, bravest keeper in 'Fair- 
 dale' on me now it's always on me when I have my jacket 
 on and otherwise it's always within arm's reach, in the right 
 hand pocket of my sack coat, folded up on a chair by the 
 head of my bed, and between it and the wall. This is some 
 thing as providentially mine as was the jaw-bone found by 
 Samson, for I picked this up one day when walking with 
 my keeper. This something is a horse-shoe. I picked it up 
 this way. I spied it ahead of us. He did not. So I dropped 
 slightly behind as we approached the horse-shoe and swiftly 
 stooped and slipped it into my right-hand sack coat pocket 
 without his noticing me. It is wrapped up I washed it in 
 my bath tub that night, after he'd gone to bed, and I heard 
 him snoring in the next cell which opens into mine it is 
 wrapped up in a handkerchief to hide it. Now with this, I
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 73 
 
 could first break the leg, and, as he fell forward, fracture the 
 skull of any man that ever lived, including Goliath of Gath. 
 So you see that even here in the jaws of death and Hell I 
 am not so helpless as I might appear on a cursory view. 
 Now I don't want to make anybody die a violent death nor do 
 I care to. So I shall not draw my horse-shoe and 'Strike for 
 your altars and your fires, Strike for the green graves of your 
 Sires, God and your native land,' as Fitz-Green Halleck puts 
 it in 'Marco Bozzaris' unless you, my sweetheart, through 
 your gallant father are unable to rescue me. So here goes for 
 the plan of campaign to culminate in my gaol-delivery. Put 
 him in touch with everything I've told you and my being se 
 cretly engaged to you, and also that you hold certain funds of 
 mine. Then give him enough money out of the war-chest to 
 cover the following items: Twenty-five hundred dollars for 
 Wedge. Twenty-five hundred dollars each for three ex-Con 
 federate veterans not too old to shoot straight, with the prom 
 ise that upon placing me upon Virginia soil the amount will 
 be doubled. Twelve hundred and fifty dollars for the owner 
 of a Norfolk, Virginia, ocean-going-tug, with the promise 
 that the amount will be doubled upon his return with me, 
 dead or alive, to any point on the Virginia coast. Twenty- 
 five hundred dollars for a Connecticut farmer just over the 
 line from Westchester County in which White Plains is who 
 is a boyhood-friend of Wedge, and is well to do, and often ha* 
 Wedge to spend the summer with him free of charge. This 
 man is of old Revolutionary stock is a descendant, on the 
 female side, of General Israel Putnam of Revolutionary fame 
 'Old Put,' as he was affectionately dubbed by his troops and 
 is proud of it. He is outraged at my predicament and has 
 pledged himself to transport any four men I bring to New 
 Rochelle just opposite here, on Long Island Sound to 
 gether with Wedge and myself, in a light, closed, three-seated 
 wagon closed by curtains only so as not to attract attention 
 by the crowd behind a pair of powerful seventeen and a half 
 hand standard bred trotting stallions, that he has so broken 
 that they travel amicably in harness, inside half an hour 
 from the boundary wall of 'Fairdale,' on the Marmaroneck 
 Avenue road, a beautiful stretch of eight miles of macadam 
 ized road running flat as a plate from 'Fairdale' to Long
 
 74 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 Island Sound he has pledged himself or forfeit the prize- 
 money of twenty-five hundred dollars to do this inside thirty 
 minutes. Now I propose that the Captain lead this rescue 
 party himself. He was Captain of Squadron A, First Vir 
 ginia Cavalry, in the Army of Northern Virginia, under 
 Stuart. Let him pick three of his most dare-devil troopers 
 and lead them to the charge against the trespassers on the 
 rights of a Virginia citizen. Once we get into the wagon we 
 are safe, for nothing can touch us. There's no car line of 
 any kind along Marmaroneck Avenue and so nothing can 
 touch us, or head us. Now here is how I propose to join 
 forces with your father. Wedge will act as scout to your 
 father and his men from the time they disembark from the 
 ocean-going-tug off New Rochelle, and enter the closed 
 wagon, till the time we join forces; so I need say no more, as 
 I shall put him Wedge au courant with what a certain 
 deeply devout, fire-worshipping friend of mine of whom 
 a whole lot anon when I have you in my arms once 
 more, my precious darling, "after this cruel war is over" your 
 dream you see, came true, and I now am about to return to 
 you Wedge will to-day be put ecu courant with what a pro 
 foundly learned and deeply pious fire-worshipper I know, 
 would term 'the situaish/ N. B. Ask your father to have 
 half a dozen Winchester rifles and plenty of ammunition on 
 board in case we should be held up by a police boat when 
 passing New York. It's not likely that that will happen, 
 but I take no chances in war. Also be sure that each of his 
 men has on a belt of cartridges and a forty-four Colt re 
 volver not in view of course and to bring me mine the 
 ivory-handled forty-four at the head of my bed at 'Rokeby,' 
 with its belt of cartridges. The chances are a hundred to one 
 against a contretemps against blood-shed once I join forces 
 with the rescuing party. I propose to put my husky keeper, 
 Pat Sligo a six-foot, one hundred and ninety pound Hiber 
 nian, down and out, in the lonely wood at 'Fairdale.' whither 
 I shall invite him to escort me on a walk. I shall not by 
 any means kill him, or use the horseshoe at all though I 
 shall have it as ever in my pocket but I shall put him down 
 and out, and then join the rescuers on the edge of the wood. 
 As a matter of pride I propose to leave no more trace no
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 75 
 
 more trail after putting Pat Sligo down and out no more 
 clue to the direction of my change of base than if the earth 
 had swallowed me. As I have shown, I come of a long line 
 of military ancestors and the only reason I didn't enter the 
 army was because there was no prospect of war in my time, 
 hence my remark about its being a matter of pride military 
 pride soldierly self-respect to leave no more trace of my 
 change of base than if the earth had swallowed me. Also, it 
 might make it disagreeable for the Connecticut farmer if it 
 got out that he aided in the escape. He is not a resident of 
 New York nor a citizen of New York since he is both of 
 Connecticut, but the local authorities might trump up or 
 attempt to trump up trouble for him the next time he 
 crossed the New York State line. It would, of course, be im 
 possible to achieve this desired end of complete mystery re 
 garding my movements South in any other way than I have 
 outlined namely, my personally putting unaided, unwit 
 nessed, and alone Pat Sligo down and out. Naturally I 
 would prefer the dramatic coup of having the Captain ap 
 pear, accompanied by his men, who would, at a word from 
 him, draw and hold him up. But tempting as that is to my 
 dramatic sense it is utterly out of the question and not to 
 be considered for a moment for reasons stated. I propose 
 about three weeks from now, as the time for pulling off the 
 big event. Till then, may God bless and comfort you, my 
 sweet child, and prosper our plans and thwart those of the 
 enemy. 
 
 Your devoted 
 
 HUGH." 
 
 Stutfield: (Sealing the addressed envelope into which 
 he has put the letter). "Phew! The longest letter I ever 
 wrote, I verily believe." 
 
 (Noise of voices approaching. Stutfield hastily conceals 
 the letter in his inside coat pocket. The door of the next cell 
 opens and Albert Wedge enters, followed by Pat Sligo. 
 Wedge is a small, thin man. with a sharp, shrewd, face, clean- 
 shaved honest-looking with his shrewdness and neatly 
 dressed. He has a way of turning his head on one side when 
 listening to a person, and before replying to a question de 
 manding any thought he expels his breath violently and pre-
 
 76 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 faces all his remarks with "Well, I don't know!" or "Well! 
 That may be !" or "Well! Let me see !" He expels his breath on 
 the word, "Well" Sligo is a powerful, forbidding-looking 
 Irishman with beetling brows. His head is bullet-shaped, and 
 hair cropped short like a convict's. He has a short, thick 
 neck. He is dressed in the regulation 'Fairdale' uniform, 
 dark navy blue suit with brass buttons. He swings the door 
 open with a flourish and says in low gutteral tones) : 
 
 Sligo: "Walk in." 
 
 (Sligo glares at Stutfield sullenly. Stutfield looks at 
 him carelessly and says) : 
 
 Stutfield: "Ah, Pat!" 
 
 (Sligo merely growls and says nothing. He goes out, 
 slamming the door after him. Stutfield smiles significantly 
 as he watches Sligo disappear, and then turns to Wedge and 
 says) : 
 
 Stutfield: "Have a chair, Wedge." 
 
 (Wedge seats himself. Stutfield then pulls out the let 
 ter and says in a low voice : Stage Direction Stutfield speaks 
 rapidly all through this scene with frequent glances at the 
 door of Sligo's cell}. 
 
 Stutfield: "For Captain Cariston. 'Elsinore,' Cobham, 
 Va. on the Chesapeake & Ohio Eailway, ten hours from New 
 York, Wedge. You are to please start at once. You need not 
 remain at 'Elsinore' more than a few hours. Your train 
 leaves Jersey City at eight A. M.. and reaches Cobham at 
 about six P. M. Send the following wire the night before 
 you start to-night, that is I presume you can get off to 
 morrow 
 
 Wedge: (lin a low voice as he pockets the letter"). 
 "Ye-e-s. I did want to take about a week to work round a 
 snag that's turned up in my patent hydraulic pump 
 
 Stutfield : "Of course, you did, my good Wedge and of 
 course, you ever will if it isn't one thing it's another with 
 you artists and poets in power and steel and electricity you 
 inventors but. my good friend, Wedge, if you don't get my 
 affairs started, you'll run out of money the last quarterly 
 payment I made you on your allowance is pretty nearly used 
 up. I should say what?"
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 77 
 
 Wedge: ^WeUf Come to think on't, yes, 'tis. Pll start 
 to-morrow" 
 
 Stutfield: "Good. Send this wire on reaching New 
 York, from New York not Allendale: 'Captain Cariston, 
 'Elsinore', Cobham, Va. Shall arrive for a few hours at six 
 to-morrow. Please have me met. (Signed) A friend of H. 
 S.' I'll write it out for you." (Does so, and hands it to 
 Wedge, who. after scrutinizing it, carefully pockets it). 
 
 Stutfield: "Can you make it out?" 
 
 Wedge: "Well/ Yes, I guess so." 
 
 Stutfield: "Good. Now pay strict attention to what 1 
 am about to say. I am going to clinch with that offer of 
 your Connecticut farmer friend General Israel Putnam's de 
 scendant and promise him twenty-five hundred dollars for 
 meeting my party of rescuers at New Eochelle and driving 
 them to the Marmaroneck side of 'Fairdale,' and waiting for 
 them on the edge of the 'Fairdale' wood, and then driving 
 them back to whence they came. He will receive half of that 
 sum the moment the Captain and his men enter the wagon, and 
 the balance just before they leave it with me, on the edge of 
 Long Island Sound. Then he can make tracks for the Con 
 necticut line. An ocean-going tug will bring Captain Caris 
 ton and three reliable men men who can be depended upon 
 to stand by one at a pinch from Norfolk. They will bring 
 you with them, so your party will be 'all present or accounted 
 for' as they say in the army when you present yourself to me 
 prepared to make the get-a-way. You will take the Old Do 
 minion Line to Norfolk from New York, a day or so before 
 the tug will be ready to put out for New York from Nor 
 folk. You will keep in close touch with Captain Cariston 
 meantime. He is a rich man and a very old friend of mine, 
 besides being a neighbor so he will be my banker till 1 
 triumph and turn the tables on these gilded thieves who are 
 attempting to rob and civilly murder me, by making me pay 
 one hundred dollars a week, not counting extras, for this cell, 
 a bath-room, and the cell you entered by, which is my keep 
 er's. I've been here three months and twelve hundred dol 
 lars of my good 'long green' have found their reluctant way 
 into the yawning insatiate coffers of 'Fairdale.' r 
 
 Wedsre: "It 's a d n shame."
 
 78 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 Stutfield: "You 're very right, Wedge. To resume. 
 Captain Cariston spent twenty years in the West Virginia 
 Coal Fields, after the war, and, as a result, is worth a good 
 half million to-day. He will be my banker and will pay 
 you twenty-five hundred dollars, for your next year's allow 
 ance in advance so soon as you land me in Virginia you'll 
 put your hands on the twenty thousand I promised you, so 
 soon as I got my price from the London Syndicate for your 
 marvellous attachment for the sewing machine. Now here 
 are final instructions. First: You are, upon seeing Captain 
 Cariston, and answering any and all questions perfectly 
 frankly, he may put to you he knows I'm locked up on a 
 charge of insanity it got out a few days after I was rail 
 roaded here you are to tell Captain Cariston that I've in 
 structed you to put yourself under his orders, and carry them 
 out to the letter knowing that my life and your happiness in 
 this world depend on my successful escape. That I put him 
 in command of the rescuing force. He is a veteran Cavalry 
 Officer and completely capable of assuming the grave respon 
 sibility in the premises. That I put myself entirely in his 
 hands until we join forces when I shall assume command. 
 Second, and last, the means by which I am going to join 
 forces with the rescuing party. I happened to find out by 
 accident that the keepers here never hit an inmate they 
 choke him into insensibility and then put him into a strait- 
 jacket. I saw Pat Sligo do it to a prisoner a short time 
 ago. Now, since then I've been doing a good deal of think 
 ing about throats, and half-Nelsons and strangle-holds. They 
 call this the " 'Fairdale' hold" among the keepers the hold 
 Pat Sligo worked on the patient. It consists in clasping the 
 hands round the man's neck till they overlap at the back of 
 his neck and pressing one thumb on top of the other and both 
 on his windpipe until he loses consciousness. Now, look here" 
 (slipping the horse-shoe under the bed-clothes and pulling off 
 his coat and disclosing a pink silk undershirt, cut low, and 
 with short sleeves) "you see I'm blessed my nature with some 
 thing of a neck I wear a number sixteen collar, and yet I 
 only weigh a hundred and fifty-four. You see these mus 
 cles standing out there at the base of the neck like, some 
 what, like speaking figuratively girders? And the walls of
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 79 
 
 my throat and my windpipe are proportionately strong 
 well, I'm staking my chances of escape on the strength of 
 those muscles. Thus. I propose to provoke Pat Sligo to a 
 physical encounter he won't need much provocation do you 
 think he will, Wedge ? How does that proposition strike your 
 scientific mechanical mind?" 
 
 Wedge: (After a pause. After turning his head in 
 a so-to-speak bird-like way, first on one side, and then, after 
 another pause, on the other, and exploding his breath on the 
 word, "Well!"). 
 
 Wedge: "Well\ I should say Pat Sligo was not a very 
 difficult proposition to provoke." 
 
 Stutfield: "I am fully of your mind, Wedge, and glad 
 of it. Now Pat Sligo is a more powerful man, speaking gen 
 erally, than I am and weighs fully forty pounds more. 
 But there are two of my assets more powerful than Pat Sli- 
 go's one is my wrists, and the other is my neck. I've exam 
 ined Pat's neck carefully and frequently for the past week 
 or so ever since I was made cognizant of the existence of the 
 ' 'Fairdale' Strangle Hold' with a view to choking him pretty 
 nearly to death, by the application of this same hold. Now 
 Pat's neck has no such supporting muscles as mine. It's 
 thick and burly but lacks the power mine exhibits under ex 
 amination. So when it comes to an attack, it resolves itself 
 so to speak into a question of penetration in naval warfare; 
 the strength of the neck standing tor our armor-plates and 
 our grip for the weight of our metal the calibre and num 
 ber of our guns. In weight of metalin guns he is prob 
 ably my superior but in armour I am his master and can af 
 ford to let him fire the first broadside, without a solitary shot 
 till then. I shall provoke the assault and he will at once 
 spring at my throat. I shall, of course, withstand his spring 
 I am an old football full-back and so soon as he is preoccu 
 pied lacing his fingers round my throat and windpipe, I shall 
 sail into his windpipe, and unless I am very much mistaken 
 in my calculations I shall choke him almost to death in 
 short order. When Pat Sligo goes off into a dreamless sleep 
 the knottiest portion of the problem obtrudes its head. What's 
 to be done with him on waking up, which he may do any 
 time and long before I can make my get-a-way secure ? Upon
 
 80 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 that knotty point I have put hours of my best thought, and 
 have solved it to my entire satisfaction if not to Pat's. I 
 have observed from my wide reading that men bound with 
 ropes invariably work their way out of their bonds in time. 
 It therefore occurred to me to get you, Wedge, to whom 
 steel is a medium as malleable as wax speaking figurative 
 ly for you're an experienced inventive genius for all that 
 you are only about thirty years old to make the following, 
 what I shall term Quietus, namely, what I shall call the 
 Union Handcuff-Footcuff-Gag-Blindfold-and-Ear-Muffler, to 
 prevent the party's saying anything, seeing anything, doing 
 anything, or hearing the footsteps of those about him, or 
 their voices. I propose that you make this you can easily do 
 it in ten days or less thus. Get a pair of handcuffs. Make 
 a pair of footcuffs to slip over the ankles. Next, join them 
 with a strong but light chain, like a dog chain so that when 
 a man is both hand-and-foot-cuffed, his hands cannot be 
 raised above his waist in order to prevent him from "mon 
 keying" with the rest of the paraphernalia. Next, a light 
 steel band about an inch wide to go over the top of the head, 
 under the chin, across the mouth, and stopping at the ears as 
 it passes on its way to the back of the head where it is se 
 curely padlocked. It will look something like a diver's hel 
 met without the solidity. The gag is to be made of iron so 
 he can't bite through it, and is to be inserted between the lips 
 so as to rest upon the tongue. The mufflers across the ears 
 are to be shaped the wool on the inside of this iron band 
 like a miniature peg top so that they will press onto the ear 
 and into the ear cavity. The last point to be considered is 
 what's to become of him when thus trussed up for keeps, and 
 good and all ! That, too, I've put some of my very best thought 
 upon with the following result. A strong dog chain will be 
 drawn tightly about his waist and padlocked behind. Final 
 ly, another stout chain will connect with that and encircle a 
 noble oak under which I propose to fight for liberty. Bring 
 these things in a hand-bag. They don't consider you worth 
 considtering they say you are an inventor and 'therefore 
 haven't got good, sense' and therefore there is no danger in 
 letting you come to me and go as you please "
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 81 
 
 Wedge: "Is that so. Mr. Stutfield ! They think 1 
 haven't got good sense?" 
 
 Stutfield : "I assure you. Wedge, it is literally true." 
 
 Wedge: "Well! I'm not sorry it looks as though there 
 was going to be a chance for me to show 'em whether I have 
 good sense or not." 
 
 Stutfield: "Well said, Wedge. Now for the wind up. 
 If they should ask to see what's in the bag, open and show 
 them; and say it's a patent handcuff you've just made, and 
 have brought it up to induce me to promote it for you. 
 (Wedge smiles and nods assent). I'm a wary general. I'll 
 risk my life as I've suggested but 1 take absolutely no un 
 necessary risks, and leave absolutely no point unguarded no 
 matter how unlikely, no matter how remote. Now, as I've 
 said, this is the loneliest spot around here this wood of 
 'Fairdale,' so lonely that none of the inmates are ever taken 
 there, bar myself they have such sublime confidence in the 
 brawn of Pat Sligo that they break all rules in his favor, and 
 take any and all chances with me. Now I've mentioned the 
 general rule to you. The exception, however, may occur, and 
 a party not patients but of visitors or keepers off duty 
 might intrude upon us. If this should take place before the 
 fight it will be plain sailing the fight is postponed till they 
 go. If, however, they should happen along while the fight 
 is on, or just after I've won and am applying the 'Quietus' it 
 would be awkward, and might lead to serious consequences. 
 In this event, I'll blow the silver whistle I have on my gold 
 key-chain three times at once the Captain and his men 
 who will be within ear-shot, as the woods are only about three 
 hundred yards deep to the Marmaroneck road here at once 
 the Captain and his men will charge with drawn revolvers 
 to our support. They will then 'hold up' the newcomers and 
 leave Pat in statu quo whatever that may be even at lib 
 erty for the newcomers can sound the alarm as well as he. 
 We will all then dash for the wagon which will be entirely 
 hidden from them by the trees and be well on our victorious 
 road before they can gather an armed force strong enough to 
 pursue. No keepers will be sent on the job. but the White 
 Plains police and there's nothing in White Plains can catch 
 us with fifteen minutes' start, and besides this we shall have
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 a full three-quarters of an hour to our credit long before they 
 can send messengers to police headquarters for the village is 
 a full mile from 'Fairdale.' So you see, we are absolutely, 
 mathematically certain to get away scot free. If all goes 
 well, I propose steaming past New York to save the hundred 
 or more miles it would mean to clear the opposite end of 
 Long Island the end furthest from New York but if we 
 are discovered before leaving 'Fairdale' I shall insist on that, 
 as otherwise we should surely be met by a cordon of police 
 boats, barring our passage between New York and Brook 
 lyn, which would mean a naval battle I propose to avoid, if 
 possible. So as soon as I say 'Wedge, it 's time you were 
 going,' you will bid me good-bye and leave. But you will 
 not go far. You will hide behind the nearest tree at a safe 
 distance. So soon as you are on your way Vll 'provoke Sligo 
 to a trial of strength. I might add that if I should find that 
 I have underestimated the strength of his neck, and can't 
 choke him, Vll draw my horseshoe and quietly break his leg. 
 Well then truss him up in the 'Quietus' and he can rest on 
 the bench at the foot of the tree; but trussed to the tree, and 
 gagged and blinded, and ear-muffled he'll be in any event. 
 This is only August, and the weather is mild and they'll find 
 him inside of an hour or so after dark, and send for a black 
 smith and file him loose. If, however, as I anticipate, I have 
 no difficulty in choking him you will return as soon as you 
 see him fall, and help truss him up. You will then slip down 
 and summon the Captain and his men, as I am chaining him 
 to the tree, as that will save time I need your help though in 
 applying the gag, blinder and mufflers. How does that 
 strike you, Wedge?" 
 
 Wedge: "Well! Come to think of it, it ain't half a bad 
 scheme and to tell you the truth, I'm d n glad of a chance 
 to show these fellers whether I have good sense or not I'll 
 be goin' 
 
 (A piercing, blood-curdling shriek rends the air, followed 
 by low moans. The voice of Pat Sligo is heard in the hall). 
 
 Sligo: "I'll teach you to speak disrespectful of the Gov 
 ernors of 'Fairdale.' ' 
 
 (Followed by a low moan and then silence, and the voice 
 of Sligo is heard)
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 83 
 
 Sligo: "That settled his hash, I guess he'll come to in 
 a minute or two, Tim." 
 
 (To another keeper whose footsteps are heard approach 
 ing) 
 
 "I only give him a taste of the old hold 
 
 (Wedge, who has looked decidedly alarmed at the dis 
 turbance, and drawn closer to Stutfield, and the latter, regard 
 one another. Stutfield smiles easily and says in a low tone) 
 
 Stutfield: "'The old hold' eh? the old "Fairdale' 
 strangle-hold' ! Well, Sligo, this little episode will strengthen 
 my clutch on your windpipe at our next encounter." 
 
 End of Act III, Scene II. 
 
 THE RESCUE. 
 ACT III. SCENE III. 
 
 (Three weeks are supposed to elapse between Scenes II 
 
 and III.) 
 
 (The wood at "Fairdale." Time, 3:30 P. M. Stutfield 
 Wedge and Sligo. Former dressed in flannels trousers and 
 coat, blue and white stripe. Outing shirt, white, with light 
 blue four-in-hand tie in the low collar. Leather belt support 
 ing trousers no waistcoat and gold keyring chain running 
 into right trousers' pocket. The right coat pocket is seen to 
 bulge slightly with the bulk of the horseshoe. He wears a 
 flat straw hat with black ribbon, and white canvas shoes, pipe 
 clayed. He and Wedge are seated on a rustic bench under 
 the big oak spoken of by Stutfield. Wedge looks highly 
 pleased but rather flushed from excitement. He has a small 
 grip-sack in his right hand. Pat Sligo is sitting out of ear 
 shot on another rustic bench under another oak. There are 
 one or more other of these circular or otherwise, benches in 
 the opening in the wood here, which is filled with large old 
 oaks, and is gloomy and sombre in appearance. Stutfield has 
 just said with a meaning smile, "Wedge, it's time you were
 
 84 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 goin," and the latter has promptly risen to take his leave, 
 when Stutfield suddenly raises his head, and his face darkens, 
 as he says in a low tone) 
 
 Stutfield: "The unexpected is about to happen, Wedge. 
 but not the unprepared against. Prepare for serious even 
 tualities, and remember that you are independent for life if 
 you stand by me at this crisis which cannot I don't care who 
 in H 1 it is who's coming help going our way." 
 
 Wedge: "I'll stand by you, Mr. Stutfield to the bitter 
 end and show 'em whether I've got good sense or not." 
 
 Stutfield: "Bravo, Wedge! Now prepare to receive the 
 enemy." 
 
 (No sound has as yet reached the audience, but now the 
 distant, muffled sound of voices and footsteps is heard ap 
 proaching. Pat Sligo draws swiftly up to Stutfield and 
 places himself at his right elbow. Stutfield and Wedge both 
 remain seated. Wedge taking his cue from Stutfield and 
 every now and then glancing at him. Soon the approaching 
 party come into view. It consists of Winston Blettermole, 
 Constantia Blettermole, James Lawless, Belisarius P. Spink, 
 Dr. Barkus and Dr. Nein. They move forward rather rap 
 idly until within about ten feet, and then cautiously scatter 
 away from Stutfield's neighborhood to adjacent seats. Stut 
 field views them with an absolutely inscrutable face. Wedge, 
 to whom are unknown all the newcomers, glances at them in 
 quiringly and from them to Stutfield, who looks straight 
 ahead of him. The Blettermoles and Lawless have seated 
 themselves under one tree. The alienists under another. 
 Spink alone holds his ground, and sneeringly addresses Stut- 
 field)- 
 
 Spink: "Well my distinguished friend, how do you find 
 the salubrious air of Westchester County comports with your 
 superb constitution ?" 
 
 (Stutfield continues to gaze ahead of him utterly oblivi 
 ous of Spink). 
 
 Spink: "Ah! Still refractory ?till recalcitrant, I see. 
 Well, my distinguished brother member of the Bar of New 
 York, we shall shortly break that haughty spirit of yours. 
 We propose putting into play a new force. We propose hav 
 ing you declared an incompetent person by reason of insanity.
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 85 
 
 by a Sheriff's Jury, who shall never lay eyes on you, and by a 
 Commission-In-Lunacy made up of a lawyer, an alienist and 
 a layman, all and sundry of which shall be of our own choos 
 ing of course, not outwardly, but actually. You will not be 
 able to see the jury, for we shall have certificates made out 
 by physicians here that it would injure you be deleterious to 
 you to be exposed to the excitement of a court room. You 
 will, therefore, be tried in absentia in your absence and 
 condemned in your absence and we shall have the naming 
 of the Committee to whose control your entire estate shall be 
 handed over during your life-time, as well as to whose tender 
 keeping you will be consigned for life or, if he dies before 
 you, to a successor appointed at our instigation, as in the first 
 instance. Your home shall be sold over your head the old 
 home of your ancestors 'Rokeby' I have half a mind to buy 
 it myself ' 
 
 Constantia: "Mr. Spink, I will not permit this sort of 
 thing to continue any longer. I forbid you, upon pain of my 
 anger of never speaking to you again to continue to torture 
 Mr. Stutfield." 
 
 Spink: "Permit me, madam, to observe that I am sim 
 ply stating, without ornament or embellishment in the least 
 degree what is shortly to happen as the result of our numer 
 ous conferences at all of which, my dear madam, all we 
 have had the distinguished honor of your presence. 'Rokeby' 
 will most certainly be sold, because it will fetch a 
 superb figure having been the home of so distinguished a 
 man as Mr. Hugh Stutfield and I want hereby to inform 
 you that the Committee of the person and estate of an in 
 competent is a very practical, a very unfeeling party indeed 
 it is questionable even, whether a corporation has not even 
 a corporation has not more soul." 
 
 Constantia: "But notwithstanding the sad fact that 
 these things must be, I do not propose to stand by and see 
 Mr. Stutfield tortured by hearing of them." 
 
 Spink : "Ah ! Indeed. Then I am to understand that 
 you prefer that Mr. Stutfield should wake up to the news in 
 the papers some morning that First: he has been declared a 
 hopeless incompetent: and Second-, that 'Rokeby' has been 
 sold by his 'Committee;' and Third: that B. P. Spink your
 
 86 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 servant, madam to command has bought the handsome and 
 historic estate. It occurs to me that my poor, blunt way 
 smacks more of kindness to our distinguished friend than 
 your more refined silence." 
 
 Stutfield: "Belisarius P. Spink" (in icy cold tones, and 
 looking straight ahead of him) "you are a profound lawyer 
 a profound logician and a profound rogue." 
 
 Spink: "Mr. Stutfield, your language is highly unpar 
 liamentary, to say the least." 
 
 Stutfield : "Admitted." 
 
 Spink: "Pray, sir, on what grounds do you base your 
 most injurious asseveration?" 
 
 Stutfield: "Upon the grounds, Primo: Your general 
 reputation, in and out of the profession. Secundo: Your 
 hand in this most felonious afi'air." 
 
 Constantia: "My dear Hugh, I cannot permit such lan 
 guage to be directed at anything with which I have been 
 even indirectly connected, and therefore take my leave." 
 
 Stutfield: "Well played, Constantia, you retire just in 
 time." 
 
 Spink: "But before we go, permit me to observe that 
 we have out-manouvered you." 
 
 Stutfield : "Apparently, and jusqu 'ici just at present 
 yes." 
 
 Spink: "'Apparently and just at present,' why. my 
 dear, sir, you talk as though you still had some hope left." 
 
 Stutfield : " 'While there's life there's hope,' Mr. Spink." 
 
 Spink: "I admit amazement at hearing so banal, so 
 commonplace a sentiment from the lips of so distinguished a 
 law-writer as Mr. Hugh Stutfield." 
 
 Stutfield: "You are liable to get a greater dose of 
 amazement even, than that, before long, a little bird has told 
 me." 
 
 Spink: "Indeed! And what kind or variety of bird 
 might that be, may I ask, that has been so unwarrantably lo 
 quacious?" 
 
 Stutfield: "A sparrow." 
 
 Spink: "A sparrow! The meanest, most contemptible 
 the most damnable pardon that slip, my fair client" (bow 
 ing to Constantia) "bird known to the feathered kingdom
 
 87 
 
 you must be hard pushed for companions if a sparrow is the 
 best you can do." 
 
 Stutfield: "I am hard pushed I freely admit that a 
 sparrow is the only companion I have at 'Fairdale.' They're 
 the only birds seen or heard here I've not even seen a crow 
 since I arrived here." 
 
 Constantia: "Poor Hugh" (sighing) "I am so sorry 
 for I know of old, how fond you are of all birds but spar 
 rows." 
 
 Stutfield: "Yes, Constantia, my fate should appeal, al 
 most, to a heart of stone." 
 
 Constantia: "My dear Hugh, you don't insinuate that 
 my poor mother's heart is one of stone." 
 
 Stutfield: "Not for your children, my charming rela 
 tive but the upper edge of the nether millstone is as velvet 
 for softness compared to your heart where their financial in 
 terests are concerned." 
 
 Constantia: "O!" 
 
 Blettermole : "Unless you were a prisoner I .would not 
 permit you to employ such terms to Mrs. Blettermole un- 
 chastised." 
 
 Stutfield: "Chastisement from your hands, my little 
 friend, is a proposition my little fop freighted with hu 
 mour " 
 
 Blettermole: (Starting up angrily). "I'll allow no man 
 to use such language to me." 
 
 Lawless: (Laying a strongly restraining hand on his 
 arm). "You forget yourself." 
 
 Blettermole: (In a surly tone, and reseating himself). 
 "Thank you for the hint the dog's impertinence angered 
 me." 
 
 Stutfield: "Lawless, I am obliged to you for saving me 
 the trouble of a scene. Before bidding you farewell, I might 
 observe that I am not surprised to find you in such company. 
 Your career is not unknown to me, of course, and the climax 
 of it is worthy of its previous devious courses." 
 
 Lawless: "Do you mean to insinuate, Stutfield, that I 
 was ever engaged in a transaction in the slightest degree un 
 savoury ?"
 
 88 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 Stutfield: "In affairs of the heart, yes very un 
 savoury." 
 
 Lawless: "Affairs of the heart are not for discussion in 
 mixed company, and before strangers, I would have you im- 
 derstand." 
 
 Stutfield: "Generally speaking, yes: but not under these 
 unusual circumstances, when men and women in the fierce 
 blow-pipe of temptation, show the true colour of their souls 
 or what passes for souls in their case, at least." 
 
 Lawless: "Spare us a discussion trenching upon that 
 fugitive and nebulous quantity, the soul." 
 
 Stutfield: "By all means, but it is sometimes necessary 
 to name the unpopular even despised thing, in order to be 
 coherent." 
 
 Lawless: "You appear to have a rather inferior opinion 
 of me." 
 
 Stutfield: "Frankly, I have." 
 
 Lawless: "That will be a sorrow which I shall carry to 
 my grave." 
 
 Stutfield : "It has not been without its uses tho' your 
 ahem! ahem interesting record and reputation with wo 
 men and girls in your own walk of life and below 
 
 Lawless: "Pardon my once more reminding you of the 
 inviolability among gentlemen, that is to say of affairs of 
 the heart." 
 
 Stutfield : "But in war all is grist that comes to the mill 
 of a satirist. And a satirist I have become" 
 
 Lawless : "Indeed ! " 
 
 Stutfield: "Fact! It was a case of 'root hog or die'; 
 tear or be torn. So I tore. I'll give you a specimen of my 
 newly discovered vein before this interview closes, and leave 
 it to your sophisticated judgment in things literary, as well 
 as things artistic, as to whether my output is pure gold or 
 pure dross. Meantime, a final word in the legal ear of my 
 astute adversary, Belisarius P. Spink. The time has come 
 to lift the veil. He intimated a little while ago, that he had 
 out-mano3uvred me. To this I finally reply (His face 
 lighting up with triumph, and slapping his right thigh, exult- 
 ingly) : "By G d. I've beaten you!"
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 89 
 
 Spink: (Uneasily). "How "s that I didn't quite catch 
 that?" 
 
 Stutfield: (Smiling broadly). "I observed that I had 
 beaten you." 
 
 Spink: "May I be permitted to inquire how?" 
 
 Stutfield: "Certainly. My Subconsciousness put it into 
 my head to a-hem ! Constantia, my dear, prepare yourself 
 for the bitterest disappointment of your bright and happy 
 life I know your weakness your ambitious aims for those 
 ahem ! pardon my Saxon for those whelps of yours " 
 
 Blettermole: "You ruffian!" 
 
 Stutfield: "It's all in a lifetime, Blettermole, all in a 
 lifetime. To resume. I know, Constantia, that you and Blet 
 termole lust after my five millions. Very well, then, prepare 
 to take your medicine. My Subconsciousness put it into my 
 head, not a thousand years ago, to mark you now good 
 people mark you now bury ha ! ha ! bury possibly in 
 moisture-proof oilskin wrappers, padlocked in a stout tin 
 chest the two and a quarter millions obtained from the sale 
 of 'S. TV Ah ! I see your fair cheek pales, my fair friend" 
 (pointing exultingly at Constantia, who shrinks, cowering 
 before him. She clasps her hands, drawing them to her bosom, 
 and murmurs) 
 
 Constantia: "My children!" 
 
 Stutfield: "Yes, Constantia, your children are the cause 
 of your risking your soul in this foul, dastardly plot, and 
 after all your children lose" 
 
 Blettermole : ' (Aside ) . "Hell's fire /" 
 
 Stutfield: "I buried it, possibly, by the sad sea wave, 
 possibly by moonlight at midnight, alone to do so would 
 comport with what Mr. Lawless considers my romantic rub 
 bish" 
 
 Lawless: "T admit, Stutfield, you have achieved a mas 
 ter-stroke here, manipulating the mysterious Subliminal Fac 
 ulty of the mind quite romantic, I must confess, and mes 
 compliments." 
 
 Stutfield : " 'Praise from Sir Hubert is praise indeed.' 
 But this is not all. I was at pains to write that night from 
 the Kensington, and post by a trustworthy hand, two letters. 
 One to my learned and experienced and honest North Caro-
 
 90 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 lina Counsel. One to my ditto Virginia Counsel; informing 
 them, briefly, of the outrage on law and the Constitution of 
 the United States, perpetrated upon me by virtue of the New 
 York alleged Law on Lunacy, and instructing them to fight 
 conjointly, any and all efforts to obtain control of my prop 
 erty in those States by any and all parties, working under a 
 decree-in-lunacy from New York and to mark this, Laic- 
 less ~bring fraud charges charges of perjury against the 
 two Petitioners in the Lunacy Proceedings against me " 
 
 (Lawless pales and shrinks. Blettermole pales and starts 
 back. Spink moves uneasily. Barkus and Nein glance at 
 each other anxiously). 
 
 "Messrs. Winston Blettermole and James Lawless, mil 
 lionaires, and my worst enemies in the world. So 
 my very good friends, your very humble servant is 
 about to play the role of Samson in the Temple 
 of the Philistines you've wounded me. but I've /*?"'//< ' 7 
 your reputations as honest men not to say, gentlemen, and 
 blasted your nefarious scheme at robbery under law of my 
 property for no Virginia nor North Carolina Court will, for 
 one moment, countenance such nefarious practices in Lunacy 
 as are, alas! of weekly occurence in the great State of New 
 York. So, my fair Constantia, instead of stealing a cool five 
 million for your promising offspring, I've turned the tables on 
 you and your co-conspirators, so that in place of five millions 
 you must be content with a paltry million and a half. I'm 
 sorry for you from my soul I am, Constantia, for the mil 
 lion and a half comes high comes at the price of the repu 
 tations of every man and woman here present." 
 
 (After a pause). "But you must know that the 
 misery and wretchedness which you have subjected me to 
 for three long months and propose to subject me to for life 
 have struck the rock of my nature, and verse has gushed 
 forth satirical verse, for the most part, but not entirely so 
 so that, once out of here. / have a weapon with H'h'f-h to 
 square accounts with any man or any woman who has ever 
 injured me. I shall close this interview by reciting a sonnet. 
 Shakspearian strictlv in form that is to sny. the English 
 and not the Italian sonnet-form directly inspired by the 
 actions of each one of you people, male and female, here.
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LA/W 91 
 
 Thereafter I shall never lay eyes on any of you again but I 
 shall spread your fame not to say infamy from one quar 
 ter of this great continent to the other: 
 
 A SATIRIST'S SALUTATORY. 
 
 The nameless .folly of the human race 
 Its Hellish selfishness and trackless guile 
 Make me ashamed at sight of human face 
 That stamping ground for treachery and wile. 
 The smirking smile of callow, empty youth 
 The ripe pomposity of hoary age 
 The shaded gleam of manhood's lustful tooth 
 Each plays its part upon its petty stage. 
 Seduction, lying, thieving, each in turn 
 A murder here and there and then a rape 
 Each needing only that temptation burn 
 And hold fair chance of ultimate escape. 
 Exceptions to said rule exist, "'tis true 
 No such exception doth exist in you. 
 
 (Stutfield looks at different individuals as he recites the 
 lines by heart. He looks at Constantia when he says "lying"; 
 at Spink and Blettermole from one to the other, and lingers 
 on the word "thieving"; at Lawless on "seduction"; at Blet 
 termole on "callow, empty youth"; at Barkus and Nein on 
 "the ripe pomposity of hoary age"; at Lawless on "man 
 hood's lustful tooth"; at Spink on "a murder here and 
 there"; at Lawless on "and then a rape"; and ends up the 
 closing couplet towards Constantia Blettermole with a smile 
 and a bow. The sonnet has told. Each has winced when 
 looked at. Blettermole springs to his feet and attempts to 
 rush upon Stutfield at the conclusion, but Lawless a far 
 more powerful man instantly and forcibly restrains him. 
 Stutfield regards the manoevre with smiling indifference). 
 
 Lawless: "Mr. Stutfield, we take our leave of you. 
 Chivalry forces me to admit that out of your woes you have 
 forced a trenchant weapon indeed, but frankness insists that 
 you will never be able to wield it against your enemies, since 
 vou will never eet out of here."
 
 92 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 Stutfield: "Thank you, Mr. Lawless, for your chivalrous 
 compliment. You are a foeman worthy of my satiric steel. 
 And now, gentlemen, permit me to bring this interview to a 
 close with the request that I see the face of all of you no 
 more. Constantia, I have this to say to you in parting. You 
 are a devout Christian, are you not?" 
 
 Constantia: "I trust so, Hugh." 
 
 Stutfield: "So far, so good. I therefore hereby invite 
 you to meet me before the 'Great White Throne'." 
 
 Constantia: "With pleasure, Hugh." 
 
 Stutfield: "Adieu." 
 
 (Blettermole casts a look of the most malevolent hatred 
 at Stutfield as he leaves, and turns to glower at him over his 
 shoulder. Stutfield ignores him but watches Constantia with 
 a half smile of amused interest. She somewhat shrinks un 
 der it, and hastily retreats with Blettermole. Lawless care 
 lessly glances towards Stutfield, and half waves his hand to 
 him, as though involuntarily. Stutfield ignores him. Spink 
 looks keenly at Stutfield and shakes his head in a dissatisfied 
 way as he moves off. Barkus glances keenly at Stutfield, and 
 then turns and walks rapidly off. Nein avoids Stutfield's di 
 rection and ponderously moves away. So soon as the last 
 foot- fall has died away Stutfield smilingly turns to Wedge) 
 
 Stutfield: "Wedge, it's time you were going." 
 
 (Wedge, who has been glancing awkwardly, first from 
 one person, then to the next, during the entire conversation, 
 pulls himself together, and says) : 
 
 Wedge: "Well! Good-bye, Mr. Stutfield." 
 
 (Wedge nods towards Pat Sligo, who ignores him ut 
 terly). 
 
 Stutfield: (Pleasantly). "Good night, Wedge." 
 
 (Wedge hastily disappears in the same direction as the 
 others. Sligo has removed himself to his former tree so soon 
 as the party of visitors disappeared. Stutfield yawns, looks 
 at his watch and stretches himself. Removes his hat and 
 slowly rises. As he does so, his right side is turned towards 
 the audience, away from Sligo. It is seen that he hastily 
 slips his right hand into his right side pocket and assures 
 himself that the horseshoe is secure. He then says, in stern, 
 peremptory tones)
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 93 
 
 Stutfield: "Pat Sligo, come here!" 
 
 (Sligo, unused to such tones, starts and hastily rises and 
 glowers at Stutfield. He approaches Stutfield slowly and 
 sullenly. He says slowly) : 
 
 Sligo: "Look a-here, my fine young sprig, don't you 
 talk to me like that or you'll get something you don't bargain 
 for." 
 
 Stutfield: "The Devil, you say! Well, my fine husky 
 proposition from the County Down, I propose 'taking a fall' 
 out of you, here and now." 
 
 Sligo: "You propose taking a fall out of me. Ho! Ho! 
 I could break you between my thumb and middle finger." 
 
 Stutfield : "The Devil you say ! Well, you might as well 
 set about doing it then, because unless you break me, I'm go 
 ing to 'take a fall' out of you." 
 
 Sligo: "If you say that again I'll take you at your word, 
 and give you what's coming to you, and I'll tell Dr. Bear you 
 tried to get away, and first attacked mee-self." 
 
 Stutfield: "I've no doubt you're a fine, lurid liar when 
 it suits your books." 
 
 Sligo: "You call me a liar?" 
 
 Stutfield : "Yes." 
 
 Sligo: "Then take what's comin' to ye." 
 
 (As he sa3 T s this, Stutfield is seen by the audience, to 
 throw his right leg far behind him and half crouch as though 
 to sustain a shock, but his arms are hanging at rest at his 
 side. Instantly Sligo springs at his throat with the roar of 
 a wild beast, his fingers locking themselves round Stutfield's 
 neck. Stutfield sways backward under the onset but recov 
 ers himself. Instantly Stutfield stretches forward and takes 
 precisely the same hold on Sligo's neck. They wrestle and 
 sway all over the stage, Sligo grinning with rage and show 
 ing all his teeth, his face distorted with passion and breath 
 ing or rather panting through his drawn lips, like a run 
 ning dog. Stutfield, with face sternly set, but calm. It is 
 gradually seen that Sligo is getting concerned at the imper- 
 viousness to pressure of Stutfield's neck. Up to now, Stut 
 field has contented himself with wrestling and pushing 
 give and take about the stage. He has only firmly held 
 Sligo has not attempted to choke him. Now, however, a
 
 94 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 change comes over Stutfield's face. It suddenly becomes 
 fierce. He hisses) : 
 
 Stutfield: "Now, you murderous ruffian, I'm going to 
 give you what you gave that harmless gentleman on my 
 floor, three weeks ago. Pat Sligo, I'm your master! 
 I've got a more powerful throat than you you can't 
 prevent my speaking. Now this is what I am going to do as 
 sure as I have my hands on your throat and my thumbs on 
 your windpipe. Pm going to choke you almost to death, you 
 bloody, murderous brute, and then Pm going to escape. So 
 here goes! One!" (As he says that he presses Sligo 's wind 
 pipe and the latter emits a strangling sound). "Two!" 
 (Stutfield presses again and again Sligo emits a strangling 
 sound). "Three!" (He appears to literally spring upon Sli 
 go in spite of the other's powerful extended arms, and almost 
 shouts the word "Three" as Sligo emits a third and last 
 strangling sound and then closes his eyes and falls back inert. 
 The moment this occurs, Wedge, who has been stealthily ap 
 proaching, taking advantage of all the cover the wood af 
 fords, and springing with unexpected agility from behind tree- 
 trunk to tree-trunk, and is now up to the combatants, springs 
 briskly into view with the "Quietus." Union, Handcuff-Foot- 
 Cuff, etc., its bright steel bands and chains gleaming in 
 the rays of the now declining sun). 
 
 Wedge: "You done that fine, Mr. Stutfield it done me 
 good to see it. Now watch me lock him up for the night, and 
 before he wakes up I'll put the gag on so's he can't holler." 
 
 Stutfield: "Good idea, Wedge. I'll hold his head up. 
 Don't cut his lip as you prize his teeth open with the end of 
 that iron gag. //<?' in an absolute, dead faint I surely 
 trust he'll come to you can witness that he attacked me that 
 way first " 
 
 Wedge: "Yes. sir; I was watchin' you from behind a 
 tree." 
 
 Stutfield: "In any event we'll act as though he were 
 coming to. Now I'll hold his head just as you direct you're 
 bossing this part of the job." 
 
 Wedge: "He's coming to! See his legs kick!" 
 
 Pat Sligo: "What the H 1!" 
 
 Stutfield: "Jam the gag into his mouth!"
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 95 
 
 Wedge: (Doing so). "O.K." 
 
 Stutfield: "I'll slip on the nippers and footcuffs while 
 you do that." (Stutfield swiftly slips on handcuffs and then 
 foot-manacles. Sligo struggles futily after these are in place). 
 "There ! There 's no more kick coming from Pat now. So 
 call out your orders, Wedge, and as they say in the Orient 
 in the far home of Rumdumbagore 'To 'ear is to obey.' r 
 
 Wedge: "Hold his head higher off the ground so that I 
 can get the control-band that connects with the gag-piece and 
 ear mufflers into place at the back of his head. The blind 
 ers slip into place by putting the other two into the correct 
 position. I think I'll patent this. Now wait till I see if the 
 front attachment is O. K. That's right now I'll lock it." 
 (Does so). 
 
 Stutfield: "Give me the key." 
 
 Wedge: "Here it is." 
 
 Stutfield: "Thanks." (Slips it into his right trouser's 
 pocket) . 
 
 Wedge: (Viewing that part of his work with profound 
 satisfaction). "There! That settles his saying anything, see 
 ing anything, or hearing anything, till someone gets a black 
 smith and files through that there two-inch steel control-band 
 that blacksmith will earn his money, and not get much sleep 
 this night for I was partickler to choose chilled-steel for 
 the control-band. Pll teach 'em whether Pve good sense 
 or not. There now ! The head's all right. Ill let you 
 clamp the belt-chain round him pull it good and tight so he 
 can't wriggle through it. Here's the cable-chain to fasten to 
 the belt-chain then take a hitch with the cable-chain round 
 the tree. Now, Mr. Stutfield, I'm off to get the Captain and 
 his men." 
 
 Stutfield: "Very well, Wedge, so do." 
 
 (Stutfield then lugs Sligo struggling fiercely but ut 
 terly ineffectually and utterly noiselessly except for the 
 fierce hissing gasps of his breath through the gag gasps not 
 to catch his breath for he can breathe perfectly, but in his 
 effort to talk low, muffled, gutteral growls, also accompany 
 his gasps Stutfield then lugs Sligo to his feet and stands 
 him up and pushes and drags him several yards to the oak 
 the fight began under. He then pushes Sligo unceremoni-
 
 96 ROBBERY UNDER LAW 
 
 ously into position but comfortably onto the circular bench, 
 and then secures the belt-chain about his waist pulling it 
 so tight that Sligo grunts, then locks it and slips the key into 
 the same right-hand trousers pocket. He then runs the cable- 
 chain under the belt-chain and takes a hitch with the cable- 
 chain round the tree the big central oak. He then locks the 
 cable-chain, and slips the key into the aforesaid pocket. He 
 then steps back, and views the spectacle. He smiles and 
 says) : 
 
 Stutfield: "Ha! ha! Pat." (Waving his hand to him). 
 "I know you can't hear me or see me but I can't help that." 
 (Stutfield goes close to Sligo and attempts, but without 
 success, to prize the left ear-muffler slightly away from his 
 ear) : "Wedge has done his work well you can': 
 budge that muffler without bringing Pat's head along with 
 it." (After casting a piercing glance at every quarter of the 
 compass) "This is the loneliest spot in Westchester County. 
 So there's no fear in speaking aloud so long as Mr. Patrick 
 Sligo is the only one to overhear so here goes:" (Raising his 
 voice somewhat, and putting his mouth close to Sligo's left 
 ear). "Ta! ta ! Pat, I'll meet you in a better world where 
 the Lunacy Laws, presumably, are more legal and equitable 
 than in New York just at present. So long, Pat! Be good 
 to yourself." (With great deliberation and pausing between 
 each word) WHO'S LOONEY NOW?" 
 
 (Hasty footsteps with a military beat are now heard in 
 the wood and Captain Cariston appears followed, in single file, 
 by three men, of tall, martial bearing, wearing soft, black felt 
 hats the same Captain Cariston wears, dressed, all four, 
 in gray sack-suits resembling Confederate gray. The men 
 are all grizzled, but wear moustaches only. Stutfield instant 
 ly turns, and gives a half military salute to Captain Cariston 
 who returns it, with a correct, stiff military salute. The men 
 halt and form a line left-dress towards the Captain and 
 stand at "attention" looking straight ahead of them. No one 
 speaks. Captain Cariston turns to the man nearest him 
 and motions to him. The latter steps forward, and. from un 
 der a yellow rain-coat over his arm, produces a .44 calibre, 
 ivory-handled, Colt revolver and full belt of cartridges, and 
 passes them to Stutfield. whose face lights up, and who smiles
 
 97 
 
 exultingly as his hand reaches the weapon, and he instantly 
 straps on the belt his sack coat is cut low enough to com 
 pletely hide the muzzle of the pistol. As soon as Stutfield 
 buckles on the weapon and raises his eyes to Captain Caris- 
 ton in front of him the latter raises his right fore-finger and 
 points having attracted Stutfield's attention to his own left 
 side, lifting his coat-flap and disclosing a .44 calibre Colt re 
 volver and belt of cartridges, similar to Stutfield's except 
 that the other revolver has a wooden handle instead of ivory 
 Stutfield gravely bows his head in sign of approval. Captain 
 Cariston then turns to his men and raises his right fore 
 finger. He then points to his revolver and makes a sharp up 
 ward gesture away from it. The three men promptly with 
 their left hands simultaneously lift the left flaps of their 
 sack coats, and disclose revolvers and cartridge belts, similar 
 in every particular to the Captain's. Just at this moment a 
 light step is heard, and Viola Cariston, dressed in a dark 
 green travelling dress of the period, appears. The Captain 
 frowns. The three men preserve their stern, impassive, set 
 expression. Stutfield's face lights up with joy as he springs 
 towards her but utters no word. She says nothing, but bur 
 ies her head on his breast, and bursts into silent weeping, as he 
 folds her in his arms, and rests her head on his shoulder, and 
 pats her back as a Mother does a sobbing child. He does not 
 offer to kiss her, nor she him. He has stood thus for about 
 half a minute, during which time Viola has been shaken with 
 utterly noiseless sobs and has not raised her head when Cap 
 tain Cariston frowns again, and pulls out his watch, and hast 
 ily stepping up to Viola, takes her gently by the left arm and 
 leads her away as he does so, she puts her face in the hollow 
 of her right arm and so screens it from the audience and 
 everyone else. Her sobs have nearly ceased. The Captain 
 slowly and tenderly leads her away. Stutfield falls in si 
 lently behind. The others fall in after him. in Indian file, 
 and silently file into the wood to the right and disappear.) 
 
 End of Robbery Under Law.
 
 EPILOGUE 
 To 
 
 "ROBBERY UNDER LAW" 
 
 Chorus loquitur. 
 
 The Muse will now conduct thee to a time 
 
 The counterpart of ours for lust of gold. 
 
 The counterpart of ours for every crime 
 
 That in the Rogue his Calendar is told. 
 
 But one great virtue hath this older day 
 
 The time of Catiline and antique Rome 
 
 Men had the nerve their hands Vth 1 game to play 
 
 Free from Hypocrisy's vile nasal drone. 
 
 Minus said change, man's nature shows no change 
 
 From time of Catiline to time of now ; 
 
 And in these pages the Muse hath her range 
 
 Fro' th' Vale of Love to th' Alpine heights of Woe! 
 
 Truth is her motto truth to History 
 
 And truth to human nature too pardie!
 
 A PLAY IN THREE ACTS 
 
 TIME 
 
 The Last Days of the Roman Republic 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN ARMSTRONG CHALONER 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 SCORPIO
 
 PROLOGUE 
 To 
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE. 
 
 Chorus loquitur. 
 
 THE HEIR OF SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 The grand Mario vian line is surely mine 
 
 'Tis Marlowe's heir we are more than Shakspeare's 
 
 But Shakspeare's Psychology is mine my mine! 
 
 For th' rest we're Marlowe plus our riper years. 
 
 Thus th' English drama's incarnate in me 
 
 Of its two Prophets we the mantle wear 
 
 Shakspeare's knowledge of man therein you see 
 
 Whilst Marlowe's thunder fills the ambient air. 
 
 With Marlowe's passion doth fill up our cup 
 
 Of his heroic mould our heroes be 
 
 While Passion's cup our heroines fill up 
 
 The truth of this the d dest fool may see. 
 
 "Deep calleth unto deep" within our plays 
 
 And Marlowe's lightning on Shakspeare's moonlight plays.
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 A Drama in Three Acts. 
 
 Dramatis Personae. 
 
 Lucius SERGIUS CATILINE, Plead of the Conspiracy to over 
 throw the Roman Republic. 
 
 CAIUS JULIUS CAESAR, Candidate for Pon- 
 tifex Maximus. 
 
 MARCUS CRASSUS, The richest Roman of 
 Antiquity. 
 
 MARCUS CORNELIUS LENTULUS, Patrician, 
 Praetor (Chief Justice] of Rome. 
 
 Conspirators with 
 Catiline. 
 
 CAIUS CETHEGUS, Patrician. 
 
 CAIUS SULLA, Patrician, nephew of the 
 Dictator Sulla. 
 
 QUINTUS CURIUS, Patrician. 
 
 MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO, Consul. 
 
 CAIUS VALERIUS CATULLUS, The great Roman lyric Poet. 
 
 CAIUS SALLUSTIUS CRISPUS, Known to modern times as Sal- 
 lust" Roman Historian, Author of "The Conspiracy 
 of Catiline." 
 
 PUBLIUS CLODIUS, Patrician, Democratic Politician; Organizer 
 and Leader af a Band of Gladiators with which he 
 terrorizes his Political Rivals. 
 
 TITUS ANNIUS MILO, Patrician, Republican or Senatorial-poli 
 tician; Organizer and Leader of a Band of Gladiator* 
 in Opposition to Clodius. 
 
 SPARTACUS, Lieutenant of Clodiu^ Band. 
 
 VETTIUS, A JSpy in the pay of ^Cicero. 
 
 A SOOTHSAYER. 
 
 AURELIA ORESTILLA, Wife of Catiline. 
 
 CLODIA, Sister of Clodius, Mistress of 'Catullus. 
 
 FULVIA, Mistress of Quintus Curius. 
 
 SENATORS, CITIZENS, GLADIATORS AND SOLDIERS. 
 
 TIME: The last days of the Eoman Republic. 
 PLACE: Rome.
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 ACT I. SCENE I. 
 
 A Seclud.ed Street In Rome. 
 Time: Forenoon. 
 
 Enter Catiline alone, dressed in a toga. 
 
 Cat: Now by the Gods I'll do a deed of blood 
 
 That certes shall trump my fame to the world's end. 
 
 That shall the name of Catiline surround 
 
 With nimbus dread of horror, and black death, 
 
 With divine cloud of rapine and revenge, 
 
 That knows no equal this side Phlegethon! 
 
 Methinks I see the city now aflame 
 
 This haughty city, this proud conquering Rome. 
 
 Who sets her foot upon wide-breathing earth 
 
 And bids the world yield tribute to her lust. 
 
 Ha ! Thou great harlot I shall make thee writhe 
 
 Squirm and contort thyself in Hellish pain 
 
 When once my plans swift ripening gather head. 
 
 Then let the haughty Senators beware 
 
 Those iron fools who know no law but gain 
 
 Whose daily thought and daily care are but 
 
 How t' cause their crop of sesterce to increase 
 
 To see two coin where was but one before. 
 
 My purpose is to seize the government 
 
 Snatch her grand reins from out the feeble hands 
 
 Of Cicero, that old wife in man's garb. 
 
 That self-sufficient upstart with a tongue 
 
 A silver tongue I'll grant but only tongue 
 
 Sans heart, sans eyes, sans skill sans all but tongue. 
 
 A bigger coward never walked abroad 
 
 Than that same smug-faced parvenu-poltroon. 
 
 Some lusty spirits have I now in train 
 
 Caesar that easy bold voluptuary 
 
 Whose heart's as cold as his dark lusts are hot
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 Whose breath is power no matter how come by 
 
 Whose morals are as easy as his ways. 
 
 Suave, smooth, polite, e'er cordial Caesar is, 
 
 An easy-going, smooth, good-natured man 
 
 But o' th' share o' th' spoil his must the lion's be. 
 
 But master ne'er hath met this Catiline. 
 
 Fierce Caius Cethegus that soul of steel ! 
 
 Ne'er saw I yet a firmer heart than his 
 
 Danger's the trumpet that doth rouse his soul ! 
 
 And Sulla brother might be to Cethegus 
 
 So firm his spirit and so sure his soul 
 
 The brightest jewels in my carcanet 
 
 A ruby and a diamond they gleam ! 
 
 Mark Crassus cometh next into our ken. 
 
 A cold and calculating business-man 
 
 Whose every thought is for his money-bags. 
 
 But these same money-bags do have their use 
 
 When 't comes to paying troops to win our cause. 
 
 Next a bold spirit Quintus Curius 
 
 Of proud ancestry and of courage high 
 
 But curst mercurial and giv'n to talk. 
 
 But if Adversity can steel the soul 
 
 And burn out weakness in the fires of woe 
 
 No man should be more firm than Curius. 
 
 Last the slow-moving haughty Lentulus. 
 
 The weakest blade in all my armoury 
 
 But great his station and grand his mighty gens 
 
 Cornelian Sulla's own my late great chief's, 
 
 With such a galaxy of jewels rare 
 
 I'll deck my diadem of Lord of Rome 
 
 Hist ! Who comes here followed by martial tramp ? 
 
 Enter Clodius Fully Armed at the Head o\f his Band of 
 Gladiators, also Fully Armed with Sword and Shield. 
 
 Well met bold son of Mars, well met. I say. And you 
 stout fellows (Making a Militant Salute to the Gladi 
 ators who, Drawing Swords and Saluting Catiline. 
 form a Line of Battle across the Stave and Stand at 
 "Attention" with Drawn Swords} bid ye welcome, 
 too.
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 Clod.: My Catiline, how wags the world with thee? 
 Cat.: E'en passing well, bold Clodius, passing well. 
 Clod. : 'Tis well. Hast any news to tender me to-day ? 
 Cat. : None, Clodius, none. The times with me are dull. 
 Clod. : Ha ! Say you so. Methought that Catiline 
 
 Ne'er rested day or night from plot or scheme pardie. 
 Cat.: Than Catiline is no man more maligned 
 
 Believe me Clodius, none not one sole one. 
 Clod.: Well, I must jog for Milo is agog. 
 
 His band doth prowl the Forum, so I'm told. 
 Cat.: Be cautious how you clash with that same man. 
 
 Your band's too precious to be risked in brawl. 
 Clod.: We know our worth eh soldiers? 
 Gladiators: (Clashing their Swords against their Shields] 
 
 That we do ! 
 Cat. : I'll jog with you my home you know's hard by. 
 
 (Catiline and Clodius put themselves at the Head of the 
 Band and exeunt). 
 
 ACT I. SCENE II. 
 
 Garden In The House Of Catullus. 
 Time: Afternoon. About Sunset. Same Day. 
 
 Clodia Reclining on a Couch under an Arbour Embow 
 ered in Roses to the right of the stage, Catullus Kneeling by 
 her Side. 
 
 Catul.: My sweetest girl my soul doth lone: for thee, 
 As longs the winter for the summer's sun. 
 
 Clo. : For shame my lusty Cains for shame now 
 
 Thou knowest that thou liest when thou speak'st, 
 For I full well do know thy truant mind 
 And how thou soarest like a bird of prey 
 E'er spying out some victim from on high, 
 Thou know'st that I speak truth thou know'st I do. 
 
 Catul.: Clodia, my darling, how cans't thou torture me? 
 How cans't thou turn the knife within the wound 
 Which thy sweet beauty makes within my heart?
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 Clo. : Because, my Gains, it doth pleasure me 
 
 To see thy precious face distraught with woe. 
 
 You must remember that I female am, 
 
 And therefore pain and pleasure e'er go hand in hand. 
 
 Pain starts the pleasure, pleasure stops the pain 
 
 What one begins the other stops withal 
 
 Provided always that sweet love is there; 
 
 Sweet love, that high priest of all mystery, 
 
 That magic solvent which dissolves all doubts, 
 
 All fears all shudderings o' th' fearful soul. 
 
 So kiss me, Caius, kiss me and forget 
 
 That e'er thy Clodia dared to ruffle thee. 
 
 Catul. : (Embracing and Leaning Over Her} 
 Ah! Clodia, darling, thou dost fire my soul 
 With all the joys and pangs that Ecstacy 
 E'er .gathered in her hand to terrify, 
 And joy the lovers who did worship her. 
 
 Clo.: Dear Caius, my heart bleeds to tear thee thus, 
 To tear thy generous and fiery soul, 
 That I may hear thy poet's words gush forth 
 Like drops of blood from out thy tortured heart, 
 But trust me, Caius, I do love thee so, 
 That didst thou guess the sum thou'dst happy be. 
 So kiss me, darling, and forgive me sweet. 
 
 Catul. : Kiss thee, my love ! Would that the rest of life 
 Did but consist of kissing thy rich lips, 
 Those lips, that like the petals of the rose, 
 Unfold upon the impress of the sun. 
 (Kisses her}. 
 
 Clo. : My Caius, thou dost make me almost wish 
 That I were maid once more and free to wed. 
 You start. Perchance you wonder at my words, 
 Perchance you wonder that I do not yearn 
 To be a maid once more and know no more 
 Of Love and her sweet mysteries divine, 
 Than did your Clodia ere she married was. 
 You men do know no more of a sweet maiden's thoughts 
 Of a sweet maiden gently nurtured, nobly raised, 
 Than men do know what the Immortals think 
 Of what vast thoughts do pass thro' Jove's great brain,
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 Or enter the calm mind of Juno queen 
 
 Of all the heavenly host Olympus-ward. 
 
 No Caius, man's gross mind can never guess, 
 
 The vague dim thoughts that paint a maiden's dream, 
 
 Her dream of Love of Love and Mystery 
 
 The mystery of Passion and the pangs 
 
 That hover o'er the door that bars the heart ! 
 
 You men being but men guess not the things 
 
 That make up love in a pure maiden's soul; 
 
 Such being so you wonder why I wish 
 
 To be a maid of innocence once more 
 
 Instead of what I am, a Roman's wife, 
 
 And at the time a Roman poet's love. 
 
 A Roman wife in these degenerate days 
 
 When the Republic staggers to her fall 
 
 Must needs have lovers or be bored withal 
 
 Unless that husband mayhap be a man 
 
 Who towers to the height of Catiline, 
 
 That giant schemer in affairs of State, 
 
 And dare-devil gambler in affairs of death! 
 
 A man like Catiline of his great mold 
 
 Might well amuse whimseyist-mooded maid 
 
 That e'er exchanged a snood for matron's garb 
 
 Catul. : Ha ! There you stab, Clodia, to the heart, 
 I have been patient witness that I have 
 I let you name that fiend and held my peace, 
 But now I cry you mercy. Hold ! Enough. 
 
 Clo. : Fiend ! And for what! For putting his just rights 
 Of life and death upon his son in force ? 
 The law allows that he's sole judge of that. 
 Well now let's glimpse the son. A sullen lout, 
 Mulish and obstinate as Spanish mule, 
 Timid withal, and sure to bring disgrace 
 Upon the noble name of Catiline if 'd lived. 
 Cold hearted, churlish, dull and weak he was 
 As ever yet saw I in man's shape stand. 
 How Catiline e'er FathereM such a clown 
 The God's in their omniscience only know. 
 Aurelia Orestilla, Catiline 
 Did love. His wife being dead he wooed her.
 
 THE HAZARD OP THE DIE 
 
 Aurelia proud and haughty as her name 
 Exalted as her rank, high as her wealth, 
 Despised the prospect of such incubus 
 And frankly told bold Catiline her views 
 Either his son must go or his love-suit. 
 A recent quarrel one of many brawls 
 Twixt brilliant parent and most brutish son 
 Furnished the impulse needed for the deed 
 And the earth closed over that dark episode. 
 I grant you it sounds hard, hard as the name 
 Of Roman ever stood before the world. 
 But law is law, and law backs Catiline. 
 
 Catul. : So help me Mercury ! My Clodia 
 Ne'er heard I yet a pleader at the bar, 
 I bar not one! Not Julius Caesar aye! 
 Nor great Hortensius, nor Cicero, 
 Not Marcus Tullius, the voice of Rome, 
 Ne'er heard I orator to equal thee 
 In daring, in audacity and skill 
 At championing a case most desperate. 
 
 Clo. : The cause is not so desperate as it sounds. 
 The law that gives the Parent right of life 
 And death o'er his own offspring that is desperate 
 As desperate a law as e'er was born 
 In the foul purlieus of the human heart. 
 But I must leave thee my Valerius 
 And to my stolid husband haste me home. 
 
 Catul. : 'Tis well my sweet since Cicero doth come 
 Accompanied by suave Sallustius 
 To consult with me o'er some recent things 
 Which each within his separate domain 
 Of letters hath achieved by his Muse. 
 
 Clo.: Farewell and Venus keep thee till we meet again. 
 
 Catul. : (Embracing her as she rises and moves off the stage}- 
 Farewell my heart to Jove I thee commend. 
 
 (Exit Clodia). 
 
 (Taking a Roll of Manuscript \from a Small Table near)- 
 Let me now seize the few swift bits of time 
 That vet remain ere mentor Cicero
 
 10 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 And smooth Sallustius Crispus shall appear. 
 
 (Plunges into the Manuscript after Seating Himself on 
 
 the Empty Couch. 
 
 Enter Cicero and Caius Sallustius Crispus, Preceded by 
 Lictors Bearing Fasces. Catullus Rises and Greets 
 each ^Cordially. Each Seats Himself on a Chair and 
 P*ulls out a Manuscript from the Folds of his Toga. 
 Catullus After the Couch has been Declined by 
 Each Seats Himself upon Same). 
 Cic. : My worthy poet how inspires the Muse? 
 Catul. : My stern mentor the Muse hath gracious been. 
 Cic.: Prithee salute us with Her music then. 
 Catul.: Right gladly master mine. Lend now thine ear. 
 
 To MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO. 
 "Marcus Tullius, most eloquent of the race 
 Of Romulus, of all that are, that have been 
 And that shall be in future years, Catullus 
 Thanks you heartily, Catullus the worst 
 Of poets as much the worst of poets 
 As you are the best of all advocates."! 
 Cic. : 'Tis well. "Best of all advocates," is well 
 
 That line doth paint thy master and thy friend. 
 That little gem I'll carry to my grave 
 Hand me 't Catullus an you love me now ! 
 
 (Hands Manuscript to Cicero who Smilingly Peruses 
 
 it). 
 
 Catul.: Thine Eloquence hath won thee that small meed 
 Of praise from thy victorious client 
 Through thy force of oratory thy strength 
 Which won his cause which thou didst champion. 
 Sal.: My Catullus that little gem doth shine 
 Like diamond upon finger of a king. 
 Prithee indite me one as brilliant in its gleam. 
 Catul.: With all my heart. Sallustius mark thee now 
 
 (Taking a set of Writing Tablets and Stylus out of a 
 <fold of his Toga and After a Moment's Thought Writ 
 ing) 
 
 tPoem actually written by Catullus to Cicero upon the occasion 
 of the latter's winning a law suit for him. Translation found in 
 Bonn's Library.
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 11 
 
 To CAIUS SALLUSTIUS CRISPUS. 
 "As Cicero doth wield a champion's tongue 
 The tongue of orator and advocate 
 /So o'er Sallusts' door is victor's garland hung 
 As the historian of Rome's mighty State." 
 
 Sal.: (Starting up and Grasping the Tablets}. 
 By Bacchus my Catullus that is fine! 
 As fine a ring hath that as rich a tone 
 As divine Homer's own wave-echoing roar! 
 
 Cic. : He doth not flatter thee I do assert, 
 
 As judge of letters I that judgment give. 
 
 Catul. : (Bowing his acknowledgments}. 
 As favour now I crave a specimen 
 Of what his Muse hath given to each one 
 Since last we did foregather in this place. 
 
 Sal. : Let mighty Cicero be first in this. 
 
 Cic.: Agreed, Sallustius, I'll e'en now begin. 
 
 (Cicero Unfolds the Roll he had Taken from his Toga 
 on Entering and Reads} 
 
 EPITAPH FOR THE TOMB OF MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO. 
 "Here lies the dust of Rome's protecting tongue, 
 Tongue of Marcus Tullius Cicero; 
 Whose accents firm did guide the Ship of State 
 Amidst the perils of these darksome days. 
 Bold were its accents as his heart was firm, 
 Calm and undaunted midst a sea of fears ! 
 A Roman he of antique mold indeed, 
 Who set the fashion of a nobler day." 
 Sal. : As true as modest ! Modest 'tis as true. 
 Catul.: (Aside}. Modest! Ha! (Aloud}. Simplicity itself 
 
 spoke there! 
 
 Give me a man who spurns a flattering tongue, 
 Give me that man I'll name him Cicero ! 
 
 (Cicero Bows ^Complacently. Sallust Glances Furtively 
 at Catullus to Discover Whether the Latter is Jok 
 ing or not. Catullus Preserves a Sphinx-like Coun 
 tenance, and Gravely Continues.} 
 Our mighty master's soul abhors such things 
 His Roman virtue tramples on conceit!
 
 12 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 Catul. : (Aware that Sallust is Watching Him, and to Throw 
 Dust in His Eyes, Catullus Breaks off Sud 
 denly and Turning and Looking Sallust 
 Straight in the Eye with a Sternly Straight 
 Face, says] : 
 
 Sallustius Crispus render up the spoil 
 That thy most mighty Muse vouchsafed to thee. 
 
 (Sallust Bowing and Unfolding the Roll he had 
 taken jrom his Toga reads] : 
 
 Lucius SERGIUS CATILINE. 
 
 f "Lucius Catiline was a man of noble birth, and 
 of eminent mental and personal endowments; 
 but of a vicious and depraved disposition. His 
 delight from his youth, had been in civil com 
 motions, bloodshed, robbery and sedition; and 
 in such scenes he had spent his early years. His 
 constitution could endure hunger, want of 
 sleep, and cold, to a degree surpassing belief. 
 His mind was daring, subtle, versatile, capable 
 of pretending or dissembling whatever he 
 wished. "ff 
 
 tSallust's The Conspiracy of Catiline. (Translation found in 
 Bonn's Library.) 
 
 ttThe preceding year had been marked by the appearance of a 
 man destined to an infamous notoriety, L. Sergius Catilina, familiar 
 to all under the name of Catiline. 
 
 For some time after the death of Sulla the weariness and desire 
 of repose which always follows revolutionary movements had dis 
 posed all men to acquiesce in the rule established by the Dictator. 
 But more than one class of persons found themselves ill at ease. The 
 families proscribed by Sulla cherished the thought that they might 
 recover what they had lost, and the enthusiasm displayed when Caesar 
 restored the trophies of Marius revealed to the Senate the numbers 
 and the reviving hopes of their political enemies. Besides, there were 
 a vast number of persons, formerly attached to Sulla, who shared 
 their discontent. The Dictator left all real power in the hands of a 
 few great families. His own creatures were allowed to amass money, 
 but remained without political power; and soon after his death they 
 found themselves reduced to obscurity. With the recklessness of men 
 who had become suddenly rich, they had squandered their fortunes 
 as lightly as they had won them. These men were for the most part 
 soldiers, and ready for any violence. They only wanted chiefs. These 
 chiefs they found among the profligate members of noble families, 
 who like themselves, were excluded from the counsels of the re 
 spectable, though narrow-minded men, who composed the Senate and 
 administered the government. These were the young nobles, effeminate
 
 13 
 
 Cic. : I must confess scant justice you him do. 
 
 A mighty soul hath Catiline in truth, 
 
 Loyal to friends unto the very death 
 
 A stranger too to pettiness in ought 
 
 To meanness or hypocrisy a foe. 
 
 Kemember his wild youth in Sulla's day 
 
 When blood did flow like water through Rome's 
 streets, 
 
 When bloodshed was the trade of all who lived. 
 
 The times do make the man. Bear that in mind. 
 Sal.: Tis true, great master. What you say is true. 
 
 My Muse did draw the long bow in those lines. 
 Catul. : Permit me to dissent. I praise thy Muse. 
 Cic. : Enough of this, the time draws on apace, 
 
 And I must hence upon affairs of State. 
 Catul. : Farewell great master till we meet again. 
 Cic. : Farewell. 
 Sal.: (To Catullus) - 
 
 Farewell, most eloquent of poet-kings. 
 Catul. : Farewell. 
 
 (Exeunt] . 
 
 and debauched, reckless of blood, of whom Cicero speaks with horror. 
 Of these adventurers Catiline was the most remarkable. He be 
 longed to an old Patrician Gens. A beautiful and profligate lady, by 
 name Aurelia Orestilla, refused his proffered hand because he had a 
 grown-up son by a former marriage ; this son speedily ceased to live. 
 Notwithstanding his crimes, the personal qualities of Catiline gave 
 him great ascendency over all who came in contact with him. His 
 strength and activity were such, that he was superior to the soldiers 
 at their own exercises, and could encounter skilled gladiators with 
 their own weapons. His manners were frank, and he was never known 
 to desert Ms friends. By qualities so nearly resembling virtues, it 
 is not strange that he deceived many, and obtained mastery over 
 more. He had already served as Praetor in the city, had then be 
 come Governor of the Province of Africa. The Students Rome 
 (A History of Rome) By Henry G. Liddell, D. D., Dean of Christ 
 Church, Oxford.
 
 14 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 ACT I. SCENE III. 
 
 The House of Catiline. 
 Time: Dark. Same Day. 
 
 Catiline Discovered Reclining upon a Couch after 
 JSupper. Aurelia Orestilla on Another Couch, 
 Across the Table, opposite him. 
 
 Cat. "Aurelia I grow weary of the world, 
 
 Come twine thy tendril fingers in my hair. 
 
 Aurel. : (Rising and Kneeling Down at the Head of hi* 
 Couch and Gently Stroking his Forehead and 
 Head) 
 
 My Sergius, tell thy sweetheart what is wrong, 
 What goes amiss amidst thy profound plans? 
 
 Cat.: I fear me some rash tongue may spoil the game, 
 Some babbler to his mistress spring the trap, 
 Ere I have gathered in its iron jaws, 
 The purse-proud Senators I angle for. 
 On Quintus Curius I look askance. 
 That gamester-profligate would stake his soul 
 To satisfy that cormorant Fulvia. 
 An did she e'en but guess a plot is on 
 She'd worm it from him e'er the break of day! 
 
 Aurel. : My Sergius, permit me to observe 
 
 That for a man of your vast generalship 
 
 A puzzle-riddle like unto the Sphinx' 
 
 Is set by sight of that man 'midst thy schemes! 
 
 A man whose levity doth battle strong, 
 
 To gain the mastery o'er his impudence, 
 
 Who prates as glibly of his secret things 
 
 As he doth babble those entrusted him. 
 
 My lord, I wonder in mine inmost soul 
 
 Of what you thought when thou didst harbour him. 
 
 Cat.: Aurelia, thou speak'st well. I blundered there. 
 
 Tis thus it came about. When the plot was young, 
 And I had not five names to count upon, 
 Quintus Curius approached me for a loan. 
 His straits and insults at the Senate's hands
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 16 
 
 Which expelled him when it itself was worse 
 Held names more black than Quintus Curius' 
 Did deeply touch my heart. Besides he's brave, 
 Marcus Curius Dentatus' blood's in him 
 The breed the rugged Pyrrhus did confront 
 And for the time at least hate made him stern. 
 Methought his deadly wrongs at the Senate's hands 
 Had nerved his soul forever 'gainst those men 
 That hate would tie his tongue, ballast his mind, 
 And make him worthy of our company. 
 
 Aurel. : I pray the Gods, my Sergius, it be so. 
 
 Cat. : ( Sighing ) 
 
 No earthly interest could divert his mind, 
 His every earthly interest is with us 
 Power, revenge, wealth, fame, and ease and all 
 That makes this weary world a paradise, 
 
 (Taking her Hand and Stroking it}. 
 When there be added to it thy sweet love. 
 
 Aurel.: Dear, my lord, I thank thee for that little word 
 That love crept in with thy dark mind aflame 
 With doubt, and wrestling strong 'gainst treachery 
 Within thy ranks, and yet sweet love crept in. 
 
 Cat. : Thou art the star that lightens my dark life 
 Aurelia. Thy sweet face, thy beauty glorious, 
 Shed o'er my tragic life a ray serene 
 That makes life worth the struggle and the pain 
 That it hath ever been to Catiline. 
 
 (Knocking heard). 
 Who knocks? 
 
 Slave: (Entering and b&wing). 
 
 My lord, six men close-muffled, with their faces hid 
 In their toga-folds, who will not give their names. 
 
 Cat.: (Aside to Aurelia) 
 
 The numbers's right 'tis the Conspirators. 
 
 Aurel.: (Aside to Catiline) 
 
 My lord, had you not best be sure I fear 
 
 Cat.: (Smilingly, aside)
 
 16 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 Assassination? There be no six in Rome, 
 E'en gladiators dare that contract sign.f 
 
 tTHE DEATH OF CATILINE. 
 
 tCatiline, when he saw that he was surrounded by mountains and 
 by hostile forces, that his schemes in the city had been unsuccessful, 
 and that there was no hope either of escape or of succour, thinking 
 it best, in such circumstances, to try the fortune of a battle, resolved 
 upon engaging, as speedily as possible, with Antonius. Having, there 
 fore, assembled his troops, he addressed them in the following manner: 
 
 LVIII. "I am well aware soldiers, that words cannot inspire 
 courage; and that a spiritless army cannot be rendered active, or a 
 timid army valiant, by the speech of its commander. Whatever courage 
 is in the heart of a man, whether from nature or from habit, so much 
 will be shown by him in the field; and on him whom neither glory 
 nor danger can move, exhortation is bestowed in vain; for the terror 
 in his breast stops his ears. 
 
 "I have called you together, however, to give you a few instruc 
 tions, and to explain to you, at the same time, my reasons for the 
 course which I have adopted 
 
 "Whithersoever we would go, we must open a passage with our 
 swords. I conjure you, therefore, to maintain a brave and resolute 
 spirit; and to remember, when you advance to battle, that on your 
 own right hands depend (In dextris portare, "That you carry in your 
 right hands") riches, honour, and glory, with the enjoyment of your 
 liberty and of your country. If we conquer, all will be safe; we shall 
 have provisions in abundance; and the colonies and corporate towns 
 will open their gates to us. But if we lose the victory through want 
 of courage, those same places will turn against us; for neither place 
 nor friend will protect him whom his arms have not protected." 
 
 "We might, with the utmost ignominy, have passed the rest of our 
 days in exile. Some of you, after losing your property, might have 
 waited at Rome for assistance from others. But because such a life, 
 to men of spirit, was disgusting and unendurable, you resolved upon 
 your present course. If you wish to quit it, you must exert all your 
 resolution, for none but conquerors have exchanged war for peace. To 
 hope for safety in flight, when you have turned away from the enemy 
 the arms by which the body is defended, is indeed madness. In battle, 
 those whd are most afraid are always in most danger; but courage 
 is equivalent to a rampart. 
 
 "When I contemplate you, soldiers, and when I consider your 
 past exploits, a strong hope of victory animates me. Your spirit, your 
 age, your valour, give me confidence; to say nothing of necessity, 
 which makes even cowards brave. To prevent the numbers of the 
 enemy from surrounding us, our confined situation is sufficient. But 
 should fortune be unjust to your valour, take care not to lose your 
 lives unavenged; take care not to be taken and butchered like cattle, 
 rather than, fighting like men, to leave your enemies a bloody and 
 mournful victory." 
 
 LDL When he had thus spoken, he ordered, after a short delay, 
 the signal for battle to be sounded, and led down his troops, in regu 
 lar order, to the level ground. Having then sent away the horses of 
 all the cavalry, in order to increase the men's courage by making 
 their danger equal, he himself, on foot, drew up his troops suitably 
 to their numbers and the nature of the ground.
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 Aurel. : (Regaining her usual calm air} 
 
 I know thy prowess and I fear no more 
 Thou hast recalled the fame of Catiline. 
 
 (Catiline rises and \Conducts Her to the Door, Kiss 
 ing her Hand as he Leaves Her.} 
 (To slave} : You may admit the men. 
 Slave: I go, my lord. 
 
 (Exit) 
 
 As a plain stretched between the mountains on the left, with a 
 rugged rock on the right, he placed eight cohorts in front, and sta 
 tioned the rest of his force, in close* order, in the rear. 
 
 LK. When he had made a complete survey, he gave the signal 
 with the trumpet, and ordered the cohorts to advance slowly. The 
 army of the enemy followed his example; and when they approached 
 BO near that the action could he commenced by the light-armed troops, 
 both sides, with a loud shout, rushed together in a furious charge. 
 They, threw aside their missiles, and fought only with their swords. 
 The veterans, calling to mind their deeds of old, engaged; fiercely in 
 the closest combat. The enemy made an obstinate resistance; and 
 both sides contended with the utmost fury, Catiline during this time, 
 was exerting himself with his light troops in the front, sustaining 
 such as were pressed, substituting fresh men for the wounded, attend 
 ing to every exigency, charging in person, wounding many an enemy, 
 and performing at once the duties of a valiant -soldier and a skilful 
 general. 
 
 Manlius and the Faesulan, sword in hand, were among the first 
 that fell; and Catiline, when he saw his army routed, and himself left 
 with a few supporters, remembering his birth and former dignity, 
 rushed into the thickest of the enemy, where he was slain, fighting to 
 the last. 
 
 LXI. When the battle was over, it was plainly seen what bold 
 ness, and what energy of spirit, had prevailed throughout the army 
 of Catiline; for, almost everywhere, every soldier, after yielding up 
 \is breath, covered with his] corpse the spot which he had occupied 
 when alive. A few, indeed, whom the praetorian cohort had dispersed, 
 had fallen somewhat differently, but all with wounds in front. Catiline 
 himself was found, far in advance of his men, among the deadl bodies 
 of the enemy; he was not quite breathless, and still expressed in his 
 countenance the fierceness" of spirit which he had shown during his 
 life. Of his whole army, neither in the battle nor in flight, was any 
 free-born citizen made prisoner, for they had spared their own lives 
 no more than those of the enemy. 
 
 Nor did the army of the Roman people obtain a joyful or blood 
 less victory; for all their bravest men were either killed in the battle, 
 or left the field severely wounded. 
 
 The Conspiracy of Catiline Sallust (Bohn's Library)-
 
 18 
 
 Cat: Now for a wizard's eye to plumb the souls 
 Of these six men who hold my life in fee ! 
 
 (Enter Julius Caesar, Marcus Crassus, Marcus Cor 
 nelius Lentulus, Caius Cethegus, Caius Sulla, and 
 Quintus Curius, All Closely Muffled). 
 Will ye have couches brought? 
 Caes. : A chair for me a curule magistracy ! 
 Cras. : \ 
 Ceth.: / 
 Sul ' S ^ curu ^ e cna i r f r all 'twill suit us all. 
 
 Cur.: 
 
 Lent.: Not me, no chair was ever built suits me. 
 
 Cat.: Take then the couch. I'll bear thee company. 
 
 (The Conspirators seat themselves upon Ivory 
 Chairs Inlaid ivith G*old, standing against the 
 walls. Lentulus reclining slowly upon the couch 
 recently occupied by Aurelia. Catiline says: 
 "Bring wine." The slave makes an obeisance, 
 disappears and almost immediately reappears 
 bearing an Amphora, which he places upon the 
 table before Catiline. He is followed by seven 
 other brawny slaves each bearing a large Silver 
 Goblet in his right hand, while in his left he 
 bears an Earthen-Ware Vessel filed with 
 water. This each slave sets by the side of the 
 Goblet before each man at table. The Major- 
 Domo, or first slave, then marshals his men and 
 awaits orders from Catiline. Catiline observing 
 them, silently dismisses them with a wave of the 
 hand. So soon as the door closes the Conspira 
 tors discover their features. Catiline rises and 
 goes the rounds of the table warmly grasping 
 both hands of each Conspirator as he greets him. 
 As he grasps those of Quintus Curius he gazes 
 intently into his eyes with concentrated penetra 
 tion. Curius returns the gaze frankly and un 
 abashed. Catiline renews the pressure of his 
 hands on those of the former and suppresses 
 swiftly a rising sigh of relief. He then resumes 
 hi$ place at the table.
 
 19 
 
 Rising and saluting -first Caesar, then Crassus, 
 then Lentulus, then Cethegus, then Sulla, and 
 then Curius, turns to Caesar, and says) 
 
 Prithee, be master of the feast to-night. 
 Caes. : Right gladly, Sergius, shall I take that post. 
 
 (Catiline thereupon pushes the Amphora until it 
 JStops b&fore Caesar's chair. Catiline then re 
 clines and Caesar, after pouring out about half 
 a Goblet of wine from the Amphora and misting 
 it one-half with water from the Vessel for that 
 purpose by Ms place, takes the Goblet in both 
 hands and says before draining the up] 
 
 "I pour libation for the feast to-night." 
 
 (Immediately thereafter each Conspirator rises and 
 walks with his Goblet to Caesar's side, who takes 
 the Goblet and fills it half full o\f wine. Each 
 Conspirator thereupon regains his seat and pours 
 in the proportion of water his taste suggests to 
 dilute the wine generally about one-half the 
 amount of water that his Goblet held of wine. 
 Caesar having replenished his Goblet as before, 
 and diluted same, he and all the Conspirators rise 
 and hold their Goblets extended in both hands 
 elevated before them to the full stretch of the 
 arms. Caesar then says solemnly) 
 
 As master of this solemn feast to-night, 
 
 I pour libation in the name of all 
 
 Unto the God we now invoke dread Mars. 
 
 (All Solemnly Drain their Goblets, Replenish them 
 as before, and, now that the Religious Ceremo 
 nies so to speak have been Performed, each 
 Helps Himself Rising 'for that Purpose from 
 the Mighty Amphora as his needs suggest and 
 Without Further Formality. Upon their Re 
 gaining their Respective Seats after Caesar's Du 
 ties as Master o\f the Feast had been Discharged, 
 Catiline once more Rises and Says) 
 Cat.: My noble friends our matters move apace. 
 
 Our bold lieutenant, Caius Manlius 
 
 Racked by our stern ally the Faesulan
 
 20 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 Hath Faesulse and all Etruria 
 
 Ready to burst in flame upon our sign; 
 
 But yesterday a letter reached me 
 
 From this bold spirit bearing this good news. 
 
 (Murmurs of Approval from the Conspirators). 
 Two Legions full hath he, and fully armed, 
 Of ancient complement six thousand men 
 Each ten cohorts six hundred men doth boast. 
 No army's to be found in Italy 
 Save only ours under stout Manlius. 
 Slow Pompey in the East would have no time 
 To balk our soldiers ere the prize were won. 
 Fair Fortune smiles. The sacred eagle screams, 
 (Pointing first to Caesar and then to a Silver Eagle 
 on Top of an Old Roman Standard of the Le 
 gions with an Altar of Marble built about its 
 Base, Standing at the Head o\f the Room.) 
 The eagle that thine Uncle Marius 
 Did lead against the Cimbri and Teutons 
 And there did give him glorius victory. 
 All's ready in the field. Here only here 
 Here in old Rome there's much remains to do. 
 That much is dark. That much d-oth chill the blood, 
 E"*en mine, who, as a youth, called Sulla, lord, 
 And therefore took part in the massacres 
 That made run purple all the streets of Rome 
 I see you move uneasy in your seats. 
 
 Caes. : Bold Catiline, thy words precurse grim things. 
 
 Cat. : What if they do, no bolder gambler's here 
 
 Amidst this chosen band slow culled by me, 
 From Rome's most daring spirits and her best 
 Her bluest-blooded men of high renown, 
 Who worship Fortune and none other God 
 Save Mars and Mercury from time to time 
 As their occasions turn towards war or gold 
 No bolder gambler's found amongst this band 
 Of chosen spirits for a high emprise 
 A band that boasts e'en Caius Cethegus 
 
 (Pointing at Cethegus). 
 No bolder spirit can be found than Caesar's.
 
 21 
 
 Caes. : Ye do me honour, mighty Catiline, 
 
 Thou before whom Rome cowers to a man ! 
 Save this most worthy company here met, 
 
 (Smiling and Looking About him). 
 Whom no three gladiators in all Rome 
 Dare face in the arena sword to sword; 
 Whom no three soldiers dare draw sword against. 
 
 Cat. : You do me honour Caesar. To proceed. 
 
 Ye know the time is ripe to do great deeds 
 Great deeds are born in blood ye all know that. 
 
 (The Conspirators all Solemnly Bow in Assent] . 
 As blood doth mark man's coming in this world, 
 As man doth leave his Mother clothed in blood, 
 So mighty deeds do leave dread Action's womb 
 Glitt'ring and dripping o'er with ruby blood. 
 Ye know that life in Rome to-day doth hang 
 Uncertain-wayward as a weathercock. 
 Ye know that property hath hold as frail 
 Since property dependeth on the law, 
 And law for utterance depends on man, 
 On a base judge, whom you or I may buy; 
 Provided, only, we^ve his price withal 
 My good friend, Crassus, why that crafty smile? 
 
 Cras. : Because you speak from knowledge, Catiline. 
 
 Cat. : What if I do, friend Crossus minor, thou 
 Hast bought a score of judges to my one 
 For the best reason that this world doth hold 
 You had th' occasion and you had the cash 
 
 Ceth. : He had you there, Mark Crassus had you there ! 
 
 (Laughing. All Join in the Laugh But Crassus, 
 who Says Nothing and Looks Gloomy.} 
 
 Cat. : Thy gloomy looks speak louder than could words 
 T' unfold the goodly sums you've sunk in courts, 
 To show blind Justice the right way to go. 
 But pardon me, my worthy Senator, 
 And take no offence from my friendly words. 
 We all are bound like brothers to a cause, 
 And each will bear from others brothers all! 
 
 Caes.: Well said, my Catiline, friend Crassus here 
 
 Harbours no umbrage in his valiant breast.
 
 22 
 
 Cras. : Caesar thou sayest well. I did but muse 
 Upon investments that I have in hand, 
 The name of money starts me like a hound 
 To plunge upon the slot and track to lair. 
 
 Cat. : 'Tis well. Indictment 'gainst vile Rome I now re 
 sume. 
 
 Ye know that the Republic is no more. 
 Her for good or ill Marius did kill, 
 Sulla thereafter held her funeral. 
 
 Caes. : Well put and true. My uncle, Marius, 
 
 Was not sole cause of this sad state of things, 
 Great Sulla bears the burden half and half. 
 
 Sul. ; ril share the onus of my uncle's act, 
 
 Nought did he do that I do not approve. 
 
 Caes.: My good friend, Sulla, no offence is meant, 
 Those deeds are buried in oblivion; 
 We nephews should not quarrel o'er the parts 
 That our great forbears played in history. 
 
 Cur.: No more then I at this late date should slur 
 Greece because Dentatus, my grim ancestor, 
 Did shake the phalanx rugged Pyrrhus led. 
 
 Cat.: Well spoken, Curiusf I now resume 
 
 Lent. : Not till I say that 'twixt these men I stand 
 Twixt Caesar and my kinsman, Sulla, here 
 As stands a Father 'twixt his own true sons. 
 No man for the Dictator holds more pride 
 Than doth Marcus Cornelius Lentulus; 
 But for our Caesar here, none hath more love 
 Than this descendant of the Scipios. 
 
 Sul.: Cousin, ne'er fear for me. No grudge e'er lurked 
 Within that care-free chest a Sulla's breast 
 Caesar my hand in token of my love. 
 
 (Extending his hand in Caesar's direction across 
 the table). 
 
 Caes.: (Starting up from, his chair and grasping it) 
 And mine my Sulla of tny amity. 
 
 Cat. (Smiling happily) 
 
 The mighty waves that recent threatened foam, 
 Have now i' th' ocean's bosom found their home.
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 23 
 
 Cur.: (Laughing good humouredly] 
 
 Affairs wag well when dire stern Catiline 
 Doth offer incense to the magic Nine. 
 Cat. : As I have said, the only rub is here, 
 
 And to rub that rub out, my noble friends, 
 Will call for hectacomb of Senators! 
 
 (The Entire Body of Conspirators except Catiline 
 Start. Instantly Each Conspirator Becomes Seri 
 ous, and Emotions Running from Fear to Horror 
 Sweep Over the Various Faces. Catiline Calm 
 ly, But Penetratingly, Regards First One Face 
 Until He Has Noted ifs Aspect Then Passing 
 on to the Next. In This Way He has Inspected 
 the Entire Group of Conspirators Before a Word 
 is Uttered, and the Only Sound has been the 
 Deep Tense Breathing of the Conspirators as 
 Catiline's Words Gradually Become Clear to 
 Them; Or Here and There a Profound Sigh. 
 Finally, After He Has Inspected and Dissected 
 the Thoughts and Emotions of Each of the Con 
 spirators, And After Waiting to See // Any One 
 of Them \Cares to Break the Stern Silence, And 
 Upon Finding that No One Showed the Slightest 
 Inclination So To Do, Catiline Begins Slowly, in 
 Low Tones, Freighted With Deep Feeling] 
 Think not mine august friends and colleagues high, 
 Think not ye nobles of world-conquering Rome 
 Coparceners with me in this Conspiracy 
 That to this awful pass I lightly came. 
 No ! Not till o'er the Mountains of Despair 
 My flinty way I'd trod did I it reach. 
 Ye know full well that no Republic stands. 
 'Tis not in human nature that it should 
 That it should stand just simply this demands 
 Each citizen must strive for th' public good. 
 And when did man e'er strive for ought but gold, 
 For place or power or for passion's love? 
 Hence, in Republics every place is sold; 
 Hence in Republics each court's the man above. 
 Under an Empire on the other hand,
 
 24 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 Th' Imperator chooses for the common good. 
 Since the Republic's wealth's his to command; 
 Nought tempts him to do ought, but what he should. 
 Heaven's an Empire ruled by God the King, 
 What's good for Gods, for men is no mean thing! 
 Ceth: Bravo! bold Catiline, the Muses now 
 Inspire thee to lead our minds aright! 
 The diadem full well becomes thy brow, 
 For thy brow this golden circlet blazing bright! 
 (Carried away by impetuosity, instantly Cethegus 
 starts up and darting across the room seizes a 
 Golden Chaplet of Laurel Leaves Wrought in 
 Gold Hanging about the Neck of the Silver 
 Eagle on the Altar Aforesaid. And places Same 
 Upon the Brow of Catiline, Who preserves a 
 Face as Pale as Marble and as Inscrutable All 
 With the Exception of Caesar and Crassus 
 Spring to Their Feet and Shout) 
 Ceth.: ) 
 
 Lent.: i Ave Catilina Imperator! 
 Sul. : ' Hail Catiline our mighty Emperor! 
 Cur.: 
 Cat.: My friends, this honour almost strikes me dumb, 
 
 (Smiling sarcastically). 
 
 As dumb as Julius Caesar or Mark Crassus there. 
 Permit me to observe never had I 
 Or ghost or shadow of a thought of this. 
 Ceth.: Nor I I pledge my word. The Muses spoke! 
 Caes. : (Aside In Profound. Meditation). 
 
 The idea's strange but it doth like me well. 
 This damned Republic bores me to the bone 
 Costs more to buy the votes of Democrats 
 Than my supporters earn in one full year. 
 And 'neath a Monarchy talents do thrive. 
 Which an ingrate Republic starves to death. 
 I'll back my talents and I'll take my chance! 
 
 (Musing) 
 Catiline's no sons and older is than I 
 
 (After a pause) 
 Why should not Caesar succeed Catiline
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 25 
 
 By Mars Pll risk the Hazard of the Die! 
 
 ' (Aloud Jumping to his Feet and Shouting] 
 All hail our Emperor, great Catiline! 
 Pardon my silence but the thought was new. 
 Caesar, I welcome thee amongst the men 
 The Inner Circle that shall rule Eome's state. 
 But still there lags Mark Crassus on the stage. 
 Halting to mount our stage and rule the world ! 
 
 (Aside] 
 This likes me not. / would be emperor, 
 
 (After a pause} 
 
 But then my property would be more safe 
 Under an Empire and I near the King. 
 And who can tell the turn of Fortune's wheel! 
 Catiline's no heir and he might die (With a covert 
 
 smile] who knows (Musing] 
 With Catiline dead then Crassus might be King! 
 
 (Aloud. Rising to his feet] 
 Hail Catiline Imperator! Hail our King! 
 
 (Smiling quietly] 
 
 Good Crassus, thy adherence I accept, 
 And trust thy pause hath cleared thy mind of doubt. 
 It hath my chief it hath upon my soul. 
 Firm do I stand for thy advancement high. 
 And swift as high ! (Seizing a Goblet Filling and 
 Draining it] By Bacchus swift as high! 
 
 (All Save Catiline Filling and Drinking] 
 By Bacchus, swift as high! 
 
 Mine august friends brief words but yet remain. 
 Here is the schedule of our actions dread. 
 Ye know the Senate are mere business-men 
 Intent on gain and little else beside. 
 And with them Liberty is but a name 
 To catch the voter at the polls withal 
 And merely something that one buys and sells. 
 Ye know the fate they would accord to us 
 Did they but know our intents here to-night. 
 Therefore give them the fate they^d hand to us 
 Death is that fate, and death's the fate for them!
 
 26 
 
 (All the Conspirators slowly bow their heads in 
 
 assent). 
 The Marian and Sullan massacres 
 
 (Smiling sarcastically} 
 Afford the precedent the lawyers ask, 
 Afford the "precedent" that Cicero 
 That flat old woman-masquerade of man 
 Is always harping in the Senate House. 
 Now no more would I kill than needs must be 
 To seize the government and work our will. 
 The plan is this. The Senate doth convene 
 Two days from now. 'Tis then the deed's t' be done. 
 Clodius' gladiators with most of us 
 Shall with the Senate work what Fate decrees. 
 The other two with certain chosen men 
 Reserves of Clodius' band tall fellows all 
 Shall fire the city at some dozen spots 
 Wide separate and where the flames can be 
 Easy confined by rasing houses near. 
 This to prevent the people taking sides 
 For or against us in the Senate fray. 
 For their mercurial and shallow minds 
 Will be so taken by the sight of flames 
 That they will run like unto scared dogs 
 To hear the fire crackle V the air! 
 As our friend Crassus hath the most at stake 
 By way of property in this our Rome. 
 He with our Caesar shall this work command. 
 
 (Handing Sheet of Parchment to the guest nearest 
 him to be passed to Crassus sitting with Caesar 
 at the other end of the table}. 
 Here are the stations where the fires start. 
 Now since affairs of men are on the lap 
 Of the high Gods touching their fate on earth 
 The Gods alone know what th' outcome will be. 
 Hence I ne'er chances take unless I must. 
 Therefore give ear Caesar and Crassus there 
 Who now intently study the schediile 
 In case th' affray at th' Senate House goes wrong
 
 27 
 
 We count on thy strong aid to pull us through 
 The straits and shallows that will then ensue. 
 Ye must be friends at court the Senate House 
 And with the people plead our cause with strength. 
 Therefore see to it that ye are not seen 
 About the fires when the flames begin. 
 Entrust that to your freedmen tried and true, 
 Whilst ye from out deep shadows breath commands. 
 Your freedmen, too, must see that they're not seen. 
 But as you through them work through strange 
 
 deputies. 
 
 Our deed once done, bold Manlius moves on Rome, 
 And with his legions awes the Capital. 
 All Italy will rise then as one man 
 For what this side of Hell weighs with success! 
 Nought, noble Catiline, nought on my word, 
 
 (Looking about him} 
 
 I'd like to glimpse a sight of Pompey's face, 
 When he first hears we've mastered Italy. 
 I'd like to meet that pompous cold "new man" 
 That servant of the Senate their smug slave 
 In shock of battle at a legion's head ! 
 
 (Turning towards Catiline) 
 Thy plot's as perfect as a summer's day 
 Spent on the slopes of purple Apennine, 
 I'm all impatience for the game to start 
 
 > And I ! And I ! And I ! All we the same. 
 
 Much would I like to see the game begin, 
 The plot doth please me well so simple, too ! 
 To my mind nought could better this same plot, 
 
 (Pointing to Schedule he has ~been Studying, on 
 
 which the Fire-Stations are set down) 
 The stations chosen are the best in Rome, 
 No buildings of importance on the list 
 And few of serious value to be found; 
 None, by the way, impinge my property. 
 
 (Catiline and the others smile discreetly).
 
 28 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 Cat.: And now, friends, one last word before we part. 
 Be ever armed from this night on sans fail ! 
 Beneath your toga port a strong cuirass, 
 Wear sword at side beneath your togas, too, 
 Thus those who'd harm us shall most surely rue. 
 Caes. : A counsel sage my chief I must confess 
 So Roman am I that to carry arms 
 Within the confines of our ancient Rome 
 Arms aye and armour ne'er'd occur to me. 
 Cras. : Th' advice is good. I've done both more than once. 
 Cat.: In breaking up our conference now, friends 
 
 Till next we meet at time and place I'll send 
 Pour a libation now to Victory, 
 And as we do it face the eagle there. 
 
 (The same Solemn Ceremony that began the Con 
 ference is repeated, Caesar Officiating and as 
 they Simultaneously first Extend at Arms 
 Length, and then Drain their Goblets it is in 
 the Direction of the Silver Eagle on the Altar}. 
 
 ACT II. SCENE I. 
 
 The House Of Cicero. 
 
 Time: Next Day. Morning. 
 
 (Library in Cicero's House. Cicero engaged in 
 Writing Seated at a Table. Lounging nearby 
 are Catullus and Sallust each glancing over a 
 Roll of Manuscript in his hand. A Spy in the 
 Pay of Cicero, one Vettius, is standing at a Dis 
 tance from the Group in an Attitude af Obsequi 
 ous Attention]. 
 Cic. : My worthy Vettius hast ought to say 
 
 In this grave matter against any else? 
 Vet.: So please the Consul yes one other man 
 But he's so high-placed I do fear to ope 
 My lips upon a theme so dangerous.
 
 29 
 
 Cic. : Good Vettius, speak out and know no fear, 
 Know that the Consul Cicero's thy friend, 
 Under my aegis thou may's! safely speak. 
 Vet. : If that be so I now shall ope my mouth, 
 
 But warn your worship that surprise is near. 
 Cic.: (Smiling complacently] 
 
 Surprise is something I do never feel, 
 My mighty station renders me immune. 
 Vet. : The name dread Consul then I'll now impart, 
 'Tis Caius Julius Caesar no man less. 
 '(Cicero shrinks Back with every Sign of Panic 
 Painted on his Features. Catullus and Sallust 
 Drop their Manuscripts onto the Floor in their 
 Amazement, Recalled from their Reading l>y the 
 name of Caesar). 
 Cic.: By all the Gods! Did mine ears hear aright, 
 
 Didst thou just utter Julius Caesar's name? 
 Vet. : I did, great Consul, and I must again 
 
 If the same question thou dost put to me. 
 Catul. : Great master, why permit this wretched thing 
 To soil our friends, the aristocracy? 
 To Catiline, and Sulla, Lentulus, 
 And Cethegus, and Curius, he now 
 Dares to bring in the mighty Julian gens, 
 Methought the gens Cornelian might suffice. 
 Cic. : My worthy pupil you must permit me 
 
 To hold the tiller of the Ship of State. 
 When thou art Consul thou may'st then essay 
 The task you lightly offer to take on. 
 
 (Sallust Conceals a Smile while Catullus Angrily 
 Picks up his \Manuscript and Prepares to Leave). 
 Pardon my frankness, mv most gifted friend, 
 I spoke more pointedly than I had mind. 
 Wound not thy master by departure now, 
 But stay this subject out and then pray give 
 Advice unto thy friend in this sore strait. 
 
 (Catullus bows Silently and Resumes his Reading. 
 Sallust has already Picked Up his Manuscript 
 and is Immersed therein).
 
 30 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 What proof, good Vettius, hast thou in hand 
 To offer in support of this grave charge. 
 Vet.: The same great Consul that I first did give 
 In support of my theme conspiracy 
 To-wit, the letter dropped by Quintus Curius, 
 Bearing the names I just did give to thee 
 Letter addressed to Lucius Catiline 
 Asking that Catiline would straightway set 
 Opposite each name of each conspirator 
 The office and reward he'd give to him 
 When victory did crown their scheme 'gainst Rome. 
 This letter I most strangely have mislaid 
 But trust securely to recover it. 
 Meantime I brought your worship this great news 
 Protected by thy pledge of secrecy. 
 Cic. : What was the tone of this same letter, friend, 
 
 Was't threatening-hostile or mere friendly chaff? 
 Vet.: Twas far from hostile and 'twas far from chaff. 
 It merely stated that he'd like to know 
 "If time permitted the great Catiline" 
 And so forth what I did just state to thee. 
 There's one more name, your worship, on the list, 
 I'll give if thou'lt protect mine humble self. 
 Cic.: Speak without fear, my worthy Vettius. 
 Vet.: Once more I warn thy worship 'gainst surprise. 
 Cic. : How often, Vettius, must I tell thee 
 The Consul is a stranger to surprise. 
 
 (Catullus and Sallust Exchange Smiles, but Re 
 main Silent). 
 
 Vet.: Then mighty Consul Crassus is the man 
 The richest soul the sun doth shine upon. 
 
 (Catullus and Sallust Start back in Amazement 
 and both burst out in Shouts of Derisive Laugh 
 ter. Cicero Turns Pale and Shrinks Back into 
 his Chair in Surprise and Fear. Nothing is 
 Heard for some moment* but the Shouts of 
 Laughter of the Poet and the Historian. Pres 
 ently Catullus Says} 
 
 Catul. : Mehercule! But this thinsr bursts the bounds 
 Of reason and all probability !
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 31 
 
 Mark Crassus, who of all men on this earth 
 Is int'rested in order and calm peace 
 Through his vast holdings and his serried wealth 
 To be mixed up in a conspiracy 
 With men like Catiline and Cethegus 
 Desperate spirits of a former day 
 When Sulla ruled the world and ruled by blood ! 
 Cic. : Good Vettius, I now shall bid thee go. 
 
 Strive to recover that lost letter, friend, 
 And also strive as thou dost ever do 
 To bring rne gossip of the high and low. 
 Meantime no word of this to anyone. 
 
 (Vettius bows in Cringing Fashion and Slinks off 
 Pursued by the Contemptuous Looks af Catullus 
 and Sallust. He has Scarcely Disappeared be 
 fore Female Voices are Heard and Fulvia, Ac 
 companied by her Maid, enters Hurriedly, Pre 
 ceded by an Expostulating Slave). 
 Ful.: (To the Slave) - 
 
 The Consul I will see and instantly! 
 
 (To Cicero ) 
 
 Marcus Tullius I come on things of State 
 And beg thy private ear immediately. 
 
 (Catullus and Sallust Exchange Amused Glances, 
 Bow to Cicero and the Lady who Smilingly Ac 
 knowledges their Salute and Withdraw. Cicero 
 Shows Fulvia to a Chair and then Resumes his 
 Seat. The Maid Remains Standing}. 
 I have no time to waste in social words, 
 A sword suspends above the Commonwealth! 
 
 (Cicero Shivers and Turns Pale}. 
 I see thy manly cheek doth bear the hue, 
 
 ' ( Smiling S areas tically } . 
 That bespeaks interest in the words I say. 
 
 (Cicero Reddens, but says Nothing}. 
 I shall be brief for time doth press amain. 
 (After a Pause and with Embarrassment}. 
 Thou knows't I am the friend of Cnrius. 
 
 (Cicero bows}. 
 Last night he did return at dead of night
 
 32 
 
 In mood most haughty and imperious; 
 
 Ne'er saw I him in mood like that before. 
 
 He said that I had better mind my ways, 
 
 And treat him with the requisite respect, 
 
 "Or my fair head would leave my shoulders swift" 
 
 Cic. : Ha ! Said he so ! Thy news amazeth me. 
 
 Ful. : Not half so much as it did amaze me 
 
 I tell thee, Consul, mine hair stood on end! 
 And then a frolic humour took him straight, 
 
 (Blushing and with Embarrassment). 
 He petted me and fondled me with zeal. 
 When he had done he said, "My pretty dove. 
 Who oft is like the eagle in her rage. 
 If thou art complaisant and good to me 
 Mountains and seas on thee I shall bestow 
 Seas in whose depths lurk pearls of orient 
 That in their lustre the sunset surpass!" 
 
 Cic.: Ha! Thy news in truth sounds strange and ominous. 
 
 Ful. : "Ominous," sayest thou ! Now mark me well. 
 Feeling that something was afoot I set 
 In motion all my woman's arts of guile 
 Played on his passions, fed his vanity, 
 Jostled his jealousy till he did writhe 
 And roar aloud in anguish and in rage! 
 I then did melt and fall into his arms. 
 This turned the trick, and he gave up his soul! 
 Told of a plot the like of ivhich hath ne'er 
 Not since our town of Rome was first laid out 
 So help me Venus, been contrived by man! 
 
 (Cicero Shudders). 
 
 Tis nothing short of make a demon King ! 
 Raise to the purple that fiend Catiline! 
 
 Cic. (Cicero Falls Back in his Chair. Raises his Hands 
 
 to Heaven, and Murmurs Faintly} 
 May all the Gods protect our city Home, 
 And ward the dangers that do now impend ! 
 Great Father Jove defend the Capitol 
 From this most monstrous man. this man of blood, 
 Th' embodied incarnation of all crime !
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 33 
 
 Ful. : (Sneeringly) 
 
 Pray hard, pray Consul, but do not pray too long 
 For this man Catiline doth not waste time; 
 And when he strikes death follows in a trice! 
 (Cicero Recovers his -Composure with Difficulty, 
 /Swallowing /Several Times, and Moistening his 
 Dry Lips with Ms Tongue. Finally he Braces 
 Himself in his Chair, and Assuming an Air of 
 Fortitude, Says somewhat Falteringly) 
 
 Cic. : Pray Fulvia, tell all that thou dost know. 
 
 Ful. : Briefly, 'tis this. This arch-fiend Catiline 
 
 Hath knit a plot whose meshes are so strong 
 That not one man who once is caught therein 
 Hath any hope this side th' Elysian Fields! 
 He with fierce Cethegus and Lentulus, 
 With Caius Sulla and now mark these names 
 With Julius Caesar and Mark Crassus, too, 
 Have formed a plan to seize th' Imperium, 
 To seize all power and vest it in themselves. 
 How't 's to be done, or when, or by whose aid, 
 I have not yet found out. My man waxed sleepy 
 Ere he got to that, and nought that I could do 
 
 (Blushing and Hesitating}. 
 
 Could interest him just turned his back and slept. 
 To-day his mood was changed, and not one word, 
 By hook or crook, could I coax out of him. 
 
 Cic.: One word, fair Fulvia, before you go, 
 Have you and Curius e'er fallen out? 
 
 P ul. : Have we f all'n out ! Have we e^er fallen out ! 
 Why Cicero, if thou didst know the times 
 We have f all'n out thou'dst shake thy sides with 
 mirth. 
 
 Cic.: And might I ask the reason for these wars, 
 The reasons for these merry combatings? 
 
 Ful.: The reason, Consul, was that I did lack 
 
 The means to make life joyous and jocund 
 I did lack gold and know that vile lack still. 
 Twas lack of that drove Joy from out the doors 
 Of Quintus Curius and let Grief in.
 
 34 
 
 I threatened him I'd leave him presently 
 
 Unless he did the needful coin supply 
 
 For all my wants as gently nurtured girl. 
 
 This made him mad almost near turned his brain! 
 
 For he doth love me in his careless way 
 
 He swore he'd find the means to hold my love 
 
 And money did pour in straightway 'tis true 
 
 Borrowed presumably from Catiline, 
 
 Since these two have been friends for long years past. 
 
 Cic. : I see, my girl. Twas love of thy fair face 
 
 Which thou didst warn him nought but gold could 
 
 hold- 
 Did drive thy lover to plunge deep in crime. 
 This thing hath happed before. It is not new. 
 Now here's my plan. I'll keep thee stocked with 
 
 gold- 
 Gold, mind you, taken from the Treasury 
 By me, as Consul on affairs of State 
 Provided thou wilt keep me swift informed 
 Of each and every move of Catiline's. 
 
 Ful. : But what if Curius' lips are ever dumb, 
 If he won't talk, what then am I to do? 
 
 Cic. : Leave that to chance. His lips miwt loose sometimes, 
 But if they don't thy stipend cut in two 
 Shall reach thee, surely, every ninety days 
 Till I have rid the earth of Catiline. 
 
 Ful.: An earnest of that stipend give me now, 
 Not "cut in two" but lusty vigorous. 
 
 (Cicero Hands her a Purse of Gold which she 
 Empties out on the Table Listening to the Ring 
 of the Coin}. 
 
 That gold rings true. I'll take this and start in 
 To be thy worthy spy, great Cicero. 
 Before I go one word. No harm must fall 
 Upon the careless head of Curius. 
 
 Cic.: Agreed. I'll save him when the trouble doth begin. 
 
 Ful. : Farewell. 
 
 (Exit Fulvia. Enter Slave}. 
 
 Cic. : Farewell.
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 Slave: Milo and band of gladiators stand 
 
 Awaiting orders from thy mighty self. 
 Cic.: Bid them come in. (Exit Slave}. Now, brother 
 
 Clodius 
 
 Great High Priest of the Bona Dea, thou 
 I'll scan an engine that shall pull thee down. 
 (Enter Milo in Full Armour with Drawn Sword 
 and Shield Followed by Ms Band of Gladiators 
 Similarly Equipped. Milo Salutes Cicero Si 
 lently. His Band does the same and Stand at 
 Attention Behind Milo). 
 
 Mil. : I come, my lord, thy bidding to obey. 
 Cic. : Welcome, stout Milo, and thy worthy band. 
 
 (Aside] 
 
 By Mars the sight of these same brawny men 
 Doth rouse my spirits from the drooping point. 
 Methinks 'twould firm my heart and soul to see 
 Sword counter sword in thrust and stroke and foin. 
 
 (Aloud] 
 
 Good Milo, prithee, show me specimen 
 Of thy band's tactics at the martial game. 
 Mil. : With pleasure, mighty Consul. 
 
 (Turning to Gladiators who, at a Motion of His 
 Hand, Separate into Two Groups Facing Each 
 Other with Swords Drawn and Ready to Spring 
 at One Another.} Men! Lay on! (The Gladi 
 ators Dash Upon One Another and Fight All 
 Over the Room; Being Careful, However, Not to 
 Touch Anything but each Other's Swords, 
 Shields and Armour Avoiding Carefully the 
 Unarmed Portions of the Body. After Some 
 Few Minutes of this Cicero exclaims} 
 Cic.: Enough, my trusty fellows. Hold! Enough! 
 
 (The Gladiators Instantly Lower their Swords and 
 Panting Deeply from their recent exertions, But 
 with Faces Absolutely Immobile and Impassive, 
 resume their former line and Come to Attention}. 
 Ha ! Milo in these days these doubtful days, 
 When no man knows who's for or 'gainst the State, 
 It doth one good to have such sturdy men
 
 36 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 Men who at thrust and foin are nonpareil 
 Armed at one's beck to tread sedition down. 
 
 (Milo bows his acknowledgments). 
 I summoned thee to say that thou must hold 
 Thy band in readiness by day and night. 
 No more shall I say now there is no need, 
 But hold your fellows armed and 'neath thine eye. 
 Mil.: I shall, great Consul, and take joy thereby. 
 O ! That I might with Clodius meet in broil. 
 O! That our men might clash together in war's 
 
 shock. 
 
 Cic. : Mayhap thou'lt have thy wish. And now farewell, 
 I prithee give this purse unto thy men. 
 
 (Hands Milo a Well-Filled Purse). 
 Mil.: (Taking purse) 
 
 I thank thee, Consul, for thy graciousness. 
 
 (Turning to Gladiators) 
 Salute the Consul, men, before we go. 
 
 (Gladiators Draw their Swords and Shout with 
 
 One Accord) 
 Glad. : Long live our Consul ! Long live Cicero. 
 
 (At a motion from Milo they then Form a Column 
 and March Of the Stage Followed by him. He 
 Salutes Cicero with his Sword in Silence as he 
 Marches Past. 
 
 Exeunt) . 
 
 ACT II. SCENE II. 
 
 Apartments Of Aurelia Orestilla : In The House Of Catiline.' 
 Time: Same Day. Late Afternoon. 
 
 Aurel: (Alone, sitting Lost in Thought. Tier Head Lean 
 ing on her Hand) 
 My heart misgives me lest my Sergius 
 Hath risked his happiness upon a die. 
 His plans move smoothly and his mind is calm.
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIB 37 
 
 But with so many knowing of the plot 
 Which is to turn this city upside down 
 And with this mighty city turns the world 
 A danger always lurks of leakage dread. 
 How I'm to stem that tide no one can say. 
 I stand at Catiline's right hand in all he does, 
 And never let a moment slip me by 
 Without a word of caution on that head. 
 He is the most supremest plotter e^er 
 Did set his brain to scheme upon this earth! 
 But lacking mighty wealth and the long train 
 Of followers that tread the heels of wealth 
 His choice of aids at first was limited. 
 
 (After a pause} 
 
 Beshrew me how y I dread vain Curius! 
 Storm centre he of danger to this plot; 
 I would give half my wealth vast as that is 
 Were Quintus Curius not of the band. 
 (Sighs deeply. A Maid enters Hastily}. 
 
 Maid: The lady Clodia, doth wait below 
 
 Who says her tidings will not brook delay. 
 
 Aurel. : Conduct her hither with what speed ye may ; 
 
 '(Exit Maid.} 
 
 My soul misgives me and my blood grows cold, 
 My woman's instinct tells me something's wrong. 
 
 (Enter Clodia). 
 
 My Clodia, my thanks for coming here, 
 Thy presence breaks a brooding fit I had. 
 (They embrace warmly}. 
 
 Clo. : Dearest Aurelia, my heart bleeds for thee, 
 The news I bring is of the very worst ! 
 
 Aurel. : (Starting but then Immediately Recovering her 
 
 usual Haughty Calm} 
 The world we live in is a world of Chance, 
 Men are but footballs for the foot of Fate; 
 Hence, who hunts happiness doth take a chance 
 That black Death strikes at either soon or late. 
 Hence am T ever ready for the worst, 
 And smile upon the evils the Gods send.
 
 38 
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 Clo. : 'Tis well, my dearest, thy philosophy 
 Is of so high a cast, so stoical 
 That standing on the brink of the Unknown, 
 It yet preserves thy beauty all serene. 
 My news is this. I'll give it in few words 
 The plot is out. 
 
 (Aurelia at first does Not Move a Muscle. Present 
 ly a Disdainful Smile Slowly Spreads over her 
 \(J<alm Face} 
 You seem incredulous. 
 
 Aurel. : My dearest friend a bit more explicit be 
 Clo. : You play your cards well, my Aurelia fair. 
 Aurel.: What next, my dear, might I be bold to ask? 
 Clo.: Why simply this. Catullus my good friend 
 
 (Blushing and Smiling) 
 Was present at the Consul Cicero's 
 When Vettius a spy Catullus hates f 
 Came in and said he r d news of high import. 
 The Consul bid Catullus to remain, 
 And Sallust. too for both had called on him 
 So both did hear this plot most marvellous ! 
 Brief, Catiline hath joined to him a band 
 Of men, the most illustrious in Rome, 
 Including Caesar, Crassus, Lentulus, 
 Cains Sulla, Curius and Cethegus 
 That last the fiercest man that walks to-day, 
 Save only one whose name I shall not say 
 A letter dropped by Curius was the clue 
 That fell into the hands of Vettius. 
 
 (At the name of Curius, Aurelia's Face Pales 
 Slightly, But No Other Sign of Emotion is Vis 
 ible}. 
 Letter from Curius to Catiline, 
 
 fTo you, stinking Vettius, if to any one, may be applied what Is 
 said to babblers and fools. With that tongue of yours you may wipe 
 cow-keepers' shoes and nastier things yet. if you have occasion. 
 
 If you wish utterly to destroy us all, Vettius, open your mouth; 
 you will affect your purpose to a certainty. 
 
 Catullus. 
 
 (From the Poems of Catullus. Translation found in Bohn's 
 Library.)
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 39 
 
 Asking his chief what honours would be named 
 For each upon achieving their great scheme, 
 And to set th' honours opposite each name 
 Of each conspirator upon the list 
 He did enclose. Nought else was there therein 
 As to when, how, or where the plot would burst, 
 Or just precisely what the plot would be. 
 
 Aurel. : (After a Pause} 
 
 Clodia, I know that thou, dear, art my friend, 
 But ere I comment on thy most strange news, 
 I wish to search thy heart a little while. 
 
 Clo. : My heart's an open book to thee. my friend 
 The dearest friend I have of our own sex. 
 Thou knou^st and few there be who do not guess 
 That I do love Catullus heart and soul. 
 My stolid husband sole doth nought suspect. 
 You know our Parents did arrange this match 
 Which was as far from love-match as the poles. 
 Wealth wished to add to wealth and that was all 
 'Twos marriage of two fortunes, not two 'hearts, 
 And when a man does that he takes his chance. 
 
 Aurel. : ( Smilingly A ffectionately ) 
 
 My Clodia, thy fate did ever touch 
 My happy heart happy in Catiline, 
 The most misjudged and maligned man 
 That walks the streets of our Imperial Rome! 
 A heart of gold hath he true to his friends. 
 True as the steel of his e'er ready sword, 
 Frank as the sunlight as a lion brave 
 Such is my King such Sergius Catiline! 
 
 Clo. : Aurelia did I not Valerius love 
 
 With my whole soul excluding thought of all 
 The race of men that walk this teeming earth 
 I tell thee, dear, I would love Catiline 
 His mighty soul, his leonine dread heart 
 That smiles in scorn upon a world of foes; 
 His general's mind that doth combine the threads 
 And strands of action and their subtle cause, 
 Their moving impulses and passions dark 
 That make the world the cauldron that it is,
 
 40 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 Seething and bubbling with wees, joys and death. 
 
 With infamy and virtue intermixed 
 
 Like wine and water in a vessel dark 
 
 Then holds these combined strands within his hand 
 
 And drives his chariot to the victor's goal! 
 
 Such is thy lover such is Catiline. 
 
 Aurel. : (Aurelia Falls on her Neck and. Buries her Face 
 
 on her Breast}. 
 
 My darling, thy sweet words unman my soul. 
 And weakness becomes not the wife of Catiline. 
 
 (Recovering her Composure}. 
 Minerva guided thee in thy grand words 
 With which thou didst describe my Catiline 
 A double purpose did these dear words fill. 
 I'd said that I did wish to search thine heart, 
 And thy true heart, my Clodia, did respond 
 Unto my unspoke question in thy words. 
 I wished to know the motive prompted thee 
 T' incur the wrath of thy Valerius 
 Should he e'er know that thou'st revealed to me 
 The accusation of vile Vettius 
 That dog in human shape that mangy cur, 
 Who snaps in secret at the heels o' th' great. 
 
 (They Seat themselves Side by Side on a Couch}. 
 
 Clo. : (Embracing her} 
 
 Before I go I have two things to say. 
 Valerius did not impart to me 
 The news I've given it got I by chance 
 Twas thus. A week ago I my pet sparrow lostf 
 A darling bird that nestled in my breast. 
 
 III. tLAMENT FOR THE DEATH OF CLODIA'S SPARROW. 
 
 Lament, O Loves and desires, and every man of refinement! My 
 girl'a sparrow is dead, my girl's pet sparrow, which she loved more 
 than her own eyes; for It was a honeyed darling, and knew its mis 
 tress as well as my girl herself knew her Mother; nor did It ever 
 depart from her breast, but hopping about now hither, now thither, 
 would chirp ever more to Its mistress only. Now does It go along the 
 gloomy path to that region whence no one can return. Malediction 
 to you! cruel glooms of Orcus, that devour all fair things; such a 
 pretty sparrow! On your account my girl's eyes are now red and 
 swollen with weeping. 
 
 Catullus. 
 
 From the Poems of Catullus, ibid.
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 41 
 
 Fed from my hand and was my heart's delight. 
 I wept its death and was most deep cast down. 
 Valerius did visit us that day 
 And swore by all the Gods he'd write a lay 
 That would preserve my sparrow for all time, 
 And send it fluttering down the centuries! 
 He thereon named to-day to read the lay 
 Said he would have it ready by that time. 
 So when he came to-day to read his song 
 His little lyric to my tiny bird 
 
 (Laughing and Blushing}. 
 My husband being out I hung on him, 
 Clasping my hands about his rosy neck. 
 As I did so a parchment did slip out 
 His toga's folds, and fell upon the floor. 
 Neither observed it. But when he began 
 To read his charming little funeral hymn 
 Upon my darling little feathered friend, 
 My eye did spy it unperceived by him. 
 My woman's native curiosity 
 Did pique me till all unperceived by him 
 I'd mastered it and all of its contents 
 Whilst he, oblivious to ought beside 
 Was testing the numbers of his funeral hymn 
 Drumming with his slim fingers, line by line, 
 To see the quantities were safe and sound. 
 So soon as I did grasp what it contained 
 A digest of the plot as I've told you 
 With list of the conspirators alleged 
 I burst upon him for such calumny ! 
 He then explained the whole as I've told you, 
 And urged me secrecy upon my life, 
 Saying that Cicero had all intent 
 To push this serious matter to a head. 
 The last thing I must tell you is just this. 
 Valerius told me that before they left, 
 Who should appear in haste but Fulvia ! 
 
 (Aurelia Starts Away from Clodia and Turns Pale 
 
 but Kemains Calm] . 
 What she did sav or whv she came's not known.
 
 42 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 And now my sweet Aurelia, I must go. 
 
 (They Embrace}. 
 Aurel. : And may the Gods reward thee for this call. 
 
 (Exit Clodia). 
 
 Now by the Gods that babbler Curius 
 Hath told his leman everything he knows ! 
 Would I had thrust a dagger in his heart 
 When last he crossed this threshold would I had! 
 O ! Gods what can I do to fend this woe 
 And drive this deadly danger from my house. 
 Minerva! Goddess! Who from front of Jove 
 
 (Kneeling before a Marble Bust o\f Minerva on a 
 Marble Pedestal, and Extending her Hands To 
 wards the Goddess in an Attitude of Passionate 
 /Supplication) . 
 
 Lept fully armed to rule this furious world 
 Guide thou my actions from this moment on, 
 Inspire my heart with words for Catiline, 
 Words that shall make his fiery nature heed, 
 Words that may make his reckless spirit safe. 
 (Catiline's Step heard Without). 
 (Starting and Rising Hastily} 
 Inspire me, Goddess, for I hear his tread. 
 Cat.: (Enter Catiline. He Embraces her and Gazes 
 
 Down Into Her Eyes with his Arms About her). 
 By all the Gods Aurelia. thou art fair! 
 The fairest thing e'er was of woman kind. 
 Aurel. : My Sergius, a dreadful piece of news 
 
 I have for thee thou Captain of my soul. 
 Cat. : (Starting Angrily and Involuntarily Dropping his 
 
 Hand upon his Sword Hilt, Concealed beneath 
 his Toga} 
 
 Now woe to him who causeth thee this woe! 
 Aurel. : That man is Curius he hath told all. 
 Cat. : (Springing Backwards Three Feet in a Bound, and 
 
 Glaring Savagely at her} 
 
 What! What sayest thou, Aurelia ! What is this. 
 Aurel.: In one brief word. Clodia hath just left 
 
 Give me thy pledge that nothing thou'lt reveal 
 Of what I am about to tell to thee.
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIB 43 
 
 Cat.: I pledge the honour of the Sergii. 
 
 Aurel. : Tis well. Catullus recent called on Cicero, 
 There Vettius appeared re letter found 
 Which Curius had dropped addressed to thee. 
 Written by Curius to thee to find 
 What honours would be 'portioned to the band 
 When Fortune should reward your enterprise 
 With list of the conspirators enclosed 
 That opposite each name his gain might stand. 
 Nought else was there. And no particulars. 
 But something far more sinister than that 
 Doth show its villain head and that is this: 
 Ere he did leave dame Fulvia did arrive 
 Panting with haste to say that she had news 
 The Consul's ear must catch without delay. 
 My Sergius, you now have all the threads 
 Of this dark counterplot within thy hand. 
 
 Cat.: (After a Pause, Dr diving Near once more, Em 
 
 bracing Her, Looking Down at Her as he 
 Speaks] 
 
 My most wise darling! Where could Catiline 
 Find an adviser like to thee on earth ! 
 Thy soul prophetic spotted Curius 
 As the one danger-point in my whole scheme, 
 And now that danger-point hath burst in flame. 
 
 Aurel.: (Slowly releasing herself) 
 
 My noble Sergius ! Danger moves thee not. 
 
 Thy lips are full as fiery as though 
 
 You played the lover for the foremost time, 
 
 And stood with me in some dim country lane 
 
 Far from this Hell this Rome and free from care. 
 
 Instead of which yon on Vesuvius stand. 
 
 And that great crater rocks beneath thy feet ! 
 
 So help me Venus I do love thee so, 
 
 That if thou diest I would rather die 
 
 Than live alone without my Catiline! 
 
 Cat.: Aurelia. never say those words again. 
 
 Thy happiness doth tower in my mind, 
 As tower above the plain the Apennines. 
 If I should lose the cast of these great dice
 
 44 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 In which I throw for th' Empire of the world 
 
 If I do lose my fame will be so great 
 
 That under it may rest thy widowhood 
 
 As rests a traveller 'neath a desert palm 
 
 When all Sahara blisters in the sun. 
 
 My fame will be so dread and dark a thing 
 
 Brave men will shrink fro' th' name of Catiline. 
 
 For never yet had gambler such a stake 
 
 As I do throw for in Imperial Rome! 
 
 And if I lose, my end will be so dread. 
 
 So many victims shall devour my sword 
 
 That round my corse a human hecatomb 
 
 Of Roman soldiers shall lie stark in death. 
 
 So cheer thee up my Rose of Beauty's bloom 
 
 So cheer thee up. and kiss thy Catiline. 
 
 (Aurelia who has Buried Her Head on his Breast 
 Since he Began to Speak of His Death, and has 
 been Sobbing Silently, Dries her Eyes and Rais 
 ing Them to his Says) 
 
 Aurel. : My hero thou hast steeled my very soul! 
 Till I am worthy to be called thy wife 
 Till History shall say, "There was a spouse 
 Worthy to be the bride of Catiline!" 
 Cat: If anything could make me despise death 
 More than I do by nature and by will. 
 Twould be the sight of thy heroic soul, 
 
 (Embraces her. Releasing her}. 
 Now darling to of set this counterplot.
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 45 
 
 ACT III. SCENE I. 
 A Secluded Street Near The Senate House. 
 
 Time: Morning. An Hour Before Noon The Next Day. 
 
 (Enter Curius and Fulvia). 
 
 Ful. : May all the Gods preserve me from such speed! 
 Had I the heels of feathered Mercury, 
 Had I his feather-tipped and flying heels 
 Upon my honour I'd not fly so fast! 
 Good Curius : I prithee, pity take, 
 Upon a member of the weaker sex. 
 
 Cur. : ( Gloo-mily ) 
 
 The weaker ! By the Gods the stronger sex. 
 Look what a thing thou'st made of me a dog, 
 A traitor and betrayer of my friend. 
 So help me. Mars. I've more than half a mind 
 To end thy life and then take my life, too. 
 
 Fu 1. : ( A I armed } 
 
 Sweet Quintus. for past love's sake, say not so. 
 
 You know I love thee if I do love gold. 
 
 My husband squandered all my dowry all! 
 
 In living riotous in wild debauch, 
 
 And when the Gods in anger at his deeds 
 
 Did take him off and rid me of his weight 
 
 What was poor I a widow lone to do, 
 
 But make a living by her lover's aid. 
 
 Thou knowest I was born to gentle ways, 
 
 Was gently nurtured am a noble's child : 
 
 Hence luxury became my vital breath 
 
 And sans my luxuries I'd choke to death. 
 
 Thou knowest I was ever true to thee. 
 
 Cur.: (Gloomily} 
 
 That I admit that thou wast ever true. 
 
 Ful. : Jove bless thee for that word, my Quintus, dear ! 
 So thou dost see. my darling, that the Fates 
 Dread Lachesis, Chlotho and Atropos 
 Did shoot a woof betwixt my life- web's warp 
 That as ye lawyers say spelled "nolle pros."
 
 46 THE HAZARD OF THE DIB 
 
 Cur.: Myself I do despise. And I shall fly 
 
 From thee and Rome, and home, and every man, 
 And in a spot where no man shall me know 
 Spend in seclusion the balance of life's span. 
 
 Ful. : (Alarmed} 
 
 Thou'dst leave me sole in this cold world alone! 
 
 Cur.: The crafty Cicero will pension thee 
 
 As much you've said he did insinuate. 
 And you have friends i' th' Senate relatives, 
 Nobles, who'd shelter thee most willingly 
 I do not say will glut thy cormorant's greed 
 For jewels, satins, silks and luxuries 
 As I have done. Now Fulvia do I go, 
 My traveling carriage waits and I depart. 
 
 Ful.: (Bursting into tears} 
 
 Great Juno, save me! Is it thus we part! 
 
 Cur.: (Coldly and sadly} 
 
 Fulvia, in me you see a man that's dead 
 Sans hope of resurrection in this world. 
 My manhood I did slay unwittingly 
 When I divulged the plot thanks to thy wiles ; 
 Who played upon my passions of a man 
 As an attractive woman only can 
 Till -first I lost my head and then my soul, 
 Till I lost this world and all hope o' th' next. 
 Now nothing's left but exile or self-death 
 But suicide which counter to my times 
 Counter to Rome's traditions I dislike. 
 
 Ful.: (Sadly}- 
 
 Quintus, forgive me, ere we part for aye, 
 Let me one kiss implant on thy cold brow 
 And tell me as I do so you forgive. 
 
 Cur.: (Rousing himself from the Apathy Which has 
 
 been Steadily Increasing During the Dialogue} 
 Willingly, my Fulvia, most willingly. 
 
 (They Embrace. Her Presence Overcoming his 
 Lethargy So that he Sloirly Takes Tier in His 
 Arms and Kisses Her on the Lips Saying} 
 May all the Gods protect thee my poor girl. 
 
 (They Separate in Silence and Sadness Each Go-
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 ing Slowly Different Ways and With Bowed 
 Heads] 
 
 (Exeunt). 
 
 (Enter Catiline Accompanied by the Entire Band 
 of Conspirators Except Curius, Followed by Clo- 
 dius At the Head of his Gladiators). 
 Cat.: (Raising his hand] 
 
 Here now we halt and hold our council brief. 
 
 (The Column Comes to a Stand. Turning to Clod- 
 
 ius) 
 
 Divide thy band, bold Clodius, in two. 
 Command one portion and the other give 
 Unto the most deep trusted of thy men. 
 Then take position at each head 6' th' street 
 And let none enter it on pain of death. 
 Ciod. : Tis well, my Catiline. Bold Spartacus! 
 
 (Calling a Powerful and Battle- Scarred Veteran 
 
 Gladiator to him) 
 
 Divide the band and take half to thyself 
 The other I take and this street we'll hold 
 Against all citizens as trespassers 
 Upon the ground defended by our swords. 
 Spart. : Right gladly, chief, thy bidding will I do. 
 
 Tis many a day since my swcrd hath drunk blood. 
 I only hope that Milo and his men 
 May have the luck to turn their heads this way 
 Clod. : By all the Gods I echo that same wish! 
 
 What would I not give up to have that fight 
 With crafty Milo who eludeth me 
 Caes. : ( L aughing ) 
 
 Clodius whispered 'tis that Cicero 
 Hath Milo and his men so close mewed up 
 Around his person as his body-guard 
 That they are almost wild for exercise! 
 That like Numidian lions they do roar 
 And with their thunders make the welkin ring! 
 Clou. : Would I could ring my chimes upon his sconce 
 
 And wipe the score out that between us is. 
 Cat: Thou'rt likely, Clodius, to have thy wish. 
 For by a spy I keep near Cicero
 
 48 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 Word's come to me that Milo and his band 
 Will be deep hidden in the Senate house 
 Waiting a blast to be by bugle blown 
 By one of ? s henchmen in the Senate hid 
 When Cicero doth think the proper time 
 To apprehend me and my friends hath come. 
 
 '(The Conspirators Start in Surprise But Without 
 the Slightest Sign of Fear, and Draw Closer and 
 in a Circle Around Catiline, who Smiles in Tri 
 umph on Seeing that his Friends Draw Closer to 
 him Rather Than Away from him At the New* 
 of this New and Startling Danger) . 
 Caes. : (Smiling) 
 
 By Mars the sport bids fair to be most brisk. 
 Cat.: It doth bold Caesar and with a vengeance, too. 
 Clod. : Now by the Gods thy most, most happy news 
 
 Jumps to my brain like rich Falernian ! 
 Spnrt. : By Mars, my chief ', but look upon thy men 
 
 Thou'lt see the wine hath sprung from thee to them! 
 (A Stir Followed By a Low Deep Murmur of Ap 
 proval is Noticeable Among the Gladiators, mani/ 
 of whom Involuntarily Drop their Hands on 
 their Sword Hilts Some Even Half Drawing 
 their Swords. Soon the Murmur Rises to a Roar 
 and the Men Draw their Swords and Shout 
 Raising the Following Battle-Chant Or Hymn 
 To Mars)- 
 Glad.: A Clodius! A Clodius! A Clodius! 
 
 Mars is our Master to Mars sole we bow 
 Mars is our God the only God we know. 
 Lead us to battle and we^ll show thee hoir 
 Our swords do mete out havoc and "fierce woe! 
 Cat.: Bravo! Brave war dogs! Bravo! Dogs of war 
 Who's backed by thee with Fortune will go far. 
 
 (Turning to Clodius) 
 Withdraw thy men. time presses, Clodius. 
 Pass through the lines one who'll my signet show. 
 Clod. : Tis well. T go. 
 
 (The Two Bands March off in Opposite Directions. 
 Catiline's Face is Pale as Death and his Brows
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 49 
 
 are Knit in a Characteristic Frown of the Think 
 er and Man- of -Action When The Two Are 
 Rarely Combined Which Was His Through 
 Life And Clung To Him In Death Being Im 
 planted On his Brow Upon the Occasion Of His 
 Taking Of}. 
 
 Cat.: My faithful friends the time hath come to part. 
 
 Caes.: How "part" great Catiline the die not thrown! 
 
 Cat. : Thou sayest well, bold Caesar, 'tis not thrown. 
 
 But from our dread dice-box fall the dice of Death 
 Now that a traitor hath divulged our plans. 
 I briefly have already short made known 
 The facts and cause of Curius' treachery. 
 
 Ceth. : I had attacked him but I could not find 
 Or hide or hair or any trace of him. 
 
 Cat.: A spy I've had upon him since his crime 
 Informs me he will instantly leave Rome. 
 
 Ceth. : Let us arrest him and cut off his head. 
 
 Cat.: I'd thought of that until I found that he 
 Was prey to a most deadly melancholy 
 Which preys upon his heart and tortures him, 
 As vultures on God-like Prometheus once 
 In the olden day at Jove's command did prey 
 Tearing his liver and devouring same 
 Because from Heav'n he brought down fire to man, 
 And from a savage made him civilized. 
 So Curius to th' vultures of the Gods 
 Th' avenging Deities the Erinyes 
 The Furies fell the fierce Eumenides 
 Tisiphone, Alecto, Megaera 
 And the three Fates this traitor I consign. 
 
 Sul. : And I acclaim thou dost sumpremely well. 
 The gens Cornelian hath ever been 
 The servitors of Fate trusting therein. 
 
 Lent. : My kinsman's words are sound as they are true. 
 I highly do commend thee, Catiline. 
 
 Caes.: My chief. I praise thy high philosophy. 
 
 Tho' I do stand for th' office of Chief Priest 
 For Pontifex Maximus stand as candidate
 
 50 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 Religion weighs not overmuch with me. 
 
 To my mind all the world is ruled by Chance. 
 
 So to my mind divine Philosophy 
 
 Doth take religion's place as comforter. 
 
 I praise thy stoical indifference 
 
 Unto this action base of Curius. 
 
 Cat. : There you mistake me, Caesar, by my soul! 
 'Tis not indifference that prompts to this 
 For Curius I'd slay with mine own hand 
 If tracking him could bring me to his den 
 Did I not know that he doth suffer Hell. 
 
 Ceth. : If that be so, I'll say I'm satisfied. 
 
 Cras. : If that be so or not, I do now move 
 
 That we take instant steps to clear the air 
 Of foul the dangers hovering overhead. 
 
 Lent. : No point of order yet was ever made 
 
 Since order e'er was known to mortal man 
 
 Of more precise and perfect excellence 
 
 Than this same point friend Crassus just now made. 
 
 Cat.: (Smiling Sarcastically, looking At Crassus and 
 
 Lentulus). 
 
 My worthy friends, fear not thy sacred skins 
 Run slightest risk from this same moment on. 
 
 Cras ' 1 
 
 T " K How's that! '(Pricking up their Ears Eagerly}. 
 
 Cras.: I yearn thy point, great Catiline, to catch. 
 
 Cat.: (Smiling broadly] 
 
 The point is simply this. That from now on 
 The brunt o ? th' danger's borne by three men sole, 
 (Crassus and Lentulus Start with Pleased Surprise. 
 Caesar Starts Angrily and Looking at Cati 
 line Exclaims) 
 
 Caes. : Upon my life that deep amazeth me! 
 
 Cat.: I thought as much, bold Caesar. Hear me out. 
 The whole complexion of the plot is changed 
 Now that the other side doth know our hand. 
 The plot was triune ere this thing occurred, 
 The Senate, this teeming City and the field 
 The field where Manlius and his legions be. 
 The first two now eliminate do stand.
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE fcl 
 
 One only now remains and that's the field. 
 No act of violence doth now impend 
 So far as our side is concerned at least 
 Within the confines of this city's walls. 
 Heading my legions I shall march on Rome. 
 But one thing still remains. Face Cicero, 
 Who in the Senate will this very day 
 Attack me as the head of this deep plot. 
 I shall reply and scorn his paltry proofs 
 The word of Vettius that sneaking cur 
 And possibly a letter from the man 
 The Fates have ta'en in hand from Curius 
 To me re honours, giving all your names 
 Of which you know but stating nothing strictly 
 Treasonable the wording is too vague. 
 Nothing from Curius bears actual weight 
 Since he hath fled and therefore doth confess 
 Himself afraid to face me with his words. 
 Now nought of danger can come from said proofs 
 They're far too slight and vague-chimerical. 
 The only harm they do is balk our plot 
 And put the Senators upon their guard. 
 And therefore force us to now take the field. 
 But if ought goes amiss we should straight have 
 Pleaders at court friends 'mongst the Senators, 
 And none so high among the Senate stand 
 As Caesar, Lentulus and Crassus here. 
 
 (All Bow Assent But Caesar, who Still Shows 
 
 High Dissatisfaction at the Programme}. 
 Now Caesar is the youngest of us here; 
 I have no sons and none expect to have, 
 Therefore to me bold Caesar shall be heir 
 And wear the diadem which ye me gave. 
 Only meantime it must not e'er appear 
 That Caesar's to succeed me in this thing 
 Until on victory I the garland wear, 
 And Eome doth openly applaud me King. 
 Till then our paths full separate should be 
 As tho' in common nothing we did have.
 
 52 TUB HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 So if the chance should come he may save me, 
 And if not that, our common cause may save. 
 Fro" 1 th" 1 wreck of the Republic I aspire 
 To raise the fabric grand of Rome's Empire! 
 Ceth: \ 
 
 Sul. : v (With a joyous shout) 
 Lent. : J 
 
 Hail, Caesar, heir to Catiline, our King! 
 Hail Caesar. Imperator ! Emperor ! 
 
 Caes. : (Amazed and the Prey to Emotion, Shrinks Back 
 ward. Swiftly he Recovers Himself and Kneels 
 Before Catiline, Placing Catiline's Hand Upon 
 His Caesar's Head, Whereupon a Fresh Shout 
 Breaks out. Still Kneeling 
 Great Catiline, to thy will do I bow. 
 Cat.: Rise. Caesar, heir to my Imperial hope. 
 
 (Aside to Caesar] 
 
 Be on thy guard 'gainst Crassus see he mopes. 
 (Enter a Venerable Old Man, of Respectable Ap 
 pearance, and Being Dressed As Though on a 
 Journey and Bearing the Staff of a Traveller. 
 He Approaches the Group Slowly and With Dig 
 nity, Saluting Them he Says) 
 Sooth.: Which is Lucius Sergius Catiline? 
 His signet I possess, and here it is: 
 
 (Showing a Signet Ring). 
 Received by me in my Etruscan home 
 By messenger bidding me to straightway come 
 And tell the fortune of Catiline at Rome. 
 Cat.: Thou art the Etruscan Soothsayer. I see, 
 And gladly do I welcome thee to Rome. 
 Speak freely now my fortune 'fore these friends. 
 Sooth.: First let me draw a circle on the ground 
 
 My soul to buttress from all worldly things. 
 
 (Draws a Circle On the Ground With his Staff). 
 I enter now the realm of Destiny, 
 
 (Entering the Circle). 
 
 And by my humble lips will speak the Fates 
 Lachesis, and Clotho, Atropos the Three 
 If to their sacred minds it seemeth well
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIB 53 
 
 The future at this time t' reveal to me 
 They who all things know in Earth, in Heaven, in 
 Hell. 
 
 (After a Brief Pause During Which He stands in 
 an Erect but Easy Attitude, his Grossed Hands 
 Resting on the Top of his Staff) 
 I feel the current coursing thro' my blood; 
 / feel the dread that precedes Atropos, 
 Therefore the Fates I find in friendly mood; 
 Hence waves of deep emotion my soul toss. 
 / now begin the Fate of Catiline. 
 Ha! What is this I feel! The pang of death? 
 To feel 'tis that I sadly must incline 
 For hardly do I draw my struggling breath. 
 
 (Catiline Starts Slightly and Then Smiles Grimly. 
 The Others Regard Him with Sympathetic In 
 terest Except Crassus, Who Appears Sullen and 
 Lost in Thought. The Soothsayer continues) 
 The shock of battle shortly doth impend 
 When blood will flow like water in the Spring 
 But vast beginnings start from this sad end, 
 A mighty Empire shortly shall up-spring. 
 
 (Catiline and Caesar start Violently; Catiline 
 Raises His Head, Smiling Proudly. The Sooth 
 sayer Pauses, Then Goes On) 
 No more the Fates will give, no word will come 
 Wait as I may, no answer is vouchsafed. 
 So now I turn towards my Etruscan home. 
 Trusting at my scant words thou art not chafed. 
 Hail Catiline the F,ather of a State 
 Whose power's vast! Whose sunsetting is late. 
 Ceth. : \ 
 
 Caes. : (All except Catiline and Crassus Shout in Uni- 
 
 Lent. : . i son). 
 
 Sol: 
 
 Hail! Catiline, our King and Emperor! 
 The Soothsayers'' words true are to the core. 
 Cat. : My valiant friends, I thank thee from the heart. 
 The time is up ! Or live or die we start. 
 '(Handing the Soothsayer a Heavy Purse of Gold
 
 54 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 and Taking the Signet Ring in Exchange, Say- 
 
 Take this, my friend, you've performed well thy part 
 
 And proved a master of thy most dread Art. 
 
 My death you've presaged, and to death I go, 
 
 But by the Gods I'm joyous sans all care 
 
 Happy as bridegroom full as free from woe 
 
 But of my jocund sword let foe beware 
 
 For from my blood, an Empire vast will spring 
 
 Ruling the world o'ershadowing the earth 
 
 And dying thus, thus Death doth crown me King. 
 
 So of Imperial honour there's no dearth. 
 
 I dedicate myself to th' Infernal Gods 
 
 (Smiling grimly}. 
 
 That in the coming fight should give me odds. 
 My Cethegus my right hand in this thing, 
 My fiery Cethegus bring up the men; 
 
 (Exit Cethegus). 
 Sulla, thou art my left as tried as true. 
 
 (Sulla Bows Proudly. Upon the Approach of the 
 
 Gladiators Catiline says) 
 Bold Clodius hold in reserve thy band 
 Hard by the Senate House in sound of blast 
 From bugle 'neath my toga, 'thwart my back. 
 Three blasts upon that bugle blown will bring 
 Thee and thy comrades to my aid pell mell! 
 Clod. : It will, my lord. And swift as tiger's spring. 
 Cat.: (Smiling Proudly) 
 
 'Tis well. And now one last word ere we go. 
 Caesar and Lentulus and Crassus, too, 
 Must hold yourselves aloof from ought that comes. 
 To men of brains no further need of talk. 
 
 (All Three Boic Assent. Caesar Reluctantly). 
 Your hands, all three our compact stern to bind 
 
 (Caesar and Lentulus >Clasp His Hand Warmly. 
 Crassus Coldly).
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 55 
 
 ACT III. SCENE II. 
 The Senate House. 
 
 (Caesar, accompanied by Lentulus and Crassus, enters the 
 Senate House by one door; while Catiline, accompanied by 
 Cethegus and Sulla, enters by another. The Gladiators under 
 the command of Clodius and Spartacus remain at the extreme 
 end of the street in which the council is held, hidden from 
 view in the shrubbery of a garden. The street-head is within 
 a stone's throw of the Senate House. The Senate has been in 
 session for some time when the Conspirators enter, and Cicero 
 is just concluding an attack upon Catiline with the following 
 words: "Conscript Fathers, I have said enough to show every 
 Senator that the author of this colossal and utterly unheard 
 of conspiracy both as regards its scope and the daring neces 
 sary to put it into execution having proved himself accord 
 ing to my eloquent words before you all just now a villain 
 and criminal of the worst and most hardened type is worthy 
 of nothing short of death. I therefore hereby cast my vote for 
 his execution." Catiline reaches his seat during the lull that 
 follows these words. Having done so he rises and says he 
 desires to say a few words in answer to the heavy charge just 
 lodged against a Roman Senator. He then goes on to attack 
 the evidence adduced by Cicero, and winds up with the fol 
 lowing remark: "It ill becomes a 'new man' like Cicero a 
 man without any claim to birth or lineage to attack one of 
 the proudest names in Rome." He then resumes his seat. 
 Whereupon Caesar rises and says that death is too severe a 
 punishment in the premises, and that confiscation of property 
 and imprisonment in some provincial town should suffice. 
 Lentulus follows to the same effect. Crassus holds his peace 
 and sits sullenly in his chair, absorbed in thought. Presently 
 a shout is heard, and Milo, at the head of his Gladiators, 
 enters and makes straight for Catiline. At once Catiline, 
 Cethegus and Sulla who sit on his right and left with a 
 wave of their arms, discard their togas and appear in 
 complete armour, with swords at their sides. A cry of sur 
 prise and alarm is immediately thereupon raised by the Sen 
 ate, headed by Cicero. Meantime Milo and his men begin
 
 56 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 circling about the three Conspirators. Caesar at this mo 
 ment darts from his seat and rushing past the intervening 
 Senators, throws himself in front of Catiline and between him 
 and Milo, shouting out: "Back Milo, or thy life shall forfeit 
 be." Catiline, seizing the moment of respite this diversion 
 gave him, raises the bugle suspended on a gold chain over 
 'his shoulder and under his arm to his lips and blows three 
 terrific blasts in quick succession. Instantly there is an an 
 swering deep-throated yell from Clodius' band. At sound of 
 this, Milo instantly turns and gives a few orders, in a low 
 tone to his men, who face about and in the direction of the 
 shout, and form in close order. Hardly have they done so 
 before Clodius appears at the double-quick, sword in hand 
 and shield on arm, charging into the Senate Chamber with 
 Spartacus at his elbow, followed by his infuriated band of 
 Gladiators. At sight of them Milo's band raises a yell of 
 rage and defiance which shakes the Senate House, which is 
 followed by one fully as vindictive upon the part of Clodius' 
 band. Hardly has this yell died away when Catiline raises 
 a shout of such blood-curdling ferocity and hist for blood, 
 that every face in the Senate is turned upon him. Hardly 
 have the sounds ceased to rush from his lips before following 
 them he followed closely by Cethegus and Sulla sword in 
 hand dashes into the thick of Milo ? s band taking them in 
 the rear. Two hardy gladiators fall dead in their tracks at 
 the first two strokes of his sword. The head of a third falls 
 from his shoulders and bounds onto the marble floor of the 
 Senate at the third stroke of Catiline's eager sword. Mean 
 time Cethegus has killed his man with a skillfully aimed 
 thrust, and Sulla has lopped off close at the shoulder the 
 right arm the sword arm of his opponent. The blood curd 
 ling yells, of the now fiercely fighting, and closely joined, bands 
 of Gladiators, are something terrible to hear. The fortunes 
 of war are steadily veering toward Catiline and Clodius, who 
 have Milo's band between them, when a shrill bugle blast 
 is heard, and a whole Cohort of Roman soldiers which had 
 been secretly summoned to the City by Cicero overnight en 
 ters and advances at the charge upon the rear of Clodius and 
 his men. There is no way of escape possible. Clodius 
 shouts: "Let each stout Gladiator see that two Roman sol-
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 57 
 
 diers as guard of honour go; to bear him company across the 
 Styx!" A terrific yell from the still numerous and vigorous 
 band of Clodius follows, over which the mastiff-like roar of 
 Spartacus can be readily distinguished. Thereupon Cati 
 line raises his clarion voice once more shouting: "The doom 
 of the Republic now doth sound! My blood-dripped sword- 
 strokes beating out her knell!" With these words his sword 
 whirls like a Catherine wheel, Gladiators' arms and heads 
 skipping off its edge like apples from a butcher's knife. Sud 
 denly his foot slips in a pool of blood of his own shedding. 
 Instantly a gigantic Gladiator from the forests of Germany, 
 his tow-colored hair dripping with blood from, a glancing 
 stroke of Catiline's sword which had carried away his left 
 scalp and left ear, darts upon him and pierces his neck. It 
 is the Teuton's last act on earth, for Cethegus, springing 
 upon him, severs his head from his body with the words, 
 "Die, thou Barbarian beast, for this foul act !" But the soldiers 
 have by now surrounded Clodius and his men. The Prefectf 
 is fighting hand to hand with Clodius, who is pushing 
 him hard, when a Legionary, slipping under Clodius' guard as 
 he was thus engaged, pierces his arm-pit. Before he can 
 withdraw his sword Spartacus, with the yell of a de 
 mon, springs upon him, and drives his sword up to the hilt 
 between his teeth, who in turn is pierced by the Prefect's 
 swift turning sword. All fall with wounds in front, 
 and each accounts for at least two of the Legionaries. Milo's 
 band of whom only half a dozen including Milo practi 
 cally hors de combat from wounds remain, are all dan 
 gerously wounded, but are able to make front against Sulla 
 and Cethegus, who fight on, utterly undismayed at the cer 
 tain death hanging over them, as well as utterly oblivious to 
 theii now rapidly bleeding and numerous wounds. Suddenly 
 Cethegus cries: "Sulla, I die; stand o'er me till I pass." At 
 these words Sulla throws the protection of his shieldft over 
 him, whirling his sword in every direction and thus holding 
 the approaching six wounded gladiators at bay. No sooner 
 does Caesar see this than he leaps over the corpses that 
 
 tThe officer commanding the Cohort. 
 
 ttHe as well as Catiline and Cethegus having immediately mas 
 tered the shields of the first foes slain.
 
 58 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE 
 
 surround Catiline and, seizing sword and shield from 
 Catiline's hand, shouts to the six Gladiators: "Back on your 
 lives, I kill the first man moves!" The Prefect brings 
 his frightfully mauled Cohort to "attention" ; the six wounded 
 Gladiators wipe their bloody brows on the backs of their gory 
 hands, and all is, for a moment, silent in the Senate House. 
 Suddenly Cethegus crawls towards Catiline. On reaching 
 him he finds to his surprise he is still breathing. Catiline, 
 at his last gasp, opens his fierce eyes on Cethegus and mur 
 muring, "Aurelia," expires. Whereupon the heroic Cethegus 
 himself in the agonies of death murmurs in his death-cold 
 ear Caesar lowering his ear to catch the message of a dying 
 man to a dead one: 
 
 "Peace, mighty spirit, Caesar 11 be thine heir 
 And carry out thy purpose found a throne/ 
 Upon the ruins of this rotten State." 
 
 (Dies). 
 
 Caes. : (Reverently closing the eyes of Cethegus and Cati 
 line) 
 Yes, fiery spirit. Rest. 
 
 (The End).
 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE S9 
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 To 
 THE HAZARD OF THE DIE. 
 
 Chorus loquitwr. 
 
 Fair reader, this grim play scarce but begins 
 
 A chain of plays that equals Shakspeare's length. 
 
 In saying this think not the Chorus sins 
 
 We know our productivity and strength. 
 
 Plays in blank verse wherein all History 
 
 From most remotest times to Shakspeare's day 
 
 Before which date History's mystery 
 
 After which date there's scarcely ought to say 
 
 Plays in blank verse wherein the action dread 
 
 Of mighty men that held the world in awe 
 
 Shall by the Muse in varied hues be spread 
 
 With loves of women of beauty past all flaw! 
 
 Prove now the tests we in the rear accord 
 
 See spear of Shakspeare and fierce Marlowe's sword, f 
 
 tAn analysis of their fame: by Professor George Saintsbury, and 
 the late John Addington Symonds, respectively.
 
 THE TEMPLE OF APOLLO 
 
 AND 
 
 THE MUSES 
 
 SHAKESPEARE AND BLANK VERSE. 
 
 "A HISTORY OF ENGLISH PROSODY"t 
 
 by 
 
 GEORGE SAINTSBUBY, 
 
 Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature 
 
 At the University of Edinburgh. 
 
 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 
 
 "In the foregoing survey of Shakespeare's plays I have given some 
 general idea of the way in which the operation of the various agencies 
 shows itself, with (as far as possible) the order of their succession. 
 Really, though chronological illustration is interesting and corrobora 
 tive, it is in a way superfluous, because we can see without it how 
 the employment of them would grow on the hands of such an artist. 
 Of deliberate experimenting with any or all of them there would 
 probably not be very much ; the man who wrote 'Rebellion lay in his 
 way, and he found it,' has dispensed us from any such vain imagina 
 tion. These things lay in his way ; and he found them, and made the 
 most of them. That 'most' also has been illustrated freely. But it 
 is perhaps desirable to give it an account of something the same kind 
 as that which has been given to the style which was its matrix and 
 crude form. The completed Shakespearian blank verse, as we see it 
 maturing in the later early, and middle plays, and matured in the four 
 great tragedies and in Antony and, Cleopatra, preserves the iambic 
 decasyllabic as norm inviolably ; never instals any other, and makes 
 everything that it admits hold of that. But the strict minimum is 
 infinitely varied, and, even when kept, is entirely stripped of its 
 monotonous and stable character, and made to understand that it must 
 be Protean in itself, and ready to enter into infinite combinations 
 with its neighbors. The great agency in this, beyond all doubt, is 
 the manipulation of the pause. Not that Shakespeare is, as some have 
 vainly thought, to be scanned by 'staves' staves 'knapped,' as the 
 good old Biblical word has it, almost as bluntly as the old alliterative 
 verses themselves. The futility of this notion is shown, in a way 
 
 tVol. II, pp. 48-56 and p. 65.
 
 62 
 
 which makes it wonderful that it should ever have been entertained 
 by anybody, in the fact that a very large proportion of Shakespeare's 
 lines have no real pause at all, are 'staves' of themselves, and hardly 
 even that, so unbroken is the rhythmical current of the adjacent lines 
 from and into them. This doing away with the middle and end 
 pause alike is at least as important as the variation of the middle, 
 and, in fact, is but an extension of it. 
 
 The normal blank-verse line of the origins, as Shakespeare took 
 it over from Surrey, Sackville, and even the Wits, was a strict 
 'decasyllabon' of five iambics, with a caesura somewhat carefully ob 
 served about the middle, and self-inclosed in a manner not easy to 
 make plain by individual examples, or by any process of overt analysis, 
 but sensible to any ear of the slightest delicacy when a few specimens 
 have been read. It sometimes admitted a sort of redundance or 'weak 
 ending,' not merely in words which were really then monosyllables, 
 like 'heaven,' but in those which were trochaic-tipped with a very 
 short final syllable, like 'glory.' This license, however, did not in the 
 least affect its general structure. It by no means always concluded 
 with even a comma (though it mostly did so) ; but the grammatical 
 running on did not in the least interfere with the metrical snapping 
 off. It tolerated pretty strong stops in the middle of the line, but 
 these also (so much stronger was the obsession of line-integrity) did 
 not interfere with the sunk ditch of the line-end. Thus, even when, 
 as in the great passages of Peele and Marlowe, the unity of thought 
 and imagination made the paragraph quite poetically distinct, this 
 paragraph was never a real verse-period of the larger kind ; there was 
 no composition in the purely rhythmical and metrical conception of 
 the verse. To put the thing extremely-extravagantly, some would say 
 the delivery of this paragraph to a person who did not understand 
 the language would have conveyed to him the idea of some dozen or 
 sixteen verses, individually perhaps melodious, but not regimented, not 
 worked into any kind of symphony. This sort of blank verse we find 
 in all the writers named above exclusively, with the exceptions (and 
 others, of course), also noted above, in Marlowe and his mates, when 
 the rough strife of poetry bursts its way through the iron gates of 
 metre. We find it also in Titus Andronicus, in the Comedy of Errors, 
 in Love's Labour Lost in the early rehandled 'Histories,' and elsewhere 
 in Shakespeare himself. 
 
 But, as partly noted, there are certain features even in this rigid 
 and early model which are at war with the self-contained single line 
 and the merely cumulative batch of lines. They may be kept under 
 as long as the poet's chief aim is to secure his decasyllabon, to keep 
 it from doggerel on the one hand, and, on the other, to make it 
 independent of the warning bell of rhyme at the end. But when prac 
 tice, in himself to speak and in his readers to hear, has made the 
 blank decasyllabic effect familiar when it need not be strictly uniform 
 in order to obtain recognition these features assert themselves. The 
 first of these probably, and the most insidious, but also the most revo-
 
 63 
 
 lutionary, is the redundant syllable. It is of an ancient house ; we 
 had ourselves fif teeners before we had fourteeners, and in all prosodies 
 from Greek downwards there has been a tendency to regard the last 
 place in a line as a place of license and liberty. It is curiously unas 
 suming; in words (to keep the same examples) not merely like 'heaven,' 
 but like 'glory', it is a sort of 'breath' only, something that you do not 
 count, but just smuggle in with its companion. Yet, as we shall see 
 presently, it is a very Trojan Horse in reality. Then there is a stop, 
 full or other, in the middle of the line. This also is innocent-seeming. 
 What is it but a mere grammatical emphasising of the caesura, itself, 
 recognized of Gascoigne and all good people long before the first of 
 the Wits had trodden or supplied the stage? Next probably but it 
 need hardly be said that I stand not upon the order comes the inter 
 mixture of rhyme, a thing which the greatest blank verse will frown 
 upon, but which is so likely as a relapse, so convenient as a 'cue-tip,' 
 so pleasant to the as yet unaccustomed ear of the groundlings ; and 
 which, be it remembered, almost necessitates a sort of junction between 
 two lines, though it may favour the closing of the couplets. All these 
 things are apparently compatible certainly found with the stiffest 
 of the drumming decasyllabons, yet secret solvents of their stiffness. 
 
 Other things, still not ostensibly revolutionary, next suggest them 
 selves. We have seen in the last volume, that mediaeval poets, whether 
 through inexpertness or by experiment, and fifteenth-century poets 
 through clumsiness, largely curtailed or extended the normal length of 
 the line; that there are Alexandrines even in Chaucer, while a point 
 to which the Renaissance was likely to pay more attention there are 
 undoubtedly incomplete lines in Virgil. Why not avail oneself of these 
 licenses? Even Marlowe had done so now and then. Why not? But 
 if you do. your sacred integer of ten syllables is rudely touched. Once 
 more, again, you have recognized, and had formally recognized for 
 you, the duty of making a sort of fold or crease in each verse at the 
 fourth, fifth, or neighboring syllable. It is inconvenient, as well as 
 monotonous always to do it at the same place; yet, when you begin 
 to vary that place, is not the structure of the line troubled, though 
 beneficently so? And is there not somehow a kind of rhythmic con 
 spiracy in the successive lines where you vary it? Then, too, there 
 comes the power of words. Important or beautiful words, adjusted, 
 spaced, accumulated, give brilliancy, splendour, weight to the line. But 
 the line is so short. Why cut the necklace into lengths? Why not 
 make the stars constellations? And, lastly, there is the trisyllabic foot. 
 
 I trust I may repeat (after the not of course unanimous but fairly 
 general acknowledgment of critics, that the preceding volume has 
 made something of a case for it) that the trisyllabic foot is ubiquitous 
 in English verse from 1200 to 1500, and that nothing but the reaction 
 from the anarchy of doggerel brought about later, the partial and only 
 partial reprobation thereof. But there is no need to have recourse to 
 this, though from the historical point of view it cannot be omitted. In 
 blank verse, and especially in dramatic blank verse when once the
 
 64 
 
 practitioner has got rid of his fear of losing the guide-rope, if he step 
 out of the strict iamb it must, in English appear. It does appear; 
 and with it disappears the mere rub-a-dub of the decasyllabon. 
 
 THE PAUSE. 
 
 In arranging the pause at any syllable from first to ninth, and at 
 no syllable at all, not even tenth he is helped infinitely by that dis 
 tribution of the weight of words, rather after the fashion of quick 
 silver in a reed than of leaden bracelets fastened at intervals around 
 a stick, which has been more than once referred to. Nobody has ap 
 proached Shakespeare Tennyson has perhaps coine nearest, for Mil 
 ton's verse is too uniformly stately for comparison in this mastery of 
 poetical conjuring with word and line, a mastery of which he had 
 more than a glimpse as early as Romeo and Juliet, and of which he 
 gave the final and perfect display in The Tempest. The lines rise, fall, 
 sweep, wave, dart straight forward, are arrested in mid-air, insinuate 
 themselves in serpentine fashion as if in sword play with an invisible 
 adversary. 
 
 But these effects of weight, lightness, pungency, arresting power, 
 and so forth, are at least partly caused are certainly assisted im 
 mensely by two other things, the redundant ending and the trisyllabic 
 foot. The first chiefly gives variety; the second variety and flexibility 
 as nothing else could do; while variety again is lent by the shortened 
 fragment verses and the elongated Alexandrines and fourteeners, or 
 by verses with several trisyllabic feet in them. How these various 
 devices may be made to subserve particular effects of meaning, shades 
 of passion, and the like, need not be much dwelt on. This is a form 
 of prosodic study which has always commended itself to the multitude 
 as much as, perhaps almost more than, it should. But as to the way 
 in which the use of the trisyllabic foot grew, I have a theory which 
 is doubtless not new, but about which I have not seen much written. 
 
 THE TRISYLLABIC FOOT AND ITS REVIVAL, 
 
 It has been observed before, that, according to the principles of 
 this book, 'extra-metrical' syllables, anywhere but at tne end or middle 
 of the verse, are a confession, as the case may be, of impotence on 
 the part of the poet if they exist, of the critic, if they are supposed 
 to exist. And no great admiration has been hinted of the extra -metrical 
 syllable at the middle in any case. I believe, however, that at this 
 critical moment in the history of blank verse and, through the influence 
 of this on rhyme, in the history of English poetry generally, the mis 
 take or laches of indulging in this internal excrescence brought about 
 a great good. A large, a very large number of lines could be pointed 
 out where such a syllable is almost undoubtedly intended by the poet 
 (supposing he thought about it at all) as a license of the kind, and 
 not to be carried on to the other half of the line. As sucn, the effect 
 is almost always ugly; it can only be admired by those persons (with 
 whom the present writer most heartily differs, though he has been
 
 65 
 
 confused with them) who think that an irregularity must be an im 
 provement, that a mole must be a beauty, that discord must be har 
 monious. But such an ear as Shakespeare's could not fail to perceive 
 that this ugliness could be turned into a beauty by simply effecting 
 the connection, and fusing the derelict syllable with the following 
 iamb to make an harmonious anapaest. And this, I have myself 
 not the slightest doubt, was, in his and other cases, the actual genesis 
 (whether consciously and deliberately carried out does not, once more, 
 in the least matter) of the revived trisyllabic foot which Gascoigne 
 has bewailed as dead. And so the discord was made harmonious ; the 
 mole did become a beauty ; and the irregularity was the foundation 
 of the larger and nobler Rule. The process, in fact, is one of the 
 best examples of that operation of growth and life to which the people 
 who say that the ballad writers never thought about contending for 
 the liberty of this very trisyllable foot itself, seem insensible. I do 
 not know whether the wind thinks about blowing or the flower about 
 growing, but I know that they blow and grow. 
 
 THE REDUNDANT SYLLABLE. 
 
 The use at the end of the syllable, redundant or extra-metrical 
 if we must have the word, though to me extra-metre is no metre 
 has a different history. At the middle it is very rarely a beauty ; 
 perhaps never, unless it can be 'carried over' as just described. At the 
 end it is often beautiful ; and, whether beauty or not, is almost inevi 
 table now and then, and most useful constantly. Further, it is a 
 most powerful and important instrument of variation a natural link 
 or remedy against line-isolation far-descended as has been said, and 
 of other excellent differences. But it is something of a Delilah who 
 was herself apparently of a good Philistine family, and is known to 
 have had exceptional attractions as a person. Indeed, the parable 
 or parallel works out with remarkable exactness ; for it is a very con 
 siderable time before Delilah takes away Samson's strength, and the 
 means whereby she does so are mysterious. It can hardly be said 
 (though one may feel a vague sense of danger) that in Shakespeare's 
 own probably latest plays, where he indulges himself with the re 
 dundant line, Samson is anything but Samson still. There are pas 
 sages on passages in Beaumont and Fletcher themselves notably that 
 magnificent piece in The False One, which is one of the purplest 
 patches in the coat of Elizabethan drama wnere the hendecasyllable 
 has it nearly all its own way, with no harm and much good. But 
 Delilah is still Delilah; and she is too much for Samson the verse if 
 not the verse-smith at last. 
 
 ENJAMBMENT. 
 
 N 
 
 She takes indeed two forms : for much the same as has been said 
 of the redundant syllable may be said of enjambment or overlapping. 
 This, indeed, is rather the special Delilah of the couplet than of blank 
 verse, but each kind has to be very wary when it visits the vale of
 
 66 
 
 Sorek in this manner also. Opportunity of delight and occasion for 
 display of power as it is to the verse that keeps itself strong and 
 wide awake, overlapping is a place of slipping, and may be a pit 
 of destruction, to the loose-girt and careless versifier. And it has, in 
 common with redundancy and with the use of trisyllabic feet, the 
 special danger that it is perfectly easy to do badly. Anybody as soon 
 as these devices are once recognised, can practice them after a fashion, 
 and everybody proceeds to do so. Whence come things for tears. 
 
 THE MORPHOLOGY AND BIOLOGY OF BLANK VEBSE. 
 
 But the offence is his by whom the offence cometh ; and Shakes 
 peare in his complete work showed that there was no necessity of 
 offence at all, while there was the possibility (and in his case the 
 accomplishment) of infinite beauty. Foolish things have, no doubt, 
 been said in fact they are not unfrequently said at the present mo 
 ment as to the superiority of blank verse to rhyme; and we shall 
 have to deal with them, and with those from Milton downwards who 
 have been and are guilty of them, as they occur. At present it is 
 sufficient to point out, first, that the misvaluation is merely a case 
 of the common inability to like two good things without putting them 
 into unjust balances and weighing them against each other with un 
 stamped weights. Secondly, that, for this purpose and that, blank 
 verse is not superior to rhyme but demonstrably inferior. It will not 
 do at least it has not done for strict lyric, as the moderate success 
 even of Campion or Collins, and the failure of almost everybody else, 
 have well shown. It is a great question whether it is not a very 
 dangerous medium even for long narrative poems. But for short narra 
 tives; for short descriptive, reflective, didactic, and other pieces of 
 various kinds ; and for every kind of drama, or even partially dramatic 
 matter, it is, in English, the predestined medium, hammered out at 
 first by a full generation and more of partly unsuccessful, never more 
 than partly successful, pioneers and journeymen, chipped into per 
 fect form by the master Shakespeare, in prooably not half a genera 
 tion longer. Its extraordinary and unique success in English for 
 German blank verse, good as it can be, is far inferior, especially in 
 variety and music; and I know no thirdsman that deserves to rank 
 is probably due to the fact that our language, though perhaps singly 
 accented, is not singly emphasized ; that it provides a large number 
 of sufficient resting-places for the voice, but does not require (or, 
 except as an exception, allow) long dwelling on any. The way in 
 which not merely the French but almost all continental nations hurry 
 over half-a-dozen or a dozen syllables, and then plunge on the sue 
 ceeding one with a volley of exploding and shrapnel-like emphasis, 
 utterly ruins blank verse, whether as articulately delivered, or as 
 read with) that inarticulate but exactly proportioned following of 
 actual delivery which is necessary for prosodic appreciation. It is one 
 of the worst faults of the stress or accent or beat-system, as op 
 posed to the foot, that it vulgarises and impoverishes this great metre,
 
 67 
 
 where the unstressed syllables are not less important than the stressed, 
 It is essential to blank verse that no part of it should be killed, and 
 none brought into convulsive and galvanic activity ; otherwise the 
 delicate and complicated or simple ana yet substantial melody is 
 jarred and jangled out of all tune and time. Yet what infinite variety 
 of time and tune can be got out of it not by 'getting up stairs' on 
 the instrument, and flinging oneself down again, but by evoking the 
 infinite variety of its tones Shakespeare, Milton, Thomson, Shelley, 
 Tennyson, Browning, have shown us. But the greatest of these, and 
 the first, and the master of all the rest in even the details and pe 
 culiarities in which each is himself a master, is Shakespeare. Pp, 59- 
 61. 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 Very different is it with the Sonnets. We are, of course, free 
 here from the self-sought obsessions in respect of subject or object 
 which beset so many students of the marvelous compositions. It is 
 enough for us that they exist, and that Mere's references show that 
 at any rate some of them existed at a pretty early period of Shakes 
 peare's career, while the general not 01 course quite universal 
 equality of the model makes it very unnecessary to disturb ourselves 
 with the futile inquiry whether any, and if so which, of them were 
 not or might not have been handed about among his private friends 
 before 1598. Here the poet has a medium which is absolutely con 
 genial to him, and with which, as with blank verse, he can do any 
 thing he likes. With his usual sagacity he chooses the English form, 
 and prefers its extremest variety that of the three quatrains and 
 couplet, without any interlacing rhyme. Nevertheless he gives the full 
 sonnet effect not merely by the distribution (which he does not 
 always observe, though he often does) of octave and sestet subject, 
 but very mainly by that same extraordinary symphonising of the 
 prosodic effects of individual and batched verses, which was his secret 
 in blank verse itself. // it seem surprising that so difficult and subtle 
 a medium should be mastered so early, let it be remembered that the 
 single-line mould, properly used, is by no means ttnsuitable to the son 
 net, the effect of which is definitely cumulative. We have no certain 
 or even probable sonnets of Marlowe's, for the three coarse but fairly 
 vigorous ones by 'Ignoto,' usually printed with his works, are very 
 unlikely to be his. But if he had" written any he would not have had 
 to alter his mode of line much in itself. He would, however, have 
 had to adjust it relatively, as he seldom did, and as Shakespeare began 
 to do from the first, by weighting it variously, by applying what we 
 have called the 'quicksilver' touch. 
 
 It is by this combmed cumulative and diversifying effect, this 
 beating up against the wind as it were, that the ordinary and extra 
 ordinary 'toicer' of these sonnets is produced; and this tower is to 
 some readers their great and inexhaustible charm. No matter what 
 the subject is, the 'man right fair' or 'the woman coloured ill,' the
 
 68 
 
 incidents of daily joy and chagrin, or those illimitable meditations 
 on life and love and thought at large which eternise the more ephe 
 meral things the process, prosodic and poetic, is more or less the 
 same, though carefully kept from monotony. In the very first lines 
 there is the spread and beating of the wing; the flight rises till the 
 end of the douzain, when it stoops or sinks quietly to the close in 
 the couplet. The intermediate devices by which this effect is pro 
 duced are, as always with Shakespeare, hard to particularise. Here, 
 as in the kindred region of pure style, he has so little mannerism, 
 that it is easier to apprehend than to analyse his manner. It may 
 be a coincidence, or it may not, that in a very large proportion of 
 the openings what we may call a bastard caesura, or ending of a 
 word without much metrical scission at the third syllable, precedes 
 a strictly metrical one at the fourth. Another point is that, through 
 out, full stops or their equivalents in mid-line are extremely rare, a-nd 
 even at the end not common, till the twelfth, so that the run of the 
 whole is uninterrupted, though its rhythm is constantly diversified. 
 Redundant syllables are very rare, except where, as in Ixxxvii., they 
 are accumulated with evident purpose. The trisyllabic foot, though 
 used with wonderful effect sometimes, is used very sparingly. On the 
 whole Shakespeare seems here to have had for his object, or at any 
 rate to have achieved as his effect, the varying of the line with as 
 little as possible breach or ruffling of it. He allows himself a tlash 
 or blaze of summer lightning now and then, but no fussing with con 
 tinual crackers. All the prosodic handling is subdued to give that 
 steady passionate musing that 'emotion recollected in tranquillity' 
 which is characteristic of the best sonnets, and of his more than almost 
 of any others. Of mere 'sports,' such /is the octo-syllabic cxlv., it is 
 hardly necessary to speak. P. 65. 
 
 But, luckily, all these things are well known, and our not too 
 abundant space should be saved for others that are not quite so. Let 
 it suffice to say, in conclusion, that, blank verse or song, sonnet or 
 stanza, Shakespeare achieves everything that he touches ; that he foots 
 it everywhere with perfect featness; and that he always does foot 
 it His harmonies and melodies are reducible to the nicely constructed 
 and regularly equivalenced group; not to the haphazard and blunder 
 ing accent scheme. They are independent of music, though quite will 
 ing to unite with it. They require no fantastic laws of sound to ex 
 plain them. The poet simply puts his hand into the exhaustless lucky- 
 bag of English Words, and arranges them trochee and iamb and ana 
 paest regularly, spondee and dactyl and even tribrach when he chooses 
 at his pleasure and for ours.
 
 69 
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S PREDECESSORS. 
 
 IN THE 
 ENGLISH DRAMA"t 
 
 By 
 JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS, 
 
 Author of 
 
 'Studies of Greek Poets' 'Renaissance In Italy' 'Sketches in Italy 
 and Greece,' etc. 
 
 Marlowe has been styled, and not unjustly styled, the father of 
 English dramatic poetry. When we reflect on the conditions of the 
 stage before lie produced 'Tamburlaine,' and consider the state in 
 which he left it after the appearance of 'Edward II.,' we shall be able 
 to estimate his true right to this title. Art, like Nature, does not move 
 by sudden leaps and bounds. It required a slow elaboration of divers 
 elements, the formation of a public able to take interest in dramatic 
 exhibitions, the determination of the national taste toward the ro 
 mantic rather than the classic type of art, and all the other circum 
 stances which have been dwelt upon in the preceding studies, to ren 
 der Marlowe's advent as decisive as it proved. Before he began to write, 
 various dramatic species had been essayed with more or less success. 
 Comedies modelled in form upon the types of Plautus and Terence; 
 tragedies conceived in the spirit of Seneca ; chronicles rudely arranged 
 in scenes for representation ; dramatised novels and tales of private 
 life ; Court comedies of compliment and allegory ; had succeeded to 
 the religious Miracles and ethical Moralities. There was plenty of 
 productive energy, plenty of enthusiasm and activity. Theatres con 
 tinued to spring up, and acting came to rank among the recognised 
 professions. But this activity was still chaotic. None could say where 
 or whether the germ of a great national art existed. To us, students 
 of the past, it is indeed clear enough in what direction lay the real 
 life of the drama ; but this was not apparent to contemporaries. 
 Scholars despised the shows of mingled bloodshed and buffoonery in 
 which the populace delighted. The people had no taste for dry and 
 formal disquisitions in the style of 'Gorboduc.' The blank verse of 
 Sackville and Hughes rang hollow : the prose of Lyly was affected ; 
 the rhyming couplets of the popular theatre interfered with dialogue 
 and free development of character. The public itself was divided in 
 its tastes and instincts ; the mob inclining to mere drolleries and merri 
 ments upon the stage, the better vulgar to formalities and studied 
 imitations. A powerful body of sober citizens, by no means wholly 
 ' composed of Puritans and ascetics, regarded all forms of dramatic art 
 with undisguised hostility. Meanwhile, no really great poet had arisen 
 to stamp the tendencies of either Court or town with the authentic 
 seal of genius. There seemed a danger lest the fortunes of the stage 
 in England should be lost between the prejudices of a literary class, 
 
 t Pages 585, et seq.
 
 70 
 
 the puerile and lifeless pastimes of the multitude, and the disfavour 
 of conservative moralists. From this peril Marlowe saved the Eng 
 lish drama. Amid the chaos of conflicting elements he discerned the 
 true and living germ of art, and set its growth beyond all risks of 
 accident by his achievement. 
 
 When, therefore, we style Marlowe the father and founder of 
 English dramatic poetry, we mean that he perceived the capacities 
 for noble art inherent in the Romantic Drama, and proved its adapta 
 tion to high purpose by his practice. Out of confusion he brought 
 order, following the clue of his own genius through a labyrinth of 
 dim unmastered possibilities. Like all great craftsmen, he worked by 
 selection and exclusion on the whole mass of material ready to his 
 hand; and his instinct in this double process is the proof of his 
 originality. He adopted the romantic drama in lieu of the classic, 
 the popular instead of the literary type. But he saw that the right 
 formal vehicle, blank verse, had been suggested by the school which 
 he rejected. Rhyme, the earlier metre of the romantic drama, had 
 to be abandoned. Blank verse, the metre of the pedants, had to be 
 accepted. To employ blank verse in the romantic drama was the first 
 step in his revolution. But this was only the first step. Both form 
 and matter had alike to be transfigured. And it was precisely in 
 this transfiguration of the right dramatic metre, in this transfiguration 
 of the right dramatic stuff, that Marlowe showed himself a creative 
 poet. What we call the English, or the Elizabethan, or better per 
 haps the Shakesperian Drama, came into existence by this double 
 process. Marlowe found the public stage abandoned to aimless 
 trivialities, but abounding in the rich life of the nation, and with the 
 sympathies of the people firmly enlisted on the side of its romantic 
 presentation. He introduced a new class of heroic subjects, eminently 
 fitted for dramatic handling. He moulded characters, and formed a 
 vigorous conception of the parts they had to play. Under his touch 
 the dialogue moved with spirit; men and women spoke and acted 
 with the energy and spontaneity of nature. He found the blank verse 
 of the literary school monotonous, tame, nerveless, without life or 
 movement. But he had the tact to understand its vast capacities, so 
 vastly wider than its makers had divined, so immeasurably more 
 elastic than the rhymes for which he substituted its sonorous cadence. 
 Marlowe, first of Englishmen, perceived how noble was the instrument 
 he handled, how well adapted to the closest reasoning, the sharpest 
 epigram, the loftiest flight of poetry, the subtlest music, and the most 
 luxuriant debauch of fancy. Touched by his hands the thing became 
 an organ capable of rolling thunders and of whispering sighs, of mov 
 ing with pompous volubility or gliding like a silvery stream, of blow 
 ing trumpet-blasts to battle or sounding the soft secrets of a lover's 
 heart I do not assert that Marlowe made it discourse music of so 
 many moods. But what he did with it, unlocked the secrets of the 
 verse, and taught successors how to play upon its hundred stops. He 
 found it what Greene calls a 'drumming decasyllabon.' Each line
 
 71 
 
 stood alone, formed after the same model, ending with a strongly 
 accented monosyllable. Marlowe varied the pauses in its rhythm ; com 
 bined the structure of succeeding verses into periods; altered the in 
 cidence of accent in many divers forms and left the metre fit to be 
 the vehicle of Shakspere's or Milton's thought. Compared with 
 either of those greatest poets, Marlowe, as a versifier, lacks indeed 
 variety of cadence, and palls our sense of melody by emphatic magnilo 
 quence. The pomp of his 'mighty line' tends to monotony ; nor was 
 he quite sure in his employment of the instrument which he discovered 
 and divined. The finest bursts of metrical music in his dramas seem 
 often the results of momentary inspiration rather than the studied 
 style of a deliberate artist. 
 
 This adaptation of blank verse to the romantic drama, this blend 
 ing of classic form with popular material, and the specific heightening 
 of both form and matter by the application of poetic genius to the 
 task, constitutes Marlowe's claims to be styled the father and the 
 founder of our stage. We are so accustomed to Shakspere that it 
 is not easy to estimate the full importance of his predecessor's revolu 
 tion. Once again, therefore, let us try to bear in mind the three card 
 inal points of Marlowe's originality. In the first place, he saw that 
 the romantic drama, the drama of the public theatres, had a great 
 future before it. In the second place, he saw that the playwrights of 
 the classic school had discovered the right dramatic metre. In the 
 third place, he raised both matter and metre, the subjects of the ro 
 mantic and the verse of the classic school, to heights as yet unappre- 
 hended in his days. Into both he breathed the breath of life; heroic, 
 poetic, artistic, vivid with the spirit of Ms age. From the chaotic 
 and conflicting elements around him he drew forth the unity of Eng 
 lish Drama, and produced the thing which was to be so great, is 
 still so perfect. 
 
 Marlowe was fully aware of his object. The few and seemingly 
 negligent lines which serve as prologue to 'Tamburlaine,' written prob 
 ably when he was a youth of twenty-two, set forth his purpose in 
 plain terms: 
 
 From jigging veins of rhyming mother-wits, 
 And such conceits as clownage keeps in pay, 
 We'll lead you to the stately tent of war; 
 Where you shall hear the Scythian Tamburlaine 
 Threatening the world, with high astounding terms, 
 And scourging kingdoms with his conquering sword. 
 
 In other words, Marlowe undertakes to wean the public from its 
 drolleries and merriments. He advertises a metre hitherto unused 
 upon the popular stage. He promises an entertainment in which heroic 
 actions shall be displayed with the pomp of a new style. The 
 puerilities of clownage are to retire into the second place. Yet the 
 essential feature of the romantic drama, its power to fascinate and 
 please a public audience, is not to be abandoned.
 
 72 
 
 The Importance of Blank Verse in the history of English poetry, 
 especially dramatic poetry, is so great that Marlowe's innovations in the 
 use of it demand a somewhat lengthy introduction, in order that their 
 scope may be understood. 
 
 The single line, or unit, in a blank verse period is a line of nor 
 mally five accents, of which the final accent falls on the last syllable, 
 or, if that syllable be not definitely accented, is supplied by the closing 
 pause. It consists frequently, but by no means invariably, of ten 
 syllables. It has usually, but not inevitably, a more or less discern- 
 able pause, falling after the fourth or the sixth syllable. Out of 
 these determinations, it is possible to make or to select a typical line 
 the normal line of English heroic rhythm. And for this purpose we 
 can do no better than choose the one indicated by Johnson from 
 Milton : 
 
 Love lights his lamp, and waves his purple wing. 
 
 Here it will be noticed we get five accents regularly falling on the 
 second syllable of each foot, and a pause marked at the end of the 
 fourth syllable. Such a line may be termed the ideal line of English 
 heroic prosody ; and it is our business to keep its scheme somewhere, 
 in however shadowy a shape, present to our mind, in order to appre 
 ciate and judge the almost innumerable declensions from the type 
 which constitute the variety and beauty of tue metre in the handling 
 of great masters. 
 
 This line, which has become the standard metre of serious English 
 poetry in epic, story, idyll, satire, drama, elegy, and meditative lyric, 
 had been used from early times anterior to its application to blank 
 verse. Chaucer and his followers employed it in the couplet and rime 
 royal; Surrey, Wyatt, and Sidney in the sonnet; Spencer in the stanzas 
 of the 'Faery Queen.' But in the hands of these masters, and applied 
 to these purposes, the verse w r as still subservient to rhyme. Surrey, 
 in his translation of the 'Aeneid,' was the first poet who attempted 
 to free the measure from this servitude. It is supposed that, in mak 
 ing his experiment, he followed Italian models. The Italian heroic 
 verse, a line of five accents, but commonly of eleven syllables, and 
 not distinguished by a normal pause, had undergone a similar tran 
 sition from rhymed to unrhymed usage. Employed at first in the terza 
 rima of Dante, the ottava rima of Boccaccio, the sonnet of Petrarch, 
 it had been emancipated from rhyme by Trissino, Rucellai, and 
 Alamanni, writers of tragic, epic, and didactic poems. Among the 
 Italians the transformed measure acquired the name of versi sciolti, 
 or verse freed from rhyme. 
 
 Surrey is presumed to have imitated the example of these poets 
 when he attempted what we call Blank Verse verse, that is, where the 
 rhymes are blank or vacant. 
 
 At the same time we may profitably bear in mind that the dram 
 atic poets with whose work we have to deal, deliberately sought to 
 adapt their versification to Greek, Latin, and Italian rules of prosody,
 
 73 
 
 as these had then been imperfectly analysed. On the Old English stock 
 they grafted slips of artful growth imported from their classic and 
 Italian studies. The developed blank verse of the Elizabethan age is, 
 therefore, a hybrid between a native rhythm and an antique metre. 
 Unless we grasp this fact we shall miss some of the specific beauties 
 of a measure which, without ceasing to be native and accentual, adopted 
 qualities of rhetoric and movement from the Attic stage, the Latin 
 epic, and the Italian imitators of the classic style. 
 
 Since blank verse is an accentual rhythm, it lends itself with 
 great effect to emphasis for emphasis is only enforced accent. The 
 facility with which it can be written, the monotony to which it is 
 peculiarly liable in the hands of a weak versifier, justify, nay, almost 
 necessitate, daring variations in its structure; and these variations 
 assist rhetorical effects. In the absence of rhyme one line can be 
 linked to another without injury, and periods may be formed, like 
 those of prose, in which phrase balances phrase, and the music of 
 language is drawn through sequences of mutually helpful verses. The 
 pause and stop, which are important elements in English prosody, add 
 another element of variety, by allowing each line to be broken in 
 more than one place, and enabling a skilful craftsman to open and 
 close periods of rhythmic melody at several points in the structure. 
 Reviewing these qualities of English blank verse, we shall perceive 
 that it is an eminently dramatic metre. Its facility and rapid move 
 ment bring it into close relation to the speech of common life, and 
 impose no shackling limitations upon dialogue. At the same time the 
 fixed element of rhythm raises it above colloquial language, and ren 
 ders even abrupt transitions from the pedestrian to the impassioned 
 style of poetry both natural and easy. The emphasis on which it 
 mainly relies for variety of music, gives scope to rhetoric. By shift 
 ing the incidence of accent, a playwright not only animates his verse 
 and produces agreeable changes in the rhythm ; but he also marks the 
 meaning of his words, and yields opportunities for subtly modulated 
 declamation to the actor. The same end is gained by altering the 
 pauses, on which a very wide scale of oratorical effects can be touched. 
 When Johnson complained that Milton's method of versification 
 'changes the measures of a poet to the periods of a declaimer,' he laid 
 his finger on that quality of blank verse which is certainly a gain 
 to the Drama, whatever may be thought about its value for the epic. 
 The true and only way of appreciating the melody of good blank verse 
 is to declaim it, observing how the changes in the rhythm obey the 
 poet's meaning, and enforce the rhetoric he had in view. Blank verse 
 is, in fact, the nearest of all poetical measures to prose; yet it does 
 not sacrifice the specific note of verse, which is the maintenance of 
 one selected rhythm, satisfying the ear by repetition, and charming 
 it by variety within the compass of its formal limitations. 
 
 Marlowe, with the instinct of genius, observed these advantages 
 of the unrhynied heroic measure, and with the faculty of a great 
 artist he solved the problem of rendering it the supreme instrument
 
 74 
 
 of tragic poetry. Instead of the improver he may almost be called 
 the creator of blank verse; for the mere omission of rhyme in the 
 metre of his predecessors did not suffice to constitute what we now un 
 derstand by blank verse. He found the heroic line monotonous, mono 
 syllabic, divided into five feet of tolerably regular alternate shorts and 
 longs. He left it various in form and structure, sometimes redundant by 
 a syllable, sometimes deficient, and animated by unexpected emphases 
 and changes in the pause. He found It a clumsy and mistaken imita 
 tion of the classical iambic; he restored it to its birthright as a 
 native English rhythm. He found no sequence of concatenated lines 
 or attempt at periods one verse followed another in isolation, and 
 all were made after the same insipid model. He grouped his lines 
 according to the sense, allowing the thought contained in his words 
 to dominate their form, and carrying the melody through several verses 
 linked together by rhetorical modulations. His metre did not pre 
 serve one unalterable type, but assumed diversity of cadences, the 
 beauty of which depended on their adaptation to the current of his 
 ideas. By these means he produced the double effect of unity and 
 contrast ; maintained the fixed march of his chosen rhythm ; and yet, 
 by alteration in the pauses, speed, and grouping of the syllables, by 
 changes in emphasis and accent, he made one measure represent a 
 thousand. His blank verse might be compared to music, which de 
 mands regular rhythm, but, by the employment of phrase, induces a 
 higher kind of melody to rise above the common and despotic beat 
 of time. 
 
 Bad writers of blank verse, like Marlowe's predecessors, 
 or like those who in all periods have been deficient in plastic 
 energy and power of harmonious adaptation, sacrifice the poetry 
 of expression, the force of rhetoric, to the mechanism of 
 their art. Metre with them becomes a mere framework, ceases 
 to be the organic body of a vivifying thought. And bad 
 critics praise them for the very faults of tameness and monotony, 
 which they miscall regularity of numbers. These faults, annoying 
 enough to a good ear in stanzas and rhymed couplets, are absolutely 
 insufferable in blank verse, which relies for melodious effect upon 
 its elasticity and pliability of cadence, and which is only saved from 
 insipidity by licenses interpretative of the poet's sense and demanded 
 by his rhetoric. 
 
 The creation of our tragic metre was not Marlowe's only benefit 
 conferred upon the stage. This was indeed but the form correspond 
 ing to the new dramatic method which he also introduced. He first 
 taught the art of designing tragedies on a grand scale, displaying unity 
 of action, unity of character, and unity of interest. Before his day 
 plays had been pageants or versified tales, arranged in scenes, and en 
 livened with 'such conceits as clownage keeps In pay.' He first pro 
 duced dramas worthy of that august title. Before his day it might 
 have been reckoned doubtful whether the rules and precedents of 
 the Latin theatre would not determine the style of tragic composition
 
 75 
 
 in England as in Italy. After the appearance of "Tamburlaine,' it 
 was impossible for a dramatist to attract the public by any play which 
 had not in it some portion of the spirit and the pith of that decisive 
 work. * * * 
 
 It was the central fire of Marlowe's genius which hardened that 
 dull and shapeless matrix of English dramatic poetry, and rendered 
 it capable of crystallising flawless and light-darting gems. When we 
 remember that Marlowe, born in the same year as Shakspere, died 
 at the early age of twenty-nine, while Shakspere's genius was still, 
 so far as the public was concerned, almost a potentiality ; when we 
 reflect upon the life which Marlowe had to lead among companions of 
 debauch in London, and further estimate the degradation of the art 
 he raised so high, we are forced to place him among the most original 
 creative poets of the world. His actual achievement may be judgecj 
 imperfect, unequal, immature, and limited. Yet nothing lower than 
 the highest rank can be claimed for one who did so much, in a space 
 of time so short, and under conditions so unfavourable. What Shaks 
 pere would have been without Marlowe, how his far more puissant 
 hand and wonder-working brain would have moulded English Drama 
 without Marlowe, cannot even be surmised. What alone is obvious 
 to every student is that Shakspere deigned from the first to tread in 
 Marlowe's footsteps, that Shakspere at the last completed and de 
 veloped to the utmost that national embryo of art which Marlowe 
 drew forth from the womb of darkness, anarchy, and incoherence. * * * 
 And yet, such is the nature of Marlowe's work, that it impera 
 tively indicates a leading motive, irresistibly suggests a catch-word. 
 This leading motive which pervades his poetry may be defined as 
 L' Amour de 1'Impossible the love or lust of unattainable things ; be 
 yond the reach of physical force, of sensual faculty, of mastering will ; 
 but not beyond the scope of man's inordinate desire, man's infinite ca 
 pacity for happiness, man's ever-craving thirst for beauty, power, and" 
 knowledge. * * * 
 
 Let us fix the nature of this leading motive by some salient pass 
 ages from Marlowe's dramas. I take the rudest and the crudest first. 
 In the 'Massacre at Paris' the Duke of Guise should not properly 
 have been displayed as more than what world-history reveals to us 
 a formidable rival of the House of Valois on the throne, a bloody 
 and unscrupulous foe of the Huguenot faction. But the spirit of Mar 
 lowe entering into the unwieldly carcass he has framed for this great 
 schemer, breathes these words: 
 
 Oft have I levelled, and at last have learned 
 
 That peril is the chiefest way to happiness 
 
 And resolution honour's fairest aim. 
 
 What glory is there in a common good, 
 
 That hangs for every peasant to achieve? 
 
 That like I best, that flies beyond my reach. 
 
 The central passion which inspires Marlowe and all the characters 
 of Marlowe's coinage finds utterance here. The Guise seeks happiness
 
 76 
 
 through peril ; finds honour only in a fierce resolve ; flings common 
 felicity to the winds; strains at the flying object of desire beyond his 
 grasp. Then he turns to the definite point of his ambition : 
 
 Set me to scale the high pyramides, 
 And thereon set the diadem of France; 
 I'll either rend it with my nails to nought, 
 Or mount the top with my aspiring wings, 
 Although my downfall be the deepest hell. * * * 
 
 This, as I have said, is the barest, nakedest exhibition of Mar 
 lowe's leading motive. He framed one character in which the desire 
 of absolute power is paramount; this is Tamburlaine. When the shep 
 herd-hero is confronted with the vanquished king of Persia, he pours 
 himself forth in a monologue which voices Marlowe through the pup 
 pet's lips : 
 
 The thirst of reign and sweetness of a crown, 
 That caused the eldest son of heavenly Ops 
 To thrust his doting father from his chair. 
 And place himself in the empyreal heaven, 
 Mov'd me to manage arms against thy state, 
 What better precedent than mighty Jove? 
 Nature, that frarn'd us of four elements 
 Warring within our breasts for regiment, 
 Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds; 
 Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend 
 The wondrous architecture of the world, 
 And measure every wandering planet's course, 
 Still climbing after knowledge infinite, 
 And always moving as the restless spheres. 
 Will us to wear ourselves, and never rest, 
 Until we reach the ripest fruit of all, 
 That perfect bliss and sole felicity, 
 The sweet fruition of an earthly crown. 
 
 It is Nature herself, says Tamburlaine, who placed a warfare of the 
 elements within the frame of man ; she spurs him onward by an in 
 born need toward empire. It is our souls, uncircumscribed by cosmic 
 circumstances, free to weigh planets in their courses and embrace the 
 universe with thought, that compel men to stake their all on the 
 most perilous of fortune's hazards. In this speech the poet, who 
 framed Tamburlaine, identifies himself with his creation, forgets the 
 person he has made, and utters through his mouth the poetry of his 
 desire for the illimitable. 
 
 There was a side-blow aimed at knowledge in this diatribe of 
 Tamburlaine on power. See how Faustus answers, abyss calling to 
 abyss from the same abysmal depth of the creator's mind :
 
 77 
 
 Divinity, adieu! 
 
 These metaphysics of magicians, 
 And necromantic books are heavenly 
 Lines, circles, scenes, letters, and characters 
 Ay, these are those that Faustus most desires. 
 O ! what a world of profit and delight, 
 Of power, of honour, and omnipotence, 
 Is promised to the studious artisan ! 
 All things that move between the quiet poles 
 Shall be at my command : emperors and kings 
 Are but obeyed in their several provinces ; 
 But his dominion that succeeds in this, 
 Stretcheth as far as doth the mind of man ; 
 A sound magician is a demigod : 
 Here tire my brains, to gain a deity. 
 
 On the ordinary paths of learning, logic, philosophy, physic, law, di 
 vinity, Faustus finds himself cramped, tied to dry rules, confined 
 within the circle of diurnal occupations. These things may be done 
 for services of man's common needs; but there lies or he divines there 
 lies beyond the reach of all such vulgar and trivial ways, a far 
 more hazardous path, a path which by assiduous study and emperil- 
 ment of self shall lead to empires. * * * 
 
 Descending from the high imaginative region in which Faustus 
 moves, travelling back from the dim realms of Ind, where Tambur- 
 laine defies the Fates, reaching England under the reign of our second 
 Edward, we find the same chord touched in Marlowe's Mortimer. 
 Upon the point of death, checkmated and flung like the Guise 'to 
 deepest hell,' he still maintains the old indomitable note, the key 
 note of the leading motive: 
 
 Base Fortune, now I see that in thy wheel 
 There is a point, to which when men aspire 
 They tumble headlong down : that point I touch'd, 
 And, seeing there was no place to mount up higher, 
 Why should I grieve at my declining fall? 
 Farewell, fair queen : weep not for Mortimer, 
 That scorns the world, and, as a traveler, 
 Goes to discover countries yet unknown. 
 
 I have pursued the leading motive, applied the catch-word, through 
 many examples bearing on the theme of power. It remains to select one 
 passage in which the same lust for the impossible shall be exhibited 
 when Marlowe turns his thought to beauty. Xenocrate, the love of 
 Tamburlaine. is absent and unhappy. The Tartar chief is left alone to 
 vent his passion in soliloquy. At first he dwells upon the causes of her 
 sorrow, with such 'lyrical interbreathings' as this, evoked from the recol 
 lection of her
 
 78 
 
 Shining face, 
 
 Where Beauty, mother to the muses, sits 
 And comments volumes with her ivory pen. 
 
 Gradually he passes into that vein of meditation, which allows the poet's 
 inspiration to transpire. Then Marlowe speaks, and shows in memo 
 rable lines that beauty has, no less than power, her own impossible, for 
 which he thirsted : 
 
 What is beauty, sayeth my sufferings, then? 
 
 If all the pens that ever poets held 
 
 Had fed the feeling of their master's thoughts. 
 
 And every sweetness that inspired their hearts, 
 
 Their minds and muses on admired themes ; 
 
 If all the heavenly quintessence they still 
 
 From their immortal flowers of poesy, 
 
 Wherein, as in a mirror, we perceive 
 
 The highest reaches of a human wit ; 
 
 If these had made one poem's period, 
 
 And all combined in beauty's worthiness, 
 
 Yet should there hover in their restless heads 
 
 One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the last, 
 
 Which into words no virtue can digest. 
 
 The impossible beauty, on which Tamburlaine here meditates, is beauty 
 eluding the poet and the artist in their highest flight; that apple top 
 most on the topmost bough, which the gatherers have not overlooked, 
 but leave perforce, because they strove in vain to reach it It is always 
 this beauty, inflaming the artist's rather than the lover's soul, which 
 Marlowe celebrates. He has written no drama of love ; and even In 
 'Hero and Leander,' that divinest dithyramb in praise of sensual beauty, 
 the poet moves in a hyperuranian region, from which he contemplates 
 with eyes of equal adoration all the species of terrestrial loveliness. 
 The tender emotions and the sentiment of love were alien to Marlowe's 
 temper. It may even be doubted whether sexual pleasures had any very 
 powerful attraction for his nature. To such, we think, he gave his 
 cruder, poetry-exhausted moments. When he evoked the thought of 
 women to tempt Doctor Faustus, he touched this bass-chord of carnal 
 desire with the hand of a poet-painter rather than a sensualist : 
 
 Sometimes like women, or unwedded maids, 
 Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows 
 Than have the white breasts of the queen of love. 
 
 Yet it was in no Platonic mood that he set those mighty sails of bis 
 imagination to the breeze upon the sea of Beauty. That thirst for the 
 impossible, when once applied to things of sense and loveliness, is a 
 lust and longing after the abstraction of all beauties, the self of sense, 
 the quintessence of pleasures. This is, of course, the meaning of Fans-
 
 79 
 
 tus' address to Helen, summoned from the ghosts as the last tangible 
 reality of beauty, to give comfort to his conscience-laden soul : 
 
 Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, 
 
 And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? 
 
 Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. ( Kisses her) 
 
 Her lips suck forth my soul : see where it flies ! 
 
 Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. 
 
 Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips, 
 
 And all is dross that is not Helena. 
 
 O, thou art fairer than the evening air, 
 Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars; 
 Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter 
 When he appeared to hapless Semele ; 
 More lovely than the monarch of the sky 
 In wanton Arethusa's azur'd arms; 
 And none but thou shalt be my paramour ! 
 
 The same triumphant sense of having conquered the unconquerable, and 
 enjoyed the final gust of pleasure in things deemed impossible for men, 
 emerges in another speech of Faustus : 
 
 Have I not made blind Homer sing to me 
 
 Of Alexander's love and Oenon's death? 
 
 And hath not he, that built the walls of Thebes 
 
 With ravishing sound of his melodious harp, 
 
 Made music with my Mephistophilis? 
 
 When Xenocrate is dying Tamburlaine pours forth a monody, which, 
 however misplaced on his lips, gives Marlowe scope to sing the nuptial 
 hymn of beauty unapproachable, withdrawn from 'loathsome earth,' re 
 turning to her native station in the heavens. There, and there only, 
 says the poet, shall the spirit mate with loveliness and be at peace in 
 her embrace : 
 
 Now walk the angels on the walls of heaven, 
 
 As sentinels to warn the immortal souls 
 
 To entertain the divine Xenocrate * * * 
 
 The cherubins and holy seraphins, 
 
 That sing and play before the King of kings, 
 
 Use all their voices and their instruments 
 
 To entertain divine Xenocrate; 
 
 And in this sweet and curious harmony, 
 
 The god that tunes this music to our souls 
 
 Holds out his hand in highest majesty 
 
 To entertain divine Xenocrate. 
 
 Then let some holy trance convey my thoughts 
 
 Up to the palace of the empyreal heaven, 
 
 That this my life may be as short to me 
 
 As are the days of sweet Xenocrate.
 
 80 
 
 In this rapturous and spiritual marriage-song, which celebrates the 
 assumption or apotheosis of pure beauty, the master bends his mighty 
 line to uses of lyric poetry, as though a theme so far above the reach 
 of words demanded singing * * * 
 
 In dealing with Marlowe, it is Impossible to separate the poet from 
 the dramatist, the man from bis creations. His personality does not 
 retire, like Shakspere's, behind the work of art into impenetrable mys 
 tery. Rather, like Byron, but with a truer faculty for dramatic pre 
 sentation than Byron possessed, he inspires the principal characters of 
 his tragedies with the ardour, the ambition, the audacity of his own 
 restless genius. Tamburlaine, who defies heaven, and harnesses kings 
 arid princes of the East to his chariot, who ascends his throne upon 
 the necks of prostrate emperors, and burns a city for his consort's fune 
 ral pyre, embodies the insolence of his creator's spirit. At the same 
 time, in this haughty and aspiring shepherd the historic Tartar chief 
 is firmly rendered visible. Through Tamburlaine's wild will and imper 
 turbable reliance upon destiny, the brute instincts of savage tribes 
 yearning after change, pursuing conquest and spreading desolation with 
 the irresistible impulse of a herd of bisons marching to their fields of 
 salt, emerge into self -consciousness. Marlowe has traced the v portrait 
 with a bold hand, filling its details in with broad and liberal touches: 
 
 Of stature tall, and straightly fashioned, 
 
 Like his desires, lift upward and divine ; 
 
 So large of limbs, his joints so strongly knit, 
 
 Such breadth of shoulders as might mainly bear 
 
 Old Atlas's burden * * * 
 
 Pale of complexion, wrought in him with passion, 
 
 Thirsting with sovereignty and love of arms; 
 
 His lofty brows in folds do figure death, 
 
 And in their smoothness amity and life ; 
 
 About them hangs a knot of amber hair, , 
 
 Wrapped in curls, as fierce Achilles' was, 
 
 On which the breath of heaven delights to play, 
 
 Making it dance in wanton majesty ; 
 
 His arms and fingers, long and sinewy, 
 
 Betokening valour and excess of strength; 
 
 In every part proportioned like the man 
 
 Should make the world subdued to Tamburlaine. 
 
 This is the picture drawn of him at the beginning of his fortunes by 
 a generous enemy. There is a magnetism in the presence of the man. 
 A Persian captain, commissioned to overawe and trample down his 
 pride, no sooner sees Tamburlaine than he falls a victim to his influence: 
 
 His looks do menace heaven and dare the gods ; 
 
 His fiery eyes are fixed upon the earth, 
 
 As if he now designed some stratagem, 
 
 Or meant to pierce Avernus' darksome vaults, 
 
 To pull the triple-headed dog from hell.
 
 81 
 
 Tamburlaine, on his side, favoursi the manly bearing of his foe, and 
 bids him welcome with such words as bind the captain to his cause : 
 
 Forsake thy king, and do but join with me, 
 And we will triumph over all the world. 
 I hold the fates bound fast in iron chains, 
 And with my hand turn Fortune's wheel about. 
 
 Such confidence is contagious, imposing, as Napoleon's belief in his star 
 imposed, and working out its own accomplishment. His most powerful 
 opponents recognise the spell, and are cowed by it : 
 
 Some powers divine, or else infernal, mixed 
 Their angry seeds at his conception; 
 For he was never sprung of human race, 
 Since with the spirit of his fearful pride 
 He dares so doubtlessly resolve of rule, 
 And by profession be ambitious.
 
 ALI BABA 
 
 AND 
 
 THE FORTY THIEVES 
 
 A ROMANCE IN HIGH LIFE IN NEW YORK SHOWING HOW 
 THE VENDETTA IS OPERATED ON FIFTH AVENUE.. 
 
 The Society of the New York Hospital, 
 
 White Plains, 
 
 New York, 
 July 3d, 1897. 
 Hon. Micajah Woods, t 
 
 Commonwealth's Attorney, 
 
 Charlottesville, 
 
 Virginia. 
 
 My Dear Captain: You will possibly be surprised to hear that I 
 am not abroad, as is generally thought; but am confined without due 
 process of law, in a New York private Insane Asylum, whither I was 
 brought by force against my expressed will; having been arrested by 
 two officers in plain clothes on an order from a Judge of the Supreme 
 Court of the State of New York. 
 
 You will pardon the length of this letter when I say that I wish 
 to employ you as assistant counsel in co-operation with Senator John 
 W. Daniel.t as leading counsel, in a habeas corpus proceedings which 
 I wish instituted without delay. 
 
 I enclose a certified copy of my Commitment Papers, which I sug 
 gest that you defer reading until you have finished this letter, as they 
 are a tissue of perjuries from beginning to end, and this letter will 
 point out and prove the said perjuries in their order. 
 
 Before going into the Commitment Papers I shall give you a short 
 account of what led to my present predicament. 
 
 I have been on unfriendly terms with my family my brothers 
 and sisters for a long time. 
 
 It is not necessary to go into the causes which led to this state 
 of affairs, except to say that they are partly business and partly tem 
 peramental. The line of demarcation began nine years ago and has 
 gradually extended ever since. The climax of unpleasantness was 
 
 tSince deceased.
 
 83 
 
 reached last October. My youngest sister was then married, and I was 
 to have "given her away." Ill health prevented my presence at the 
 wedding. I had been confined to my bed in my home, "The Merry 
 Mills," Cobham, Albemarle County, Virginia, for several days before 
 its date, and was in bed at the time. The wedding took place at my 
 sister's home on the Hudson River. I sent a note by a special mes 
 senger, explaining my inability to be present, and also bearing a hand 
 some present from myself to the bride. 
 
 The messenger arrived at my sister's home the day before the 
 wedding. As there were four other brothers of the bride present at 
 the wedding, I felt that my absence would throw no difficulty in the 
 way of "giving her away." 
 
 It seems that my absence from that wedding was one of the main 
 causes of my present incarceration in a madhouse. 
 
 About a month later one of my sisters with whom I was on better 
 terms than with my other brothers and sisters while lunching with 
 me during one of my business trips to New York, said touching my 
 absence from the wedding, that the family, including my brothers and 
 sisters, were not put out at my absence from the wedding they simply 
 considered me crazy. 
 
 I did not pay much attention to this thinking it a species of joke, 
 to which I had grown accustomed from years of hearing. For when 
 ever, in the course of an argument with any of my brothers or sisters 
 I said anything whicL they found difficult to combat, their usual reply 
 was, "You're crazy." 
 
 You must excuse my touching upon such a seemingly unimportant 
 matter, but in crime nothing is unimportant, and you will see before 
 finishing this letter that a crime has been committed against the lib 
 erty and the reason of a citizen of the sovereign State of Virginia 
 myself. 
 
 The next complication of the already severely strained relations 
 between ' the family" and myself occurred in December last. I was 
 still detained in New York on the business trip before alluded to. At 
 a Directors' Meeting of the Roanoke Rapids Power Co., of Roanoke 
 Rapids, North Carolina, held in New York last December, a most vio 
 lent altercation arose between my brother, Mr. Winthrop Astor Chan- 
 ler and myself. The upshot of it was that he wrote me a letter next 
 day refusing to speak to me or to have any further communication 
 with me except in writing or through third parties. As this brother 
 had struck me some years ago, and had quarrelled violently with me 
 frequently since, the above communication did not surprise me. Mr. 
 Winthrop Astor Chanler is one year my junior, and was director with 
 me in the Roanoke Rapids Power Company. 
 
 I accepted his proposition and sent a representative next day to 
 say to him that I did so. I also notified him that I should send a 
 representative to go over the books of my father's estate, of which he 
 was an executor. This estate has furnished but two accountings in
 
 84 
 
 ten years. I do not suspect my brothers of wilful mismanagement, but 
 I do suspect the lawyers whom they employ to do the work of invest 
 ment, etc., for them, of investments which are more to their own in 
 terests than that of the said estate. My brother agreed to my propo 
 sition and I thought no more about it. 
 
 About this time I returned to my home in Virginia. I had 
 arranged my business affairs before leaving so as to allow me to take 
 at least two months rest. 
 
 I must tell you that for some years I have been carrying on in 
 vestigations in Esoteric Buddhism. You must not imagine from this 
 that I am not a Christian; for I am a communicant in the Episcopal 
 Church. 
 
 My investigations were entirely scientific in their nature and 
 totally free from any tinge of religion. They supposed a state of mind 
 open to impressions and free from prejudices. I am not going to bore 
 you with a lecture on Esoteric Buddhism, and shall dismiss the sub 
 ject. In the latter part of February last I received a telegram from 
 my friend, Mr. Stanford White, proposing to visit me in company with 
 a mutual friend. As I was on rather unfriendly terms with Mr. White 
 at the time, owing to an abusive letter he had recently written me, 
 I did not look forward to a visit from him with pleasure. I therefore 
 sent him a telegram to say that I was not well enough to see him. A 
 few days later Mr. White walked in on me in company with a physi 
 cian. I shall not attempt to picture my surprise. Let it suffice to say 
 that I was struck dumb. 
 
 Mr. White hastily excused his intrusion and implored me to accom 
 pany him to New York for a "plunge in the metropolitan whirl." As 
 I had some business which needed my attention in New York I con 
 sented. 
 
 I stopped at the Hotel Kensington, 15th Street and 5th Avenue, 
 where I have been in the habit of putting up on my business trips to 
 New York. A day or so after my arrival, and while immersed in my 
 business affairs, the physician who had accompanied Mr. White to 
 "The Merry Mills" presented himself in my rooms followed by a 
 stranger, whom he introduced as an oculist. 
 
 The reason he gave for breaking in on my privacy was the in 
 tense desire on the part of his friend, the Oculist, to examine my eyes. 
 
 I might say here incidentally that during my rest at home in 
 Virginia my eyes had undergone rather a remarkable change. Their 
 color having changed from brown to gray. I shall resume that sub 
 ject later, and shall merely say that after criticising Dr. E. F., the 
 physician who had accompanied Mr. White to my home in Virginia, 
 rather severely for bringing a stranger into my rooms without asking 
 permission, I allowed Dr. Moses Allen Starr, the Oculist, to examine 
 my eyes. Dr. Starr took a lense from his pocket and asking me to go 
 to the light examined my eyes attentively, he unhesitatingly pro 
 nounced them gray in color.
 
 85 
 
 I may as well re-open the subject of the change of color of my 
 eyes. 
 
 You may have noticed that my eyes were light brown. I say "may 
 have," for that assumes two things; first, that you are free from that 
 not unusual affection, color blindness; second, that you have the rather 
 unusual powers of observation demanded by my assumption that you 
 noticed my eyes at all. 
 
 At all events they were light brown. The extraneous and corrobo 
 rative eveidence of this fact is the description of Bering's eyes, on 
 page 39 of the latest edition of "The Quick or The Dead," which I en 
 close, having been sketched from me. I allude to the features of 
 course, the occurrences in the book being entirely imaginary. I have 
 the Princess Troubetzkoy's word for this : It is also a matter of almost 
 common knowledge: The New York "World" having published an 
 article on the Princess Trotibetzkoy, in February, 1896 if I remember 
 rightly which quoted as descriptive of me the passage above referred 
 to on page 39 of, "The Quick or The Dead"; and the writer of the said 
 article vouched for its correctness as a description of my personal ap 
 pearance, in the article itself. You will observe that Bering's eyes 
 are described as "the color of Autumn pools in sunlight." I need not 
 say to a Virginian that the color of Autumn pools in sunlight is brown, 
 a sparkling or bright brown. The pools meant are the deep quiet 
 places in streams into which the dead leaves fall covering the bottom 
 and giving a dark brown appearnce to the water, which is lightened 
 or brightened 1 when the sun plays upon the pool.t 
 
 Bo much for what the color of my eyes was before they chango-1. 
 Their color now is dark gray. As authority for this statement I have 
 the testimony of every physician who has examined them and there 
 
 Excerpt from an article appearing in the New York "Sun" of 
 August 17, 1904: 
 
 "In 1888 he (John Armstrong Chaloner) was married to Amelie 
 Rives, and he was said to be the hero of her book, "The Quick or the 
 Bead." Seven year later proceedings for divorce were begun on the 
 ground of incompatibility of temperament. Immediately after the 
 divorce was granted Mrs. Chaloner married Prince Pierre Troubetzkoy, 
 the artist." 
 
 tTo Whom It May Concern: 
 
 I, the undersigned, have been asked by mutual friends to say 
 whether the statements in the New York "World" in the early part of 
 the year 1896, and in the New York "Sun" in August, 1904, to the 
 effect thnt the leading male character in "The Quick or the Bead" 
 was sketched from Mr. John Armstrong Chaloner are correct, say that 
 the statements are correct. By that I mean that the physical descrip 
 tion of Bering was a correct, even an exact description of Mr. Chaloner 
 in the year 1895. I do not wish to be misunderstood in this regard. 
 I do not wish to be understood as saying that the words and actions 
 of Bering were those of Mr. Chaloner. For the words and actions of 
 Bering were wholly imaginary.
 
 86 
 
 have been three besides that of subordinates in this establishment 
 whose opinion, as to the color of my eyes, I have asked. You must 
 excuse my dilating upon so seemingly unimportant a subject as the 
 color of my eyes; but I assure you it is far from unimportant in this 
 case, for the first count in the indictment against my reason, in the 
 Commitment Papers, made by the "Medical Examiners in Lunacy," is 
 to the effect that I am insane, because I say that my eyes have changed 
 color; both said Medical Examiners in Lunacy having freely admitted 
 that my eyes are undeniably gray. Apparently they hope to prove that 
 gray has always been the color of my eyes. 
 
 The next step in the proceeding^ was a nocturnal visit from Dr. 
 Moses Allen Starr, the Oculist, accompanied by another doctor, whom 
 I had never seen, and two unknown men. Dr. Starr pushed his way 
 into my rooms followed by the strange doctor unannounced. The two 
 unknown men remained outside my door. He then briefly informed 
 me that he (Dr. Starr) was a Professor of Nervous Diseases in a New 
 York College and that I was insane. He went on to say that he had 
 come to take me away he omitted to state where immediately that 
 I must get up at once (I was in bed at the time) that resistance on 
 my part would be useless as there was another doctor the said 
 strange doctor in the next room besides two other men the said un 
 known men outside the door. 
 
 It is not necessary to repeat my reply. I shall simply say that I 
 very quietly, but at the same time effectively, refused to obey Dr. 
 Starr's orders. I finally succeeded in convincing Dr. Starr without 
 the slightest show of force that he had not brought enough men with 
 him to carry me off that night. 
 
 The next afternoon two policemen, in plain clothes, presented 
 themselves at my hotel with the Commitment Papers, a certified copy 
 
 Furthermore, I have been asked by the same mutual friends to 
 explain just what color I meant to convey by the term as applied to 
 the color of Dering's eyes "Autumn pools." I meant by this expres 
 sion the color brown. The iris of Mr. Chaloner's eyes was in 1895 en 
 tirely brown. 
 
 Witness the following signature and seal this 21st day of February, 
 1905. 
 
 AMELIE TROUBETZKOY. (Seal.) 
 
 State of Virginia : 
 
 County of Albemarle : to-wit. 
 
 I, H. W. Wood, a Notary Public in and for the County of Albe 
 marle, in the State of Virginia, do certify that Amelie Troubetzkoy, 
 whose name is signed to the foregoing writing, bearing date on the 
 21st day of February, 1905, has acknowledged the same before me in 
 my county aforesaid. 
 
 Given under my hand this 21st day of February. 1005. 
 
 H. W. WOOD, N. P. 
 
 My term expires April 15, 1908.
 
 87 
 
 of which I enclose. I accompanied them without unnecessary discus 
 sion to this Private Insane Asylum. 
 
 Before going into the Commitment Papers, I shall briefly touch 
 on my life here for the past four months. I was brought here the 
 13th of March. Since that time I have been in solitary confinement, 
 in a two-roomed cell. A keeper sleeps in one of the rooms of my 
 cell, and he is always with me. When I take exercise in the Asylum 
 grounds the keeper accompanies me. My razors were seized on the 
 ground that it was "a rule of the Institution." The consequence was 
 that I had to be shaved by the Asylum barber, which caused me not 
 only inconvenience but hardship, since my beard is thick and my skin 
 is thin and no barber has been able to shave me without causing a 
 violent irritation of the skin, a condition which is always absent when 
 I shave myself. 
 
 You must excuse the above apparently trivial incident, but you 
 will appreciate the annoyance it is to be shaved by the Asylum barber, 
 when I tell you, that his shaving raised such a rash on my neck that 
 
 POLICE DESCRIPTION OF PLAINTIFF.t 
 
 An article to the following effect appeared in a New York City 
 newspaper early in 1901: "The mystery shrouding the fate of John 
 Armstrong Chaloner, who on Thanksgiving Eve, 1900, escaped from 
 Bloomingdale Asylum, is as thick as ever. From time to time, as 
 a dead tramp is fished up in some outlying pond of Hoboken or Jersey 
 City, a rumor is started that the body of the young millionaire has 
 been found. The following is the police description of him sent out 
 with the general alarm that was sent out shortly after Mr. Chaloner's 
 escape : 
 
 " 'Height five feet ten and three-quarter inches ; weight about one 
 hundred and seventy pounds ; face clean shaved ; hair dark and curly, 
 worn rather long ; eyes dark gray ; regular, classic features. Holds 
 himself erect, walks with a swinging stride, and carries a cane. He 
 was dressed as follows : Black fedora hat, navy-blue melton overcoat, 
 dark green sack coat and waistcoat, steel gray trousers, black satin 
 four-in-hand tie with large gray pearl stickpin.' 
 
 "When will they catch up with him is the question. The police of 
 all the cities in the country are on the watch, while sleuths men 
 trained to hunt down men are seeking the man with the weak mind." 
 
 ^Richmond, Virginia, February 24, 1915. 
 
 Time has treated "Who's Looney Now?"lightly; in spite of his 
 incessant legal conflicts, and more of less turbulent career. The above 
 police description of "Who's Looney Now?" would exactly describe him 
 today: for his hair is as dark and plentiful as ever, and his weight no 
 greater than in the year of our Lord, nineteen hundred and one. He 
 redity is probably responsible for said state of things. The long line 
 of martial ancestors from which "Who's Looney Now?" is descended 
 makes itself felt on the maxim "blood will tell." And hence fighting 
 is "Who's Looney Now'sf" delight fighting in a good cause: such as 
 fighting for Lunacy Law reform- against the criminal lethargy of the 
 great American people: and the embittered and venomously bitter 
 opposition of the press, supported by the Legal Profession both Bar 
 and Bench State and Federal in iNew York situate.
 
 88 
 
 I have limited his operations to twice a week; thus giving the inflam 
 mation time to subside to begin afresh on the next shave. 
 
 You know, from my having had the pleasure of dining at your 
 bouse, that I am limited to a very abstemious diet, that I am practi 
 cally a vegetarian. 
 
 You also probably know that I ride a great deal on horseback. 
 It is, in fact, my favorite and only form of outdoor exercise. You 
 can well imagine the deleterious effect upon my health, resultant from 
 a combination of bad cooking, poor food and total deprivation of horse 
 back exercise. Of the cooking I shall simply say that the Asylum 
 cooks cannot even bake bread, though they daily attempt it. So that 
 I have been forced to buy crackers to avoid the violent indigestion 
 the half-baked bread causes me. Of the food I shall simply saj that 
 it has been so bad that I have come down to a daily diet of baked 
 potatoes, lettuce, fruit and crackers in order to avoid eating food 
 which either is badly cooked, adulterated or decayed. 
 
 In the meantime I am living in a Madhouse. Every "patient" in 
 the building in which I am imprisoned is hopelessly insane. At times 
 some of them become violently, homicidally, insane, when, after yells 
 and struggles with keepers, and a siege in a straight-jacket, they are 
 forcibly removed to another ward. Since my arrival two patients 
 were removed from this building for having become "violent," as they 
 call it here. 
 
 Nothing prevents a patient from becoming homicidally insane 
 at any time. In one of such fits of frenzy the lunatic might take it 
 into his head to walk into my cell and attack me. The cell doors are 
 unlocked, and although there is a keeper on watch on my floor, he 
 is not always there. To give me warning of the approach of prowling 
 maniacs I put a table against my door at night. 
 
 This will give you an idea of my surroundings. I think that you 
 will agree with me that they are calculated to drive a man inane. 
 When you add to these "surroundings" the active and sustained efforts 
 of the resident doctors to talk me into becoming insane by declaring 
 to my face that I am insane, and attempting to argue me into admit 
 ting that I am; when you consider this, you will, I think, conclude 
 that I have my nerves and will-power under effective control in being 
 able to remain sane. 
 
 So much for my life for the last four months. This is the first 
 opportunity which I have had for posting a letter unbeknown to the 
 authorities here. The rule is that all letters and telegrams must be 
 sent through the authorities here, who have the legal right to suppress 
 or forward to "The Commission in Lunacy" at Albany, who have again 
 the legal right to suppress and destroy them. You can readily under 
 stand that I would not send a letter under such conditions. Hence 
 my having to wait four months to write to you and ask your aid. 
 
 The next thing to be considered is the Commitment Papers. I 
 shall only touch upon that briefly for it speaks for itself.
 
 89 
 
 In the first place the Commitment Papers give my residence as 
 "Hotel Kensington,! New York City." This is false, as my residence 
 since 1895 has been "The Merry Mills," Cobham, Albemarle County, 
 Virginia. Trow's Directory of New York City gives my residence 
 Virginia. In Trow's Directory for July, 1896, to July, 1897, you will 
 find "J. A. Chaloner, Lawyer, 120 Broadway, H. Va." "H" stands for 
 House, i. e, home, residence, and "Va." of course stands for Virginia. 
 
 I have never practised law in New York, but have been a silent 
 partner in the law firm of "Chaloner, Maxwell and Philip, 120 Broad 
 way," which firm name you will find a few places below my own in 
 Trow's Directory of the above date. 
 
 There can be no doubt about my residence's being in Virginia, for 
 in 1895 I went to the Commissioner of Taxes' Office in the Stewart 
 Building, corner Broadway and Chambers Street, and myself wrote, at 
 his request, in the Tax Book a full description of my residence. It 
 is, of course, there yet. It is to the effect that I was interested in a 
 law firm in New York, but that I did not personally practise law in 
 New York, as the business I had charge of was a manufacturing one in 
 Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, and that my home, "The Merry 
 Mills," where I lived, was at Cobham, Virginia. The- object of the 
 above visit was to fix the amount of my personal tax in New York. 
 The amount fixed was $2,500 (twenty-five hundred dollars). This 
 took place in 1895, and neither the amount nor my address has since 
 been changed. 
 
 Moreover, no better evidence as to my residence's being in Vir 
 ginia could be asked than is offered by the sworn testimony of the 
 
 t John R. Bland, Cash Capital, $1,700,000. Geo. R. Callis, 
 
 President. Secretary-Treasurer. 
 
 The United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company, 
 
 Baltimore, Md. 
 Andrew Freedman, 
 
 Vice-President. , 
 
 Sylvester J. O' Sullivan, 
 Manager. 
 
 66 Liberty Street, New York, March 14, 1905. 
 Mr. John Armstrong Chaloner, 
 
 "The Merry Mills," 
 
 Cobham, Va. 
 My Dear Chaloner: 
 
 In reply to your letter requesting my views regarding your alleged 
 former residence at the Hotel Kensington, Fifth Avenue and Fif 
 teenth Street, Borough of Manhattan, City of New York, in 1896 and 
 1897, I beg to state as follows: 
 
 I was proprietor of that hotel from April 1, 1894, to April, 1897. 
 I do not think you ever stopped there prior to my assuming control 
 of it. I do believe you came there solely on my account. You never 
 were in any sense a resident guest of that hotel. You never were any 
 other than a transient guest. You never engaged rooms there other 
 than by the day. Your visits there were infrequent, yet I believe you 
 stopped there every time you came to New York while I conducted
 
 90 
 
 three petitioners (my brothers, Messrs. Winthrop Astor Chanler, Lewis 
 
 Stuyvesant Chanler and ). Page 
 
 3, lines 141 and 142 of the Commitment Papers, where they declare: 
 "Mr. John Armstrong Chaloner has, for several months, while at his 
 home in Virginia": this should settle any doubt about my residence. 
 
 It might be well to state before going any further, the probable 
 causes which led to the said brothers' wishing to see me declared in 
 sane and confined in an Insane Asylum. 
 
 You will remember that abusive letter written me immediately 
 after the Directors' Meeting of the Roanoke Rapids Power Company 
 in December last by this same brother, Mr. Winthrop Astor Chanler, 
 in which he refused to speak to me or have anything further to do 
 with me except by letter or third parties. You will also remember 
 that I accepted his terms and informed him that I would have the 
 books of my Father's Estate, of which he was an Executor, examined. 
 You must know that there are two Executors of my Father's Estate. 
 One of them is Mr. Winthrop Astor Chanler and the other is Mr. Lewis 
 Stuyvesant Chanler. These two gentlemen, who are equally to blame 
 for what I am compelled to believe is innocent but palpable misman 
 agement of my Father's Estate, join hands in petitioning for my in 
 carceration in an Insane Asylum before I had the opportunity to in 
 vestigate their mismanagement but two accountings of their manage 
 ment of the said Estate having been rendered in ten years. 
 
 Furthermore. As I have told you there has for years past been no 
 love lost between my family and myself. When affection is absent 
 and business interests are present it behooves a careful man to look 
 about him, and see, in seeking for the solution of an obscure action, 
 whether or not it could have been to the parties' business interests 
 to do an otherwise incomprehensibly malicious thing. 
 
 that hotel. As a rule, you came on each year to the Horse Show, 
 and on those visits you, of course, spent the week said show was in 
 progress, and I believe on one, or possibly two occasions, your visit 
 at that season was prolonged to several weeks. Other than the Horse 
 Show week mentioned above, my recollection is that you did not come 
 to that hotel more than once or twice a year, and on some of these 
 visits your stay was only for a day or two. 
 
 I well remember having several prolonged conversations with you 
 about some large enterprises you had on hand in North Carolina, and 
 that almost the entire year of 1895 was spent by you in the South in 
 the conduct of said enterprises. 
 
 You were at the Kensington during the Horse Show week in No 
 vember, 1896, and left there for the South in December. You returned 
 again in February of 1897 and left in March. Of course, I could not 
 recollect the exact dates of your arrival and departure on those visits. 
 but I again repeat in the strongest terms possible that you never were 
 at any time, to my knowledge, a resident guest of that hotel, but were 
 always looked upon by myself and all the attaches of the hotel as n 
 transient guest. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 SYLVESTER J. O'SULLIVAN.t 
 
 t Since deceased.
 
 91 
 
 The business end of the present situation throws a bright light 
 upon it. 
 
 Under my Father's Will I enjoy an eighth of the income of his 
 Estate during my life. At my death without issue my said share 
 reverts to his Estate. Should I leave issue my said share would go 
 to said issue. It is therefore evidently to the business interests of my 
 family to prevent my marrying by locking me up for life in an Insane 
 Asylum, if possible, and if that is not possible the next best step 
 towards safe-guarding their business interests is to throw, if possible 
 an insurmountable obstacle in the way of my marrying. No more 
 insurmountable obstacle in the way of marriage could be imagined 
 than insanity. 
 
 Granting that I get out of this Asylum the stigma of having been 
 confined in it would stick to me through life. You need not necessarily 
 infer from this that I have any intentions of marrying, only I like to 
 retain tbe privilege of the option. 
 
 Further. There is every human probability that, were I to be 
 confined in these surroundings long enough, my mental and physical 
 forces would succumb to the hideous moral strain and confinement. 
 When this took place my family would be appointed a commission to 
 administer my Estate. I being by that time a bona fide instead of 
 what I am at present a bogus-maniac. I have an estate which bids 
 fair to be very valuable in time. Certain portions of that estate are 
 represented by large stockholdings in the United Industrial Company 
 and the Roanoke Rapids Power Company. These said holdings could 
 be sold to third parties, with the understanding that they were to be 
 bought back at a certain figure, by one or more of my brothers or 
 sisters, who already hold stock in the said companies, and who 
 I know would like to increase their holdings once the said "family 
 commission" for my estate came into being. 
 
 Furthermore. Nothing would be easier than to break my will 
 on the ground of insanity, now that I have been declared insane and 
 confined as an insane person in an Insane Asylum: that my family 
 would make every effort to break my will I make no doubt. For two 
 reasons. First because of their unfriendly attitude toward me for 
 years past. Second because they are in a position to know that I have 
 left all of them out of my will, except onet sister and that strictly 
 confidentially my largest legatee is the University of Virginia for 
 which, on account of its own character and that of Thomas Jefferson, 
 I have a high admiration. 
 
 Furthermore. The United Industrial Company of which I am the 
 controlling stockholder, and of which I was a Director last December, 
 held its annual meeting for the election of officers for the ensuing 
 year, the first week in January last. My brother, Mr. Winthrop Astor 
 
 tNoTE. Since writing above said sister has been left out of said 
 will, owing to her attitude in the present controversy.
 
 92 
 
 Chanler, had been elected by my votes, as President of the said Com 
 pany the preceding year at a salary of $2,000.00 per annum. After 
 receiving the abusive letter before alluded to, from him last December, 
 I decided to elect myself President of the United Industrial Company 
 in his place. His said letter to me having specifically stated that he 
 would not speak to me again or hold any communication with me 
 except by letter or third parties, had rendered it a business impossi 
 bility for me to elect, as President of a Company, a man who was not 
 on speaking terms with myself: who besides being the controlling 
 stockholder was one of the Board of Directors. 
 
 I had it delicately conveyed to Mr. Winthrop Astor Chanler by 
 third parties, some days before the election, that it would be as well 
 for him to resign his Presidency of, as well as his membership on, the 
 Board of Directors, of the United Industrial Company. This he prompt 
 ly did, and at the ensuing election in January, '97, I, voting by proxy, 
 for I was at home in Virginia at the time, elected myself President 
 of the United Industrial Company in his place, together with a Board 
 of Directors of my own choosing, to whom I had previously conveyed 
 enough stock in the Company to render them eligible under the Law 
 to hold office. 
 
 It might be well for you to bear in mind that the above revolu 
 tionary and delicate stock manipulation was conceived and carried out 
 by an alleged maniac. For the conception of the above plan took 
 place on receipt of Mr. Winthrop Astor Chanler's said abusive letter, 
 about the middle of December last, and the carrying out occurred in 
 January of '97. Whereas my present attack of alleged insanity began, 
 according to the Commitment Papers, in November, 1896. 
 
 Mr. Winthrop Astor Chanler is heavily interested in the United 
 Industrial Company. The said Company's factory is situated in the 
 town of Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. He has put $50,000.00 into 
 the said Company. Finding himself checkmated, as described, he, 
 apparently out of revenge and interest in his stock, set about to get 
 the control of the said Company, and thereby of his said stock out of 
 my hands. It was a desperate game, but $50,000.00 is a large stake. 
 It is necessary for me to make a short digression here in order to 
 give you all the threads of the plot. 
 
 Mr. Stanford White again comes on the stage. He had intimated 
 to me last February in New York, through a third party, that he 
 thought I should take an extended rest from business, and that it 
 would give him great pleasure if I were to make him and Mr. Saint 
 Gaudens the distinguished sculptor and a friend of mine and Mr. 
 White's most intimate friend my powers of attorney to transact all 
 my business and look after all my affairs. 
 
 Here was the spectacle of two rich, successful, and eminent men 
 willing to take upon themselves all the work and worry of my affairs 
 for friendship's sake. I was touched. I thought that there might 
 be something behind all this, but I did not impute selfish motives to 
 either of them.
 
 93 
 
 I declined the services of Mr. Saint Gaudens but accepted those 
 of Mr. Stanford White. My reason for so doing was that business 
 was extremely dull, and I thought that if Mr. White wanted to help 
 me run my affairs there would be no harm in letting him do so, I 
 being able to revoke the power of attorney at any time and being able 
 to supervise his work meanwhile. So I gave him a limited power of 
 attorney. 
 
 I also at his request resigned from the Board of Directors of the 
 Roanoke Rapids Power Company to make room for Mr. White on that 
 Board. Mr. Winthrop Astor Chanler's presence on said Board would 
 have made the transaction of business difficult owing to his disinclina 
 tion to talk to me, whereas Mr. White is one of his closest friends. 
 
 I also resigned from the Presidency of the United Industrial Com 
 pany, Mr. White thereby becoming a Director of the said Company 
 and one of my previously chosen Directors being elected to fill my 
 place as President. 
 
 All this having been arranged I was about to return to Virginia 
 to await the arrival of "the McKinley wave of prosperity" when I 
 was arrested and brought here. 
 
 As I said it appears that my brother wished to prevent my mak 
 ing use of the power I had attained in the United Industrial Company 
 by locking me up in an Insane Asylum. He achieved his end. 
 
 Lastly I hold a note of the United Industrial Company for about 
 $14,000 (fourteen thousand dollars) ; this note is past due. It would 
 greatly embarrass Mr. Winthrop Astor Chanler were I to demand its 
 payment. How much has the fear that I would do so had to do with 
 his locking me up? The said amount of the note was advanced by me 
 to the said Company. He owns $50,000 (fifty thousand dollars) worth 
 of the said Company's stock, and others of my immediate family own 
 about $25,000 (twenty -five thousand dollars) worth of the same stock. 
 It would pay them to join forces and repay me their pro rata share 
 of my overdue advance to said Company, rather than have said note 
 go to protest and legal proceedings ensue. 
 
 Cheapest of all however is to lock me up out of reach of "protest." 
 
 I think I have given you enough of the business end of this con 
 spiracy for you to see clearly that it was to my brothers', Messrs. 
 Winthrop Astor Chanler and Lewis Stuyvesant 'Chanler (the Co- 
 Trustees of my Father's Estate) interest, as well as to that of my 
 whole family, that I should disappear for an indefinite period. Add to 
 their business interests the strong personal interest of jealousy and 
 dislike and you have a powerful working incentive. 
 
 We may now resume the perusal of the Commitment Papers. You 
 will remark that the three Petitioners, Messrs. Winthrop Astor Chan 
 ler, Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler and , swear that 
 
 the acts alleged to have been committed by me in Virginia and in 
 New York are of their own knowledge. For you will note on Page 4 
 of the Commitment Papers line 165 to line 168 "Winthrop A. Chanler,
 
 94 
 
 Lewis S. Chanler and being duly sworn, depose and 
 
 say: that they have read the foregoing petition and know the contents 
 thereof, and that the same is true to the knowledge of deponents except 
 as to the matters therein stated, to be alleged on information and 
 belief." 
 
 As there are no "matters therein stated to be alleged on informa 
 tion and belief" the matters therein alleged must therefore all be "true 
 to the knowledge of deponents"; in swearing that the said matters 
 were "true to the knowledge of deponents" the said deponents Messrs. 
 
 Winthrop A. Chanler, Lewis S. Chanler and perjured 
 
 themselves; for not one of the said deponents has ever crossed the 
 threshold of my "home in Virginia," where part of the alleged acts 
 are sworn by said deponents to have been committed; and not one of 
 the said deponents saw me later in New York where the remainder 
 of the said alleged acts are sworn by said deponents to have been com 
 mitted. 
 
 One of these said deponents, Mr. Lewis S. Chanler, was in Europe 
 just prior to the 10th of March, but having sailed from England on a 
 cable's notice, reached New York in time to swear on March 10th to 
 alleged acts committed by me while he was abroad or on the ocean. 
 
 The said deponent I have not seen since 1894. 
 
 The said deponent Mr. Winthrop A. Chanler I have not seen since 
 that Directors' Meeting about the middle of December, 1896. 
 
 So much for the veracity of the three Petitioners Messrs. Winthrop 
 A. Chanler, Lewis S. Chanler and . 
 
 Now let us examine that of the two "Medical Examiners in Lu 
 nacy" namely: Dr. Moses Allen Starr (for our friend the Oculist turns 
 out to be an Examiner in Lunacy) and Dr. E. F. If you turn to page 5 
 of the Commitment Papers, you will see under the caption "Certificate 
 of Lunacy" and on line 200 "Patient resides at Hotel Kensington, New 
 York, County of New York;" and now turn to page 7 of the Commit 
 ment Papers and on lines 275, 276 and 279, you will find, "that the 
 facts stated and information contained in this Certificate are true to 
 the best of my knowledge and belief;" then follow the signatures of 
 M. Allen Starr, M. D. and E. F., M. D. and then line 279: "severally 
 subscribed and sworn to." Doctors M. Allen Starr and E. F. therefore, 
 swore that to the best of their knowledge and belief I resided at the 
 Hotel Kensington, New York, notwithstanding the fact that my said 
 
 brothers and , the said Petitioners, swore of their own 
 
 knowledge that my residence was in Virginia their words were cf., 
 lines 141 and 142, "Mr. J. A. Chaloner has for several months while 
 at his home in Virginia" and also notwithstanding the fact that Dr. 
 E. F. found me at my "home in Virginia" when he presented himself 
 there in company with Mr. Stanford White last February; and Dr. M. 
 Allen Starr was aware of the said visit, on the part of Dr. E. F. to 
 my "home in Virginia:" said visit having been touched on before Dr. 
 M. Allen Starr in my presence. There could, therefore, have been no
 
 95 
 
 possible doubt in either Dr. E. F.'s or Dr. M. Allen Starr's mind about 
 my residence being in Virginia. On top of their knowledge as above 
 described, and on top of the corroboration of it in Trow's Directory 
 (which they probably consulted, for touching my occupation they say 
 on line 202 "occupation Lawyer") which gives my residence Virginia, 
 on top of, and in spite of, all this, both Dr. M. Allen Starr and Dr. E. 
 F. swore that to the best of their knowledge and belief I reside at the 
 Hotel Kensington. This looks to me like perjury. How does it strike 
 you? 
 
 At all events it is so remarkable a divergence, as sworn testimony, 
 from the sworn testimony, on the same subject, on the part of the 
 said Petitioners that it badly needs investigation. 
 
 The remainder of the statements in the Commitment Papers both 
 on the part of the said Petitioners, and on that of the said Medical 
 Examiners in Lunacy, is on a par with the above instances of false 
 swearing. 
 
 On the maxim "False in one thing false in all" it becomes un 
 necessary for me to take up your time to deny the false allegations on 
 the part of the said Petitioners and on that of the said Medical Ex 
 aminers in Lunacy, as "they drag their slow length along." 
 
 I shall content myself in making a general denial to all allegations 
 which go to show me of unsound mind. 
 
 Such trifling allegations as that I have limited myself to a peculiar 
 diet, or that I have secluded myself, or that I burnt my hand (in an 
 experiment by the way), I demur to. 
 
 I also demur to the allegation that I frequently went into a 
 "trance-like state." This was done in the presence of Drs. Moses Allen 
 Starr and E. F. and at their request in order that they might note 
 the action of a trance-like state. Their request to me was based on 
 purely scientific grounds and I granted it on the same grounds. There 
 was never any question of Medical advice. Drs. E. F. and Moses Allen 
 Starr each pretended interest in the trance-like states, and Dr. Moses 
 Allen Starr pretended to some knowledge of same. 
 
 You will remember that I said that I had for some years been 
 carrying on investigations in Esoteric Buddhism. The said trance- 
 like state is one of the means I from time to time employ to that end. 
 As I said before I am not going to bore you with a lecture on Esoteric 
 Buddhism, and shall drop the subject with the remark that I have not 
 injured myself nor anybody else by my said investigations. , 
 
 To all allegations to the effect, or tending thereto in the remotest 
 degree, that I have a delusion or delusions of any kind or description 
 I make an unequivocal denial. 
 
 The allegations that I have exposed myself to cold, neglected or 
 injured myself, I unequivocally deny. 
 
 The allegation that I threaten people I unequivocally deny. 
 
 The allegation that I was emaciating I unequivocally deny. 
 
 The allegation that I was confined in an Institution for the Insane
 
 96 
 
 In New Paris, France, I unequivocally deny. "New Paris'" is a remark 
 ably ignorant clerical error. 
 
 I unequivocally deny each of the following allegations which for 
 brevity I shall designate by the numbered line they fall on. Namely. 
 Line 142 from the word "Been" to "Manner;" line 144 from the words 
 "he has" to the end of line 150, inclusive; line 187 to line 191, inclusive. 
 Line 205 to line 212, inclusive. Line 215 and line 216, with the excep 
 tion of 'is armed": the very natural fact that I had a revolver in my 
 room, which I always travel with, was twisted until it was distorted 
 into "is armed." Line 218 and line 219. Line 244 to line 249, inclusive, 
 except that I maintain that my eyes have changed from brown to gray. 
 Line 252 to line 2.61, inclusive, except that I frequently went into a 
 trance-like state at the request of Drs. Moses Allen Starr and E. F. 
 and that I sometimes talked French when in the trance-like state. 
 Line 262 to line 264, inclusive. Lines 269, 270, 271. Line 273 and line 
 274. The valet in question denied to me in my cell the foregoing alle 
 gation in the following inelegant but explicit language to-wit: "I didn't 
 describe no gradual development of no delusion for I didn't see none." 
 I demur to line 272 which says: "He has become suspicious of friends, 
 has secluded himself," on the ground that I showed keen instinct in 
 suspecting my friends. My friends so called family and friends ran 
 me in here. Had I been more suspicious of friends I should not be 
 in the hole which I occupy at present. 
 
 I think that you will agree with me that the frequently occurring 
 word "line" in the foregoing paragraphs should read "lie." 
 
 So much for the allegations of the said Petitioners and said Medi 
 cal Examiners in Lunacy against my reason. Now let us see how far 
 the allegations of the Honorable Henry A. Gildersleeve, Justice of the 
 Supreme Court of the State of New York, that I am a maniac, with 
 suicidal as well as homicidal tendencies the only conclusion to be 
 drawn from his allegations remember the said Honorable Justice has 
 never laid eyes on me, line 187 to line 191, inclusive, and line 345 and 
 line 346 let us see how far said allegations have been borne out by 
 the facts which have transpired since my arrest March 13th. 
 
 I made no resistance to the Police who arrested me at the Hotel 
 Kensington and brought me here. I gave them cigars and we smoked 
 and chatted amicably together on the way here. 
 
 During the four months that I have been imprisoned here I have 
 not committed a single act which in the remotest degree resembled 
 either violence or insanity. I have threatened nobody during that 
 time. I have frequently warned the authorities here that I would seek 
 legal redress for the false imprisonment that I was undergoing, and 
 that I would hold them legally responsible for their share in it. 
 
 The above statement is borne out by each of my keepers one is 
 on duty with me when the other is off duty one of whom has been 
 eleven years a keeper in Insane Asylums and the other has been three 
 years in this Institution. Their duty is to sleep in my cell and be
 
 97 
 
 with me and watch me when I am awake, and report daily to the Au 
 thorities here all that I do or say of any nature whatever. These 
 reports are then taken down in writing by the Authorities and are 
 known as "charts." It is on these "charts" that the progress or retro 
 gression of a "patient's" condition is based. The Authorities the 
 doctors i. e. may see the "patient" for five or ten minutes each day, 
 the keeper sees the patient fifteen hours out of the twenty-four. It is 
 in fact the keepers, who are expert trained nurses, and not the doctors 
 who understand the most about the character, habits, and mind of the 
 patient, in the ratio of fifteen hours to ten minutes per day of diagnosis 
 and attention. Neither of my keepers has ever seen me do or heard 
 me say anything which was in the least irrational or unbalanced. 
 Each of them considers me as sane as any man and they are willing 
 to so testify. 
 
 Why do the doctors here not discharge me as sane? Why did 
 they not discharge me as sane after a week or two of observation? 
 Because the duty of the doctors in the pay of this Private Insane 
 Asylum appears to be to hold anybody placed here, whether sane or 
 otherwise, long enough for the owners of this Asylum to make a good 
 profit out of him or her. Times are hard. It is not every day in the 
 week that the proprietors of this Asylum can capture a prisoner who 
 can be made to pay $100 (one hundred dollars) a week ransom until 
 released. As you see by the statement on the cover of the Commit 
 ment Papers that is the exorbitant sum I am forced to pay in exchange 
 for a two-roomed cell, a keeper whose salary is not over thirty dollars 
 a month with board and lodging and baked potatoes. There is no 
 reduction here; I am forced to pay for what I don't want, whether I 
 reject it or otherwise. 
 
 You can readily grasp the threads of this daring conspiracy from 
 your intimate knowledge of the ways of criminals, gathered from your 
 long and successful pursuit of them as Commonwealth's Attorney. 
 
 It is not necessary therefore for me to point them out to you. 
 
 Let it suffice to say that the ground work of the Commitment 
 Paper is an amalgam of avarice, malice, and mendacity. 
 
 That the only truthful statements in the Commitment Papers are 
 such as in no wise reflect on my reason or sanity. That I was accused 
 by persons who were not in a position to know whereof they not 
 merely spoke but duly swore. That these said accusers the said 
 Petitioners were all and severally on bad terms with me, and had 
 been so for years. That it was to the unmistakable business interests 
 of two of the said accusers Messrs. Winthrop Astor Chanler and Lewis 
 Stuyvesant Chanler that I should be disfranchised, as an insane person, 
 of my property as well as of my liberty. 
 
 That having had a sharp altercation with Dr. E. F. for bring 
 ing Dr. Moses Allen Starr into my rooms without warning or per 
 mission, to spy on me in company with himself as the result proved, 
 which altercation was the basis for a second one with Dr. Moses
 
 98 
 
 Allen Starr on the general topic of the morality of the Medical pro 
 fession: in the discussion of which topic I showed such unexpected 
 knowledge of the habits of many members of the Medical profession 
 that Dr. Moses Allen Starr, after vainly endeavoring to discover the 
 source of my information, earnestly requested me to change the sub 
 ject: that having had, as I say, a distinct altercation with each of 
 the said doctors who later were metamorphosed into the said Medical 
 Examiners in Lunacy the motive of the said followers of the Healing 
 Art, in wishing to see their late antagonist declared a maniac, is not 
 far to seek. I might say that I have not the faintest tinge of prejudice 
 against surgeons as well as such physicians as are both skillful and 
 honest That there are numbers of physicians who are neither one 
 nor the other it has been my fortune to discover. The proof of the 
 above lack of prejudice against physicians is, that I have spent money 
 in giving aid to deserving Medical students to complete their education. 
 
 The motive which led the Honorable Henry A. Gildersleere, 
 Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York to overlook the 
 grave discrepancy displayed in the Commitment Papers in the spec 
 tacle afforded by two conflicting sworn statements on the same sub 
 ject namely, the sworn statement of the said Petitioners as to my 
 home's being in Virginia followed by the sworn statement of the said 
 Medical Examiners in Lunacy as to my home's being in Hotel Kensing 
 ton, New York the motive which led the Honorable Justice to permit 
 the said spectacle to pass unchallenged, I shall leave you to surmise. 
 This Institution is very rich. 
 
 The motive which led the said Honorable Justice to dispense with 
 "personal service" on a merely ex parte statement, I shall leave you to 
 surmise. 
 
 The motive which led the said Honorable Justice to omit to direct 
 "substituted service" clearly the alternative, when personal service is 
 dispensed with, as implied by the law which reads: "the judge to 
 whom the application (for Commitment to an Insane Asylum) is to 
 be made, may dispense with such personal service, or may direct sub- 
 tituted service to be made upon some person to be designated by him." 
 Cf. printed cover of the Commitment Papers containing the said law 
 lines 53 to 55: the motive which led the said Honorable Justice to 
 the above omission I shall leave you to surmise. 
 
 You will note, on studying the extracts from Chapter 545 of the 
 laws of 1896 given on the cover of the Commitment Papers the 
 tortuousness thereof. For instance take Section 62. The said section 
 contradicts itself. It says line 49 and line 50: "notice of such applica 
 tion (for Commitment to an Insane Asylum) shall be served person 
 ally, at least one day before making such application upon the person 
 alleged to be insane." 
 
 That is no more than fair is it? Somebody takes it into his 
 or her head or pretends to take the notion into his or her head,
 
 99 
 
 for certain reasons, that you are crazy. It seems fair that you should be 
 allowed to confront your accuser a common murderer has that privi 
 lege and be heard in defence to his or her allegations, before being 
 summarily arrested like a malefactor, as I have been and put behind 
 bars without a trial for an indefinite period, perchance for life. Well 
 the above wholesome specimen of boasted Anglo-Saxon justice, law, 
 freedom, etc., is at once wiped out and rendered utterly nugatory by 
 what follows on lines 53 to 55, inclusive. After the above bold bluff at 
 justice after saying "notice of such application (for Commitment to 
 an Insane Asylum) shall be served personally, at least one day before 
 making such application, upon the person alleged to be insane"' the 
 law dodges justice and sneaks out at the following carefully prepared 
 loophole line 53 to line 55, inclusive: 'the judge to whom the (said) 
 application is to be made may dispense with such personal service." 
 The judge has it all his own way. Get at the right judge and it's plain 
 sailing. There are two explanations of the above law. One, that it is 
 the outcome of manipulated legislation at Albany by Corporations 
 dealing in bogus maniacs, who wish, to legislate in order to continue 
 the said monopoly in maniacs, which the laws of the State of New 
 York at present foster and support. 
 
 The other explanation, for the above iniquitous law's smirching 
 the Statute Books of the "Empire State," is that it is the product of 
 the late Republican Legislature. 
 
 In other words a citizen of the State of New York can be con 
 demned, and imprisoned without a hearing. All that is required to 
 deprive a citizen of the "Empire State" of his liberty, is, one or two 
 false witnesses, two dishonest doctors, and a judge who can swallow 
 conflicting sworn statements without a qualm. No defence is allowed 
 to the accused. 
 
 This is truly the "Empire State." I sometimes wonder, as I 
 look through the bars of my cell, how such things can be, outside the 
 Russian Empire State. 
 
 Fortunately for myself, however, I am no longer a citizen of the 
 "Empire State," but am and have been since 1895 a citizen of the 
 Sovereign State of Virginia; which title to sovereignty I propose to 
 see Virginia make good by rescuing me, recapturing me as it were 
 from the neighboring and supposedly friendly State of New York, by 
 calling on the arm of the Federal courts. 
 
 An interesting question this, and one in which, it may be shown, 
 that the Doctrine of State's Rights rests for support upon Centraliza 
 tion, and that when one sovereign State steals the citizen of another 
 sovereign State, and thereby the money accruing from his personal 
 taxes, the robbed State may call upon the common residuary of all 
 extraneous sovereign rights, the central government, to demand resti 
 tution from the robber State. 
 
 So much for the equity surrounding my present predicament. 
 Now let us glance at the law. You will readily comprehend with
 
 100 
 
 what meagre means towards forming an opinion I am at present sur 
 rounded. 
 
 The sum total of my law library consists of the Constitution of 
 the United States, in the back of a dictionary, and selections from * 
 list of legal maxims in the same book. The Constitution of the United 
 States says Article III. Section 2: "The judicial power (of the Federal 
 Courts) shall extend to controversies between citizens of another State 
 to controversies between citizens of different States." I am a citizen 
 of Virginia. Should I have a controversy with the State of New 
 York, the controversy being between a State and a citizen of another 
 State, the Federal courts could alone have jurisdiction over the contro 
 versy. 
 
 The question of a man's sanity, covering as it does his liberty, and 
 his property, is surely a controversy of the first importance. 
 
 I therefore having had my sanity attacked by a State court (the 
 Supreme Court of the State of New York), have a controversy with 
 the State of New York. Said controversy must be tried, therefore, in 
 the Federal Courts. 
 
 Furthermore, I have had my sanity attacked by Drs. Moses Allen 
 Starr and E. F. They being citizens of the State of New York, and 
 I being a citizen of Virginia said controversy must be tried, therefore, 
 in the Federal courts. 
 
 Furthermore, I have had my sanity attacked by Messrs. Winthrop 
 
 Astor Chanler, Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler and . I 
 
 being a citizen of the State of Virginia and they, the Messrs. Winthrop 
 Astor Chanler and Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler being citizens of the 
 
 State of New York, and being a citizen of the 
 
 State of Massachusetts, said controversy must be tried, therefore, in 
 the Federal courts. 
 
 Furthermore, I have been restrained of my liberty by "The Society 
 of The New York Hospital," the legal title of the corporation which 
 owns the Asylum in which I am at present confined. 
 
 The said corporation being a New York concern, and I being a 
 citizen of Virginia said controversy must be tried, therefore, in the 
 Federal courts. 
 
 The above actions are for the future. For the present all I ask 
 is liberty. 
 
 It is not necessary for me to tell you how to proceed to attain 
 that end. I will only caution you in closing not to write or telegraph 
 me, or mention me to a living soul, save Senator Daniel (to whom 
 of course you will show this letter) anything connected with me or 
 my whereabouts. It has been given out by certain interested parties 
 that I am in Europe (I find that that is the stock term used when a 
 man is sent here). Let it be so considered as long as possible. 
 
 Speed is essential, for I have been given to understand, that, when 
 my unknown term of imprisonment here is ended, I am to be shipped 
 to Europe. As to what point I was not informed; most probably to
 
 101 
 
 an English private Insane Asylum. That would probably do the busi 
 ness for me, as there they are even more brutal in their treatment of 
 patients than here. 
 
 Above all I warn you and Senator Daniel to be on your guard 
 against all the doctors here. For they are all of them as smooth 
 spoken and deceptive in their manner as any set of confidence men 
 you ever encountered. 
 
 The name of the Superintendent is Dr. Samuel B. Lyon, the 
 Asylum is commonly called "Bloomingdale" but that is merely a 
 fancy name. Its legal title is "The Society of The New York Hospital," 
 a private corporation having its offices and Hospital on 15th St., a few 
 doors west of Fifth Avenue, New York. 
 
 As you may gather from my letter I mean war. 
 
 No compromise with any man, or institution, which has been in 
 the remotest degree connected with this rascally conspiracy. 
 
 Listen to nobody who 1 endorses what has been done. 
 
 The more friendship such a man professes for me, the more pro 
 found should be your distrust for him. 
 
 The manner of proceeding to procure the writ of habeas corpus I 
 leave entirely in Senator Daniel's and your hands. 
 
 Speed and secrecy are the watch-words. The moment it leaked 
 out that any effort was being made for my release, that moment would 
 probably end my imprisonment here and begin it in a closed carriage, 
 on my way by night, bound and gagged to Long Island Sound eight 
 miles off where a private tug boat would convey me to an ocean 
 Steamer at New York, or a sailing vessel bound around "the Horn." 
 I can assure you that outlawed as I am, my position is one of con 
 siderable uncertainty not to say danger. 
 
 It is unnecessary for me to say that nothing but the most unex 
 pected and dire necessity could induce me to go before a sheriff's jury, 
 the usual manner in the State of New York of carrying out a habeas 
 corpus proceedings for a man who has been declared insane by a judge. 
 I object to this for three reasons. 
 
 First: Because it is not the right way to go about it. I am not 
 a citizen of the State of New York and therefore the sheriff's jury 
 does not apply to my case. 
 
 Second: Because I do not desire the notoriety consequent thereon. 
 
 Third: Because my family are most anxious that I should go be 
 fore a sheriff's jury, in the desperate hope that the said jury would 
 believe what they, and the doctors said about me. In which case the 
 jury would pronounce me insane, and hand me over to the custody of 
 my family, who could then apply for and receive into their hands my 
 property and the management thereof under the name of a commission. 
 The above line of action (going before the sheriff's jury) has 
 already been suggested to me by an emissary of my family, who told 
 me that that was the only way for me to get out hoping thereby 
 that I would choose it.
 
 102 
 
 The best way, it seems to me, would be to have Senator Daniel 
 and yourself go before the Attorney General in Washington, and have 
 him issue an order to the United States District Attorney in New 
 York City, to go before a Federal judge in New York City with Senator 
 Daniel and yourself, and procure from said Federal judge a writ of 
 habeas corpus, on the double ground that I am not insane show por 
 tions of this letter to the judge as proof of my sanity, on the maxim 
 "To write is to act," if I write sanely I act sanely and that if I 
 were insane the actions should have been begun in a Federal and not 
 in a State court, owing to my being a citizen of Virginia, and not of 
 New York, and that my Commitment by a State Court is therefore 
 illegal and must be set aside. 
 
 I merely mention this, with the full knowledge of its being owing 
 to the circumstances a horse-back opinion. 
 
 I don't dwell on the irregularity of the commitment the conflict 
 ing sworn statements the suggestions of fraud the fact that the 
 name of the institution, in which I am, is therein given as "Blooming- 
 dale Asylum," whereas the Commitment Papers distinctly state under 
 it, on line 156: "it is essential that the official title of the institution 
 should be correctly inserted," and whereas the official title of said in 
 stitution is not "Bloomingdale Asylum," but "The Society of The New 
 York Hospital." The same irregularity is repeated on the cover of 
 the Commitment Papers, where the title of the said institution is 
 again given as "Bloomingdale Asylum." These, with the rest of the 
 legal aspects of the case, I leave entirely in Senator Daniel's and your 
 experienced hands. 
 
 If necessary, let a Federal judge examine into my sanity for a 
 change. Examination at the hands of a distinguished and honest man 
 is the last thing that I would avoid. 
 
 If necessary, let us begin de novo, only in a legal, equitable, and 
 honest manner. No more dishonest doctors, no more Star Chamber 
 judges, no more summary arrests. We are not in Cuba nor, as! yet, 
 in the State of New York does martial law prevail. 
 
 As I am allowed no money I haven't seen a dollar bill in 
 months and as I am not allowed to communicate with my New York 
 office, I am unable to send you and Senator Daniel cheques for re 
 tainers and disbursements. So I must ask you to explain the situation 
 to the Senator and tell him that I must ask him to charge all travel 
 ing expenses and disbursements to my account until I am liberated. 
 
 The same I request of you. I hope before many days to see Sena 
 tor Daniel and yourself enter the door of my cell, accompanied by an 
 officer bearing a writ of habeas corpus from a Federal court. 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 JOHN ARMSTRONG CHALONER. 
 
 P. S. Please bring this letter with you as a resume of my case. 
 
 J. A. C.
 
 103 
 
 State of Virginia, 
 County of Albemarle, 
 
 I, Micajah Woods, Commonwealth's Attorney for Albemarle County, 
 Virginia, being duly sworn depose and say that I received the appended 
 letter addressed to me, under date July 3, 1897, in October, 1897, that 
 the said letter is in the handwriting of John Armstrong Chaloner and 
 signed by John Armstrong Chaloner. 
 
 MICAJAH WOODS. 
 Sworn to before me this 12th day of July, 1905. 
 
 JOHN W. FISHBTJRNE, 
 
 Notary Public for the County of Albemarle, in the State of Virginia. 
 John W. Fishburne, Notary Public, 
 
 Albemarle County, Virginia. 
 My term of office expires September 19th, 1906. 
 
 County of Albemarle, 
 State of Virginia, 
 to wit: 
 
 I, W. L. Maupin, Clerk of the Circuit Court of the County of Albe- 
 raarle in the 'State of Virginia, the same being a Court of Record, do 
 certify that John W. Fishburne, whose genuine signature is affixed 
 t<j the foregoing and annexed certificate was at the time of signing the 
 same a Notary Public in and for the County and State aforesaid duly 
 commissioned and qualified according to law and authorized to take 
 proof and acknowledgment of Deeds and other instruments of writing. 
 
 In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and affixed the 
 seal of said Court this 12th day of July, 1905. 
 
 W. L. MAUPIN, 
 
 Clerk. 
 
 (Seal of Virginia.) 
 
 His commission expires 19th day of Sept., 1906. 
 
 "FOUR YEARS BEHIND THE BARS OF BLOOMINGDALE." 
 
 PAGE 36. 
 
 Upon plaintiff's arrest and incarceration upon the said false charge 
 of lunacy March 13, 1897, in The Society of The New York Hospital, 
 falsely called "Bloomingdale," at White Plains, Westchester county, 
 New York, plaintiff at once attempted to procure counsel for his trial 
 in open court. In all said attempts plaintiff was foiled from the fact
 
 104 
 
 that he was a prisoner under the strictest surveillance. Finally, on 
 or about the 13th of October, 1897, plaintiff did manage to get a letter 
 out without the knowledge of the hospital authorities. Said letter 
 was to a lawyer in Virginia requesting him to employ another lawyer 
 and together to institute habeas corpus proceedings for plaintiff's 
 release. For the reason that on the old adage, "give a dog a bad name 
 and hang him," said lawyer was like all other lawyers whom plaintiff 
 wrote to from White Plains with the said view. Said lawyer felt 
 doubtful about taking the case of a man declared insane by relatives. 
 The consequence was that said lawyer did nothing in said matter 
 beyond writing plaintiff a very friendly letter by the same party who 
 had conveyed plaintiff's said letter to said lawyer. Plaintiff therefore 
 resigned himself to an apparently desperate situation, waiting for 
 something of which he might avail himself to turn up. Plaintiff thus 
 waited for nearly two years from the time he wrote said letter, which 
 was on July 3, 1897, for he had to wait from July to October for an 
 opportunity to get said letter out without the knowledge of the hos 
 pital authorities. In the early summer of 1899 plaintiff put in a 
 request to the Superintendent of The Society of The New York Hos 
 pital, at White Plains, for permission to walk outside of the asylum 
 grounds unaccompanied by a keeper as heretofore. Plaintiff's conduct 
 had, during the more than two years of his stay at White Plains, been 
 so exemplary and docile that the said Superintendent granted plain 
 tiff's said request. At this time plaintiff was suffering from a nervous 
 affection of the spine, brought on by the fearful nervous strain 
 of his surroundings reinforced by the fearful, nervous strain of 
 waiting, without hope of help from without, in a mad-house cell for 
 over two years. Plaintiff had been confined to his bed by said com 
 plaint for weeks at a time. Upon receiving permission to walk out 
 alone plaintiff attempted to do so, but after a few such attempts his 
 said nervous affection of the spine returned with increased force, 
 which again put plaintiff upon his back. There plaintiff remained 
 for some months. At the end of said time plaintiff once more resumed 
 his said walks. Plaintiff was very careful not to overexert himself in 
 his precarious condition of health, and for some months limited his 
 walks to a little over a mile per day. Gradually plaintiff's health im 
 proved, and gradually he extended the distance of his daily walks, until 
 by January, 1900, plaintiff was able without fatigue to do twelve miles 
 on foot in three hours. Plaintiff thereupon prepared to carry out a 
 plan he had had in mind when he put in his said application for permis 
 sion to walk out alone. Said plan was to choose a post office as far 
 away from White Plains as possible, but not too far to admit of his 
 walking there and back inside of three hours. Plaintiff selected a 
 post office six miles off, and also at the same time selected an alias, 
 under which to receive his mail without a probability of any of the 
 said hospital peoples' finding out that plaintiff was breaking one of 
 the most rigidly enforced rules of said asylum, to-wit, that no letters,
 
 105 
 
 telegrams, or telephone messages may go out without having been first 
 read and approved by the said hospital authorities. In January, 1900, 
 plaintiff wrote to the said Virginia lawyer, explaining the situation 
 and that all replies should be addressed to plaintiff under said alias 
 at said post office. To said letter plaintiff got no reply. Plaintiff 
 waited until the latter part of February, 1900, when he again wrote 
 to said Virginia lawyer. To said letter said lawyer replied under date 
 of March 20, 1900, in a most friendly manner, saying, among other 
 things. "It is certain that some prominent friend of yours in New 
 York could serve you more efficiently than I could, as I am a stranger 
 to the people there and not familiar with the New York procedure in 
 
 such cases. I would suggest that you communicate with ; 
 
 he is an old friend of yours, on the ground, and familiar with the 
 influences that would have to be exercised to restore you to liberty, 
 and the exercise of your rights." 
 
 To said letter plaintiff replied under date of March 26, 1900, of 
 which the following is an excerpt, to-wit. "Yours of March 20th to 
 hand. I am very much obliged to you for replying to my previous 
 note so promptly. I fully comprehend the difficulties surrounding your 
 position. The gentleman you suggested that I should employ in my 
 case is unavailable. I have, however, other lawyers in view. I had 
 just written one of them in relation to my case and made an appoint 
 ment for our meeting secretly. You will readily understand the im 
 portance to me, and my case, of my letter to you dated July 3, 1897, 
 and its enclosures, to-wit: a certified copy of my Commitment Papers, 
 
 arid a page from I have a rough pencil copy of said 
 
 letter, but it is not in shape for ready reference or easy legible read 
 ing. As this letter contains a complete and exhaustive history of my 
 case, written when the events were fresh in my mind you will easily 
 see its importance to me in giving a complete succinct recital of the 
 events which led to my arrest, and what followed, to my lawyers. I 
 therefore enclose a special delivery stamp, which is almost as sure as 
 a register stamp, to ensure the safe arrival of the aforesaid documents, 
 which are of vital importance to myself." 
 
 To said letter said lawyer replied under date of March 30, 1900: 
 "My Dear Friend, Yours received. I have mailed to you this morn 
 ing the documents you wished. The paper you wrote is clear, strong, 
 and logical, and would be of immense service to your friends and 
 attorneys in New York. I do earnestly hope your efforts to secure 
 relief will be successful. You must let me know the progress you 
 make in this line, and advise me of the name or names of your New 
 York attorneys and at the proper time, if I can possibly leave here, I 
 will go on and confer and co-operate with them." 
 
 This was the last plaintiff heard from said Virginia lawyer. The 
 latter part of March, 1900, plaintiff wrote to a New York City lawyer 
 proposing to engage him in plaintiff's case in co-operation with a 
 second New York lawyer of great prominence. Plaintiff also enclosed
 
 106 
 
 in his letter to said first New York lawyer plaintiff's long letter to 
 said Virginia lawyer (dated July 3, 1897), and the certified copy of 
 the Commitment Papers. Said first New York lawyer replied to 
 plaintiff's said letter as follows, under date of April 7, 1900: "Long 
 letter and papers received. The matter is receiving attention, and I 
 will let you hear from me as soon as possible." 
 
 Plaintiff waited until May 12, 1900, without hearing anything 
 further from said first New York lawyer. On that date plaintiff wrote 
 a polite note to said first New York lawyer to the effect that, if for 
 any reason, said second New York lawyer was unable or unwilling to 
 co-operate with said first New York lawyer on plaintiff's case, that in 
 that event said first New York lawyer was to g.et the "long letter and 
 papers" from said second New York lawyer and offer the case to a 
 third prominent New York lawyer. To said letter said first New 
 York lawyer replied under date of May 14, 1900, as follows, to-wit: 
 "Yours of May 12 just received, and I must apologize for keeping you 
 in suspense, but for the past week I have been under the weather and 
 have been unable to attend to anything. But your affairs have not 
 been forgotten, and I am doing exactly what you asked me to do. I 
 
 have had a long talk with (said second New York lawyer) 
 
 and he now has your papers, and has had them for some time. He is 
 a very busy man, and he promised me he would give this matter his 
 most careful attention. I will do my best to have an interview with 
 him this week, and will write you immediately." 
 
 This said note was the last plaintiff ever got from said first New 
 York lawyer. After waiting in vain till the latter part of May, 1900, 
 to hear from said first New York lawyer plaintiff wrote on May 24, 
 1900, to an old friend of plaintiff's, and also a friend of said second 
 New York lawyer. It was in fact, said friend who, years previous, 
 had introduced plaintiff to said second New York lawyer at the club. 
 Plaintiff only met said second New York lawyer on this occasion. In 
 plaintiff's said note to said friend of May 24, 1900, plaintiff proposed 
 to said friend to call on said second New York lawyer, and use his 
 good offices to get said second New York lawyer to bring plaintiff's 
 case to court as quickly as possible. Plaintiff was under the impres 
 sion at that time that said second New York lawyer was at work 
 upon his (plaintiffs) case. Since said friend would be in a position 
 to assure himself on that matter, one way or the other, plaintiff in 
 writing to said friend, May 24, 1900, spoke of said second New York 
 lawyer's having taken his case as an accomplished fact. The follow 
 ing note is said friend's reply to plaintiffs aforesaid note, to-wit: "New 
 York, May 30, 1900. Your esteemed favor of the 24th ult. was duly re 
 ceived. I cheerfully accept your proposition and shall devote myself to 
 its fulfillment as shall best be deemed advisable from time to time, as 
 events may be developed. Nothing can be accomplished by undue 
 haste everything by patience and serenity. Those with whom I am 
 to confer and advise are fully alive to the situation, rest confident
 
 upon that. I have never failed you heretofore, and shall not now. 
 Be of good cheer, and believe nothing will be neglected toward the 
 end in view." Plaintiff naturally inferred from the said note that 
 said friend had seen said second New York lawyer, and that said 
 second New York lawyer was diligently at work upon plaintiff's case. 
 Weeks rolled by and no word came either from said second New 
 York lawyer or said friend. Plaintiff then wrote direct to said second 
 New York lawyer a brief and polite note asking point blank, but 
 politely, whether or not said second New York lawyer was engaged 
 upon plaintiff's case. To this note said second New York lawyer made 
 no reply whatever. Plaintiff has since learned, upon incontrovertible 
 evidence, that said note from plaintiff was duly received by said second 
 New York lawyer, however. Plaintiff did not write again to said 
 second New York lawyer, nor did plaintiff think it worth while to 
 notify said friend of plaintiff's of said note to said second New York 
 lawyer. By the middle of October, 1900, plaintiff's patience began to 
 wear. Said second New York lawyer kept silent. But since plaintiff 
 had said friend on guard, so to speak, watching said second New 
 York lawyer, plaintiff, who had perfect faith in the friendship for 
 himself on the part of said friend felt sure that, strange as said 
 second New York lawyer's silence seemed, there was some good reason 
 for it. But, as has been said, plaintiff's patience began to wane to 
 wards the end of October, 1900. Plaintiff thereupon wrote to said 
 friend and asked him point blank whether or not he knew whether 
 or not said second New York lawyer had taken plaintiff's case. The 
 following extract from said friend's reply lifted a veil from plaintiffs 
 eyes. The said extract is all of said friend's said note, which is 
 relevant. Said extract, to-wit: "New York, Oct. 2:0, 1900. I do not 
 
 know for a fact whether (said second New York lawyer) 
 
 has, or has not, undertaken your case. I had concluded from your 
 letter that he had, and in my conversations with him since that time 
 looked upon him as your counsel. For weeks I have not seen that 
 gentleman, and all efforts to have a talk with him in your behalf 
 have been fruitless and of no avail." Plaintiff thereupon wrote to said 
 friend for further information, said friend's reply to which contains 
 the following extract, to-wit: "New York, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 1900. 
 Again I have to report that I have not seen or heard from our friend 
 (said second New York lawyer). It seems incredible to me. You 
 are sure, are you, that you have not written anything he might have 
 taken exception to? On that, I take it, he is punctilious to a degree. 
 But this is all at random, and as though in a fog." Thereupon plaintiff 
 wrote said friend informing him of plaintiff's note to said second 
 New York lawyer, before referred to, asking said second New York 
 lawyer point blank, but politely, if said second New York lawyer had 
 taken plaintiff's case or not. Plaintiff further asked said friend if 
 said second New York lawyer had ever mentioned said note to him. 
 To this question the following is an extract from said friend's reply,
 
 108 
 
 to-wit: "New York, November 4, 1900. At no time did the distin 
 guished counsel (said second New York lawyer) ever say, or intimate, 
 he had received a letter from you. The query was wholly mine, reach 
 ing out through a maze of ignorance to arrive at a conclusion." Plain 
 tiff received one or two more notes from said friend, all showing said 
 friend's inability to reach or hear from said second New York lawyer. 
 Plaintiff was more than ever convinced of the truth of the said 
 adage, "Give a dog a bad name and hang him." However, plaintiff 
 decided to make one last effort at getting counsel from New York, 
 failing which he determined to escape. Plaintiff therefore wrote to a 
 third New York lawyer, whom he had known intimately in the past, 
 asking said third New York lawyer to meet him at a point sufficiently 
 distant from White Plains to insure said conference being free from 
 interruption. Said third New York lawyer promptly responded and 
 said conference took place. Said third New York lawyer was as 
 friendly as possible; but the upshot of it was that said third New 
 York lawyer proved to be about as averse as had the other New York 
 lawyers shown themselves to be to taking plaintiff's case. Plaintiff 
 thereupon decided to escape next day, and, after borrowing ten dollars 
 from said third New York lawyer, did so. 
 
 PRESS STATEMENT. 
 
 by 
 PLAINTIFF'S ATTORNEYS, SEPT. 20, 1901. 
 
 The appearance at Louisa Court House, Virginia, to-day of at 
 torneys in a civil proceeding in behalf of Mr. John Armstrong Chal- 
 oner, with reference to certain property in that County in which he is 
 interested, being likely to revive or to originate sensational newspaper 
 stories about him, his attorneys, who are Senator Daniel and his law 
 partner, Mr. Frederick W. Harper, of Lynchburg, (Virginia), Hon. 
 Mica jab. Woods, Commonwealth's Attorney for Albemarle County, of 
 Charlottesville (Virginia), Hon. Armistead C. Gordon, City Attorney, 
 of Staunton (Virginia), and Hon. Augustus VanWyck, of New York, 
 have deemed it advisable, with Mr. Chaloner's approval, to give to 
 the press the following statement: 
 
 On the 13th day of March, 1897, Mr. Chaloner, then a citizen of 
 Albemarle County, Virginia, visiting in New York City, was committed 
 to "Bloomingdale Asylum" at White Plains, N. Y., on an order of a 
 judge of the Supreme Court of New York. On Thanksgiving Eve 1900, 
 after numerous fruitless efforts to secure legal counsel, having man 
 aged to borrow from a friend a few dollars, he escaped from the 
 Asylum, and went to Philadelphia. There, under the guise of an 
 attorney representing a client, he submitted his case to a distinguished
 
 109 
 
 neurologist, and upon the latter's expressions of willingness to assume 
 charge of his alleged client, disclosed his identity. In older to afford 
 the neurologist ample time and opportunity for observation, Mr. Chal- 
 oner, of his own motion and without compulsion, repaired to a private 
 sanitarium in Philadelphia, under the charge of this doctor, and re 
 mained under his personal supervision there for six months. During 
 this time a number of eminent alienists, neurologists and psychologists 
 were called in consultation and the records of the proceedings in 
 Louisa County disclose the unanimous opinion of all these experts as 
 to Mr. Chaloner's sanity. 
 
 Later, having placed himself in touch with his counsel by corres 
 pondence, he came to Virginia and lived at Lynchburg up to a short 
 time ago, when he returned to his home County of Albemarle where 
 he now is, and where proceedings have been instituted under the Vir 
 ginia statutes to demonstrate before a Court of competent jurisdiction, 
 and in an affirmative manner, his entire sanity. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner, who since his escape from "Bloomingdale" has been 
 believed by many persons to be dead, [See Police description of plain 
 tiff, Page 87] and by many others to be living abroad, is the picture of 
 vigorous physical health; while his sound mentality is vouched for by 
 such eminent scientists as Dr. William James, Professor of Psychology 
 at Harvard University, Dr. H. C. Wood, Professor of Nervous Diseases 
 in the University of Pennsylvania; Professor Joseph Jastrow, head 
 of the Psychological Department of the University of Wisconsin and 
 President of the American Psychological Association; and by other 
 prominent alienists and neurologists. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner's commitment and confinement in New York grew 
 out of his necessary seclusion of himself for a long period of time in 
 the study of Experimental Psychology, a field of science that has re 
 ceived a tremendous impulse of development in the past few years, and 
 in which those who are competent to judge, award Mr. Chaloner the 
 encomium of having made a very interesting; discovery. In a book 
 ho is about to publish entitled, "The X-Faculty A Short Study in 
 Advanced Experimental Psychology," his scientific investigations are 
 fully set forth. 
 
 It will doubtless please the many friends of Mr. Chaloner in Vir 
 ginia and elsewhere to know of his sound condition of mind and body, 
 which is vouched for, as disclosed to them by personal contact and 
 through frequent correspondence during recent months, by all of his 
 counsel, 
 
 (Signed) DANIEL & HARPER, 
 MICAJAH WOODS, 
 ARMISTEAD C. GORDON, 
 
 Attorneys.
 
 110 
 
 THE OHANIiER-FAMIL,Y LETTERS. 
 
 We shall lastly introduce five letters corroborative of plaintiff's 
 statement in said letter to said Micajah Woods under date July 3, 1897. 
 to the effect that there had been bad blood between plaintiff and plain 
 tiff's said family (brothers and sisters) for years, and that the line 
 of demarcation had been drawn in 1888, etc. etc. 
 
 "Rokeby," 
 
 Barrytown, N. Y., June 23rd, 1888. 
 (To John Armstrong Chaloner.) 
 
 Dearest Brog: Many thanks for your delightful letter flowing 
 with metaphorical milk and honey. 
 
 I am so glad you are so happy, dear old boy, and that you find 
 the dreadful marriage state not such a bugbear after all. I congratu 
 late you with all my heart on your winning such a fair and noble 
 prize in the life race, seeing how richly you deserve all happiness 
 that may come to you. Now I am going to speak quite frankly about 
 a matter which has been exercising us all a good deal, and whose 
 nature you seem entirely unconscious of. Far be it from me to throw 
 the slightest cloud across your sunshine, though in the present state 
 of the thermometer a cloud would be rather a grateful change for the 
 heat is oppressive, but I don't think you realize in the least how 
 very keenly we all felt your treating us as if we were mere outsiders 
 to be classed with reporters and other noxious aand inquisitive bipeds. 
 
 The news of your marriage was known to hundreds of people 
 before it reached us. Aunt Caroline Astor was here on Thursday 
 afternoon and said: "Well I hear Archie is being married" We 
 naturally poohpoohed the thing as a newspaper story. The next day 
 the "Herald," "Times" etc., confirmed the fait accompli, not until 
 Monday did we get any news from Virginia and in the meantime, as 
 it happened, we had a stream of visitors who could none of tiiein 
 fail to be surprised at our being left so totally in the dark. 
 
 Naturally we felt very much hurt at such neglect, poor Alida has 
 cried her eyes out several times feeling that you do not care for her, 
 the boys are all vexed and affronted. Wintie and I try to make the 
 best of the matter, but for several days we could not trust ourselves 
 to speak of it. Your announcement that you will stay in Virginia all 
 summer, read aloud at table last night reopened the wound, poor 
 Bunch's tears rolled down her cheeks into her strawberries. I think 
 you ought to try to come up for a week at least, before the girls sail. 
 I assure you the thing; is worth the sacrifice. The world which you 
 seem to care about a good deal as who does not has got hold of 
 the idea that your family is not overpleased with your marriage, 
 nothing as you know could be falser than this, but it is you who have 
 given it this impression, it rests with you to efface it. You know
 
 Ill 
 
 without any telling you how warm your welcome would be here and 
 I think you owe it to yourselves as well as to us, to let us see you 
 here. 
 
 Think it over well, remember how much weight and stress you 
 always lay on duties to your family. I say no more, fearing you take 
 me already for a tiresome old lecturer. Please understand that I 
 write because I think it is best you should know how the land lies 
 about Rokeby, and show you how you may make a difference, I won't 
 say for your whole future but certainly for several months of it by 
 your present movements, in the whole feeling of the family. Mr. 
 Bostwick has just returned from Baltimore, quite worn out with dodg 
 ing questions as to why none of the family were present, etc., etc., 
 and he told Wintie last night that you ought really to know how the 
 farmers and people about here are talking at your not coming; up nor 
 having had any one down. The only way, you see, to do away with 
 all these false impressions is for you to come up here as soon as pos 
 sible. 
 
 This is not a case for quibbling arguments about insignificant 
 "side issues," you have got yourself into this false position and you 
 owe it to your wife and her future relations to the family to get 
 yourself out of it. Use your own judgment as regards telling Amelie 
 about all this, she has had enough worries and should be spared 
 as much as possible. Give her my love Wintie joins me and says 
 he won't trust himself to talk any more on the subject. Very affec 
 tionately, 
 
 DAISY. 
 
 Alida sends love to you both also give Margaret love from us all. 
 
 (From Winthrop Astor Chanler.) 
 
 "Rokeby," 
 
 Barrytown, N. Y., June 19th. 
 
 My >ear Margaret: I have been waiting until I could control 
 my temper before answering your letter. 
 
 If ever two people deserved a good spanking, those two are Brog 
 and you. Of course you were but as putty in his hands, and backed 
 him up in his absurd mysteries but still your own common sense, If 
 no other feeling, should have told you that he was quite wrong in 
 acting as he did. Now I suppose you are wondering what I am driving 
 at. Wait a bit until I tell you a story. 
 
 A detachment of the British Army in India was on the march. 
 An officer was very anxious to know whether the army was to halt 
 the next day and asked one of the staff officers, who had once been a 
 friend of his, about it. "I really do not know the intentions of the 
 General" was the reply. Then says the Chronicler, "Returning to his 
 tent disgusted with the airs of his former companion he was met by
 
 112 
 
 his servant with the information that the army was to halt the next 
 day. "Where did you learn that?" said the officer "Major M's (the 
 staff officer) washerman tells me." So Major M. could tell his washer 
 man that he might take advantage of the halt to blanch his linen, but 
 he could not communicate it to an old friend; although from the situa 
 tion of the army it mattered not, in a military point of view, if the 
 fact were known from one end of India to the other." Just read, 
 mark, learn, etc., this parable and I think you will see how the cap 
 fits. You could write to Mr. Morris and tell him to be sure the "d" 
 was 1 left out of his name, etc., etc. and yet you could not send one 
 line or word to any member of your family so that we could drink 
 the bride's health. As it happened Archie's alleged telegram never 
 reached us. 
 
 Alida at "Tranquility" and all of us at "Rokeby" heard it from 
 an outsider and the daily papers. Of course Brog, like Sir Andrew 
 Aguecheek will have fifty "exquisite reasons" for it all. He always 
 has. It won't make much difference now what he says. It is all over 
 the country that not a single member of his family knew he was going 
 to be married so soon. That don't look well does it? I am glad he is 
 where he is so much appreciated for his stock is below par up here. 
 I cabled the news to Bess lest she too should hear through the papers. 
 Alida wrote me a piteous letter to-day asking for news What news 
 can I give her? That you leave Va. in a week? Another little point 
 for you and Brog to digest at your leisure is this. The outcome of 
 his sublime and fatuous predilection for mystery is that as your name 
 was only in one paper the great majority for whom he poses think 
 that no member of his family was present at his wedding. You can 
 draw your inferences. 
 
 This is all I am going to say on the subject except that it is use 
 less to tell Amelie anything about it. She has nothing to do with it, 
 and need not be made uncomfortable. Yours, 
 
 W. 
 
 (From Winthrop Astor Chanler.) 
 
 "Rokeby," 
 
 Barrytown, N. Y., June 22nd, 1888. 
 
 My Dear Margaret: On our return from Albany to-day, where 
 we had dined and spent the night with Mrs. Pruyn, I found your long 
 letter. 
 
 Your reasons for not letting us know are precisely what we all 
 supposed them to have been. Of course we all knew perfectly well 
 that you wanted to send us word and that Archie would not let you. 
 When you say that you did not consider it proper for you to discuss 
 the matter with and differ from, him we disagree with you entirely. 
 It was your business to fight any such proceeding on his part with all
 
 113 
 
 your might. Particularly so when you thoroughly realized how -we 
 would feel as you say you did. In fact every word in your letter and 
 in Brog's to Daisy goes to confirm us in our opinion. The Rives had 
 a perfect right to wait till after the wedding before cabling to the Ool. 
 if they wished. They had plenty of relatives in the house to back 
 them up in anything they chose to do if the Herald is to be believed. 
 Besides there are a half dozen ways in which Brog could have let us 
 know the day before if he had wished. He could have written or 
 telegraphed in French. As soon as he had had his interview with 
 the Herald reporter he could have sent us word. The whole trouble 
 is that he apparently looked upon the family in the same light as the 
 public with a strong preference for the public. I am not going to 
 discuss the matter any further as regards the disagreeable position 
 he has seen fit to put us all in and its result in the eyes of the world 
 of whom he seems to stand in such dread. Nor am I going; to discuss 
 the utter fizzle of his attempt at secrecy. I will simply say that he 
 has done the very thing of all others he should have not done under 
 the circumstances and that he has hurt the feelings of his entire 
 connection on this side of the water in a way that though they may 
 say nothing, yet will make them show it for a long time to come. In 
 the most important epoch of his life he has made a fool of himself and 
 hurt his wife in the eyes of the public. You can show him both my 
 letters on condition that he does not tell his wife about the contents 
 more than is necessary. I will write to him as soon as I can talk of 
 something else. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 W. 
 
 P. S. Remember I want you to show both my letters to Brog. 
 You ean leave the matter of repetition to his own judgment. 
 
 (From Winthrop Astor Chanler to John Armstrong Chaloner.) 
 
 "Rokeby," 
 
 Barrytown, N. Y., June 21st, 1888. 
 
 Dear Brog: Just a line from an outsider to disturb the perfect 
 bliss of Armida's garden. Ask for and read the two letters I have 
 written to Margaret in the name of the Rokebyites and use your own 
 judgment about repeating the contents. Love to Armida We don't 
 want any cuttings from the Herald or any other of your friends the 
 Journalists. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 W. 
 
 P. S. The weather here is very warm, 93 in the shade to-day I 
 wonder if you wouldn't find it cool in spite of the thermometer.
 
 114 
 
 (From John Armstrong Chaloner to Winthrop Astor Chanler.) 
 
 "Castle Hill," 
 Albemarle County, Virginia, June 27th, 1888. 
 
 Dear Wintie: I have received your note of June 21st, and I shall 
 want an apology from you in writing, before anything further can 
 pass between us. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 J. A. C. 
 
 Now as regards the corroborating evidence concerning the veracity 
 of plaintiff's statements in the above letter to Hon. Micajah Woods 
 under date of July 3, 1897. 
 
 We shall lastly introduce a letter written to plaintiff under 
 plaintiff's then alias of John Childe while plaintiff was in hiding from 
 the New York and Pennsylvania police at the said private sanatorium 
 in Philadelphia, by the late Hon. James Lindsay Gordon, then one of 
 the assistant District Attorneys of New York City where he died, and 
 recently in 1904 one of the Assistant Corporation Counsel of the 
 same. 
 
 "District Attorney's Office. 
 City & County of New York. 
 
 May 6th, 1901. 
 John Childe, Esq., Phila,, Pa. 
 
 My Dear C.: I have your letter of the 5th inst. but this is the 
 first moment I have had to answer it, having been engaged in Court 
 all day in the trial of cases. 
 
 I remember very distinctly the meeting; to which you refer, of the 
 Directors of the R. P. Co.* in your room in the Hotel Kensington in 
 December, 1896, and the altercation of a violent character which then 
 occurred between you and your brother Mr. W. A. C. (Mr. Winthrop 
 Astor Chanler) an altercation which reached the verge of becoming 
 a physical one, you rising from the bed in which you had been previ 
 ously lying, and you and he simultaneously approaching each other 
 In a threatening manner. I do not after the lapse of so long a time, 
 recall the exact point at issue between you, but I do recall that 
 on being appealed to by you, I agreed to the correctness of your 
 position. I think it was the next day or the day thereafter you 
 showed me a letter from him in which he said, in effect (of course 
 I do not recall the language) that he could have no further com 
 munication with you except in writing or through third parties. 
 
 *Roanoke Rapids Power Company.
 
 115 
 
 My recollection is that you sent him a reply to the effect that you 
 accepted that situation; anl either in that letter or another one about 
 the same time by me, you notified him that you would send a repre 
 sentative to examine the accounts of your Father's estate of which 
 he was one of the executors. To the latter proposition he verbally to 
 me at once acquiesced. Subsequently at your request I employed an 
 expert accountant who examined the books and made a report which 
 was either given you or Mr. S. W. who held your power of attorney. 
 I do not now remember which. 
 
 Subsequently to the Kensington Hotel meeting, Mr. W. A. C. resigned 
 his presidency and membership on the Directory of the U. I. Co.* and 
 you were elected in his place. I was at that meeting elected a Director 
 on that Board by proxies of your stock a position which I some time 
 
 ago resigned, transferring my share of stock to who I believe 
 
 was elected Director in my stead tho' of this I am not sure. I re 
 signed as it was practically impossible owing to the tremendous pres 
 sure of my official duties to attend to the Directorship of the U. I. I 
 have now I think, briefly epitomized the business transactions of that 
 particular period so far as I can remember such business transactions. 
 
 In so far as your relations with the members of your family 
 (brothers and sisters) were concerned, of course my knowledge was 
 derived from you. I was on the most intimate social and business 
 footing with you and there were few things you concealed from me. 
 You had, on various occasions before the transactions hereinbefore 
 referred to, spoken to me about them and that your relations with 
 them were not friendly. My recollection is that on one or two occa 
 sions I rather argued the matter with you, stating that I thought you 
 must be mistaken, but you persisted in the assertion that you knew 
 what you were talking about and that you knew that your family 
 were unfriendly to you. 
 
 I have written this hurriedly because I desire to have it reach 
 you at once, as you seem to desire it as soon as possible. It may be 
 proper to add that if your family were unfriendly toward you, of 
 which it is not necessary for me to express an opinion, I would natu 
 rally not be the person to whom such unfriendliness would be ex 
 pressed, occupying as I did the intimate relation, with you to which 
 I have referred. 
 
 With the very kindest regards and best wishes for your good 
 health, Faithfully yours, 
 
 JAMES LINDSAY GORDON. 
 
 I remember being with you when you met Mr. W. A. C.t in the 
 station at Jersey City and remember your telling me afterwards that 
 you and he had a violent quarrel on the train going South. 
 
 J. L. G." 
 
 *United Industrial Company. 
 tCol. William Astor Chanler.
 
 116 
 
 A perusal of the above proves plaintiffs assertion touching the 
 aforesaid meeting of the Board of Directors of the Roanoke Rapids 
 Power Company at plaintiff's said rooms at said Hotel Kensington, 
 15th Street and 5th Avenue, New York City, in December, 1896. A 
 perusal of the above letter also proves the falsity of the charge that 
 plaintiff was insane from November, 1896, since no Board of Directors 
 would think of holding a business meeting in the rooms of a dangerous 
 maniac such as plaintiff is pictured at said time of said meeting in 
 said Commitment Papers as being. A perusal of the above letter also 
 proves plaintiff's assertion touching the aforesaid violent altercation 
 arising thereat between plaintiff and plaintiff's said brother, Mr. Win- 
 throp Astor Chanler; and also that plaintiff's position in said alterca 
 tion was a correct one: and also all in said assertions of plaintiff 
 touching the subsequent consequences of said altercation to wit. (a) 
 Plaintiff's said assertion touching the letter written plaintiff by said 
 Mr. Winthrop Astor Chanler breaking off all social relations with 
 plaintiff except in writing or through third parties, (b) Plaintiff's 
 said assertion touching plaintiff's acceptance of the said situation in 
 a letter, saying also that plaintiff would send a representative to ex 
 amine the accounts of plaintiffs said Father's Estate of which said 
 Estate said Mr. Winthrop Astor Chanler was one of the Executors; 
 and also said Mr. Winthrop Astor Chanler's acceptance of said propo 
 sition, (c) Plaintiff's said assertion touching said Mr. Winthrop 
 Astor Chanler's said resignation from the Presidency of, and mem 
 bership on the Directory of the said United Industrial Company, (d) 
 Plaintiff's said assertion touching plaintiff's election to the Presidency 
 of the said United Industrial Company; together with plaintiff's elec 
 tion^ by proxies of plaintiff's stock, of a new Directory in the said 
 United Industrial Company of plaintiff's own choosing. 
 
 A perusal of the above letter also proves plaintiff's assertion 
 touching the unfriendly relations obtaining between plaintiff and 
 plaintiff's said family (brothers and sisters) ; for although, as Mr. 
 Gordon points out, said Gordon would not be likely seeing the most 
 intimate social and business footing existing between said Gordon 
 and plaintiff to be the person to whom such unfriendliness would 
 be expressed by said family, yet said Gordon admits that plaintiff had, 
 on various occasions before the transactions hereinbefore referred to, 
 spoken to said Gordon about said family, and that plaintiff had said 
 to said Gordon that plaintiff's relations with said family, were not 
 friendly. It should hardly be necessary to state that the correctness 
 of plaintiff's said judgment, regarding the secret and concealed hos 
 tility from public view of plaintiff's said family towards plaintiff is 
 pretty effectively proved by a member of said family, said brother or 
 plaintiff, said Mr. Winthrop Astor Chanler's said violent altercation, 
 which reached the verge of becoming a physical one, at said meeting 
 of said Directory of said Roanoke Rapids Power Company at plaintiff's 
 said rooms at said Hotel Kensington, in December, 1896.
 
 117 
 
 The late Hon. James Lindsay Gordon, above referred to, was 
 the brother of the Hon. Armistead Churchill Gordon, of Staunton, Vir 
 ginia, now Rector of the Board of Visitors of the University of Vir 
 ginia, and the brilliant and well-known writer of Southern stories in 
 the magazines. 
 
 The News and Observer, Raleigh, North Carolina, October 18, 1906. 
 "FOUR YEARS IN BL.OOMINGDALE" 
 
 JOHN ARMSTRONG CHALONER'S BOOK ON DETENTION 
 AS A LUNATIC. 
 
 Readers of the News and Observer will recall the mysterious sen 
 sation occasioned ten years ago by the incarceration in "Bloomingdale" 
 asylum, in New York, and the subsequent escape of John Armstrong 
 Chaloner, the wealthy Virginian and member of the New York bar. 
 
 For four months the friends of Mr. Chaloner supposed that he 
 was away taking a trip for his health. For weeks after his escape 
 and return to his State of Virginia newspaper speculation was rife as 
 to the causes which led up to tiie imprisonment. He was subsequently 
 declared sane in an action tried in the courts of Virginia, and was 
 adjudged competent to manage his own affairs. Beyond the fact that 
 he had brought actions against persons, however, the matter has since 
 fallen away from public attention and has in many respects remained 
 ever since a mystery. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner is especially known in the South by reason of his 
 marriage to Amelie Rives, the brilliant Virginia novelist, whose book, 
 "The Quick or the Dead," created a national furore at the time of its 
 publication, and by reason of the fact that it was through his money 
 and initiative largely, and Major T. L. Emry, that the water power 
 at Roanoke Rapids, in North Carolina, was first developed. 
 
 Through the publication of a book by Mr. Chaloner, which is now 
 on the Palmetto Press, of Roanoke Rapids, the News and Observer 
 is able to give an exclusive statement of the complete story, as stated 
 by Mr. Chaloner of the events leading to his commitment to the asylum, 
 the circumstances under which he was arrested in New York and 
 railroaded to "Bloomingdale" and the sensational details of his four 
 years's stay there as a prisoner practically ex-communicado from the 
 world, from March 13th, 1897, until Thanksgiving day eve, 1900. when 
 he effected his escape and successfully eluded the police who were 
 searching for him in every large city in response to a general alarm. 
 
 The title of the book is "Four Years Behind the Bars of 'Bloom 
 ingdale' ; or the Bankruptcy of Law in New York."
 
 118 
 
 STANFORD WHITE SUGGESTS A PLUNGE 
 
 As detailed by Mr. Chaloner, he was induced in March, 1887, to 
 leave his country place, Merry Mills, in Virginia, and go to New York 
 by Stanford White, who was recently killed on the roof of Madison 
 Square Garden by Harry Thaw. Mr. Chaloner states that he had had 
 much trouble with his family in a social and business way, the first 
 on account of his having engaged in psychological studies and in 
 vestigation into Esoteric Buddhism, and the second by reason of his 
 having ousted his brother, Winthrop Astor Chanler, from the presi 
 dency of the United Industrial Company of Roanoke Rapids, which 
 Mr. Chaloner controlled. He alleges that his incarceration in the 
 asylum was brought about by his brother for the reasons stated, and 
 for the purpose of gaining control of his property. Referring to the 
 visit paid him by Stanford White, to his home in Virginia, Mr. Chal 
 oner declares that he had written Mr. White that he could not see 
 him, but that the latter nevertheless appeared at his home in com 
 pany with a physician and invited him to go to New York for "a 
 plunge in the Metropolitan whirl." Mr. Chaloner consented and went 
 to the Hotel Kensington, where he engaged rooms. 
 
 Later the doctor, whose name is not given, but who is described 
 as "B. F.," and Mr. White insisted that Mr. Chaloner should put him 
 self in a trance-like state, an accomplishment he says that he has ac 
 quired as the result of his studies in Esoteric Buddhism. Mr. Chal 
 oner complied, and later the doctor returned with Dr. Moses Allen 
 Starr, a famous New York alienist, who was introduced as an opulist 
 and, by request of the physician was permitted by Mr. Chaloner to 
 examine his eyes. 
 
 RAILROADED TO "BLOOMINGDALE." 
 
 After having examined his eyes, Mr. Chaloner states that Dr. Moses 
 Starr afterwards came to his room at night, after he had retired, with 
 three other men and commanded him to go with him, as resistance 
 would be useless. Mr. Chaloner states that he refused to go and "con 
 vinced" Dr. Starr that he did not have force enough with him to 
 make him go. The next day there came to the hotel plain-clothes 
 policemen with commitment papers, and by them Mr. Chaloner was 
 taken to the asylum. 
 
 From the letter written to Captain Woods is taken the following 
 description by Mr. Chaloner of his stay in "Bloomingdale" : 
 
 "Before going into the commitment papers. I shall briefly touch 
 on my life here for the past four months. I was brought here the 
 13th of March. Since that time I have been in solitary confinement 
 in a two-roomed cell. A keeper sleeps in one of the rooms of my 
 cell, and he is always with me. When I take exercise in the asylum 
 grounds the keeper accompanies me. My razors were seized on the 
 ground that it was a 'rule of the institution.' The consequence was 
 I had to be shaved by the asylum barber, which caused not only in-
 
 119 
 
 convenience, but hardship, since my beard is thick and my skin is thin, 
 and no barber has been able to shave me without causing a violent irri 
 tation of the skin, a condition which is always absent when I shave 
 myself. 
 
 "You must excuse the above apparently trivial incident, but you 
 will appreciate the annoyance it is to be shaved by the asylum barber, 
 when I tell you that his shaving raised such a rash on my neck that 
 I have limited his operations to twice a week, thus giving the inflam 
 mation time to subside-^to begin afresh on the next shave. 
 
 "You know, from my having had the pleasure of dining at your 
 house, that I am limited to a very abstemious diet, that! I am prac 
 tically a vegetarian. 
 
 "You also know that I ride a great deal on horseback. It is, in 
 fact, my favorite and only form of outdoor exercise. You can well 
 imagine the deleterious effect upon my health resultant from a com 
 bination of bad cooking, poor food and total deprivation of horseback 
 exercise. Of the cooking I have simply to say that the asylum cooks 
 cannot even bake bread, though they daily attempt it. So that I have 
 been forced to buy crackers to avoid the violent indigestion the half- 
 baked bread causes me. Of the food I will simply say that it has 
 been so bad that I have come down to a daily diet of baked potatoes, 
 lettuce, fruit and crackers in order to avoid eating food which is 
 either badly cooked, adulterated or decayed. 
 
 "In the meantime I am living in a madhouse. Every 'patient' in 
 the building in which I am imprisoned is hopelessly insane. At times 
 some of them became violently, homicidally, insane, when, after yells 
 and struggles with keepers and a siege in a strait-jacket, they are 
 forcibly removed to another ward. Since my arrival two patients 
 tvere removed from this building for having become 'violent,' as they 
 call it here. 
 
 "Nothing prevents a patient from becoming homicidally insane at 
 any time. In one of such fits of frenzy the lunatic might take it 
 into his head to walk into my cell and attack me. The cell-doors 
 are unlocked, and, although there is a keeper on watch on my floor, 
 he is not always there. To give me warning of the approach of 
 prowling maniacs I put a table against my door at night. 
 
 "This will give you an idea of my surroundings. I think that you 
 wil} agree with me that they are calculated to drive a man insane. 
 When you add to these 'surroundings' the active and sustained efforts 
 of the resident doctors to talk me into becoming insane by declaring 
 to my face that I am insane, and attempting to argue me into admit- 
 ing that I am; when you consider this, you will, I think, conclude 
 that I have my nerves and will-power under effective control in being 
 able to remain sane. 
 
 "So much for my life for the last four months. This is the first 
 opportunity which I have had for posting a letter unbeknown to the 
 authorities here. The rule is that all letters and telegrams must be 
 sent through the authorities here, who have the legal right to suppress
 
 120 
 
 or forward to 'The Commission in Lunacy' at Albany, who have again 
 the legal right to suppress and destroy them. You can readily under 
 stand that I would not send a letter under such conditions. Hence 
 my having to wait four months to write to you and ask your aid." 
 
 BLOODED CONSPIRATORS' ALLEGED MOTIVE. 
 
 The petitioners upon whose affidavits the commitment papers 
 against Mr. Chaloner were secured were Winthrop Astor Chanler, Louis 
 Stuyvesant Chauler, and - . The first two named 
 
 were the executors of the estate of Mr. Chaloner's father, to which, 
 under the terms of the will, he is entitled to an annual income of 
 one-eighth of the total income. 
 
 With reference to the will, Mr. Chaloner wrote Captain Woods : 
 
 "At my death without issue my said share reverts to the estate. 
 Should I leave issue my said share would go to said issue. It Is 
 therefore evidently to the business interests of my family to prevent 
 my marrying by locking me up for life in an insane asylum, if possible, 
 and if that is not possible, the next best step towards safeguarding 
 their business interests is to throw, if possible, an insurmountable 
 obstacle in the way of my marrying. No more insurmountable obstacle 
 in the way of marriage could be imagined than insanity." 
 
 Of marrying again, however, he says: 
 
 "Granting that I get out of this asylum, the stigma of having 
 been confined in it would stick to me through life. You need not 
 necessarily infer that I have any intentions of marrying, only I like 
 to retain the privilege of the option." 
 
 Other motives alleged are the desire to control the business in 
 terests of Mr. Chaloner, and a spirit of revenge on the part of Win 
 throp Chanler. 
 
 PROPERTY IN TRUSTEE'S HANDS. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner, since his escape, has started proceedings in New 
 York against T. T. Sherman, who, by a decree of the court, has been 
 placed in charge of Mr. Chaloner's property. He alleges that this Mr. 
 T. T. Sherman was paid twenty thousand dollars out of his estate, and 
 that the expenses of his stay in "Bloomingdale" amounted to twenty 
 thousand dollars additional, which has been charged against his 
 estate. His purpose in writing the book he declares to be to call the 
 attention of a judge to the action of his relatives. 
 
 is "BLOOMINGDALE" A SNARE? 
 
 The book goes fully into the methods and workings of "Blooming- 
 dale," which Mr. Chaloner asserts is not a charitable asylum in any 
 sense; but run under the protection of the "Society of the New York 
 Hospital," and that it receives only sufficient charity patients to avoid 
 the payment of taxes. Its purpose, he allows, is to hold :m<i lcc<'i> 
 wealthy men, whose families desire to be rid of them.
 
 121 
 
 The extent to which the horror of his situation had worked upon 
 Mr. Chaloner is disclosed in his injunction: to Captain Woods in his 
 letter : 
 
 "Speed is essential, for I have been given to understand that when 
 my unknown term of imprisonment here is ended I am to be shipped 
 to Europe. As to what point I was not informed; most probably to 
 an English private insane asylum. 
 
 "Speed and secrecy are the watchwords. The moment it leaked 
 out that any effort was being made for my release, that moment would 
 probably end my imprisonment here and begin it in a closed carriage, 
 on my way by night bound and gagged to Long Island Sound eight 
 miles off where a private tugboat would tonvey me to an ocean 
 steamer at New York, or a sailing vessel bound round 'The Horn.' 
 I can assure you that outlawed as I am, my position is one of con 
 siderable uncertainty not to say danger." 
 
 A PERIL, TO THE EICH. 
 
 The book, on account both of its character and its revelations, and 
 on account of the social standing of Mr. Chaloner and the sensation 
 created when his commitment first became known, will create profound 
 interest all over the country. It shows, if its detailed circumstantial 
 allegations are to be believed, that the rich in New York 'are in more 
 danger from the avarice of unscrupulous relatives than the poorest 
 man from unjust accusation and the failure of justice. His story is 
 fraught with romance and mystery. 
 
 AUTHOR OF DISTINGUISHED ANCESTRY. 
 
 As stated, Mr. Chaloner, formerly a citizen of Virginia, where he 
 still frequently resides at his four hundred-acre estate, "Merry Mills," 
 is now a citizen of Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. He is a mixture 
 of distinguished Southern and Dutch ancestry, and his blood is such 
 as to warrant that he will make an unrelenting fight for what he 
 conceives to be his rights and against injustice. His paternal grand 
 father, a personal friend of Calhoun, left Charleston, South Carolina, 
 where his forbears had steadily resided since about 1710, when they 
 first left Wales for the New World, about twenty years before the 
 war between the States, came to New York to live, and married into 
 the New York branch of the Winthrop family. The first of that 
 family to come to this country was John Winthrop, first Governor 
 of Massachusetts. This marriage also connected the Chanlers with 
 Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam, now 
 New York. In Charleston, the Chanlers had always been members 
 of one of the three learned professions the Church, the Law, or 
 Medicine. The author's father married Miss Margaret Astor Ward, 
 granddaughter of the late William B. Astor. This connected the 
 Chanlers with Mrs. Julia Ward Howe the author's grand-aunt and, 
 further back, considerably, with General John Armstrong, of the
 
 122 
 
 Revolution, author of "The Newburgh Addresses," and also, through 
 the Wards, with General Marion, of South Carolina, of the Revolution, 
 Known as the "Swamp Fox," and also with General Greene, of the 
 Revolution. Lastly, the Marion connection relates the author collat 
 erally not lineally, for she never married to no less a personage 
 than Charlotte Corday, the slayer of the murderous Marat General 
 Marion's people being French Huguenots. 
 
 For some time, while awaiting the results of litigation, Mr. Chal- 
 oner has been residing on his Virginia estate, engaged in literary 
 work. 
 
 The World, New York, November 11, 1906. 
 
 STOP THIKF! GIVE ME MY MILLION! 
 
 THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE STORY OF JOHN ARMSTRONG 
 CHALONER, FORMER HUSBAND OF THE PRINCESS 
 TROUBETZKOY, WHO IS LEGALLY SANE IN VIR 
 GINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA, LEGALLY INSANE 
 IN NEW YORK, AND WHO WRITES A START 
 LING NARRATIVE OF HIS STRUGGLES 
 FOR LIBERTY AND AN INHERI 
 TANCE. 
 
 Can a man be sane in one State and insane in another? 
 
 So it would seem. But John Armstrong Chaloner, cousin of the 
 Astors, one time chum of the late Stanford White; lawyer, college 
 graduate, student of psychics and ex-husband of that brilliant woman, 
 Amelie Rives, now the Princess Troubetzkoy, is not going to take such 
 a decision as final. 
 
 His case comes up in the Federal Courts here in New York. Mr. 
 Chaloner, who has a fortune of largely over $1,000,000, wants to get 
 control of it But the courts of New York say he is insane and not 
 competent. His legal residence is in the State of North Carolina. 
 
 And there, as in Virginia, the courts have decided that he Is 
 perfectly sane and able to manage his estate. 
 
 There are forty-five States in the Union. Mr. Chaloner can visit 
 forty-four of them without the slightest danger to his personal liberty. 
 But should he set his foot in the sovereign State of New York he will 
 promptly be clapped into a lunatic asylum, because he is still held 
 to be mentally incompetent. Dr. Lyon, of "Bloomingdale," has testified 
 that Mr. Chaloner is a paranoiac. Dr. Austin Flint, Dr. Carlos F. 
 McDonald and Dr. Moses A. Starr, have given it as their opinion 
 that Mr. Chaloner is hopelessly insane. 
 
 And Dr. J. Madison Taylor, Dr. Thomson Jay Hudson and Dr. 
 H. C. Wood have pronounced him absolutely sane and possessed of a 
 brilliant intellect
 
 123 
 
 It will be a desperate legal battle. Mr. Chaloner has retained 
 the best of counsel. So has the custodian of his one million dollars 
 or two, T. T. Sherman, who says he is insane. It is very much like 
 Charles Reade's "Very Hard Cash" all over again. 
 
 TO PROVE PSYCHIC GIFTS ABE NOT INSANITY. 
 
 It will be more than a legal fight. It will be a trial in which 
 a man who has delved deep into psychic phenomena will try to prove 
 that he is not insane just because he knows something more than the 
 mere everyday things of life. Because a man is possessed of an 
 X-faculty, a sub-consciousness with a psychic development, Mr. Chal 
 oner contends, does not prove him mentally incompetent Because he 
 has solved the mystery of "graphic automatism" does not prove him 
 a lunatic. 
 
 One might search fiction high and low for a case like this one in 
 real life. 
 
 It is one of the most remarkable stories of modern times. Here 
 is a man of independent means, a man of affairs, a brilliant writer, 
 an ardent sportsman, a clever raconteur, sent to "Bloomingdale," ad 
 judged hopelessly insane "progressive," the physicians called his case. 
 
 There he stays for nearly four years. He knows it is hopeless 
 to protest. There he is, behind the bars, gone from the world for 
 ever. He dreams of freedom by night; by day he ponders over the 
 problem of getting it. He knows that to be violent would see the 
 end of his hopes ; he acquiesces in every thing his keepers order, 
 without a word of protest. It is the careful working of a mind bent 
 on accomplishing its object freedom ! 
 
 He waits his time. He gets the trust of every one about him. 
 He does meekly everything that he is bidden everything except ad 
 mit to the doctors that he is insane. He gets permission to take 
 walks without a keeper. He makes his daily jaunts farther and far 
 ther away, deliberately practicing the art of covering great distances 
 in a short time. He finds a post office where he may receive letters 
 under an assumed name, because nothing may reach him at the asylum 
 until it has been scrutinized. In this way he manages to borrow 
 $10 this man with an income of $40,000 a year. 
 
 And now what does he do? 
 
 One day he does not return from his daily walk. No, he has 
 walked well and far he has taken a train to New York from an 
 obscure railroad station miles distant from White Plains, where 
 Bloomingdale now is. By nightfall he is safe in Philadelphia. 
 
 Does he go into paroxysms of impotent rage at those who incar 
 cerated him, as do many of the insane when they escape? Does he 
 try to kill those whom he might imagine responsible for his sufferings? 
 Does he break out in incoherent ravings against fancied evils? 
 
 No. He goes straightway to a sanitarium in Philadelphia. He 
 states his case calmly to the physician in charge and asks to be put
 
 124 
 
 under scientific observation. ^After six month's voluntary confinement 
 there the physicians tell him that he is perfectly sane and has al 
 ways 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 physicians tell Mr. Chaloner he is well-balanced. Then 
 suddenly he appears at his old home, Merry Mills, Cobharn, Virginia, 
 where he has stayed to this day, master of his estate, as at Roanoke 
 Rapids, North Carolina. 
 
 GIVEN UP AS DEAD. 
 
 Meanwhile his family and his friends had given him up for dead. 
 Thousands of dollars had been spent in trying to find him. Finally it 
 was said that he was gone forever. No one guessed that the quiet, 
 rather punctilious Mr. John Childe, in the Philadeplhia sanitarium, 
 was the missing John Armstrong Chaloner, cousin of Waldorf Astor. 
 
 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 Chaloner was pronounced sane and com 
 petent. But the greater part of his fortune was here in New York 
 State, and here it is on record that John Armstrong Chaloner 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 inheritance and his standing as a man 
 of sound mind. 
 
 And why was John Armstrong Chaloner, Columbia University, 
 '83, called insane? 
 
 Because he was possessed of the power of "graphic automatism" 
 and had developed his X-faculty type of subconsciousness was taken 
 as evidence of insanity. 
 
 Yet some of the most prominent psychological writers discuss this 
 X-faculty in all seriousness and admit that there is such a thing as 
 "graphic automatism." And all of this is told in a remarkable book, 
 which Mr. Chaloner has just published. 
 
 He calls it "Four Years Behind the Bars of Bloomingdale, or 
 The Bankruptcy of Law In New York." In it he is extremely bitter. 
 He calls "Bloomingdale" "The Bastile of the 400," and asserts very 
 positively that it is an easy matter to put any one behind the bars 
 forever as insane, just as Reade contended in his "Very Hard Cash." 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner first came into the public eye when he 
 married Amelie Rives, who wrote that brilliant story, "The Quick or 
 the Dead," in which is told the old love of a beautiful widow for her 
 dead husband and her newer love for another man in the flesh. Jock 
 Bering, the hero, was Chaloner. As she described him : 
 
 "There was the same curling brown hair above a square, strong- 
 modelled forehead; eyes the color of autumn pools in sunlight; the de 
 termined yet delicate jut of the nose; the pleasing unevenness in 
 the crowded, white teeth ; the fine jaw, which had that curve from 
 ear to tip like the prow of a cutter."
 
 125 
 
 Her marriage to young Mr. Chaloner only added to the book's 
 popularity. She was beautiful, impetuous. Soon their friends came 
 to realize that there was nothing in common between the grave, 
 polished, rather mystic, New Yorker and the gifted Virginia girl. 
 
 There was a divorce, which the husband did not contest, upon 
 the ground of incompatibility, and the Mrs. Chaloner that was mar 
 ried Prince Troubetzkoy, whom she met abroad. 
 
 The book that he has written as his plea to be counted sane con 
 tains 500 pages. In it many New Yorkers are mentioned few of them 
 favorably. 
 
 MR. CHALONEB'S OPINION OF PEOPLE. 
 
 "The more I know men the more I admire dogs," is the way Mr. 
 Chaloner opens his book, quoting from Voltaire. 
 
 And here is the way he begins : 
 
 "The law in the State of New York, both State law and Federal 
 law, has reached a point of impotency whereat an innocent man is 
 about to be deprived of valuable property against his expressed will, 
 and the law, both State and national, is impotent to save him." 
 
 He refers to Mr. Hearst, and to Stanford White, whom he ac 
 cuses of luring him to "Bloomingdale," as follows : 
 
 "A prominent party now running for a prominent political position 
 is adversely commented upon between the boards of said book. Lastly 
 in this particular connection. A certain prominent party recently 
 shot to death is also commented upon between the boards of said 
 book, whereas the trial of said prominent party's slayer comes up 
 in the New York Supreme Court in a few weeks that is to say, in 
 the fall or winter of 1907, these lines being actually penned Sep 
 tember 29, 1906." 
 
 The book recites with bitterness what the writer calls the in 
 justice of the proceedings leading up to the judgment of the New 
 York Courts, and to his incarceration in "Bloomingdale." 
 
 Of "Bloomingdale," he says: 
 
 "We shall now point but not with pride, as a member of over 
 twenty years' standing of the New York bar to the fact that we 
 have been robbed, so to speak, of twenty thousand dollars by the 
 Society of the New York Hospital, falsely known as 'Bloomingdale.' 
 
 "Here we have twenty thousand dollars taken from an innocent 
 and sane man by the long arm of the law, or what at present passes 
 for law in the 'Empire State' of New York." 
 
 How Stanford White got him to "Bloomingdale" is told in this 
 wise: 
 
 From a letter written while behind the bars by Mr. John Arm 
 strong Chaloner, to a brother lawyer outside and smuggled out of 
 "Bloomingdale" :
 
 126 
 
 "HOW I WAS TAKEN TO BLOOMINGDALE. " 
 
 "I received a telegram from my friend, Mr. Stanford White, pro 
 posing to visit me in company with a mutual friend. As I was on 
 rather unfriendly terms with Mr. White at the time, owing to an 
 abusive letter he had recently written me, I did not look forward 
 to a visit from him with pleasure. I therefore sent him a telegram 
 to say that I was not well enough to see him. A few days later Mr. 
 White walked in on me, in company with a physician. I shall not 
 attempt to picture my surprise. Let it suffice to say that I was struck 
 dumb. 
 
 "Mr. White hastily excused his intrusion and implored me to ac 
 company him to New York for a 'plunge in the Metropolitan whirl.' 
 As I had some business which needed my attention in New York, I 
 consented." 
 
 Of New York law, he says: 
 
 "This is truly the 'Empire State.' I sometimes wonder, as I look 
 through the bars of my cell, how such things can be, outside the 
 Russian 'Empire State.' 
 
 "Fortunately for myself, however, I am no longer a citizen of 
 the 'Empire State,' but am and have been since 1895, a citizen of the 
 sovereign State of Virginia, which title to sovereignty I propose to 
 see Virginia make good by rescuing me." 
 
 Of gome other prominent gentlemen: 
 
 "Plaintiff is far from being a pauper and therefore has no need 
 of more money, plaintiff holding that a million is enough for any 
 man, but not holding that the size of fortunes should be limited by 
 law, but the manner of accumulating same should be so severely safe 
 guarded and shepherded by law that such thieves in sheep's clothing 
 as Ambassador Joseph H. Choate, Senior, and Elbridge T. Gerry, and 
 Francis Lagrade Stetson and the rest of the Forty Thieves of Bloom- 
 ingdale would now be serving life sentences in Sing Sing. 
 
 "Graphic automatism" he defines thus : 
 
 "In a word, the writing is, as the name implies, automatic. So 
 far but so far only as conscious thought, i. e., conscious mental 
 action is concerned, the hand does the writing without the help of 
 the head. In other words, it is as though one had a magic pen 
 or pencil, since a pencil is smoother and easier to operate than a 
 pen that started out to write so soon as the operator took it into 
 his or her hand. 
 
 GRAPHIC AUTOMATISM DESCRIBED. 
 
 "The operator has no more inkling of what the next word will 
 be before the said magic pen has written same than the onlooker. 
 
 "All the operator has to do is to hold the pen firmly in the 
 fingers, dip same into the ink, and see the said graphic automatism."
 
 127 
 
 "BLOOMINGDALE" "A BUSINESS PROPOSITION." 
 
 He produces authorities who are quoted as saying that "graphic 
 automatism" is a well recognized phenomenon, and that his trances 
 were not signs of insanity. 
 
 And of "Bloomingdale" thus: 
 
 " 'Bloomingdale,' it may as well be admitted, first as last, is run 
 purely for money, purely on business principles, and not on charitable 
 ones. Every 'patient' within its walls is a 'pay patient,' and as high, 
 a 'pay patient' as the parties putting him or her there can be squeezed 
 into making it. 
 
 "The exceptions to this ironclad rule are a handful of pauper 
 lunatics from Westchester County, who are taken in free for the 
 purpose of dodging the county taxes on the large and valuable real 
 estate and tenements possessed by the Society of the New York Hos 
 pital in the city of White Plains. 
 
 "A candidate for a 'certificate of lunacy' is requested by his mas 
 ters therein the said examining doctors to stand up and then de 
 liberately throw himself off his balance by putting his feet so close 
 together, toes and heels touching, that one's equilibrium is menaced. 
 He is then commanded to extend his arms to their fullest extent, 
 hands outspread, palms upward and close together. He is then ordered 
 to open his mouth, put out his tongue and shut his eyes. 
 
 "If he does not fall down on the spot he is lucky. It is while 
 in the above described preposterous position that the physical observa 
 tions of the examiners is taken." 
 
 Thus John Armstrong Chaloner presents his case. He will know 
 his verdict soon. 
 
 The Times-Dispatch, Richmond, Virginia, October 17, 1906. 
 JOHN ARMSTRONG CHAIA)NER SPEAKS. 
 
 MAKES SENSATIONAL ADDRESS BEFORE FRIENDS AND 
 ADHERENTS AT ROANOKE RAPIDS. 
 
 Was Entrapped By White. 
 
 WELDON, North Carolina, October 16. John Armstrong Chaloner 
 formerly of New York, after a silence of nine years, made a sensa 
 tional speech last night at Roanoke Rapids, the town he helped to 
 build and in the development of which he was one of the chief pro 
 moters. He spoke in the public school hall, and his appearance upon 
 the rostrum was the signal for a tempestuous storm of applause from 
 the people of the town, who crowded the building to the doors. Mr.
 
 128 
 
 Chaloner was the picture of health and appeared in fine spirits. He 
 was dressed in a black twilled cutaway coat, steel blue trousers, high 
 turnover collar, black and red silk four-in-hand tie, with a gray pearl 
 stickpin, patent leather lace shoes. 
 
 Before beginning his speech he removed his dark blue melton over 
 coat, high derby hat, and laid aside his gloves and walking stick, it 
 being the identical yellow Malacca silver-headed cane he walked out 
 of prison and from behind "Bloomingdale" bars with. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner said that what he had to say was a fearful comment 
 upon human nature, and particularly upon that class of human nature 
 known as high society. 
 
 He said he had been a victim of about as cold-blooded and mer 
 cenary a plot as had ever been heard of. He spoke with warmth and 
 flashing eye when he said that he was lured to New York by false 
 friends and placed in "Bloomingdale" asylum. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner said the courts of Albemarle County, Virginia, had 
 adjudged him sane and capable of managing and taking care of his 
 own property rights, and he reached a lofty stage of eloquence when 
 he declared that he would make a strong and persistent effort to estab 
 lish to the world the just judgment of the Virginia courts. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner charged that on evidence a plot had been hatched 
 by certain individuals high in the directorate of the Roanoke Rapids 
 Power Company to assess the stock of the company at 50 cents on 
 the dollar and freeze out stockholders who could not or would not 
 pay the assessment. 
 
 He said that he was the largest stockholder by 1,000 shares, owning 
 3,500 shares. "By some mysterious hocus-pocus," he said, "a referee 
 is appointed to sit on my case who is so peculiar as to object to an 
 investment of my surplus income to pay this assessment on my Roa 
 noke Rapids Power Company stock, although the committee and guard 
 ian ad \ litem, appointed by the New York courts to protect my in 
 terests, highly approved and eloquently plead for the protection of 
 this valuable stock, particularly as the assessment amounts to only 
 about $17,000, and there are over $50,000 of accumulated income in 
 the hands of the committee." 
 
 A GOOD SPEAK EB. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner spoke for about two hours. He is greatly beloved 
 at Roanoke Rapids, and it would be hard for a New York court to 
 convince the people of that town that John Armstrong Chaloner is not 
 in full possession of every mental faculty, and thefr verdict is that 
 he is as sane and as sound in body and mind as any man who dares 
 charge to the contrary. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner's enunciation is peculiarly distinct, and his voice has 
 a penetrating quality, which would enable him to fill the largest hall 
 without apparent effort, and his voice was as free from huskiness at 
 the end of an hour's sustained speaking as when he began.
 
 129 
 
 Ex-Mayor Treacy introduced Mr. Chaloner, as the best friend Roa- 
 noke Rapids ever had. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner announced his subject as "The Crime, the Cause 
 and the Consequence." 
 
 Mr. Chaloner said : "I was lured to New York from my then home, 
 'The Merry Mills,' Cobham, Va., in February, 1897, by my supposed 
 friend, but alas! as the sequel shows, false friend, the late Mr. Stan 
 ford White. 
 
 "Now, no one can regret having to touch upon the character of 
 a dead man more than myself, but unfortunately for the character 
 of the dead man, he is so intimately woven into the web of my 
 notorious case that it is impossible to describe the one without de 
 scribing the other. 
 
 MYSTERIOUS. 
 
 "There is something almost mysterious in the cause of the cold 
 ness that gradually crept over the warmth of our friendship, which 
 dated back to 1892. There was no known to me cause for it, except 
 that he seemed gradually to side with my hostile family against me. 
 
 "As I said, I was lured from my then home by Mr. Stanford 
 White. Mr. White implored me to 'take a plunge in the metropolitan 
 whirl' of New York, and purely to oblige him I accepted. 
 
 "By this emphatically is not meant a plunge behind the foot 
 lights. At said time, more than ten years ago, Mr. Stanford White 
 studiously eschewed the footlights. 
 
 "When I got to New York a doctor who had accompanied Mr. 
 White to my then home, 'The Merry Mills,' Virginia, brought another 
 man into my rooms at the Hotel Kensington, without asking my per 
 mission. This unknown doctor began to lie as soon as he opened his 
 mouth. This unknown doctor had the face to say that he was an 
 oculist, who was anxious to examine my eyes. What was my surprise 
 to find later on that said alleged oculist was what is called in New 
 York a medical examiner in lunacy. A few days later said 'oculist' 
 dropped in after dark of a cold March night, with snow on the ground 
 and I in bed, and briefly informed me that I was crazy. I laughed 
 in his face. He told me to get up and follow him out of doors. He 
 did not condescend to say where. He concluded by saying that re 
 sistance was useless, since he had another doctor in the next room 
 and two men outside my door. To cut a long story short, I notified 
 him that he had made a mistake in his calculations and had not 
 brought enough men to carry me off that night. He at once agreed 
 with me. Next day two policemen in plain clothes presented them 
 selves, and I finally, after reflection, decided to accompany them to 
 'Bloomingdale,' falsely so-called, lunatic asylum at White Plains, New 
 York. I shall simply say that it is impossible to describe the horrors 
 of a madhouse, and shall, therefore, not attempt it. After standing 
 about as much as I could of it, I decided to escape, and by good 
 fortune did so.
 
 130 
 
 LEARNED CRIMINOLOGY. 
 
 "As you all know, or have heard, this town was practically built 
 by convict labor I don't mean the houses, but the source of this 
 town's prosperity: the water-power plant, so skillfully prospected, and 
 so brilliantly achieved by my good friend, Major Thomas L. Emry. 
 Well, I was in command of a gang of about fifty or sixty out of about 
 eighty-five convicts making brick. I used to work them hard all day, and 
 then frequently spend my evenings chatting with them in the big cell, 
 and making my chat interesting by rather frequent gifts of water 
 melons in summer and tobacco in winter. In this way I gained the 
 convicts' confidence and there were some tough propositions among 
 them, from burglars to others. Gradually I began to pump them and 
 to get onto their little criminal ways. Finally I became an expert 
 criminal in experience, not act. Well, when I found myself behind 
 the bars of 'Bloomingdale' for life, I smiled a somewhat sarcastic 
 smile, as I said to myself, 'I'm too expert a convict to be kept for 
 life behind any bars.' To cut this section of the story, it was by 
 applying the science of criminology, which I had learned in the prison 
 pen at Roanoke Rapids, that I finally, after nearly four years of wait 
 ing for a proper opportunity for putting my said scientific knowledge 
 into operation, escaped. 
 
 "Police and detectives were put on my trail, but as I had left no 
 trail, said gentlemen never got me. 
 
 "Since the triumphant vindication of my sanity and competency 
 in the County Court of Albemarle County, Virginia, November 6th, 
 1901, I have been steadily working upon my case against said falsely 
 alleged 'committee,' said T. T. Sherman. As you know, I am a law 
 yer. I was forced to draw my own brief because lawyers I approached 
 did not care to spend the time or trouble to brief more than enough 
 points to put me in possession of my property. 
 
 A DISGRACE. 
 
 "The laws on lunacy procedure in the State of New York are a 
 disgrace to the civilization of that wealthy and populous State. The 
 laws on lunacy procedure in the State of New York are a disgrace 
 to any place less notoriously bad than Hades. Said law permits a 
 man to be deprived of his liberty and practically of his property for 
 life without notice of any proceedings being under way against his 
 reason, and without an opportunity to appear and be heard in his 
 own defense. Such a state of things is startling, indeed. Such a 
 state of things is sufficiently startling to startle me out of any and 
 all desire to set foot inside the infernal regions of New York without 
 a pass out of Hell. As a lawyer, I am truly disgusted at such a 
 state of affairs, and as a lawyer have I shown said state of affairs 
 surely up in a book recently written by me, and to be published in a 
 few days under the following title: 'Four Years Behind the Bars 
 of "Bloomingdale" : or The Bankruptcy of Law in New York,' by John
 
 131 
 
 Armstrong Chaloner ; A. B., A. M., member of the bar of New York. A 
 human document based upon the following court documents ; the pro 
 ceedings of 1897 and 1899 in New York; the proceedings of 1901 in 
 Virginia, and the proceedings of 1905 in North Carolina. 
 
 "Just here I shall say that the courts of North Carolina have 
 openly acknowledged my sanity and competency by permitting me to 
 bring suit before them. 
 
 WANTS A CLEAN RECORD. 
 
 "I wish to have a clean record mentally and as a sane man be 
 fore the world and my friends here. I am proud of your friendly 
 feelings to me, and therefore I want to clear my skirts by coming up 
 here and speaking of the veiled facts in this case, and to give you 
 an idea of whether 'I can come in out of the rain or not,' and of 
 the necessity of my drawing the veil aside and throwing the broad 
 glare of the calcium on this matter, for if I do not bring this thing 
 to the attention of the press, I may lose my stock in forty-eight hours, 
 for all I know. When this book of mine comes out all the proof 
 and I have got it will be forthcoming. And I give you my word 
 of honor as a man that I can substantiate everything the plot, etc., 
 to get this stock. 
 
 NEW YORK POLITICS. 
 
 "But Mr. Chanler is not the only Democratic candidate who will 
 bo more or less affected by the disclosures of my, alas! notorious case. 
 Now, I approach this subject with caution, for the reason that the 
 gentleman I am about to name is supposed to be a great friend of 
 the workingman, and is supposed to be an inveterate enemy of all 
 illegal law, of all bad tyrannical law of any nature or kind. Now, 
 I have been forced or rather I have not been forced, but I took the 
 opportunity, to test the sincerity of this very prominent and very 
 wealthy gentleman, whom I shall shortly name. I was the friend of 
 Mr. Arthur Brisbane, the right-hand man, and, many men say, the 
 brains of William Randolph Hearst, candidate for Governor of New 
 York. 
 
 "Now, I went on to say that what I wrote to Mr. Hearst for was 
 this, that I had unfortunately had difficulty with various lawyers whom 
 I had employed, because I found, for various reasons, that they were 
 less interested in the purifying of the laws than they were in con 
 necting with their fees, and, therefore, I was forced to write my own 
 brief. 
 
 LAWYERS "TURNED HIM DOWN." 
 
 "When I came to these lawyers and said that I desired this brief 
 so that the outrageous lunacy laws of New York should be forever 
 purged, they looked at me good and hard and "turned me down." 
 Then I set to work with the greatest disrust of my ability and wrote
 
 132 
 
 my own brief, which took me two years to do. I found that with 
 other lawyers, difficulties arose which led to a divorce between myself 
 and the said other lawyers, so that I stand alone in this great case 
 great not only on account of the money, there being over a million 
 dollars involved but because of the fundamental points of law in 
 volved therein, and I don't propose for any reason under heaven to 
 give up my fight to prevent sane men and women from being de 
 prived of their liberty and practically of their property for life by 
 the iniquitous laws of New York, and i am sorry to say, of several 
 other States, of which I am proud to say that North Carolina does 
 not form a part, the lunacy laws of North Carolina being excellent. 
 I wanted to have the brief plead by other lawyers, prominent in New 
 York, but, finding that that could not be done, I then mentioned to 
 Mr. Hearst that I would be extremely obliged if he would get me a 
 lawyer. Now I was, so to speak, playing the Devil with one Wil 
 liam Randolph Hearst, in other words, I was playing the role of the 
 Devil as described in the New Testament; I was tempting Brother 
 Hearst to see if he was gold or merely dross when it came to giving 
 up money in a cause which did not at once increase the circulation 
 c % f bis papers or push his political fortunes. So to trap Brother Hearst 
 I gave him a chance to show if there was 'a nigger in the fence' 
 of stinginess : I gave him the chance to put up a fee for my law 
 yer by saying, in effect, I should be obliged if he would advance the 
 fee for this lawyer whom he would be good enough to find for me 
 against my note of hand at 6 per cent., payable when my case should 
 be finally determined. 
 
 DISGUSTED AND SAD. 
 
 "I am disgusted, I am sad, over finding another fallen political 
 angel. I had hoped Mr. Hearst was as good as the face he puts on ; 
 that he was generous and interested in abolishing bad laws, and I 
 hoped to be able to prove that Mr. Hearst was so disgusted with any 
 law that was not just and like 'Jeffersonian Democracy' and 'Lincoln 
 Republicanism' that he would strain every nerve in assisting in purify 
 ing the lunacy laws of New York through the medium of the news 
 papers with which he blows his own horn; but I was disgusted when 
 I found that he did not care a rap for justice or liberty or anything 
 else that does not redound to the circulation of the papers of Mr. 
 William Randolph Hearst, or the advancement of his political fortunes. 
 Now, I am well aware of what I may bring on my head for my little 
 talk on this subject to-night, and I am perfectly prepared to 'stand 
 the racket' in any shape that it may come. I felt that here was an 
 opportunity to test the man; I felt that if he was as philanthropic 
 and as public-spirited and intolerant of bad laws as he professed to 
 be, he would take hold of this matter of the reformation of the lunacy 
 laws. 
 
 "I set a trap for him, and he fell into it headfirst. I admire some 
 things he has done, from fighting the franchise-grabbers to giving soup
 
 133 
 
 tickets, because nobody could be more opposed to trusts than your 
 humble servant, myself; but I do believe in regularity in Democratic 
 political methods, and I am now speaking to Southern men, and there 
 are no men who are more regular in their political methods than the 
 representatives of this glorious South, in which I have made my home, 
 and I therefore disapprove of the crooked methods by which he se 
 cured the nomination for Governor of New York, by nothing less than 
 theft by unseating legally elected delegates in sufficient numbers to 
 make up the deficit to his nefarious ends. 
 
 "The above concludes the political end of this speech, and that ig 
 the consequence I had in mind when I selected as the title of this 
 speech, 'The Crime, the Cause and the ^Consequence.' " 
 
 Mr. Chaloner reached Weldon at 2 o'clock this morning and boarded 
 a north-bound train for Cobham, Va. 
 
 The Roanoke News, Weldon, North Carolina, October 18, 1906. 
 CHALONER ON THE WAR PATH. 
 
 MAN WHO WALKED OUT OF BLOOMINGDALE DETERMINED 
 TO MAKE A STRONG FIGHT FOR HIS RIGHTS. 
 
 Mr. John Armstrong Chaloner, formerly of New York, but since 
 July 13th, 1905, a legal resident of Roanoke Rapids, after a silence 
 fit nine years, made a strong and sensational speech at Roanoke Rapids 
 Monday night. Mr. Chaloner appeared in perfect health and fine 
 spirits and looked every inch capable of managing his property rights. 
 Mr. Chaloner, in speaking of his four years in "Bloomingdale" asylum, 
 said he had been the victim of as cold-blooded and mercenary a plot 
 as had ever been heard of. He spoke with feeling of how he had 
 been lured to New York by false friends and placed in "Blooming- 
 dale" asylum and of his sensational escape. Mr. Chaloner said the 
 courts of Albemarle County, Virginia, had adjudged him sane and 
 sound of mind, capable of taking care of his own property rights, and 
 with forceful language he assured the people of the town he helped 
 to build that he intended to make a strong and persistent fight to 
 establish to all the world the truth of the Virginia courts as to his 
 perfect sanity.. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner spoke of his book, soon to be published, in which he 
 will tell of his four years behind the bars of "Bloomingdale," or the 
 bankruptcy of the law in New York. 
 
 Said that there was evidence that a plot had been hatched by 
 certain individuals, high in the directorate of the Roanoke Rapids 
 Power Company to assess the stock of the company at 50 cents on 
 the dollar and freeze out holders who could not, or would not, pay
 
 134 
 
 the assessment. Said he was the largest stockholder by 1,000 shares. 
 "By some mysterious hocus-pocus a referee is appointed to sit on 
 my case who is so peculiar as to object to an investment of my surplus 
 income to pay said assessment on my stock, although the committee and 
 guardian ad litem, appointed by the New York courts to protect my 
 interests, highly approved and eloquently plead for the protection of 
 this valuable stock, particularly as the assessment amounts to only 
 about $17,000, and there are over $50,000 of accumulated income in 
 the hands of the committee with which to meet this assessment." 
 
 Mr. Chaloner spoke for about two hours. He was one of the chief 
 promoters and builders of Roanoke Rapids, and for a long time this 
 man who has over $1,000,000 in his own right, lived in a modest 
 cottage in the town he loves, and where he is still held in the highest 
 esteem by the good people of that place, who believe in his sanity 
 and his capability to manage his own affairs as much as they do in 
 their hope of salvation hereafter. 
 
 The News-Leader, Richmond, Virginia, October 15, 1906. 
 CHALONER ON THE WAR PATH. 
 
 HAS WRITTEN A BOOK AND WILL BEGIN ACTIVE OPERATIONS 
 
 IMMEDIATELY. 
 
 Hero of Famous Break from Lunatic Asylum. 
 
 Former Husband of Amelie Rives, and Member of Famous New York 
 Family Resumes His Fight for His Property. 
 
 After several years of silence, John Armstrong Chaloner is about 
 to come to the front again with publications and legal proceedings 
 which are likely to be sensational. He announces that he has in 
 press and will begin to distribute the latter part of this week a book 
 of 500 pages, which is said by those who have seen it to be a marvel. 
 
 It will be remembered that Mr. Chaloner is a member of a very 
 old and wealthy New York family, and a descendant of the original 
 Astor. He has about a million in his own right, but a number of 
 years ago was incarcerated in the "Blooiningdale" asylum in New York 
 State as a lunatic. After four years of confinement he escaped in most 
 sensationa 1 circumstances and disappeared, finally reappearing sud 
 denly in Albemarle County, this State, where he married Amelie 
 Rives, the author of "The Quick or the Dead, : ' from whom he was 
 afterwards divorced and who now is Princess Troubetzkoy. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner is a lawyer by profession and has devoted himself 
 the last five years to acquiring a wonderful fund of information and 
 precedent on lunacy laws of the world, giving special attention to
 
 135 
 
 those of New York, under which he insists that any sane man whose 
 relatives desire to obtain possession or control of his property can be 
 railroaded into an asylum and shut in indefinitely: The title of the 
 book is : 
 
 Four Years Behind the Bars 
 of "Bloomingdale," 
 
 or 
 The Bankruptcy of Law in New York, 
 
 by 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, A. B., A. M., 
 Member of the Bar of New York. 
 
 On the back of the volume is the inscription: 
 A Human Document: 
 
 Based upon the following Court documents : Proceedings of 1897 
 and 1899 in New York; Proceedings of 1901 in Virginia, and the 
 Proceedings in 1905 in North Carolina. 
 
 The volume is issued by the Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, N. 
 C., and is dated "North Carolina, 1906." 
 
 Mr. Chaloner is in the extraordinary and probably unprecedented 
 position of being officially and legally a lunatic in his own State of 
 New York, unable to return there without danger of arrest and in 
 carceration, and deprived of the control of his own property, which is 
 in the hands of a committee, while in Virginia and North Carolina 
 and elsewhere he is a free man, going and coming as he pleases and 
 regarded as fully competent to manage his affairs according to the 
 formal judgments of the court. He has property in both these States, 
 and especially large interests at Roanoke Rapids, N. C., of which he 
 was one of the founders. To-night or to-morrow night he will de 
 liver a public address to the people of that town in the school-house 
 or the Baptist church. He made a speech several months ago, but 
 this time he goes by special invitation, and his speech will be care 
 fully prepared in advance. 
 
 The book he has written and published is said to consist almost 
 entirely of extracts from official records, court judgments and pro 
 ceedings, etc. He asserts to his friends that from these documents 
 he will prove some of the leading lawyers of the New York bar 
 have been guilty of the most atrocius deceit and cruelty and of con 
 spiracy against his liberty and property ; and that he will show fur 
 ther that some distinguished citizens have been guilty of flat perjury, 
 having contradicted themselves exactly. He will give the details 
 of his escape from "Bloomingdale," which have not been published 
 heretofore. He attacks the management and methods of that instruc 
 tion fiercely and insists that it is living under an alias and doing 
 business with false pretenses.
 
 136 
 
 Mr. Chaloner's book and his renewed personal activity are taken 
 to mean that after long preparation he has enlisted for a strenuous 
 and active warfare against the lunacy laws of New York especially, 
 against those who have been instrumental in having him declared a 
 lunatic and incompetent, and for the recovery of his property into 'his 
 own keeping and the judicial confirmation of his competency and rigiit 
 to manage it. Incidentally he proposes to show that advantage has 
 been taken of him while he was supposed to be helpless, and that 
 the property has been so managed and handled as to pile up expenses 
 against it and deprive him of a considerable part of his income.
 
 THE PRISON HOUSE 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 To "Hard Cash," by Charles Reade, D. C. L. 
 
 Boston: 
 
 Dana, Estes & Company, 
 Publishers. 
 
 "Hard Cash," like "The Cloister and the Hearth," is a matter-of- 
 fact romance; that is, a fiction built on truths; and these truths have 
 been gathered by long, severe, systematic labor from a multitude of 
 volumes, pamphlets, journals, reports, manuscript narratives, letters 
 and living people, whom I have sought out, examined, and cross-exam 
 ined, to get at the truth on each main topic I have striven to handle. 
 
 The mad-house scenes have been picked out by certain disinter 
 ested gentlemen who keep private asylums, and periodicals to puff 
 them; and have been met with bold denials of public facts and with 
 timid personalities, and a little easy cant about Sensationt Novelists; 
 but in reality those passages have been written on the same system 
 as the nautical, legal, and other scenes; the best evidence has been 
 ransacked; and a large portion of this evidence I shall be happy to 
 show at my house to any brother writer who is disinterested, and really 
 cares enough for truth and humanity to walk or ride a mile in pur 
 suit of them. 
 
 CHARLES READE. 
 
 6 Bolton Row, Mayfair, December 5, 1863. 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ELICITED BY THE FIRST EDITION OF 
 "HARD CASH." 
 
 PRIVATE ASYLUMS. 
 To the Editor of the Daily News: 
 
 Sir, When a writer of sensation romances makes a heroine push 
 a superfluous husband into a well, or set a house on fire, in order to 
 get rid of disagreeable testimony, we smile over the highly-seasoned 
 
 tThis slang term is not quite accurate as applied to me. With 
 out sensation there can be no interest ; but my plan is to mix a little 
 character and a little philosophy with the sensational element.
 
 138 
 
 dish, but do not think it necessary to apply the warning to ourselves, 
 and for the future avoid sitting on the edge of a draw-well, or having 
 any but fireproof libraries. But when we read, as in the novel "Very 
 Hard Cash," now publishing in "All the Year Round," that any man 
 may, at any moment, be consigned to a fate which to a sane man would 
 be worse than death, and that not by the single act of any of our Lady 
 Audleys, or other interesting criminals, but as part of a regular organ 
 ized system, in all compliance with the laws of the land when we 
 read this a thrill of terror goes through the public mind. If what Mr. 
 Charles Reade says be possible, who is safef Allow me, as one thor 
 oughly conversant with the working of the law of lunacy, to reassure 
 the minds of your readers by informing them that it is not possible. 
 So many are the checks and securities with which the legislature has 
 most properly surrounded the person of an alleged lunatic; so vigilant, 
 patient, and so zealous in the discharge of their duties are the Com 
 missioners in Lunacy and the officially appointed visitors of the asy 
 lums that any one (not a sensation writer) imagining that these 
 checks and securities could be evaded, these visitors hoodwinked in 
 the way the author describes, would himself be a fit subject for a com 
 mission de lunatico inquirendo. 
 
 So far from commissioners and visitors being put off with any 
 "formula" such as the author quotes, (page 3) and believing any 
 body rather than the patient himself, the exact contrary is the 
 fact, and very properly so. In my own cause, Earl Nelson, Viscount 
 Folkestone, General Buckley, M. P., the Rev. Charles Grove, and 
 Mr. Martin Coats, and in other asylums magistrates of equal intelli 
 gence and high standing fill the office of visitors; and never in any 
 case do they refuse a private interview to any patient asking it. In 
 these interviews no interference of any doctors or attendants, or any 
 "formula" is possible, and the visitors will l-'sten even to the most in 
 coherent ravings if there appears to be the slightest clew to be gath 
 ered from them to any real grievance. I say nothing of the terrible 
 slander cast upon a body of professional men to which I am proud to 
 belong. There is no redress for that. There are certain offences with 
 which no court of law can deal; offences against decency, good taste, 
 and truth, which can be brought before no tribunal but that of public 
 opinion. I would only challenge Mr. Reade, in conclusion, if he has 
 the slightest grounds for any belief in the possibility of the incidents 
 he has put in print, to state those grounds. Let him quote his case, 
 and openly and fearlessly declare when and where such atrocities 
 occurred. I do not ask for one in all points resembling that which 
 he has published; but one that furnishes even the slightest excuse for 
 such a libellous attack upon those medical men who, like myself, prac 
 tice in lunacy. 
 
 I am, etc., 
 
 J. S. BUSHNAN, M. D. 
 
 Laverstock House Asylum, Salisbury.
 
 139 
 
 page 4) PRIVATE ASYLUMS. 
 
 To the Editor of the Daily News: 
 
 Sir, My attention is drawn to a letter written to you by J. S. 
 Bushnan, M. D., to vent a little natural irritation on the author of 
 "Very Hard Cash," and lull the public back into the false security 
 from which that work is calculated to rouse them. 
 
 I pass by his personalities in silence; but when he tells you, in 
 the round-about style of his tribe, that "Very Hard Cash" rests on no 
 basis of fact; that sane persons cannot possibly be incarcerated or de 
 tained under our Lunacy Acts; that the gentlemen who pay an asylum 
 four flying visits a year know all that passes in it the odd three hun 
 dred and sixty-one days, and are never outwitted and humbugged on 
 the spot; that no interference of doctors or attendants between visitor 
 and patient, and no formulae of cant and deception are possible within 
 the walls of a mad-house this is to play too hard upon the credulity 
 of the public, and the forgetfulness of the press. I beg to contradict 
 all and every one of his general statements more courteously, I trust, 
 than he has contradicted me, but quite as seriously and positively. Dr. 
 Bushnan knows neither the subject he is writing of, nor the man he 
 is writing at. In matters of lunacy I am not only a novelist; I am 
 alsp that humble citizen who, not long ago, with the aid of the press, 
 protected a sane man who had been falsely imprisoned in a private 
 lunatic asylum; hindered his recapture, showed him his legal remedy, 
 fed, clothed, and kept him for twelve months with the aid of one true- 
 hearted friend, during all which time a great functionary, though, paid 
 many thousands a year to do what I was doing at my own expense 
 justice did all he could to defeat justice, and break the poor suitor's 
 back (page 5) and perpetuate his stigma by tyrannically postponing, 
 and postponing, and postponing, and postponing his trial to please 
 the defendant. At last this great procrastinator retired, and so, 
 that worst enemy of justice, "the postponement swindle," died, and 
 by it's death trial by jury rose again from the dead, even for an 
 alleged lunatic. Well, sir, no sooner did we get him before thirteen 
 honest men in the light of day, than this youth whom the mad doc 
 tors had declared and still declare insane, whom two homuncules, com 
 missioners in lunacy, had twice visited in the asylum, and conversed 
 with, and done nothing whatever towards his liberation stood up 
 eight hours in the witness-box, was examined, cross-examined, bad 
 gered; yet calm, self-possessed, and so manifestly sane that the de 
 fendant resigned the contest, and compounded the inevitable damages, 
 giving us a verdict, the costs, fifty pounds cash, and an annuity of one 
 hundred pounds a year. 
 
 All this, says Dr. Bushnan, is impossible. 
 
 I closely examined this youth as to his fellow-patients, and, as he 
 could minutely describe the illusions of the insane ones, I find it hard
 
 140 
 
 to doubt his positive statement that two patients in that same house 
 were perfectly sane. 
 
 Of course, the main event I have related made some noise; real 
 and alleged lunatics heard there was a Quixotic ass in this island who 
 would, in his unguarded moments, give away justice at his own ex 
 pense instead of selling it for so many thousands a year and not de 
 livering the article; and I was inundated with letters and petitions, 
 and opened a vein of private research by which the readers of "Hard 
 Cash" will profit; all except Dr. Bushnan. A lady called on me and 
 asked me to get her sister out of a private asylum, assuring me she 
 was sane, and giving me proofs. Having observed that to get out of 
 an asylum you must first be out of it, I cudgelled my brains, (page 6) 
 and split this prisoner in half; I drew up a little document author 
 izing a certain sharp attorney to proceed in law or equity for her 
 relief; and sent her sister into the asylum to get it signed by the 
 prisoner. She did sign it, and thus armed, her other self, the attor 
 ney, being, outside the asylum, was listened to, though a deaf ear had 
 always been turned to her. After a correspondence, which has served 
 me as a model in the current number of "Hard Cash," after, in vain, 
 suggesting her discharge to the parties pecuniarily interested in de 
 taining her, the board actually plucked up courage and discharged her 
 themselves. We all saw her often after this, and were hours in her 
 company. She was perfectly sane, as sane as I am, and much saner 
 than some of the mad doctors are at this hour, as time will show. 
 This case opened another vein of research, and my detective staff was 
 swelled by a respectable ex-attendant (female) who gave me the names 
 of two or three sane ladies at that time in durance vilest to her knowl 
 edge. Three years after the supposed date of Alfred Hardie's impossible 
 incarceration came the flagrant case of Matthew v. Harty, some of whose 
 delicious incidents have been used in "Hard Cash," and will be con 
 tradicted by humbugs and condemned as improbable by gulls; at least 
 I venture to hope so. The defendant was one of that immaculate class, 
 to criticize some of whom, if I understand Dr. Bushnan aright, is to 
 libel the whole body; and the plaintiff was a distinguished young 
 scholar in Dublin. Defendant enticed him into a mad-house, and there 
 left him in a common flagged cell; but to amuse his irrational mind, 
 lent him what? Peter Parley, or Dr. Littlewit's conjectures about the 
 intellect of Hamlet? Oh, dear! no; "Stack's Optics," "Lloyd's Me 
 chanical Philosophy," "Brinkley's Astronomy," Cicero de Offlciis," and 
 "Stock's Lucian." 
 
 (page 7) Enter the official inspector; is appealed to, admits his 
 sanity, promises to liberate him, and with that promise dismisses the 
 matter from his official mind, and goes his way contented. This was 
 sworn to and not contradicted. Then comes Dr. Harty and urges him 
 to confession in these memorable words, sworn to, and not contradicted. 
 "Your safety will consist in acknowledging you are insane, and your 
 sanity will appear by admitting your insanity." Matthew saw the
 
 141 
 
 hook, and declined the bait. Now there was in this asylum a boy 
 called Hoolahan, whose young mind had not been poisoned, and whose 
 naked eye was as yet undimmed by the spectacles of cant and preju 
 dice. So he saw at a glance Matthew was sane, and, not being paid 
 a thousand a year to pity him, pitied him. 
 
 Hoolahan took a letter to Matthew's colleg;e chum. In that letter 
 Matthew poured out his wrongs and his distress. But suppose it 
 should be intercepted? Matthew provided against this contingency; 
 he couched his letter in Ciceronian Latin, humbly conceiving that this 
 language would puzzle the doctors as much as the Latin in their pre 
 scriptions would puzzle Cicero. Mr. Hall got the letter, and not being 
 paid to protect alleged lunatics, took the matter up in earnest, and 
 so frightened Dr. Harty that he discharged Matthew at once; and said, 
 "Now, don't you be induced to bother me about this trifle; I'm an old 
 man, and going to die almost immediately." On this Matthew took the 
 alarm, and served a writ on him without loss of time. The cause came 
 on, and was urged and defended with equal forensic ability. But evi 
 dence decides cases, and the plaintiff's evidence was overpowering. 
 Then the defendant, despairing of a verdict, bethought him how he 
 might lower the inevitable damages; he instructed his counsel to re 
 veal that "the young man who was now prosecuting him to (pag,e 8) 
 death was his own illegitimate son." 
 
 At this revelation, ably and feelingly introduced by Counsellor 
 Martly, the sensation was, of course, immense, and being in Ire 
 land, a gallery came down just then and the coup de theatre was per 
 fect. Many tears were shed; the public was moved; the plaintiff still 
 more so. For it is not often that a man, who has passed for an orphan 
 all his life, can plant a writ and reap a parent. "Japhet in Search of a 
 Father" should have wandered about serving writs. The jury either 
 saw that the relationship was irrelevant in a question so broad and 
 civic, or else they were fathers of another stamp, and disapproved of 
 tender parents who disown their offspring for twenty-four years, and 
 then lock them up for mad, and only claim kindred in court to miti 
 gate damages. At all events they found for Mr. Matthew, with dam 
 ages one thousand pounds. 
 
 All this, says Dr. Bushnan, was utterly impossible. Well, the im 
 possibility in question disguised itself as fact, and went through the 
 hollow form of taking place, upon the llth, 12th, and 13th December, 
 1851, and the myth is recorded in the journals, and the authorized re 
 port by Elrington, jun., and W. P. Carr, barrister at law, is published 
 in what may be an air bubble, but looks like a pamphlet by M'Glashan, 
 50 Upper Sackville street, Dublin. But I rely mainly on the private 
 cases, which a large correspondence with strangers, and searching in 
 quiry amongst my acquaintances, have revealed to me; unfortunately 
 these are nearly always accompanied with a stipulation of secrecy; so 
 terrible, so ineradicable, is the stigma. Hall v. Semple clearly adds 
 its mite of proof that certificates of insanity are still given recklessly;
 
 142 
 
 but to show you how strong I am, I do not rely at all on disputable 
 cases like Nottldge, Ruck, and Leech; though in the two latter of these 
 cases the press leaned strongly against the insanity of the prisoners, 
 and surely the press is less open to prejudice in this matter than Dr. 
 Bushnan is, who dates his confident conjectures from a madhouse, 
 (page 9) It seems I have related in "Hard Cash" that in one asylum 
 (not Dr. Wycherley's), when Alfred Hardy went to complain to a 
 visitor, a keeper interfered and said, "Take care, sir, he is dangerous." 
 
 And this I then and there call a formula, one out of many. 
 "Dreamer," says Dr. Bushnan, "there are no such things as formulae 
 in madhouses; and no interference between patient and inspector is 
 possible, for there are none in my asylum, and therefore there can be 
 none in any other." Oh, logic of psychologicals! 
 
 Mr. Drummond, in a debate on lunacy, testified as follows: "Now 
 the honorable gentleman had remarked that it was very easy for per 
 sons in these establishments who had a complaint to make to make it. 
 Was it really so? (Hear, hear.) He thought otherwise. He could 
 only say that, whenever he had visited an asylum and went up to a 
 lunatic who had stated that he had a ground of complaint, some keeper 
 immediately evinced an unusual interest in his personal welfare, and 
 cautioned him, saying, 'Take care, sir! he is a very dangerous man.' 
 (Hear.) The length of this letter, which, after all, but skims the mat 
 ter, arises out of the importance of the subject, and the nature of all 
 argument based on evidence. It takes but a few lines to make many 
 bold assertions, and to challenge Mr. Reade to prove them false. But 
 the Readian proofs cannot be so compressed. "Plus negabit in una 
 hora unus doctor, quam centum, docti in centum annis probaverint." 
 
 I conclude by begging you to find space for the following extract 
 from a respectable journal. I have many such extracts in my London 
 house: this one is a fair representative of the press, and of its con 
 victions and expressions at the time when it issued: Extract "Here 
 are two cases (Mrs. Turner and Mr. Leach): We have before us 
 the particulars of a third, but we are not, unfortunately, in a condi 
 tion to publish the names. Suffice it to say that an unfortunate 
 (page 10) gentleman who had been suffering from bodily disorder, 
 which finally affected his brain, but who was not mad, was incarce 
 rated in one of those horrid dens which are called private lunatic 
 asylums, and there confined for months. By his own account he was 
 treated with the greatest cruelty, strapped down to a bed with broad 
 bands of webbing, and kept there until it was supposed he was dying. 
 The result we will state in the sufferer's own words: "My back, from 
 lying in one constrained posture, was a mass of ulcerated and slough 
 ing sores; my right hand was swollen enormously, and useless; and 
 two fingers of the left hand were permanently contracted, and the 
 joints destroyed. I also lost several front teeth." Thisi poor man at 
 last obtained his liberty, and applied to the commissioners for redress. 
 Their letter in reply is now before us. The commissioners merely say
 
 143 
 
 that, although they do not in any degree impugn the integrity of the 
 complainant's statements, they are not of the opinion that inquiry 
 would answer any good purpose. They add, however, that, "in order 
 
 to mark their opinion on the subject they have granted Mr 
 
 a license provisionally for the limited period of four months only, and 
 that the renewal will depend upon the condition and management of 
 his establisment being entirely satisfactory in the meantime." (As if 
 any great criminal would not undertake to behave better or more cau 
 tiously if, after detecting him by a miracle, we were weak enough to 
 bribe him to more skillful hypocrisy by the promise of immunity.) 
 Poor consolation this for all the misery the wretched sufferer had un 
 dergone. Here, then, are three cases following one upon the other in 
 rapid succession. How many remain behind of which we know noth 
 ing? The fact would appear to be that under existing arrangements 
 (page 11) any English man or woman may, without much difficulty, 
 be. incarcerated in a private lunatic asylum when not deprived of 
 reason. If actually deprived of reason when first confined patients 
 may be retained in duress when their cure is perfected, and they ought 
 to Ve released. 
 
 I am, etc., 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF "VERY HARD CASH." 
 
 Magdalen College, Oxford, October 23, 1863. 
 
 To this letter I hear Dr. Bushnan has replied down in the country. 
 By this, and by his not sending me a copy, may I not infer he prefers 
 having it all his own way in the neighborhood of his asylum to en 
 countering me again before the nation? 
 
 The extract above quoted is, I believe, from the Times, and was 
 accompanied by an admirable letter of three columns, thus entitled: 
 
 LUNATIC ASYLUMS AND THE LUNACY LAW. 
 
 (By a Physician.) 
 
 This honest inquirers should read, and also the newspaper reports 
 of false imprisonment and cruelty, during the last twelve years, and 
 the contemporaneous comments of the press, before deciding to over 
 rate my imaginative powers, and underrate my sincerity, and my 
 patient, laborious industry. 
 
 In January, 1870, the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette drew attention 
 to the fact that several lunatics had died of broken ribs in varous asy 
 lums, and that the attendants had furnished no credible solution of the 
 mystery. This elicited the following letter from the author of "Hard 
 Cash" : 
 
 How LUNATICS' RIBS GET BROKEN. 
 
 To the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette: 
 
 Sir, The Pall Mall Gazette, January 15, deals with an important 
 question, "the treatment of lunatics," and inquiries, inter alia, how
 
 144 
 
 (page 12 )> Santa Nistri came to have his breastbone and eight ribs 
 fractured at Hanwell; and how other patients have died at the same 
 place of similar injuries; and how William Wilson came to have 
 twelve ribs broken the other day at the Lancaster County Asylum. 
 The question is grave; the more so, that, by every principle of statis 
 tics, scores of ribs must be broken, one or two at a time, and nobody 
 the wiser, under a system which rises periodically to such high figures 
 of pulverization, and so lets in the faint light of an occasional inquest, 
 conducted by credulity in a very atmosphere of mendacity. I have 
 precise information, applicable to these recent cases, but not derived 
 from them, and ask leave to relate the steps by which the truth came 
 to me. 
 
 On the 2d January, 1851, Barnes, a lunatic, died at Peckham 
 House, with an arm and four ribs broken. The people of the asylum 
 stuck manfully together, and agreed to know nothing about it; and 
 Justice would have been baffled entirely, but for Donnelly, an insane 
 patient he revealed that Hill, a keeper, had broken the man's bones. 
 Hill was tried at the Central Criminal Court, and convicted of man 
 slaughter on Donnelly's sole evidence, the people of the asylum main 
 taining an obdurate silence to the end. About 1858, I think, a lunatic 
 patient died suddenly, with his breastbone and eight ribs broken, which 
 figures please compare with Santa Nistri's. As it had taken a keeper 
 to break the five bones of Barnes, nobody believed that accident had 
 broken the nine bones of Seeker; that, I think, was the victim's name; 
 but this time the people of the asylum had it all their own way; they 
 stuck manfully together, stifled truth, and baffled justice. (See the 
 Ninth Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy, p. 25.) Late in July, 
 1858, there was a ball at Colney Hatch. The press were invited, and 
 came back singing the praises of that blessed retreat What order! 
 (page IS) What gayety! What non-restraint! 
 
 fortunatos nimium sua si bona no-Tint lunaticos. 
 
 Next week or so Owen Swift, one of the patients in that blest 
 retreat, died of the following injuries: breastbone and eleven ribs 
 broken, liver ruptured. Varney, a patient whose evidence reads like 
 that of a very clear-headed gentleman if you compare it with the doc 
 tor's that follows it deposed to this effect: Thursday, at dinner-time, 
 Swift was in good health and spirits and more voluble than Slater, 
 one of the keepers, approved. Slater said, "Hold your noise." Swift 
 babbled on. Slater threw the poor man down, and dragged him into 
 the padded room, which room then resounded for several minutes 
 with "a great noise of knocking and bumping about" and with the 
 sufferer's cries of agony till these last were choked, and there was 
 silence. Swift was not seen again till Saturday morning; and then, 
 in presence of Varney, he accused Slater to his face of having mal 
 treated him, and made his words good by dying that night or the very 
 next morning. This evidence was borne out by the state of the body 
 fractured sternum, and eleven fractured ribs), and not rebutted by
 
 145 
 
 any direct, or, indeed, rational testimony. Yet the accused was set 
 free. But the press and the country took the decision ill. A Mid 
 dlesex; magistrate wrote to the Times, August 21, 1860, to remon 
 strate, and drew attention to a previous idiotic verdict in a similar 
 case. And whereas the medical man of the establishment had 
 assisted to clear the homicide by his own ignorance of how bones can 
 be broken wholesale without proportionate bruises or flesh wounds, 
 a correspondent of the Daily Telegraph enlightened his professional 
 ignorance on that head, and gave the public the only adequate solution 
 of Owen Swift's death, which had been either spoken or written up 
 that day. 
 (page 14) That one adequate solution was the true one. 
 
 Daily Telegraph, August 8, 1860. Time, 1862. Place, Hanwell. 
 Matthew Geoghegan, a patient, refused to go to bed. Jones, a keeper, 
 threw him down, and kicked him several times; then got a stick and 
 beat him; then he got a fire-shovel and beat him; then jumped on his 
 body; then walked up and down his body; of which various injuries 
 the man died, not immediately, but yet so speedily that the cuts and 
 bruises were still there to show what had killed him. Bone, a brick 
 layer, and eye-witness of the homicide, swore to the above facts. Linch, 
 Bone's laborer, another eye-witness, swore to the same facts. The 
 resident engineer swore that Bone and Linch were both true men. 
 
 Dr. Jepson had found the man with bruises, one of which, on his 
 abdomen, had been caused by the heel of a boot. Per contra, a doctor 
 was found to swear as follows: "I swear that I think he died of pleuro- 
 pneumonia. I swear that / don't know whether his external injuries 
 contributed to his death." And upon this, though no pleuro-pneumonia 
 could be shown in the mutilated body, though Bone and Linch, disin 
 terested witnesses, deposed to plain facts, and the doctor merely de 
 livered a wild and improbable conjecture, and then swore to his own 
 ignorance on the point in doubt, if doubt there could be; yet this 
 jury, with their eyes to confirm what their ears heard sworn, and 
 their ears to confirm what their eyes saw written on the mangled 
 corpse, actually delivered the following verdict: 
 
 "Deceased died after receiving certain injuries from external vio 
 lence but whether the death was occasioned by natural causes, or by 
 such violence there was not sufficient evidence to show." They then 
 relieved their consciences in the drollest way. They turned round on 
 Bone and Linch, and reprimanded them severely for not having inter 
 fered to prevent the cruelty, which they themselves were shielding 
 in the present and fostering in the futrue by as direct a lie as ever 
 (page 15) twelve honest men delivered. 
 
 Suppose the bricklayer and his man had replied, "Why, look 
 ye, gentlemen; we came into the madhouse to lay bricks, not to do 
 justice. But you came into the madhouse to do justice. We should 
 have lost our bread if we had interfered; but you could have afforded 
 to play the men and didn't." I enclose herewith the evidence of the
 
 146 
 
 bricklayers, and the sworn conjectures of the doctor, in re Ocoghegan; 
 also the evidence of the doctor, and of the comparatively clear-headed 
 lunatic in re Sicift. About this time my researches into the abuses 
 of private asyla (which abuses are quite distinct from the subject in 
 hand) brought me into contact with multifarious facts, and with a 
 higher class of evidence than the official inquirers permit themselves 
 to hear. They rely too much on medical attendants and other servants 
 of an asylum, whose interest it is to veil ugly truths and sprinkle 
 hells with rose-water. I, on the contrary, examined a number of ex- 
 patients who had never been too mad to observe, and ex-attendants, 
 male and female, who had gone into other lines of life, and could 
 now afford to reveal the secrets of those dark places. The ex-keepers 
 were all agreed in this that the keepers know how to break a patient's 
 bones without bruising the skin; and that the doctors have been duped 
 again and again by them. To put it in my own words, the bent knees, 
 big bluntish bones, and clothed, can be applied with terrible force, 
 yet not leave their mark upon the skin of the victim. The refractory 
 patient is thrown down and the keeper walks up and down him on his 
 knees, and even jumps on his body, knees downwards, until he is 
 completely cowed. Should a bone or two be broken in this process, it 
 does not much matter to the keeper; a lunatic complaining of internal 
 injury is not listened to. He is a being so full of illusions that nobody- 
 believes in any unseen injury he prates about. 
 
 (page 16) In these words, sir, you have the key to the death of 
 Barnes, of Seeker, if that was the man's name; and of other victims 
 recorded by the commissioners, of Nistri, and of William Wilson, at 
 Lancaster. 
 
 I hope this last inquiry has not been weakly abandoned. It is a 
 very shocking thing that both brute force and traditional cunning 
 should be employed against persons of weak understanding, and that 
 they should be so often massacred, so seldom avenged. Something 
 might be done if the people of Lancashire would take the matter seri 
 ously. The first thing they should do is to inquire whether the keeper 
 who killed a stunted imbecile by internal injuries in the Lancaster 
 Asylum, May, 1863, is still in that asylum. See Public Opinion, No 
 vember 19, 1863. The next step is to realize and act upon the two fol 
 lowing maxims: 
 
 First, it is the sure sign of a fool to accept an inadequate solution 
 of undeniable facts. 
 
 Secondly, to advance an inadequate solution of facts so indis 
 putable as twelve broken ribs is a sign either of guilt or guilty con 
 nivance. Honest men in Lancashire should inquire who first put 
 forward some stupid, impudent falsehood to account for the twelve 
 broken ribs of Wilson. The first liar was probably the homicide, or 
 an accomplice. Just to prove the importance I attach to this inquiry, 
 permit me, through your columns, to offer a reward of a hundred 
 pounds to any person or persons who will give such evidence as may
 
 147 
 
 lead to the conviction, of the person or persons who have killed William 
 Wilson, by kneeling on him, by walking knees downwards upon him, 
 and jumping knees downwards upon him. It is interest that closes 
 men's mouths in these dark places. We must employ the same instru 
 ment to open them; it is our only chance. 
 
 I am, sirs, yours very faithfully, 
 
 CHARLES READE. 
 2 Albert Terrace, Knightsbridge, 
 January 17, 1870.
 
 ALADDIN AND HIS WON 
 DERFUL LAMP 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 Wood, Horatio urtis, M. D., born Philadelphia, Jan. 13, 1841. 
 Graduate M. D. University of Pennsylvania, 1862; Professor Botany, 
 1860-76; Professor Therapeutics since 1876; also, since 1875 Clinical 
 Professor Diseases of the Nervous System University of Pennsylvania; 
 has written numerous scientific treatises: Editor, 1870-73, of "New 
 Remedies" ; Editor, 1873-80, Philadelphia "Medical Times" ; since 
 1884 Editor Therapeutic Gazette; also edited United States Dispen 
 sary; Author of "Materia Medica and Therapeutic" ; "Brain Work and 
 Over Work" ; "Nervous Diseases and their Diagnosis" ; "Thermic 
 Fever, or Sunstroke" ; "The Algae of North America" (Smithsonian 
 Contributions) ; "The Phalangidae of the United States" ; "Researches 
 Upon American Hemp," etc. Member of National Academy of Sciences 
 since 1879. Address: 1925 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. 
 
 From Who's Who in America. 
 
 (Statement by Dr. Horatio Curtis Wood.) 
 
 December 10th, 1900. 
 
 Dictated by Dr. H. C. Wood, in the presence of Mr. Childe.t 
 "John Armstrong Chaloner graduated from Columbia College in 
 1883, with the degree of B. A.; in 1884, received degree of M. A.; 
 studied for M. A., psychology and philosophy especially; admitted to 
 the New York Bar in 1885; married in 1888; divorced in 1895, after 
 a long period of disagreement and coolness; divorce given on the 
 ground of incompatibility. 
 
 Very active business man. Always kept up to some extent hts 
 interest in psychology. In 1893 first noticed what he calls "premoni 
 tions"; meaning by that, that after thinking over a subject over night, 
 mapping out a course of action, he would wake up in the morning 
 with a feeling of exhilaration, of depression, or of indifference. When 
 exhilarated always found his plan was judicious and things went well; 
 
 tPlaintiff's, John Armstrong Chaloner's, alias in Philadelphia. 
 Since the police were on plaintiff's track at said time great caution 
 had to be employed to shield plaintiff's identity.
 
 149 
 
 when depressed found it always wise to modify to a greater or less 
 degree his plan of action; indifference meant there was going, to be 
 nothing of interest that day. Also when he had made uo plans would 
 have similar feelings; and found the feeling of exhilaration preceded 
 a day of good fortune, of depression a day of things going wrong; 
 indifference meant just indifference. 
 
 Latter part of December, 1896, accidentally discovered that at cer 
 tain times and conditions, if he would take a pencil in his hand it 
 would write without his making conscious effort or giving direction. 
 At times the pencil would write nonsense. (Mr. Chaloner explains:) 
 "This 'nonsense' was not incoherent in the slightest degree; grammar 
 was correct; sense always perfectly plain; only the 'nonsense' referred 
 to impossible statements and alleged prophecies about me. At other 
 times the writing would refer to business or other personal matters, 
 and give judgment and reasons which were sound and often borne 
 out in fruits. At one time, Mr. Chaloner, to test the accuracy of this 
 judgment, speculated under the direction of the writing in a small 
 way in Wall Street; (Mr. Chaloner) 'A few hundred dollars" with 
 successful result. Never did this again. (Mr. Chaloner) "Never 
 would it suggest speculation again." Shortly after the development 
 of "graphic automatism" (words first used by Mr. Chaloner himself), 
 Mr. Chaloner found that he at times could talk in the same way, his 
 vocal utterances being unconnected with conscious cerebration. The 
 following is Mr. 'Chaloner's statement as to the way in which he first 
 passed into the condition which he terms "Napoleonic trance." (Of 
 his own accord, Mr. Chaloner, has denominated previous to any inter 
 view with me, this faculty of vocal or graphic automatism as "X- 
 Faculty.") Mr. Chaloner states as follows: 
 
 "In communicating with my "X-Faculty" by means of vocal 
 automatism which is also one of my trance-like states, I was informed 
 by my "X-Faculty" that it would like me to go into a Napoleonic 
 trance. It gave me to understand that I would represent the death of 
 Napoleon Bonaparte by so doing, and that ray features, when my eyes 
 were closed, and face, would resemble strongly those of the dead Napo 
 leon Bonaparte. This was in February, 1897, upon or shortly after 
 my arrival at the Hotel Kensington, New York City. My "X-Faculty" 
 did not tell me what to do in order to produce the so-called Napoleonic 
 trance; it merely informed me that when the time came it would in 
 struct me what to do to produce the said trance. The distinguished 
 sculptor, Saint Gaudens, calling at the Hotel Kensington, shortly after 
 my arrival, while I was in bed, in the evening my "X-Faculty" gave 
 me to understand without Mr. Saint Gaudens knowing it, that it would 
 be the proper time for me to enter the Napoleonic trance. I asked 
 Mr. Saint Gaudens if he would like to see me enter a trance; I was 
 interested myself from a scientific point of view to know just what I 
 would do in a trance, never having entered one before. I was also 
 interested to know if the prognostications of the "X-Faculty" regard-
 
 150 
 
 Ing my face and features strongly resembling those of Napoleon Bona 
 parte in death were accurate or false. 
 
 Mr. Saint Gaudens expressed keen interest in seeing me in a 
 trance. I then took, under the direction of my "X-Faculty" a small 
 hand mirror, which I used for shaving, in both my hands, and holding 
 it rigidly extended above my head stared at my eyes for several mo 
 ments without any result. I did not know but what the experiment 
 was about to prove abortive and ridiculous; it was one of the most 
 daring experiments I ever entered for that reason. After a minute 
 or two of complete passivity and rigidity, for the first time in my life 
 I experienced the entrance to a trance. It is excessively interesting 
 as an experience. The first symptoms I had of the entering therein 
 were slow, deep breaths, utterly involuntary on my part; these gradu 
 ally increased in force and frequency until they resembled what I im 
 agine are death gasps, by which I mean a man dying and gasping for 
 breath. 
 
 (In reply to a question from Dr. Wood, as to whether he had ever 
 seen a man die gasping, Mr. Chaloner, said he had not. Mem. from 
 Dr. Wood, that the description is not accurate.) 
 
 These gasps continued in frequency and force to increase, and my 
 mouth to distend, and remain open, stretched open to its fullest extent. 
 This continued for several moments, I should judge ten, though I 
 have no means of judging, simply guess. At the end of the supposed 
 ten minutes, my hands slowly placed the mirror on the bed, my eyes 
 closed, and the Napoleonic death-trance, so-called by my "X-Faculty," 
 had begun. Of course I cannot judge, having my eyes shut, of the te- 
 semblance of my features and face under the above described circum 
 stances to those of Napoleon Barnaparte in death; all I know is from 
 the remarks of the persons who have witnessed this Napoleonic death- 
 trance, so-called, to wit: Mr. Saint Gaudens asked me to desist, said 
 it was very affecting, that he was unaccustomed to a trance, and 
 asked me not to enter it again in his presence. 
 
 (Question by Dr. Wood: Were you conscious during this time? 
 Answer: Entirely conscious during all this time.) 
 
 A few days later, I mentioned this occurrence to Mr. Stanford 
 White and Dr. E. F. when they were both visiting me. They expressed 
 a desire to see me under the so-called Napoleonic trance. I did so 
 under the same conditions as before Mr. Saint Gaudens. When I en 
 tered the death-trance, while my eyes were closed, Mr. White was so 
 affected by the trance that he acted as though he were literally in the 
 presence of death, whispering in a reverential tone to Dr. E. F., "It 
 is exactly like Napoleon's death-mask, I have the photograph of it at 
 home." I afterwards asked Mr. White if he had made that remark 
 to Dr. E. F., and he admitted it frankly.
 
 151 
 
 (Question by Dr. Wood: How do you come out of these trances? 
 Answer: By effort of conscious will.) 
 
 These were the only occasions upon which I entered the Napole 
 onic death-trance, so-called, with one exception. The exception was 
 in the early Summer of 1899, when at the request of Drs. Austin 
 Flint, Sen. and Carlos MacDonald, I entered the Napoleonic death- 
 trance, so-called. After I had entered the death-trance I heard Dr. 
 Austin Flint, Sen., say in a low tone to Dr. Carlos MacDonald, "Come 
 around to the side and see the profile." Dr. Austin Flint, Sen., seemed 
 somewhat affected by the death-trance, for after making the above re 
 mark he stepped hastily to the bed, and patting me on the knee, said, 
 "Come out of it, come out of it; you can, cannot you?" 
 
 (Question by Dr. Wood: When you want to come out you do 
 something? Answer: When I want to come out of the trance it re 
 quires some act on my part.) 
 
 Questions by Dr. Wood, and answers by Mr. Chaloner. 
 
 W. Do you believe that the results of the action of the "X-Fac- 
 ulty" are due to the presence of any kind of a spirit, or to spiritual 
 influence in you? 
 
 C. No. 
 
 W. Do you believe there was anything supernatural in this? 
 
 C. No. 
 
 W. Do you believe that the judgments delivered are infallible? 
 
 C. No. 
 
 W. Do you believe that you have in these conditions the power of 
 prophecy beyond rational forejudgment. 
 
 C. No. 
 
 W. In using the word "automatism" as a name, was it or was it 
 not your thought that these results were due to a spontaneous effort 
 of intellectual faculties, independent of the will and consciousness? 
 I do not know if you understand what I mean. 
 
 C. I understand what you mean. Independent in this way only; 
 that they cannot be necessarily voluntarily initiated by an act of will 
 on my part, but they can be instantly arrested by anJ act of will on 
 my part. 
 
 (Answers to the above questions in no way prompted.) 
 
 Voluntarily, without question, Mr. Chaloner says that since he 
 studied psychology at Columbia great strides have been made in the 
 experimental section of psychology and in the nomenclature thereof; 
 and the phrases and terms of modern psychology are almost totally 
 unknown to him, for the reason that he has not studied Psychology 
 since leaving the College. "All my work in Psychology has been from 
 Nature's book, and not from printed matter. The two terms "vocal
 
 152 
 
 automatism" and "graphic automatism" I have taken bodily from 
 Professor Flournoy's book entitled "From India to the Planet Mars." 
 I will say Incidentally that I agree almost entirely with Professor 
 Flournoy In his conclusion touching the "Medium" Helene Smith, 
 whose trances are described in, the book "From India to the Planet 
 Mars." In other words I am anti-spiritualistic. I do not believe in 
 spiritualism. As a Christian I am a communicant of the Episcopal 
 Church I believe in the existence of spirits but In another world; 
 and I disbelieve absolutely that there is any communication whatso 
 ever, direct or indirect, between living human beings and disembodied 
 spirits In this world." 
 
 Mr. Chaloner's divorce was preceded for some years by a progres 
 sively Increasing estrangement from hisi wife, which grew out of in 
 compatibility of temper and ways. This estrangement dated back to 
 the Fall of 1890, when he left Mrs. Chaloner in Europe, she being 
 unwell, whilst he came back to New York to found the "Paris Prize 
 Fund." The divorce was asked for by his wife and not resisted by 
 himself; and never since has he visited or tried to visit, or followed, 
 or in any way tried to communicate with the former Mrs. Chaloner, 
 and has no desire so to do. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 Jastrow, Joseph. Professor of Psychology In the University of 
 Wisconsin since 1888; born Warsaw, Poland, January 30, 1863; gradu 
 ate University of Pennsylvania, 1882; A. M., 1885; Ph. D., Johns Hop 
 kins, 1886; Fellow in Psychology 1885-6; in charge of the Psychologi 
 cal section World's Columbian Exposition, 1893; Author of various 
 psychological subjects in leading magazines and of the book "Fact and 
 Fiction in Psychology." Address: Madison, Wisconsin. 
 
 From "Who's Who in America." 
 
 A PRELIMINARY OPINION SUBMITTED BY JOSEPH 
 JASTROW, PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY IN THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN, WITH REFERENCE 
 TO THE CASE OF MR. CHALONER. 
 
 SUBMITTED AT THE REQUEST OF JONES, CARSON 
 AND BEEBER, ATTORNEYS IN THE CITY OF PHILA 
 DELPHIA, 
 
 PRELIMINARY. 
 
 I am requested to submit an opinion in regard to the status, espe 
 cially in relation to mental normality, of certain activities presented 
 by Mr. Chaloner and of his attitude towards and his views concerning 
 these manifestations. For the just interpretation of this opinion, it is
 
 153 
 
 to be carefully borne In mind that the determination of a State of 
 insanity, or of mental irresponsibility or incapacity, is only to be 
 reached by capable experts on the basis of a specific examination 
 which shall set forth the symptoms, indications, and description of 
 the particular form of mental derangement found in any given case. 
 That task belongs primarily to experts in other branches of knowledge 
 than that which I profess. My opinion as a psychologist is desired 
 in regard to the significance and interpretation of certain mental 
 peculiarities of the kind exhibited by Mr. Chaloner, and especially in 
 regard to the measure and the manner in which such peculiarities 
 may be pronounced to be manifestations of a normal mental activity. 
 Mr. Chaloner according to his own account and in conformity with 
 the evidence which has been submitted to me, exercises a form of 
 automatic activity known as "Automatic Writing," and by some 
 writers called "graphic automatism." He is able to produce, and ap 
 parently almost any time at request, a form of writing in which his 
 intentional and usual control and direction participate to a reduced 
 extent, and may be almost absent. Such automatic writing is a well 
 recognized phenomenon occurring not rarely but yet unusually, and 
 finds it place among a series of psychological activities, which are in 
 large part of a complex, co-ordinated and reasoned type, but which 
 are none the less not the intentional expression of the ordinary fully 
 conscious thought. Even so common an experience as the unsuccess 
 ful attempt to recall a name, which suddenly comes to mind when the 
 search has been apparently dismissed, may be regarded as the product 
 of an automatic activity; for it is a result which we fail to reach in 
 tentionally but was worked out by some processes of which we are 
 not fully conscious and cannot deliberately direct. If under such 
 circumstances it were possible for an individual frequently to succeed 
 in recalling the name by allowing his hand to write as it would, with 
 out exercising a direct guidance over its movements, it would be 
 evident that the intelligence and the entire mental equipment that is 
 represented in such automatic writing is the same as that of the indi 
 vidual's normal personality. That part of our mental machinery by 
 which we succeed, though not by a direct effort, in recalling the sought 
 for name, is obviously a part of our normal mental endowment. 
 
 The degree to which there exists such a possibility of permitting 
 the less voluntary and conscious operations of our minds to express 
 themselves in writing or otherwise, varies considerably among differ 
 ent individuals, as does also the degree of automatism or removal 
 from intentional control characteristic of such expressions. The power 
 to produce occasionally or frequently consistent and reasoned expres 
 sions by automatic writing, when considered in reference to the public 
 at large, cannot be said to be a usual one, but is not to be regarded as 
 a presumptive concomitant or indication of a mentally impaired or 
 diseased condition. Professor James of Harvard University (Prin 
 ciples of Psychology, 1890, Vol. 1, p. 393), adopting for the sake of
 
 154 
 
 convenience the term "Mediumistic possession" to indicate the kind 
 of activity here under consideration; says: that "the susceptibility to 
 it in some form is by no means an uncommon gift in persons who 
 have no other obvious nervous anomaly. The phenomena are very 
 intricate, and are just beginning to be studied in a proper scientific 
 way. The lowest phase of mediumship is automatic writing, and the 
 lowest grade of that is when the Subject knows what words are coming, 
 but feels impelled to write them as if from without." (The words 
 medium," "mediumship," "mediumistic possession" are here used, as 
 also by Mr. Chaloner, not in acceptance of any belief in the theory 
 with which the name originated, but simply as a convenient and in 
 telligent mode of referring to the phenomena.) I interpret this state 
 ment to mean that automatic writing is a less serious and less unusual 
 divergence from the ordinary relations obtaining between our inten 
 tional and our automatic expressions than other forms of automatism, 
 and furthermore, that this divergence is slightest when the subject's 
 normal consciousness participates to a considerable extent in what is be 
 ing written. Mr. Chaloner's automatic writing would accordingly be re 
 garded as of the type that diverges least from the usual; for according 
 to his account he can at command check or stop the writing; although 
 he cannot always initiate it, but must try and observe whether the 
 hand will write or not. Moreover, he is entirely conscious of what he 
 is writing, and the ordinary spectator would see nothing to distinguish 
 between his normal and his automatic writing. It should also be noted 
 that, in conformity with experience in other case, the automatic 
 writing of Mr. Chaloner did not appear at once in a fluent and per 
 fected form, but was developed as the result of training and repetition 
 extending over several years. My observation thus led me to conclude 
 that Mr. Chaloner's automatic writing is the expression of a mental 
 condition differing only in a very slight degree, and not in an easily 
 recognizable manner, from his ordinary normal condition or the 
 waking conscious condition of any normal individual. The expressions 
 of his automatic writing are consistent with, as indeed they are 
 hardly less than, the expressions of his normal mentality just as our 
 characters and our views in dreams are for most persons consistent 
 with, though at times diverging from, the character and views of 
 waking thought. 
 
 Further opinions in support of the normal status of automatic 
 writing are as follows: The Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology 
 (edited by Professor Baldwin of Princeton University, 1901), says 
 under the term Automatic Writing: "The name given to a form of 
 writing that is recorded without the complete and conscious co-opera 
 tion of the individual who writes. It is an elaborate and consequently 
 less usual form of automatic movement which seems to be associated 
 with obscure functional diseases of the nervous system (hysteria, 
 etc.): but also occurs in persons who are healthy and entirely normal, 
 but perhaps gifted with sensitive nervous organizations." Professor
 
 155 
 
 Newbold, of the University of Pennsylvania (Popular Science Monthly, 
 XLIX., 189, p. 509) says: "Automatic writing is an exceedingly com 
 mon phenomenon," and endorses the view that the degree of au 
 tomatism is of minor order when the writing is involuntary, but 
 depends upon the subject's consciousness. 
 
 Professor Patrick, of the University of Iowa, clearly implies that 
 the phenomenon is of frequent occurrence in normal persons by the 
 following statement. (The Psychological Review, 1898, V., p. 5-59): 
 "The thorough study of simple cases of automatic writing and of all 
 forms of automatism in normal, healthy subjects is wholly practicable 
 in the laboratory and certainly desirable." He further writes, "If we 
 compare a simple case of automatic writing such as may be found in 
 one of almost any company of school girls," etc. 
 
 Professor Binet, of the University of Paris ("Alterations of per 
 sonality," Translation, 1896, p. 189) writes: "The interest of the phe 
 nomenon is still further increased by the frequency with which it 
 occurs with spiritists and with normal subjects." And again: "In 
 this way, as I have said before, the phenomena of automatic writing 
 can be demonstrated with people who are non-hysterical; it is the 
 exaggeration of the phenomenon that is peculiar to hysteria." 
 
 Furthermore, experiments in automatic writing have been made 
 upon normal subjects, in part upon university students, at Harvard 
 University, the University of Iowa, the University of Pennsylvania, 
 and probably elsewhere. 
 
 I am accordingly of the opinion that the phenomena of automatic 
 writing as exhibited by Mr. Chaloner are not only consistent with, but 
 in the form exhibited by him, not prejudicial to a mental endowment 
 and capacity falling within the range of individual variations, ordi 
 narily included under the normal. I am of the opinion that this power 
 is to be looked upon as a mental peculiarity, which like many\ other 
 peculiarities, forms a part of the individual endowment, and enters 
 into the fundamental difference in organization between individuals. 
 That this and allied kinds of automatism, particularly in their more 
 marked and exaggerated forms occur most characteristically in hysteria 
 and other nervous disorders is made clear by a survey of the literature 
 of the topic. That in many cases of its occurrence in normal indi 
 viduals it is associated with a sensitive nervous organization, seems 
 almost equally well established. 
 
 Of the trance states which it appears Mr. Chaloner entered upon 
 a few isolated occasions some years ago, I can judg,e only from his 
 own description. I see no reason for viewing them in any other light 
 than the automatic writing that is as phenomena indicative of a 
 sensitive nervous organization finding their origin in the same obscure 
 individual peculiarities, which make one person a somnambulist and 
 another an automatic writer and a third a trance subject and lead to 
 the noii-occurrence of any of these phenomena in the great mass of 
 mankind. The trance state of the kind which Mr. Chaloner seems to
 
 156 
 
 have exhibited is probably to be regarded as a deeper stage of au 
 tomatism, that is, as a more serious deviation from the relation ordi 
 narily pertaining, between the fully conscious and deliberate, and the 
 automatic mental activities, than is the case in the automatic writing; 
 and it was probably associated at the time with an irritable or fatigued 
 condition of the general nervous system. 
 
 With Mr. Chaloner's attitude towards these phenomena, his views 
 In regard to their origin and nature, and his opinion in regard to re 
 lated phenomena, such as the significance of vivid impressions and pre 
 sentments and the like, I have had opportunity to become acquainted 
 by extended conversation, and by the perusal of extracts from his 
 diary and from other sources. There is no widespread consensus 
 among psychologists in regard to the most plausible theory of explana 
 tion or mode of accounting in detail for such phenomena as automatic 
 writing; but there is a considerable preponderance of opinion in 
 regard to their general relations to the activities of the mind and their 
 dependence upon conditions of the nervous system; and I find that 
 Mr. Chaloner's views though couched in different language and ex 
 hibiting no special appreciation of the complexities of the problem, 
 are in their main trend quite compatible with the main trend of 
 current scientific opinion upon the subject. In some respects his views 
 would find endorsement in the recorded views of reputable writers 
 upon these subjects; and in some respects (allowing for differences of 
 expression and attitude, such as I should also have to take into con 
 sideration in a similar criticism of the views of some of my profes 
 sional colleagues) his views would be in accord with my own. Some 
 of the views expressed by Mr. Chaloner I am inclined to regard as 
 unwarranted by a close logical interpretation of the available data, 
 and as incompatible with the attitude towards these phenomena which 
 my own temperament and training and investigations lead me to 
 favor; but this criticism would also apl)ly to many professional psy 
 chologists occupying responsible positions; and the views to which I 
 refer are certainly shared by a considerable part of intelligent and 
 educated laymen whq have formed convictions upon subjects of this 
 type. In brief, I find Mr. Chaloner's attitude towards the psychological 
 phenomena of a somewhat unusual nature which he has observed in 
 himself to be in its general outlines a thoughtful and plausible one, 
 and in all respects, including those points which do not meet with 
 my personal endorsement, I have no hesitation in pronouncing his 
 opinions to fall well within the ordinary and normal range of diversity 
 of opinion current in such topics. Nor do I find in his attitude to 
 wards his opinions any characteristics which could not readily be dupli 
 cated among a miscellaneous group of normal, intelligent persons 
 of training, education and attainment compatible to those which Mr. 
 Chaloner enjoys. 
 
 With regard to other traits of mind or temperament which Mr. 
 Chaloner exhibits and which might be regarded as relevant to a dis-
 
 157 
 
 cussion of the compatibility with normality of his psychological pecu 
 liarities, I am of the opinion tnat their interpretation may be most 
 justly reached in connection with an examination of his personal 
 history and of his recognition of the significant symptoms of mental 
 abnormality." 
 
 We shall now introduce the opinion of Dr. William James, Profes 
 sor of Psychology at Harvard. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. 
 
 William James, Prof. Psychology, Harvard, since 1872; b. New 
 York, Jan. 11, 1842; ed. in private schools, and by tutors, and at Law 
 rence Scientific School, 1861-3; M. D. Harvard, 1870, (LL. D. Prince 
 ton; Ph. et Litt. D., Padua; Correspondent de 1'Institut, Paris); 
 Author Principles of Psychology (2 vols.) ; Psychology; Briefer Course; 
 The Will to Believe, and other Essays in Popular Philosophy. Apptd. 
 Gifford lecturer on natural religion, Univ. of Edinburgh, 1899-1901. 
 Address: Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 From "Who's Who in America." 
 (Dicated.) 
 
 (Statement of Dr. William James.t.) 
 
 Cambridge, Mass., Oct. 10, 1901. 
 
 At the request of Mr. John Armstrong Chaloner, I have examined 
 the following documents pertaining to his case: 
 
 1. His certificate of lunacy; 
 
 2. A distinguished neurologist's opinion. 
 
 3. John Armstrong Chaloner's letter of July 3rd, 1897, to Hon. 
 Micajah Woods. 
 
 4. Letter of Nov. 30th, 1900, to H. L. Carson. 
 6. Dr. Wood's account. 
 
 6. Prof. Jastrow's opinion. 
 
 7. Extract from John Armstrong Chaloner's Journal, etc. 
 
 8. Autobiographic account: "The X-Faculty" (Head 1). 
 
 9. "The X-Faculty" (Head 2). 
 
 t Since deceased.
 
 158 
 
 My opinion (based on considerable familiarity with such phe 
 nomena) of the significance of the "automatisms" described in these 
 documents is as follows: 
 
 Graphic automatism is an extremely frequent phenomenon only 
 of late beginning to be studied with the care which it deserves. I 
 have a large collection of cases of it, and some of my best friends, of 
 superior sanity and mental power possess this faculty. It is impos 
 sible to deduce from its presence any conclusions whatever detrimental 
 to the sanity of the person who manifests it. 
 
 I do not happen at this moment to recall a single case of lunacy, 
 in which I have met with this as a symptom. The mental automatism, 
 or inner conversation with his "X-Faculty," described by Mr. Chaloner, 
 is a rarer kind of phenomenon though in my opinion, it is to be classed 
 under the same psychological head, of a part of the personality, usually 
 unconscious, making irruptions into the conscious part with results 
 of which the premises remain obscure or unknown. 
 
 The form of results, wherever automatism exists, seems to be a 
 matter of idiosyncrasy, being sometimes graphic, sometimes visual or 
 auditory, sometimes vocal and sometimes consisting in a mental or 
 verbal impression which the subject recognizes as differing in its 
 genesis from its usual thoughts. 
 
 In. "mediums" so-called these automatisms abound. Mr. Chalo 
 ner is evidently possessed, of a strongly "mediumistic" or "psychic" 
 temperament; but whereas most mediums promptly adopt the theory, 
 current in spiritualistic circles, that, these automatisms are due to 
 spirit-control, Mr. Chaloner, prepossessed against that hypothesis, 
 appears to have set to work systematically (and, as would appear 
 from his narrative, critically) to explore them and determine their 
 significance for himself. In this attempt he seems to me to deserve 
 nothing but praise. The only question is of the amount of judicious 
 ness shown in allowing the subject to absorb him so continuously. 
 The most injudicious act of which he is accused is the experiment with 
 fire. As described, its motivation was rational and its results interest 
 ing and but moderately harmful. It seems to me a monstrous claim 
 to say that a man may not make experiments, even as extreme as that, 
 upon his own person without putting his legal freedom in jeopardy. 
 The Napoleon experiment falls strictly within the limits of praise 
 worthy research. 
 
 Psychology would be more advanced, were there more subjects 
 of automatism ready to explore carefully their eccentric faculty. Al 
 though the medical profession is beginning to acquaint itself with 
 these phenomena, it is still lamentably ignorant. Specialists in insanity 
 in particular are ignorant, for in spiritualistic circles these automa 
 tisms are regarded as valuable gifts, to be encouraged rather than 
 checked, and asylum doctors hardly ever see them. When they do 
 see them they may interpret them as delusional insanity, with which
 
 159 
 
 they are familiar, and a merely mediumistic subject may thus have 
 grievous injustice done him. 
 
 In delusional insanity there is also automatism, so "Paranoia" 
 so-called, and mediumship have elements in common. But for Para 
 noia to be diagnosed there must be no distinct alternation between 
 the primary and the "X" consciousness, and there must be marked 
 abnormal peculiarities in the case as well as intellectual delusion. 
 In Mr. Chaloner's case, there appears to have been complete alternation, 
 and there is no sign whatever of delusion in the documents written 
 by him which I have seen unless his belief that his eye-color has 
 changed be counted as a delusion. Of his normal peculiarities only 
 those who know him well can frame an opinion. A certain stiltedness of 
 diction in documents 8 and 9 of my list is due, as he explains, to their 
 automatic authorship. He doubtless wished to exhibit the rationality 
 of his "X-Faculty," and has successfully done so. But it might have 
 been wiser to submit a non-automatic autobiography. So far then 
 as the documents sent me acquaint me with the facts of the case, my 
 opinion of Mr. Chaloner is that he is intellectually sound. No evidence 
 to show his dangerousness to others or his inability to manage his 
 property has been shown me. In default of such evidence, further 
 treatment of him as a lunatic would seem a crime." 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 Hudson, Thomson Jay. Psychological Author and lecturer. Born, 
 Windham, Ohio, Feb. 23, 1834. LL. D. St. John's College, Md. Ad 
 mitted to Bar 1857; practiced three years; author of "The Law of 
 Psychic Phenomena." 
 
 From "Who's Who in America. 
 
 To Whom It May Concern: 
 
 Soon after the retirement of John Armstrong Chaloner from the 
 Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane, I was requested by his friends 
 to visit him at his temporary retreat in Philadelphia with a view of 
 obtaining my opinion as to his sanity. In compliance with that request 
 I visited Philadelphia and had an interview with Mr. Chaloner lasting 
 several hours, during which I made the most careful observations of 
 which I was capable. I had previously been informed that his alleged 
 mental alienation was supposed, by those responsible for his detention 
 in the insane asylum, to be manifested in his mental attitude on the 
 subject of what is now known to science as Experimental Psychology. 
 Having myself been a close student of every phase of that science for 
 many years, and having observed the disastrous effects often result 
 ing from false beliefs on that subject, followed by abnormal practices
 
 160 
 
 on the experimental side, I confess that I was not unprepared to find 
 in Mr. Chaloner almost any form or degree of mental alienation. Much 
 tc my gratitude, however, I found in him a gentleman of superior gen 
 eral education, culture and refinement, and a student of Experimental 
 Psychology on purely scientific lines, as I shall attempt to show here 
 inafter. Not, I hasten to say, that his deductions always agree with 
 my own; for they do not, but that his fundamental inductions are on 
 lines of scientifically demonstrable truth. 
 
 The salient features of the situation consists in the fact that he 
 has made an original and independent discovery of a most important 
 psychological fact. In fact, it may be said to be the fundamental fact 
 of psychological science, since all other facts of psychology sustain a 
 necessary relationship to it; and many of them are inexplicable in 
 the absence of a knowledge of the fundamental fact or principle, that 
 Mr. Chaloner discovered. 
 
 It is that man is endowed with a mental faculty or a congeries 
 of mental faculties and powers that lie below the threshold of normal 
 consciousness. I do not say that Mr. Chaloner was the first discoverer 
 of this fact; for I do not know the date of his discovery. But I have 
 every reason to believe that he was an original and independent dis 
 coverer. It is true that many eminent scientists have, within the last 
 decade, arrived at the same conclusion, each by his own methods of 
 investigation and experimentation. Most of them have made their ex 
 periments on others; but one of the remarkable features of Mr. Chaf- 
 oner's method of research is that his conclusions were based wholly 
 upon experiments made upon himself, together with an intelligent ob 
 servation of the workings of his own inner consciousness. The advan 
 tages of that method are obvious to any psychologist, providing the 
 experimenter has sufficient power of self-control to do the work in 
 telligently. 
 
 Another remarkable feature of Mr. Chaloner's case, considered 
 from a purely scientific point of view, is his conservatism or scientific 
 caution. Most of us who have become convinced of the existence of 
 the faculty in question have given it a name; and that name is more 
 or less expressive of it's author's theory of causation. Thus, the Lon 
 don Society for Psychical Research, by its late president, Mr. F. W. H. 
 Myers, has named it "The Subliminal Consciousness," as distinguished 
 from the Supraliminal, or normal consciousness. Prof. Boris Sidis 
 names it the "Sub-waking Self," for obvious reasons. Prof. R. Osgood 
 Mason, Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, calls it "the 
 Subliminal Self." Prof. Quackenbos, late of Columbia College, calls it, 
 indifferently, the "Sub-conscious mind," the "Subjective mind," the 
 "Unconscious mind," etc. Dr. Du Prel, a German scientist, designates 
 it "The Transcendental Ego." Other scientists, too numerous to men 
 tion, have adopted other designations for the same mysterious attri 
 bute of .man's mental organism. Each one has his own theory of 
 Causation; but each bases his own particular mental philosophy
 
 largely upon the one salient fact, which no Intelligent psychologist 
 now denies; the existence of the faculty in every man's mental organ 
 ism. Mr. Chaloner, however, has exhibited the most commendable and 
 rare as it is commendable, caution and scientific conservatism in the 
 matter of terminology, by naming! it "The X-Faculty;" for the obvious 
 reason that "X" is the algebraic symbol for an "unknown quantity." 
 This, of course, implies no theory of causation whatever; but it does 
 denote the doubt of the scientist who realizes that he has not yet accu 
 mulated sufficient data to enable him to formulate a satisfactory hy 
 pothesis. This fact alone is sufficient to establish a prima facie case 
 of sanity; for the "cocksuredness" of the crank and the "infallibility" 
 of the insane philosopher are proverbial. In a word, the very an 
 tithesis of insanity is the cautious conservatism of the inductive sci 
 entist. It is true that a man may be insane on one subject and per 
 fectly sane on others. But when, as in this case, the subject-matter 
 upon which the alleged insanity is supposed to be manifested is iden 
 tical with that in which is exhibited the cautious conservatism of true 
 science, it is obvious that the two states of mind are incompatible, 
 and therefore impossible; for it involves a contradiction in terms. 
 Manifestly a man cannot be sane and insane at the same time on the 
 same subject; nor can the same attitude of mind on a given subject 
 constitute valid evidence for both sanity and insanity. For my part 
 I prefer to believe that scientific conservatism constitutes the best 
 possible evidence of perfect sanity. 
 
 It is, however, Mr. Chaloner's belief regarding the powers of the 
 "X-Faculty" that are held to constitute the best evidence of his mental 
 alienation. For instance, he has ascertained that when the "X-Faculty" 
 is allowed full play it is capable of performing various wonderful in 
 tellectual feats, far transcending the ability of the subject as mani 
 fested in his ordinary mental state, such as writing poetry, etc. This 
 is another of Mr. Chaloner's discoveries in psychical science. It was 
 doubtless original with him and the result of careful experimentation 
 upon himself. At any rate he has demonstrated the fact by the pro 
 duction of a large number of sonnets, some of them of unusual merit. 
 I have examined many of them, but am not prepared to say whether 
 they transcend his normal abilities, as I know nothing of his natural 
 capacity for 1 writing poetry, if he has any. He tells me that he has 
 none, which I can readily believe; for his experience is not unique. 
 As before remarked the "X-Faculty" is well recognized under various 
 designations by modern psychologists; and they have not failed to note 
 its phenomenal manifestations in not only poetry, but in music and 1 
 art. In fact, the wonderful intellectual feats which Mr. Chaloner mod 
 estly ascribes to the "X" or unknown faculty, is not a modern dis 
 covery. The old psychologists took note of them and speculated as 
 siduously thereon. Sir William Hamilton gives us many instances un 
 der the head of "latent memory;" and Abercrombie relates many won 
 derful cases as occurring under spontaneous "somnambulism." At that
 
 162 
 
 time hypnotism was practically unknown to science; but in modern 
 times the same phenomena are reproduced artiflcally by means of ex 
 perimental hypnotism. Thus modern psychologists are not only able 
 to classify the facts with some degree of definiteness, but they have 
 learned the secret of controlling the "X-Faculty." 
 
 In technical language the faculty is controlled by "suggestion," 
 which is but another way of stating what Mr. Chaoner has discovered 
 by experiment, that the subject can control it himself, and realizes that 
 the "X-Faculty" is a part of his own mental equipment. It is the 
 ignorance of this last mentioned fact that has led the laity into ascrib 
 ing it to spirits, demons, devils, "et hoc genus omne." It is note 
 worthy, and important to the appreciation of Mr. Chaloner's mental 
 soundness, that he is not only aware that the "X-Faculty" is a part of 
 man's mental make up, but he also knows that he can control its mani 
 festations at will. 
 
 This, in fact, is the most important factor in his case; for it is 
 not only demonstrative of his scientific acumen and his entire accord 
 with the trend of modern science, but it is a sure guaranty of con 
 tinued mental soundness on this question. Not that any particular 
 belief or opinion is, "per se," demonstrative of mental soundness, or 
 its opposite conclusive, or even presumptive evidence of sanity; but 
 that one's belief on this particular subject may, and often does, lead 
 to practices that result in mental alienation. Thus, an ignorant lay 
 man enters a spiritualistic circle and develops "mediumship," say in 
 the form of automatic writing; or, as Mr. Chaloner has more scien 
 tifically designated it, "graphic automatism." The layman's medium- 
 istic development is merely the development of the "X-Faculty." He 
 believes in spiritism, and all the members of his circle believe in spirit 
 ism, and this constitutes a "suggestion" to the "X-Intelligence," too 
 strong to be resisted, that the expected manifestations will come from 
 spirits. Being controlled by that dominant suggestion, it acts accord 
 ingly, the automatic writing which follows, purports to come from the 
 spirits suggested or called for. 
 
 Now the danger which is imminent in such a case arises from the 
 automatist's belief that he is controlled by an extraneous intelligence. 
 He believes it to be a superior intelligence, and hence yields himself 
 in passive obedience to its guidance. And it guides him just in accord 
 ance with his own characteristics, be they good or bad. If good, he 
 is comparatively safe; but if bad, and he is naturally not well belanced 
 mentally, he is in imminent danger of mental alienation. Our mad 
 houses are full of illustrative examples. Now this is but the result of 
 a belief that he is dominated by an extraneous, irresponsible agency 
 which it is impossible for him to resist or control. 
 
 It is obvious that Mr. Chaloner Is beset by no such danger. 
 
 He, too, has developed the "X-Faculty;" and it performs its in 
 tellectual feats by "graphic automatism." Thus far the parallel is 
 perfect. But he has studied the subject inductively scientifically;
 
 163 
 
 and he knows that the "X-Faculty" is not an extraneous intelligence, 
 capable of dominating his whole mental and physical organism. He 
 has, by a series of experiments of the most remarkable character, and 
 conducted on the most exact scientific lines, demonstrated that the 
 "X-Faculty" is simply a heretofore submerged part of his own mental 
 organism, and that as such, it is under the domination of his own will 
 and reason. He has learned that he can cultivate its powers, control 
 its output, direct its energies, and restrain its eccentricities. Obvi 
 ously he is not insane, nor is he in any danger of insanity, on the 
 subject of the "X-Faculty;" and he is not held to be insane on any 
 other subject. 
 
 In conclusion I might truthfully remark that this is not the first 
 time in the history of advancing civilization that men have been im 
 prisoned for taking a step in advance of their age in scientific research. 
 But in justice to all concerned, it must be said that a legitimate par 
 allel cannot be drawn between this case and those of history, where 
 criminal prosecutions have been instituted against scientists who were 
 accused of subverting religion and blaspheming against the Deity by 
 seeking to place Creation in the custody of a law. This is not a crimi 
 nal prosecution, although it deprived Mr. Chaloner of his liberty just 
 as effectually as if he had been charged with high crimes and mis 
 demeanors. But it must not be forgotten that the phenomena produced 
 by the mental force which Mr. Chaloner has designated as the "X- 
 Faculty," has puzzled and appalled mankind since the dawn of creation. 
 It is the source of all the superstitions of all the ages of mankind. 
 Ignorance of its laws, nay, of its very existence as an attribute of the 
 human mind, has been the direct or indirect cause of the greater part 
 of the mental alienation, which has filled the insane asylums of the 
 civilized world. Hence it is that cautious and conservative people 
 view with alarm any attempt, on the part of their friends, to meddle 
 with any of its multiform phases of phenomena. 
 
 But the science of the last decade of the Nineteenth Century has 
 lifted the veil of mystery which has so long; enshrouded the "X-Fac 
 ulty," and shorn it of its power to harm those who have penetrated 
 the secret. It is axiomatic that when an ignorance of Nature's laws 
 leads one into danger, a knowledge of those laws will lead to safety. 
 This knowledge Mr. Chaloner possessed. But his friends who did not 
 share his information were not in a position to discriminate between 
 the insensate rashness of ignorance and the intelligent deliberations 
 of science, so long as the subject matter was the same. It would seem, 
 therefore, that Chaloner's imprisonment was due to the over-anxiety 
 and caution of friends who were not in a position to appreciate or 
 understand the real nature of his scientific investigations. 
 
 Of his perfect sanity I have no doubt whatever. 
 Respectfully submitted, 
 
 (Signed) THOMSON JAY HUDSON. 
 Detroit, Michigan, 
 
 Oct. 19, 1901.
 
 164 
 Postscriptum. 
 
 After carefully re-reading my opinion in re the case of John Arm 
 strong Chaloner, it has occurred to me that possibly the opinion of 
 his friends regarding his sanity may have been formed from witness 
 ing his experiments upon himself in the development of the "X-Fac- 
 ulty." If so, a very erroneous opinion was almost inevitable, owing 
 to the eccentric character of the manifestations of the "X-Faculty" in 
 the early stages of its experimental development. This is well-known 
 to all experimental psychologists who develop the "X-Faculty" in their 
 subjects by means of hypnotism. Hypnotists, however, can easily regu 
 late the phenomenal manifestations by well-known means. But an 
 unrestrained hypnotized subject, acting, say, under the influence of a 
 false, or a grotesque suggestion, would inevitably be considered in 
 sane by any one not informed of the secret self; and had not there 
 fore, the benefit of a restraining of his mental condition. 
 
 Now, Mr. Chaloner, made his experiments upon himself; and had 
 not, therefore, the benefit of a restraining or regulating agency at his 
 side. Consequently, it is easy to see that in his early experiments, he 
 may have, accidentally or purposely, produced mental phenomena 
 that would be very alarming to those of his friends who were not in 
 the secret of his experimental research. In other words, he may have 
 occasionally surrendered himself temporarily to the dominance of the 
 "X-Faculty," for the purpose of studying its powers, its peculiarities, 
 and its limitations. In fact it would have been impossible for him to 
 thoroughly inform himself on all these points without experimenting 
 with every phase of the phenomena. That he did so experiment, and 
 that in the meantime he exercised the most remarkable powers of self- 
 control and reason when in his normal condition, is evidenced by the 
 logical and scientific character of his final conclusions regarding that 
 wonderful and mysterious faculty with which he was experimenting. 
 
 T. J. H. 
 
 (Richmond Virginian, August 12, 1912.) 
 
 HELL. 
 
 Chapter I. 
 The Call of Hell. 
 
 CHALONER TAKES TRIP INTO HADES, TALKS TO FRIEND. 
 
 While in Mediumistic Trance Receives Message From World Beyond. 
 HE, HIMSELF, DOES NOT BELIEVE WORD. 
 
 Warned by Friend Against Scoffing He Gives it Out for What it is 
 
 Worth. 
 
 With tne sensational announcement that he had recently held 
 converse with the spirit of a departed friend, now in Hell, and that
 
 165 
 
 he was prepared to give to the world some insight into the conditions 
 existing in that unknown realm, John Armstrong Chaloner yesterday 
 gave to the Virginian the prepared interview with which he startled 
 the coterie of newspaper men whom he had invited to meet him yes 
 terday afternoon at Alexandria in order that he might outline the 
 nature of the campaign to which he proposes to devote his life and 
 fortune. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner made good his promise to explain his plans, for the 
 reformation of the lunacy laws, and then very gravely sprang the un 
 expected sensation. The alleged message from the spirit world was 
 transmitted by automatism to him while in an involuntary medium- 
 istic trance a few nights ago. The spirit which established communi 
 cation with him was that of Thomas Jefferson Miller, once a non 
 commissioned officer in the Confederate navy, a member of the Man 
 hattan Club, New York, and a personal and club friend of Mr. Chaloner's 
 prior to his incarceration in Bloomingdale Asylum. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner explained that he was an "O. K. medium," so pro 
 nounced by the late Professor James and others, as court records at 
 Charlottesville would show, and at the same time he was an unbeliever 
 in and a scoffer at spiritualism; in short, that his sub-consciousness, 
 or X-Faculty, as he terms it held communication with spirits against 
 his will. He said that the spirit of his old friend Miller had held 
 converse with him five years ago, and he took no notes of the message 
 because of his absolute lack of faith in spiritualism. He has no more 
 faith now than he had then, but he stated his belief that the "alleged 
 spirit message," as he termed it, should be given to the world on its 
 merits. 
 
 COPY OF LETTER 
 
 ADDKESSED TO A SCORE OR SO OF THE MEMBERS OF THE 
 PRESS OF WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 Release by wire. "The Merry Mills," 
 
 Cobham, 
 Virginia. 
 
 August 2, 1912. 
 DEAR SIR: 
 
 On the 25th of last month I happened to pick up an "Illustrated 
 London News" of June 15th last, and saw under the headline "Science 
 Jottings," by Andrew Wilson, an article concerning reputed to cite 
 "So-called spiritualistic communications purporting to emanate from 
 the late Mr. W. T. Stead, who perished on the 'Titanic.' The result 
 as usual has been nil. What has been done is that certain 'mediums' 
 professed to put themselves in communication with the deceased jour 
 nalist. In their supposed trance state they assert that they received 
 messages from him. Anything more puerile than the supposed com 
 munications it has never been my lot to peruse. Mr. Stead is reported
 
 166 
 
 to have told his friends that he was quite free, but not yet attuned 
 to the easy and perfect sending of messages. Later on it was hoped 
 things would improve in this respect. It is tolerably certain the vast 
 bulk of us have not so far lost our grip of common sense as to accept 
 such rubbish as evidence of another world's existence. Has there ever 
 been sent or given a 'spirit-message' which has laid before mankind any 
 great fact or truth connected with the hereafter? Has any 'spirit' re 
 vealed to us what all of us are devoutly anxious to know something 
 definite about namely, the nature of that after-state of being which 
 forms so prominent a feature of the Christian faith f You have igno 
 rant persons posing as 'mediums' publishing forth their ability to com 
 municate with the spirits of those who have gone before, and making 
 a travesty of certain of the most sacred of our emotions and beliefs. 
 Well may a writer in scathing terms speak of these people to whom 
 death has no sacredness, and who treat the great mysteries of the uni 
 verse as if they were trivialties of the first order: 'But when we come 
 to real instruction, reliable information, or profitable or valuable knowl 
 edge, Spiritualism is as barren as Sahara, as empty as a hollow gourd.' 
 We are reminded of the Mrs. Pipers, and other mediums whose per 
 formances, wonderful certainly, are still enveloped in a kind of mental 
 fog. At the very best, I repeat, neither Mrs. Piper nor any other me 
 dium has ever shed any light on any of the great problems of the after- 
 state, such as humanity has day by day to face." (Signed) Andrew 
 Wilson. 
 
 On pages 81-84 of "Four Years Behind the Bars of 'Blooming- 
 dale,' " written by me, in the Congressional Library, you will find that 
 so far back as October 10th, 1901, Professor Williamt James, of Har 
 vard, (now deceased), pronounced me a medium, in an opinion in 
 favor of my sanity, in my trial, on said subject of sanity before the 
 Albemarle County, Virginia, (now Circuit) Court, November 6th, 
 1901, and on file ever since in the Clerk's Ofllce of said court, in 
 Charlottesville, Virginia. Professor James went on to say page 83, 
 ibid "but whereas most mediums promptly adopt the theory current 
 in spiritualistic circles, Mr. Chaloner, prepossessed against that hy 
 pothesis, appears to have set to work systematically, and, as would 
 appear from his narrative" (by which "narrative" is meant a letter 
 from me together with certain specimens of graphic automatism 
 automatic writing made by me in a trance-like state and submitted 
 to him by mail for his opinion on the rationality of said trance- 
 writings) "critically, to explore them and determine their significance 
 for himself. In this attempt he seems to me to deserve nothing but 
 praise, The most injudicious act of which he is accused is the expe 
 riment with fire. As described, its motivation was rational and its 
 results interesting and but moderately harmful. It seems to me a 
 monstrous claim to say that a man may not make experiments, even 
 as extreme as that upon his own person without putting his legal free 
 dom in jeopardy. The Napoleon experiment falls strictly within the
 
 167 
 
 limits of praiseworthy research. Psychology would be more advanced, 
 were there more subjects of Automatism (mediumship) ready to ex 
 plore carefully their eccentric faculty. Although the medical profes 
 sion is beginning to acquaint itself with these phenomena, it is still 
 lamentably ignorant, for in Spiritualistic circles these automatisms are 
 regarded as valuable gifts, to be encouraged rather than checked, and 
 asylum doctors hardly ever see them. Specialists in insanity are par 
 ticularly ignorant. When they do see them they may interpret them 
 as delusional insanity, with which they are familiar, and a merely 
 mediumistic subject may thus have grievous injustice done him. So 
 far then as the documents sent me acquaint me with the facts of the 
 case, my opinion of Mr. Chaloner is that he is intellectually sound. 
 No evidence to show his dangerousness to others or his inability to 
 manage his property has been shown me. In default of such evidence, 
 further treatment of him as a lunatic would seem a crime." (Signed) 
 William James, Cambridge, Mass., October 10th, 1901. 
 
 Since Professor James, who, by the way, besides being Professor of 
 Psychology at Harvard, was also a member of the medical profession, 
 having taken his M. D. degree at Harvard in 1870, practically discov 
 ered Mrs. Piper, the well-known medium aforesaid, of Boston, and also 
 discovered your humble servant as- a medium who doesn't believe in 
 Spiritualism, however, as shown above, and since so well known a 
 scientific writer as Andrew Wilson, who for years has handled the 
 scientific column for so great a paper as the "Illustrated London News" 
 speaks favorably of said Mrs. Piper as a medium, therefore it is not a 
 far cry to infer that I am "some punkins" of a medium myself to 
 put it somewhat jocularly. Such being the case it occurred to me 
 after reading said article in the "Illustrated London News" that it 
 might not be a bad idea to follow up a lead I had got from my 
 "X-Faculty" my term for the Sub-consciousness some years ago 
 when experimenting in Experimental Psychology by means of Vocal 
 Automatism. Said lead or tip was nothing; less than an alleged "spirit- 
 message," as Andrew Wilson callg it in said article, from a deceased 
 friend of mine, who had died a few years previously. Said "spirit- 
 message" was startling to a degree; and left strictly nothing to be 
 desired regarding an alleged revelation of life beyond the grave. Said 
 deceased friend! was about 80 years old at the time of his demise and 
 a prominent member, at said time, of a prominent New York Club. He 
 was my oldest and best friend. I had never suggested his communi 
 cating with me in the event of his death before mine for the excel 
 lent reason that I did not think such a thing possible. 
 
 Imagine then my surprise upon receiving per Vocal Automatism, 
 while in a trance-like state in which state I have for over fifteen years 
 carried on my investigations in Experimental Psychology imagine my 
 surprise upon getting a so-to-speak wireless message from Hell! For 
 that was where my friend said he was at said time. 
 
 I shall not attempt to picture my surprise; let it suffice to say that 
 my scientific curiosity was piqued.
 
 168 
 
 Mr. Miller, for that is his name, went on to say that he knew that 
 I wouldn't believe him, but that, nevertheless, he was in Hell, and had 
 had rather a warm time of it for some years past to put it rather 
 mildly that the orthodox claims about Hell are strictly accurate and 
 minutely correct except that said claims fail to give a proper esti 
 mate of the heat and torture in vogue down there. He concluded by 
 saying that his head was bandaged at said time of communication 
 from the wounds he had received at his torture. That he was thank 
 ful to say he had "paid the piper" during the years of agony he had 
 spent in Hell, and was now free for all time from torment. 
 
 At said time I was engrossed in legal work, and did not have time 
 to repeat said experiment in Experimental Psychology. I left it 
 alone for years. Not till a few days ago when I read said article by 
 Andrew Wilson did it again occur to me to resume the experiment. 
 I have now fully completed the legal work which has absorbed me 
 for eleven years. My Petition for the Impeachment of Judge George 
 C. Holt.t for preventing my evidence from getting before the jury in 
 my recent trial of my case of Chaloner against Sherman, in the Fed 
 eral District Court, for the Southern District of New York, paints the 
 situation. 
 
 I am, therefore, free to resume the Psychological Experiments 
 that got me into so much unmerited legal trouble hinted at in Pro 
 fessor James's opinion fifteen years ago. 
 
 Andrew Wilson's article proves that there is a public international 
 demand for such an experiment as I proposed with the alleged spirit 
 of the deceased Mr. Miller. 
 
 I, therefore, a few hours ago, attempted to reopen communication 
 with Mr. Miller. This time since Vocal Automatism is much more 
 fatiguing to operate than Graphic Automatism I decided to employ the 
 latter; and* as a result, have about sixteen pages of legal cap filled 
 with automatic writing from the alleged spirit of my departed friend. 
 
 I propose to let you, and the other Members of the Press of Wash 
 ington, not all, by any means, but a selected group, see the first page 
 of above automatic writing, and have as much of the typed contents 
 of said sixteen-page alleged communication from Hell about ten 
 pages of typewiting as you care to take down as I read it off from 
 my signed typed statement, at seven o'clock next Sunday, the 4th 
 August, at Fleischmann's Hotel, Alexandria. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 JOHN ARMSTRONG CHALONER. 
 
 P. S. In putting "release by wire," at the top of this letter, I 
 mean that you gentlemen may release the story upon seeing me at 
 seven next Sunday evening. 
 
 tThe reason Chaloner did not oatoh up with Holt, J., and make 
 a, pretty good try at baffling his Honor before the Judiciary Com 
 mittee of the House of Representatives, on account of his Honour's 
 reprehensible act, aforesaid, was that, as it happened, there was an 
 unavoidable delay in bringing the impeachment proceedings, and con 
 sequently before they could be brought Judge Holt had resigned from 
 the Bench.
 
 169 
 
 AUTHOR OP "WHO'S L.OONEY NOW?" GETS SPIRIT MESSAGE 
 
 FROM HADES FROM FRIEND WHO SAYS HE 
 
 IS THERE. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner Gives Interview Relative to Lunacy Laws, 
 and Describes Reception Room of His Satanic Majesty. 
 
 (Washington Herald, August 5, 1912.) 
 
 "John Armstrong Chaloner, famous for that immortal expression 
 of "Who's Looney Now?" former husband of Amelie Rives and brother 
 of Sheriff Bob Chanler, who married Lina Cavalieri, disclosed yester 
 day a message that he says he has received from the other world. 
 
 The message brings news of the physical characteristics of his 
 Satanic majesty and a description of Hades that at least has the merit 
 of being unique. The message received by Chaloner comes, he insists, 
 from Thomas Jefferson Miller, a former Confederate officer, and mem 
 ber of the Manhattan Club of New York City. 
 
 Chaloner, who was born "Chanler," and who changed his name 
 because of the alleged plot against him by his brother, "Sheriff Bob," 
 of New York, and other relatives, summoned the newspaper corres 
 pondents across to the Virginia side of the Potomac because he "didn't 
 dare come north of the Old Dominion line." 
 
 Chaloner was adjudged insane in New York State, escaped from 
 Bloomingdale Asylum, and was then declared sane by the Virginia 
 courts. He is afraid that if he leaves Virginia he will be nabbed and 
 sent back to Bloomingdale. 
 
 "Last month," said the former husband of Amelie Rives, the 
 novelist, "I picked up a copy of an English illustrated paper and saw 
 therein an account of a supposed spirit communication with W. T. 
 Stead, who went down on the Titanic. The statement while essentially 
 puerile, attracted my attention because the late Prof. William James 
 had informed me at one time that I was a medium, although I do not 
 believe in spiritualism." 
 
 MESSAGE FBOM HELL. 
 
 Chaloner went on the say that he had summoned his art of 
 "graphic automatism," and had managed to get in touch with the 
 spirit of Thomas Jefferson Miller, with whom he had been friendly 
 when Miller was of this world. 
 
 "This," said Chaloner, was last Tuesday evening, "Miller, or 
 whatever force it was, immediately replied through my hand and 
 wrote a lengthy statement, answering my queries and giving much 
 information in regard to his present abode, which he said was Hell, 
 temporarily." 
 
 Here the brother-in-law of Lina Cavalieri read a sixteen-page 
 typewritten statement, giving in full the interview with the disem-
 
 170 
 
 bodied spirit. It took eight hours for him to transcribe the message, 
 with short intervals for food and sleep. It was a mighty exhausting 
 business. 
 
 According to the message that Chaloner gives to the world, Hell 
 w \s a very bearable place and one which everybody must pass through. 
 Miller admitted to his former friend that he had been bad enough 
 on earth to merit more punishment than he had received, but con 
 sidered that his relief was probably due to the fact that he had had 
 "his share of Hell on earth, being a New Yorker with social standing 
 and no money." 
 
 SATAN RESEMBLES NAPOLEON. 
 
 The message handed out by Chaloner describes Satan as a man 
 of medium height, whose face is that of Napoleon Bonaparte at the 
 apex of his power, and whose habiliments were those of Michaelangelo's 
 statue, "The Thinker." His Satanic Majesty was seated on a throne 
 in the center of an immense audience chamber. 
 
 "The walls of this audience chamber," says the message recorded, 
 "are of rubies. The rubies are the size of ordinary building bricks, 
 and of the luster and fire of rubies known as pigeon blood. In place 
 of mortar binding the bricks and making a white line, we here have 
 diamonds as large as your thumb nail and of the purest water. To 
 soften and enrich the fiery effect of such splendor, the diamond line 
 is broken every few inches by several inches of sapphires, as blue as 
 the Mediterranean. The floor of the hall is of marble, that has the 
 marvelous quality of being capable of taking on the color of whatever 
 stands upon or flies over it. Thus, if a cherub flies over the floor 
 space, the marble at once becomes tinged with red. If, on the other 
 hand, a seraph crosses the space, the marble at once becomes of a 
 cerulean blue, like an Italian sky. The marble takes on these colors 
 from the armor and vestments of the mighty angels, which are scarlet 
 and blue, respectively." 
 
 BLOODHOUNDS SPOIL DREAM. 
 
 At this point, the message was interrupted by the baying of Mr. 
 Chaloner's bloodhounds outside, who, he thinks, sensed the subcon 
 scious communication. However, the roof, Chaloner learned, is of 
 crystal, so pure that the eye can pierce it. 
 
 At the end of the message, Chaloner himself records the following 
 notes: "Knocked off for breakfast. Bread and water." 
 
 Mr. Chaloner anticipated his coming from near Cobham, Va., by 
 writing a letter to the Washington correspondents and others, in 
 which he told them of a conversation he had held with Miller, who 
 had spoken to him in the early hours of the morning of July 31st last, 
 from Hell, and of conversations which they had had in the Manhattan 
 Club. This, he said, had convinced him that he could communicate 
 with the dead while in a "Napoleonic" death trance.
 
 171 
 
 CHALONER READS STATEMENT. 
 
 This statement was read by Mr. Chaloner, and was a most remark 
 able affair. It embraced twelve and a fraction typewritten pages. 
 Mr. Chaloner stated that he wrote it in long hand while in a state of 
 subconsciousness. He declared that "he did not believe a damn word 
 of it," after he had completed its reading: 
 
 In order to accomplish his ends Mr. Chaloner said he would go 
 to Alexandria at various times and put his case as thoroughly before 
 the American people as did Zola in the Dreyfus case. "I am," he 
 said, "going to hammer on it and hammer on it, and talk them to 
 death and write them to death, and make it a common household 
 word throughout the forty-eight States and Territories of this Union. 
 I am going to bombard these gangsters of the '400' in New York until 
 I make them sick for what they have done." He declared that the 
 New York district courts would not give him justice until he had 
 created a popular sentiment for himself. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner characterized his case as a "blue blood" conspiracy. 
 He said John G. Milburn and Joseph H. Choate were so powerful that 
 no Federal judge of the lower courts would dare go against them. "I 
 am after public opinion to keep the judges straight," he said. He 
 made reference to his impeachment charges against Judge George C. 
 Holt, of New York, who, he said, had refused to permit a jury to hear 
 his affidavit begun in Charlottesville in October of last year, and ended 
 in January of the present year. He charged Judge Holt with being 
 "an insurrecto against the rules which govern all civilized courts." 
 
 NAME, NEW YOBK, STINKS. 
 
 Asked if he would go back to New York were he to gain his vic 
 tory, Mr. Chaloner declared he was indifferent to ever going there. 
 "I don't care," he said, "ever to set foot there again. It has got too 
 horrible an association of ideas for me. The name of New York 
 stinks to me for a place to live in. I have as much dread of the 
 wickedness there, not only on the East Side, but on Fifth Avenue, as 
 Russian Jews have of a murder car." 
 
 Mr. Chaloner denounced the lunacy laws of most of the States as 
 villainous. In Washington they were "bum." In Baltimore and Phila 
 delphia and New Jersey worse still, "and in New York they are simply 
 parallel with hell." He said he took his life in his hands when he 
 went to Washington recently and conferred with a Congressman about 
 Judge Holt's impeachment. It was his purpose, he said, to reform 
 these lunacy laws of the country in accordance with an oath he had 
 taken while a patient at Bloomingdale. He was fully prepared, he 
 said, to wear Congress and the public out "until I make one of them 
 ashamed of themselves for being parties to such a damnable state of 
 lawlessness, tyranny, and dishonesty which is rife to-day in nearly 
 50 per cent, of the States of the Union."
 
 172 
 
 These laws, he held, would be a disgrace to the Congo under the 
 enlightened rule of the late King Leopold of Belgium. 
 
 Arriving at the office of the Alexandria Gazette building at a few 
 minutes after 4 o'clock Mr. Chaloner took exactly two hours and 
 twenty minutes to tell his story to the scribes. The story of his 
 alleged conversation with a deceased friend while in a state of sub- 
 conciousness was related after he had gotten through his other talk. 
 
 WEARS PLAIN, CLOTHES. 
 
 As soon as Mr. Chaloner reached the office in a carriage from the 
 union railway station, he entered and announced himself, after which 
 he began his work of bombarding the New York authorities for his 
 incarceration in Bloomingdale for a period of four years. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner talked with vim and at times he emphasized his 
 remarks upon his auditors by clapping his hands together. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner, for a millionaire, was not clad very pompously, 
 wearing but plain clothing. He wore a blue serge coat and waistcoat, 
 and dark trousers, and carried with him a light overcoat with velvet 
 collar, and he also had rubbers in a small suit case, the latter con 
 taining books which he has written. The nature of some of these 
 books was explained by him during the course of the interview. Before 
 sitting down he placed behind him a heavy looking black wallet which 
 he said was for his spine, he having suffered from spinal trouble as 
 a result of his incarceration in Bloomingdale. Mr. Chaloner used this 
 for a rest for his spine and then began to unfold his story. 
 
 In addition to the newspaper men was Prof. Helmut P. Holler, 
 President of the Washington Psychological Society, who had a confer 
 ence with Mr. Chaloner. At the conclusion of his interview Mr. Chal 
 oner left for Richmond. 
 
 "The walls are of rubies of the size of ordinary building bricks, 
 and of the lustre and fire of rubies known as pigeon blood. In place of 
 mortar binding the bricks and making a white line, we have diamonds 
 as large as your thumb-nail and of the purest water. To soften and 
 enrich the fiery effect of such splendor the diamond line is broken 
 every few inches by sapphires as blue as the Mediterranean. The floor 
 of the hall is of marble that has the marvelous quality of being capable 
 of taking on the color of whatever stands upon or flies over it. Thus, 
 if a cherub flies over the floor space, the marble at once becomes 
 tinged with red. If, on the other hand, a seraph crosses the space, 
 the marble at once becomes of a cerulean blue, like an Italian sky. 
 The marble takes on the colors from the armor and vestments of the 
 mighty angels, which are scarlet and blue, respectively."
 
 173 
 
 HELL 
 
 "The volume is a wonderful work as books go, and its title repre 
 sents adequately its contents." Richmond "Neics Leader," October 28, 
 1912. 
 
 "This last work of Mr. Chaloner is literature. 
 
 John Milton has not got much in the way of word painting on 
 John Armstrong Chaloner and Thomas Jefferson Miller, when they 
 get together, over the long distance. 
 
 The author may rest assured that his book will be read." 
 
 Richmond Evening Journal, October 30, 1912. 
 
 A MESSAGE FROM HELL. 
 
 The Author of "Who's Looney Now" Writes a Red-Hot Book. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner has just written a book entitled "Hell," 
 which he declares is an account of his study in graphic-automatism. 
 The book, which is dedicated to Dante, John Milton and John Bun- 
 yan, described as the author's "illustrious predecessors in this dread 
 domain," tells in weird and picturesque language the experiences in 
 Hell of one Miller, a former friend of the author, from whom Mr. 
 Chaloner received the messages by means of what he calls The X- 
 Faculty. Mr. Chaloner has opened up a new, if somewhat red-hot, 
 field of modern literature. Times-Dispatch, October 30, 1912. 
 
 A NEW VISION OF HELL. 
 
 Not a Bad Sort of Place at All, Accordinff to Mr. Chaloner. 
 
 It might be more reassuring for those interested in knowing what 
 sort of place is reserved for the wicked after death if John Arm 
 strong Chaloner had been permitted to describe more than merely 
 the Audience Chamber of his Satanic Majesty. The picture which he 
 gives us of this room, with its walls of rubies, diamonds and sap 
 phires, is attractive enough, yet doubt is allowed to linger as to the 
 furnishings and other appurtenances of the living-rooms of the 
 transient and permanent guests. 
 
 According to the message which Chaloner gives the world from 
 his former friend, the Infernal Regions would seem to be a very 
 tolerable place in which to live. At any rate, the precious stones 
 which ornament the Audience Chamber of the Prince of Darkness 
 would seem to give to that place very much the same aspect ascribed 
 to heaven, with its pearly gates and streets of gold. 
 
 The floor of marble that has the quality of taking on the color 
 of whatever stands upon or flies over it is another interesting touch 
 in the vision. With cherubs and seraphs flitting back and forth,
 
 174 
 
 changing the color alternately to red and blue, a kaleidoscopic effect 
 is no doubt produced that would be worth going far to see. 
 
 It is disappointing not to be told more about this interesting 
 place. The glimpse Into the Audience Chamber, with Satan presiding 
 and looking like Napoleon Bonaparte at the apex of his power, cries 
 out for another and completer picture. But perhaps Mr. Chaloner 
 intends to give us this in time, even if he has to go there for it. 
 San Francisco (Gal.) Chronicle, August 6, 1912. 
 
 "John Armstrong Chaloner's vision of Hell, with an Audience 
 Chamber built of rubles, diamonds and sapphires, is quite different 
 from the picture Dante gave us. However, it may be a true one. 
 It would be Hell to see all these things and not be able to have 
 any of them." 
 
 VIA MB. CHAIX)NER. 
 
 Mr. John Armstrong Chaloner disarms the skeptical who would 
 pooh-pooh his revelation of Hell. Some one called the world over his 
 wires and said Satan looked like Napoleon Bonaparte, that his resi 
 dence was of marble, rubies and diamonds, and that the place would 
 be a relief to any man who had been trying to maintain a social 
 position in New York without money. 
 
 That's the message that came via Mr. John Armstrong Chaloner. 
 As a medium he is neither skeptical nor credulous. A genuine medium 
 is merely a cosmic telephone wire. Mr. Chaloner does not guarantee 
 the good faith of the person on the other end. He thinks it was 
 Thomas Jefferson Miller, but it may have been Artemus Ward, or 
 Mark Twain, or William James, who said he would send back a mes 
 sage if there were any way of doing it. 
 
 That Hell would have no terrors for a man who had been broke 
 in New York has been suspected confidently declared in some in 
 stances and if Mr. Chaloner's message is confirmation of the idea it 
 will cause no particular sensation. The most interesting part of the 
 revelation is that Satan looks like Napoleon. That explnins the notion 
 prevailing in Europe that the head devil was absent from his do 
 main about 1768 to 1821. Chicago (III.) Tribune, August 6, 1912. 
 
 THE PASSING SHOW. 
 
 According to a spirit message, John Armstrong Chaloner has re 
 ceived from a former friend on earth, "the walls of Hell are of 
 rubles the size of building bricks, and the lustre and fire of rubies 
 known as pigeon blood. In place of mortar binding the bricks and 
 making a white line, we have diamonds as large as your thumb-nail 
 and of the purest water. To soften and enrich the fiery effect of 
 such splendor the diamond line is broken every few inches by sap-
 
 175 
 
 phires as blue as the Mediterranean." Persons who contemplate going 
 to the place which Chaloner has so prettily described, should take 
 with them a complete equipment of mining implements. New Orleans 
 (La.) States, August 8, 1912. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner claims to have communicated with a 
 New Yorker in Hell. Kindly note that "New Yorker." Columbia (S. 
 C.) State. New York Tribune, August 9, 1912. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, always interesting and sometimes 
 unique, has learned that "Satan is a gentleman." H m : he has to 
 be to get away with it. New York Telegraph, August 6, 1912. 
 
 EDGAR SAJLTUS IN "VANITY FAIR." 
 
 NEW YORK, January, 1914. 
 
 To old New Yorkers there are a few left Fifth Avenue occasion 
 ally becomes a ghostly haunt of the departed. Among the latter is a 
 man who dematerialized and then reincarnated. Formerly known as 
 Chanler, now he is Chaloner. But, in the interim, he went not to 
 heaven but to Bloomingdale. And why not? Besides, any excursion 
 is valuable if it deepen your experience of, life. Now, here he is again 
 and very humanly in the shape of a document. Entitled Scorpio, it 
 is a shandigaff of prose and verse. Usually such things are inoffen 
 sive specimens of harmless literature. But not Scorpio. Richepin 
 wrote a breviary that was like an explosion of Roman candles. He 
 also wrote a hymnal that was so many doors slammed in your face. 
 Richepin, though a member of the French Academy, a membership 
 which usually is a patent of incapacity, had something to say and 
 knew how to say it. In piety and truculence this thing of Mr. Chal- 
 oner's equals Richepin's wares. In commenting on an earlier per 
 formance, a critic called the author a literary bruiser. Previously 
 the Supreme Court had adjudged him insane. Well, with entire defer 
 ence, it does seem a pity that there are not more lunatics like him 
 and also that on the buttered toast of our literature there is so little 
 anchovy paste. 
 
 HENRY BRINSLEY IN "VANITY FAIR." 
 
 NEW YORK, January, 1914. 
 
 I have been deeply moved recently by some verses of Mr. John 
 Armstrong Chaloner's, who has just published a slender volume of 
 sonnets called "Scorpio." The following lovely little lyric will tell its 
 own message without prosaic comment on my part.
 
 176 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 When our appointed sands shall run their course, 
 
 When in life's brief hour-glass none doth remain, 
 
 When death's mysterious river we must cross, 
 
 The following thoughts may ease the Soul her pain: 
 
 Death the Ang,el is of all activity 
 
 The "open sesame" to action rare 
 
 The quick'ning of a new nativity 
 
 In a world which is as dreadful as it's fair. 
 
 The bones do rest, the dust doth rest. They rest. 
 
 But the Spirit that which sprang from God's bright Throne 
 
 The Spirit which His breath gives life and zest, 
 
 The Spirit thro' eternity goes on! 
 
 Tomb the portal is to Hell or Paradise 
 
 Purgatory is Hell and versa vice.
 
 SCORPIO 
 
 (Sonnets) 
 BY JOHN ARMSTRONG CHALONER. 
 
 Keats has told us that "they shall be accounted poet-kings 
 who simply say the most heart-easing things?" It may well 
 be, therefore, that the author of the present volume of son 
 nets has no desire to be ranked among the poet-kings. For he 
 certainly does not come to us with heartsease in his hand. On 
 the contrary he prides himself on the fact that he is a hard 
 and terrible hitter. Indeed., he assures us that he has come 
 to the conclusion that you can put a wicked man "to sleep" 
 with a sonnet in pretty much the same way that a prize 
 fighter puts his opponent to sleep with a finished blow. And 
 not only does Mr. Chaloner believe in what we may term the 
 sonnetorial fist, but he believes also in whips and scorpions, 
 for the cover of his book is decorated with an angry-looking 
 seven-thonged scourge, and he dubs the whole effort "Scor 
 pio." So that when we look to the fair page itself we know 
 what to expect. 
 
 Nor are we disappointed. Mr. Chaloner goes to the opera. 
 Being a good poet, he immediately writes a sonnet about it, 
 the which, however, he calls "The Devil's Horseshoe." We 
 reproduce it for the benefit of all whom it may concern : 
 
 'A fecund sight for a philosopher 
 
 Rich as Golconda's mine in lessons rare 
 
 That gem-bedizen'd "horse-shoe" at th' Opera, 
 
 Replete with costly hags and matrons fair! 
 
 His votaresses doth Mammon there array, 
 
 His Amazonian Phalanx dread to face! 
 
 To Mammon there do they their homage pay! 
 
 Spang'ld with jewels, satins, silks and lace, 
 
 Crones whose old bosoms in their corsets creak; 
 
 Beldams whose slightest glance would fright a horse; 
 
 Ghouls when they speak one hears the grave-mole squeak 
 
 Their escorts parvenus of feature coarse, 
 
 A rich array of Luxury and Vice! 
 
 But, spite of them, the music's very nice.' 
 
 Here you have whips, scorpions, and a knockout blow 
 with a vengeance. The sonnet as a whole is not one which we
 
 178 
 
 can approve from a technical or sentimental point of view, 
 but it has points. Henley might have plumed himself on that 
 line about the creaking corsets, and the last line, a tour de 
 force, in its way reminds us of the withering ironies of Byron. 
 It is only fair to Mr. Chaloner to add that not all his sonnets 
 are concerned with back-flaying, bosom-stinging, or general 
 thumping. Some of them show the tenderer emotions proper 
 to a poet. We like him best, however, in his character as 
 metrical bruiser. He is always on the side of the angels even 
 if he is frequently over vigorous; and his book is well worth 
 possessing. We gather that he has undergone personal trou 
 bles of no light or ordinary nature, and it is pleasant to 
 note that, despite these troubles, he still retains a sane and 
 reasonable outlook upon life, for when he likes he can be 
 quite pleasantly humorous instead of acridly bitter. The 
 Academy, London, August 8, 1908.
 
 "THE PLAY'S THE THING 11 
 
 Hamlet 
 
 As a playwright the writer is well aware that nothing should be 
 set upon the boards which is not applicable to real life; by which is 
 meant, which might not have taken place in real life. We are well 
 aware that the happenings in "Robbery Under Law" are above the 
 level of the commonplace above the level of the ordinary 
 above the level of the humdrum. So far so good. But we have 
 submitted incontrovertible evidence in the shape of the opinions 
 of our celebrated specialists as well as in the shape of the letter 
 to Commonwealth's attorney Micajah Woods dated July 3, 1897 
 that the facts set forth in "Robbery Under Law" are facts which have 
 already occurred in real life in the case of CJialoner against Sherman, 
 and might occur in real life again any day. 
 
 As a historian author of that history of the inner workings of the 
 main-spring of Metropolitan life in New York, during the closing years 
 of the 19th and the first decade of the 20th centuries entitled "Four 
 Years Behind The Bars of 'Bloomingdale' Or The Bankruptcy Of Law 
 in New York" we are appalled at the attitude of the press of the 
 United States towards that now celebrated expose of life behind the 
 scenes in the so-called "Four Hundred." With the exception of the 
 New York "World," the New York "Tribune" and one other New York 
 paper, not a solitary! line appeared in reference to the startling dis 
 closures spread at large in the pages of "Four Years Behind The Bars," 
 at the hands of the Metropolitan press. Not one solitary line. Lastly, 
 with the exception of the Raleigh, North Carolina, "News and Observer" 
 and the Richmond "News-Leader" and the Richmond "Evening Journal" 
 not a line appeared in criticism of said book south of Mason and 
 Dixon's line. 
 
 Such a statement is enough to make the spirit of George Washing 
 ton revisit the haunts of his former activities; and damn to Hell and 
 on down as Carlyle was wont to put it the degenerate ways of the 
 people now enjoying the glorious land won for them ~by his sword. 
 The amazingly amusing spectacle in this alleged "land of the free" 
 of a law abiding citizen who has proved himself an Art Patron to 
 the tune of establishing a hundred thousand dollar Scholarship; 
 from the income of which Art Students of both sexes are sent to 
 Europe to perfect their studies in all the branches of Art from Paint 
 ing to Music and the Stage following the lines of Napoleon's Prix de 
 Rome to which he himself gave two whole years of his life, crossed 
 the ocean four times, went as far West as Cincinnati and Chicago, and 
 as far South as New Orleans, and subscribed thirteen thousand dol-
 
 180 
 
 lars the funny sight in this alleged "land of the free" of a man 
 like that, being arrested and locked up for life as a dangerous lunatic; 
 is enough to make a horse laugh, and make any citizen of this great 
 and glorious Republic capable of a moment's sustained thought outside 
 the national pursuit of the dollar, shake in his shoes for the future of 
 the United States. When said citizen delves deeper into the malodorous 
 mess known as Chaloner against Sherman he finds that all and sundry 
 charges against the plaintiff are perjuries pure and simple; upon 
 the part of relatives, either interested in getting him out of the way 
 for life, in order that they might enjoy his large and constantly grow 
 ing fortune at his death; or relatives who had quarrelled with him 
 and desired to see him in an undesirable situation. 
 
 We do not consider it necessary at this time to even hint at the 
 object the press of the United States had in attempting to smother 
 "Four Years Behind The Bars." That book was sent registered, to 
 some fifty or so leading newspapers from the Atlantic to the Pacific 
 and from the Lakes to the Gulf, with the aforesaid results. Right 
 here it might be said more in sorrow than in anger that the press 
 of the United States has ceased to represent the happenings of the day 
 throughout the United States. Instead it picks and chooses among 
 those happenings those which suit its editorial policy, its business 
 policy, its social "high-society" policy; and all other; facts it does its 
 damnedest to smother. And when smothering is out of the question, to 
 colour and otherwise distort. Such being the case we have utterly 
 and entirely ceased to expect fair play, or anything in the remotest 
 degree resembling decent treatment, or even honest truthful treatment, 
 at the hands of the press of the United States. We hasten to say 
 that there are quite a good many honourable exceptions to this rule, 
 but the vast majority of the American press is as we have pictured it, 
 towards the author of "Who's Looney Now?" and his variegated and 
 militant fortunes. Such being the case we have taken the following 
 formidable resolve, to wit, So soon as we have recovered our property 
 we shall start out on the road and with a good company, enact the role 
 of "Hugh Stutfield" in "Robbery Under Law." If we find the theatres 
 closed against us for the same reason that we find the newspapers 
 whatever that reason may be we shall follow the illustrious example 
 of Madame Sarah Bernhardt under the precise and identical circum 
 stances, and act in a tent! Having a million and a half of property 
 we are in a fairly strong position as regards carrying out to the letter 
 the above pushful programme. The first question that will present 
 itself to the reader will be "What kind of a fist) can 'Who's Looney 
 Now?' make at acting? Can he act?" To which we hasten to make 
 answer " 'Who's Looney Now?' undoubtedly can act." Thus. In the 
 first place, there is a good deal in heredity and environment at birth. 
 Now "Who's Looney Now" came within one ace of being born on the 
 stage of being actually born on the boards! The remarkable facts are 
 as follows, "Who's Looney Now's?" Mamma was very fond of the
 
 181 
 
 Theatre. The night before "Who's Looney Now?" appeared in this 
 world "Who's Looney Now's?" Mamma was seized with a desire to 
 attend a theatrical performance that was taking place on the next 
 block from the house she was then visiting. This house was the Town 
 house of her Grandfather, the late William B. Astor in LaFayette 
 Place, New York, in the shadow of the Astor Library. "Who's Looney 
 Now's?" Papa humoured his wife's whim it being the first time such 
 a thing had occurred "Who's Looney Now?" being his Mamma's first 
 born and accompanied his wife to the Play House and the best box 
 therein. Before the play was over to cut a long story short "Who's 
 Looney Now's?" Mamma had to hurry home in order to avoid a most 
 sensational denouement. 
 
 Under the circumstances aforesaid it should not be surprising to 
 an open minded reader, that "Who's Looney Now?" has had from 
 earliest childhood a penchant for the stage. Such being the fact "Who's 
 Looney Now?" has always carried it locked in the inmost recesses of 
 his breast that provided circumstances were favorable to such a sen 
 sational and unusual thing he would one day go on the stage! With 
 this secret intent he has always avoided strenuously taking any active 
 part in that morgue for histrionic ability "Private Theatricals." Two 
 facts stand out in "Who's Looney Now's?" later years, indicating his 
 ability to make g,ood on the boards. The first fact indicates ability 
 in said line. The second fact indicates serious study along and in said 
 line. Fact number one is that "Who's Looney Now?" surprised and 
 delighted his Father his Mother being now dead by taking first prize 
 in Declamation at a Military Academy, by name, "St. John's School," 
 Ossining-on-Hudson, New York; at the early age of thirteen out of a 
 school of seventy-five boys many of whom were four or five years 
 "Who's Looney Now's?" senior. Anyone who knows anything about 
 acting knows it's harder to be interesting on a naked platform against 
 a white-washed schoolroom's wall, than surrounded by all the sensu- 
 ousness and fairy glamour of the foot-lights. 
 
 Fact number two is that "Who's Looney Now?" devoted a whole 
 winter while an undergraduate at Columbia University in New York, 
 to taking lessons in gesture and intonation, the use of the throat and 
 lungs, from a professional in that line; whose business it was to train 
 professional actors that early day being long before Dramatic Acad 
 emies for fitting aspirants for the stage had been dreamed of. "Who's 
 Looney Now?" being a great admirer of Edwin Booth whom he knew 
 personally and considering him the greatest actor of his day, if not 
 of any day spent about four nights out of each week during Booth's 
 last and longest season at Booth's Theatre at 23rd Street and Sixth 
 Avenue during the same year that he was studying elocution profes 
 sionally and also sent his Dramatic Instructor aforesaid to the same 
 Theatre frequently supplying the Instructor with the necessary tick 
 ets. The next day "Who's Looney Now?" would read the soliloquies in 
 Hamlet and Richard III to the Instructor, rendering the same with
 
 182 
 
 as nearly the same tone, accent, and inflection, as Booth had given 
 them the night, or nights, before. Now a study of the features of 
 "Who's Looney Now?" in the Frontispiece, followed by a comparison 
 of said features with those of Edwin Booth, will lead to a revelation 
 of the fact that there is somewhat more than a passing likeness be 
 tween the storm-tried face of "Who's Looney Now?" and that of Edwin 
 Booth. Lastly, in said connection. The tones of "Who's Looney 
 Now's?" voice so strongly resemble those of Edwin Booth that said 
 Dramatic Instructor remarked more than once to "Who's Looney Now?" 
 upon the latter's finishing, the opening speech of Richard III or the 
 "To be or not to be" of Hamlet "If you shut your eyes it sounds as 
 tho' Booth were in this room." When to the above serious active work 
 in the Dramatic Art is added the fact that, some years later, "Who's 
 Looney Now?" carried his Lares and Penates to Paris and set them up 
 in a house or private apartment of his own for five consecutive years; 
 during which time there was hardly a week elapsed without his going 
 to the Theatre Francois at least once, if not twice, as well as once 
 or twice each week to some other of the leading French Theatres, 
 it becomes palpable to the poorest observation that "Who's Looney 
 Now?" was "going some" to Theatres to school. All this time 
 "Who's Looney Now?" had the starry end in view, to one of 
 these days provided always and only that Fate should be pro 
 pitious that circumstances should point the way to that rugged and 
 daring path of toil and disappointment and severe work the starry 
 end in view to at the proper time have a dash on the boards. And all 
 this time therefore "Who's Looney Now?" was watching Coquelin 
 Aint, or Coquelin Jeune or Mounet-Sully at the Frangais for tips 
 and points and what not, for his own particular use at the proper 
 time French Dramatic Art being as much at the top of all Dramatic 
 Art to-day, as French Painting and Sculpture and Architecture are at 
 the topmost pinnacle of their respective branches of Art to-day. 
 
 Therefore "Who's Looney Now?" would mount the stage with a far 
 from unsophisticated attitude towards the stage. Now what would 
 "Who's Looney Now?" be required to do in his initial step the step 
 that breaks the ice Ic premier pas qui coute step upon mounting 
 the stage in "Robbery Under Law?" Why nothing more difficult than 
 copy the role he had CREATED IN REAL LIFEON THE STAGE 
 OF THE WORLD when he FOUGHT GILLARD IN THE DINING- 
 ROOM AT "MERRY MILLS" THAT MARCH AFTERNOON SIX 
 YEARS AGO; or when he HELD UP THE DOCTORS IN HIS SUITE 
 AT THE HOTEL KENSINGTON THREE TIMES AS MANY YEARS 
 AGO: or later when he FOUGHT HIS STRAPPING IRISH KEEPER 
 IN HIS CELL AT "BLOOM INGDALE" UNTIL THE LATTER BEL 
 LOWED "HELP" AT THE TOP OF HIS POWERFUL LUNGS SEVEN 
 TEEN YEARS AGO: or, lastly, WHEN HE ESCAPED. The above 
 "Bloomingdale" dates are reckoned from March 13, 1915. It should 
 not be very difficult for a man to copy himself.
 
 183 
 
 If "Robbery Under Law" is a success "Who's Looney Now?" will 
 then venture on the role of "Catiline" in "The Hazard Of The Die." 
 
 Now what is the necessity forcing a millionaire like "Who's 
 Looney Now?" onto the stage? Why just this. The effort upon the 
 part of the consolidated American press to smother "Four Years Behind 
 The Bars" as aforesaid. 
 
 "Who's Looney Now?" is not the kind of man to permit a plan 
 he had devoted his entire time to furthering, fostering and pushing 
 for eighteen years to be smothered by the Press, or by any other aggre 
 gation of capital whatsoever. Since the Press are for motives best 
 known to themselves enthusiastically taking part in the thieves' game 
 of depriving "Who's Looney Now?" of his million and a half on the 
 perjured charge of insanity, why so much the worse for the American 
 press that's all. 
 
 "Who's Looney Now?" thanks the American Press for the excuse 
 for which he has waited all his life to go on the stage. It may not 
 at first appear what going on the stage has to do with smothering 
 "Who's Looney Now's?" more or less laudable efforts at reforming the 
 damnable Hell-begotten Lunacy Laws now disgracing New York, New 
 Jersey, Pennsylvania, all New England and altogether forty per cent. 
 of the States of the United States. It has just this to do with it. 
 "Who's Looney Now?" is in his third year well on in his third year 
 as a successful public lecturer on that very subject Lunacy Law Re 
 form at the "Rex" Moving Picture Theatre, 7th and Broad Streets, 
 Richmond, Virginia. He lectured there twice a month from the first 
 week in September, 1912, until January or later in 1914, when he cut 
 his appearance down to the last Sunday night in each month in place 
 of two Sunday nights in the month. He has had so little difficulty in 
 attracting audiences to the "Rex," that after the first few months, 'way 
 back in 1912, he ceased to advertise his appearance; and since then 
 has not had to pay out so much as one dollar for advertising purposes. 
 Incidentally all this time "Who's Looney Now?" was training and 
 cultivating his voice for the stage. For this purpose no better spot 
 on earth than this same "Rex" Theatre could have been chosen for 
 strengthening the voice and enabling it to shout at top pitch for an 
 hour or more above a competitive and persistent roar. For along 
 Seventh Street runs a trolley line within some twelve or fifteen feet 
 or so of the stage. The sides of the "Rex" are open at the top for 
 ventilation. Hence "Who's Looney Now's?" voice has to compete with 
 and dominate the crash and roar of a trolley car: to which is to be 
 added the brazen clang of its bell. An hour and a quarter of this 
 sort of thing once a month for two years and ai half has given "Who's 
 Looney Now?" a pair of lungs ready and willing to compete with the 
 bellowings of the bull of Bashan itself! Therefore the intelligent 
 reader will gather that there has been a method lurking in the back 
 ground of "Who's Looney Now's?" three years' shouting at the "Rex" 
 to-wit: Voice and Lung Culture.
 
 184 
 
 Having accounted for the hair on the outside, we shall now lift 
 the veil from the milk in the cocoanut and show what going on the 
 stage has to do with Lunacy Law reform. 
 
 THUS, The lectures at the "Rex" are free lectures. "Who's Looney 
 Now?" purposes to address the audiences after the fall of the curtain 
 in "Robbery Under Law," for ten minutes precisely: and put before 
 them in each city he plays in all through the United States the 
 black and foul stigma now staining the fair name of Law, Justice, and 
 Liberty in these United States in the name of Lunacy Law. 
 
 Furthermore. Each Sunday afternoon "Who's Looney Now?" will 
 hire the largest hall each city contains, and for two hours hold for*h 
 on the interesting topic of criminal lunacy legislation now masquerad 
 ing under the name of law- in 40 per cent, of the States of the Union. 
 
 These lectures will be of course free, and will be advertised a day 
 or so before in the local papers, or on bill boards and hoardings, as the 
 case may be. 
 
 "Who's Looney Now?" opines that he will draw a crowd. There 
 fore in time how long, it will take to arouse the American people 
 from their disgraceful their criminal lethargy in this matter God 
 only knows: but "Who's Looney Now?" is quite confident that before 
 he gets too old to shout or mount a platform the miracle will have 
 been enacted; and the American people will have risen to the situation, 
 wiped off the foul stain now upon their character as a law abiding, 
 law respecting, liberty loving people, and put it into their national 
 platforms that the foul farce now disgracing the Statute books of 
 about forty millions of Americans shall cease and determine, and that 
 a set of National Lunacy Laws shall be enacted which shall place 
 Lunacy Procedure on as secure and fair a basis as say, Bankruptcy.
 
 185 
 
 NOTE TO FRONTISPIECE. 
 
 THE NEWS-LEADER, Richmond, Virginia. 
 More Daily Circulation Than Any Paper Published in Virginia. 
 
 October 5, 1911. 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, 
 
 "The Merry Mills," 
 
 Cobham, Virginia. 
 
 Dear Sir : Permit me to make tardy recognition of the receipt 
 of your latest photographs, which were sent me several days ago by 
 Homeier and Clark. I thank you for them. 
 
 Under separate cover I am mailing to you a photograph of you 
 attired as Napoleon, made in this office by our artist, Mr. Criswell. 
 I trust you will pardon our taking the liberty of decapitating; you, but 
 we promise not to repeat the offense. For the dual reason that you 
 may care to have the picture, and that we may not have occasion 
 to use the picture again in view of the fact that we have a news 
 paper "cut" of it, I am presenting the likeness to you. With it I am. 
 sending you a copy of the News-Leader to show the connection in which 
 the picture was used. 
 
 As I remember, you sent to the Fair last year "The Sire of Dol- 
 gorouki" and said you would send the real "Dolgorouki" this year. 
 If you intend doing this, I would like to have a picture of his hig,hness. 
 Thanking you again for the photographs, 
 I am, yours very truly, 
 
 LOUIS A. MACMAHON. 
 Managing Editor. 
 
 The shock which the average reader will sustain at finding that 
 a newspaper editor and not "Who's Looney Now?" is responsible for 
 the above "real bargain furore" photograph to borrow the language 
 with which the writers for ladies fashion journals urge on their fair 
 readers to the fray incite them to fresh efforts at buying the shock 
 which the above "real bargain furore" photo will hand out to the aver 
 age reader as aforesaid, will be mitigated by knowing that the cause 
 of the whole trouble into which "Who's Looney Now?" was precipitated 
 like a projectile from a thirteen-inch gun, March 13th, 1897 and 
 fetched up standing in the cells of "Bloomingdale" without ever see 
 ing a judge or hearing that there was any question concerning his 
 sanity upon the cards the cause of said whole trouble is positively 
 and absolutely expressed in the following brief statement, made casu 
 ally to one or two close friends, namely: that it occurred to him that 
 Tie looked like Napoleon Bonaparte.
 
 186 
 
 "Who's Looney Now?" is positively and literally accused of being 
 stark staring crazy because he happened to casually observe on one 
 occasion, possibly two occasions, to intimate male friends that he 
 thought he resembled Napoleon Bonaparte in appearance. 
 
 Here follows the cold, hard judicial proof of the above allegation, 
 taken from the Commitment Papers signed by Judge Henry A. Gilder- 
 sleeve, Justice of the New York Supreme Court, March 10th, 1897, and 
 attached to the Proceedings, in the New York Supreme Court, before a 
 sheriff's jury against John Armstrong Chaloner, in May, 1899. On 
 line 243 of said Commitment Papers are found the following words 
 sworn to by Medical-Examiner-in-Lunacy, Moses A. Starr, M. D., Pro 
 fessor of Nervous Diseases in Columbia University Medical School 
 upon which words "Who's Looney Now?" lost some $20,000, in one 
 hundred dollars per week for a two room cell and an Irish keeper at 
 "Bloomingdale" for nearly four years besides seventeen of the best 
 and ripest years of his earthly career "State what the patient ("Who's 
 Looney Now?") said, , if anything, in presence of the examiners." 
 
 While on line 245 are found these words, to-wit: ''That he resem 
 bles Napoleon, 1 " and when the reader remembers that said damning 
 charge against "Who's Looney Now's?" reason is introduced by the 
 following sinister words printed on line 242 of said Commitment 
 Papers, to-wit: "Facts indicating insanity personally observed by me," 
 (said Moses A. Starr, M. D., Statutory-Medical-Examiner-In-Lunacy) 
 the gayety of nations is increased. 
 
 In the opening speech of Hon. Frederick A Ware, of counsel for 
 "Who's Looney Now?" at the trial of his cause ctlebre in February, 
 1912, Mr. Ware observed, to the jury, to the following effect: "Gentle 
 men of the jury, my client is accused by his accusers of being insane 
 because he happens to think he happens to look like Napoleon. Now we 
 shall show you a photograph of John Armstrong, Chaloner which will 
 make you gentlemen think the same way." Said "bargain furore" 
 photograph is the one referred to by Hon. Frederick A. Ware. 
 
 In presenting before the dazed gaze of the public said "Bargain 
 furore," we, therefore, are merely properly anticipating the rehearing 
 of "Who's Looney Now's?" cause ctlebre.
 
 "THE SHAVING OF 
 SHAGPAT" 
 
 Registered. (Copy.) 
 
 "The Merry Mills," Cobham, Va. 
 
 March 19, 1915. 
 Joseph H. Choate, Jr., Esq., 
 
 Evarts, Choate & Sherman, 
 
 60 Wall St., New York. 
 Dear Mr. Choate : 
 
 A letter just received from my New York counsel, Hon, Frederick 
 A. Ware, states that he saw your Mr. Kobb6 re the "Paris Prize" 
 matter. Mr. Ware writes : "The complaint is to ask for an Incorpora 
 tion as he says he thought you proposed doing originally. I asked 
 him about appointing you as one of the trustees; in that event, if 
 such an appointment and incorporation were agreeable to you. He 
 said that he thought that the present conditions would make that 
 unlikely, but thought that Mr. Choate might agree to your naming 
 a trustee, in your stead, all this assuming that you did not oppose 
 the incorporation." 
 
 Now I am going to be quite frank. I do oppose the incorpora 
 tion and for more than one reason. The "Paris Prize" was founded 
 by me from subscriptions raised by myself from prominent Art Pa 
 trons to which I myself subscribed thirteen thousand dollars in 
 1890 and added to later it was distinctly understood between the 
 donors aforesaid and myself, that there was to be no precipitancy of 
 incorporation. That the money was to be placed in a Trust Com 
 pany and there left until such time as it appeared advisable from 
 the experience gained by a considerable line of Paris Prize men hav 
 ing each spent five (5) years in the study of Painting first in Paris 
 later where he would. 
 
 That meantime I must have full control of the educational side 
 of the Prize and experiment as much as was found necessary along 
 the lines laid down in the original scheme of the "Paris Prize," given 
 by me to the New York Newspnpers in January, 1891, and widely 
 and prominently noticed by them and invariably strongly endorsed. 
 
 The funds, as aforesaid, were to be always until finally incor 
 porated in the hands of the United States Trust Company, Wall 
 Street. New York the Institution chosen by me as the strongest and 
 most conservative for the pvirpose in New York. The income was 
 to be expended as I might direct in consonance with the said scheme. 
 This was strictly carried out. I gathered the Jury of Artists to hold
 
 188 
 
 the competitive examination which was to be the means of selecting 
 the Paris Prize-man or Paris Prize-woman to be sent abroad. The 
 thing worked to a charm. Without any more work than the above 
 on my part, the jury consisting of the Presidents of the Academy of 
 Design, Society of American Artists, American Water Colour Society 
 and Art Students League, as well as artists selected by them in addi 
 tion I am writing at haste and entirely from memory as I remember 
 it without any more red-tape, legal fuss and feathers verbosity and 
 the like, the jury quickly went to work and worked out its own sal 
 vation in short order. Bryson Burroughs was the winner of the 
 Prize, a student at the Art Students League as I remember it. He 
 at once received his first year's payment of ($900) nine hundred 
 dollars the Prize is nine hundred dollars a year for five (5) years, 
 paid in advance, and sailed for Paris. He stayed there five (5) 
 years yearly sending back work signed and examined by a local jury 
 of prominent French Artists, who met at the United States Embassy 
 at a lunch given them by the American Ambassador. 
 
 Puvis de Chavannes, Carolus Duran, Gerome, Benjamin Constant 
 and Dagnan Bouveret, formed the first Foreign Jury. Mr. Burroughs 
 proved such a successful painter that now, besides being an active 
 painter, he occupies the important post of Curator of Paintings at thp 
 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. So soon as he returned a 
 new "Paris Prize" examination was held and Lawton Parker was 
 chosen. He was a student at the Wm. M. Chase Art School as I re 
 member it. He remained five years in Paris, and his work regularly 
 inspected, as above described, and sent home, was uniformly satis 
 factory. At the end of the five (5) years instead of coming to America 
 he remained in France. In 1913 he startled the world of painting by 
 receiving the Gold Medal the First and Highest Award at the Paris 
 Salon, he being not only the first American for not even John Sargent 
 has ever received it, nor Whistler but the flrst foreigner the first 
 non-Frenchman to receive the Gold Medal since its creation! These 
 are the only two products of the "Paris Prize." Why this is thus, 
 you, my dear sir, know better than I. The money was all there for 
 holding the competitive examinations, and yet not a wheel was turned 
 nothing was done the "Paris Prize" was gently swathed in a wind 
 ing sheet, and, like the talent in the Bible buried in the ground to 
 await the resurrection or my demise. However, that is rather a 
 painful subject, for you gentlemen ranged on the other side, so we 
 shall not discuss it further. 
 
 However, that is no reason for giving the "Paris Prize" the "raw- 
 deal" you now propose In Incorporating it without the guiding hand 
 of her creator my humble self. The absurdity of the acts of the 
 law at times would make a horse laugh. Here is the creator of the 
 Prise refused a seat on the Board of Trustees, simply because he has 
 not yet had the opportunity to present his case in court before a court 
 that will recognize the rulings of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States in Windsor vs. McVeigh, 93 U. S. which says "notice" and
 
 189 
 
 "opportunity" to appear and be heard are necessary in order that 
 the court of first instance get jurisdiction. However, I have no idea 
 of entering on a legal argument with you on paper. I look forward 
 with considerable gusto to doing that in my approaching brief on 
 appeal to the United States Supreme Court in Chal. agst. Sher.; on 
 which I am now at work. To resume. The "Paris Prize" has only 
 sent two (2) Prize-men abroad that is not a very long list of ex 
 perimental students, is it? 
 
 To a lawyer or as a business man it should be unnecessary to dilate 
 upon the risk of incorporating an Educational Scheme as new and 
 untried as the Paris Prize, until it had been tried out. So long as 
 the Financial End was in safe-keeping, everything was serene. Noth 
 ing could 'be surer than the United States Trust Company. The fifty 
 thousand dollars stands in the name of the "Paris Prize Fund," by 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, or some such caption, on the books of the 
 United States Trust Company. No power on earth could get a dollar 
 of that fund more than the income without a court order and no 
 one teas permitted to touch the income but myself, wJio receipted to 
 the said Trust Company for each annual payment or semi-annual 
 at this distance I don't care to say positively what the frequency of 
 payment was, more than that it was in advances not more than one 
 year or less than one-half year in advances to the Prize-man. I then 
 sent by draft the money to the "Paris Prize-man" in Paris, and turned 
 the vouchers among which was his receipt over to the U. S. T. Co. 
 where they are or should be to this day. What in the name of 
 the Devil and all his angels, my dear Sir, is the use of all this red 
 tape about incorporating the Fund while you "Stewards" to continue 
 the parable are so remiss in your duty that you refuse to take my 
 lead, refuse to follow the established honoured precedents of ten years 
 successful Art Education in Paris, as proved by the "brilliant careers 
 of the only two Prize-men you "Stewards" permitted, thro' your supine- 
 ness, and lack of regard for public education in Art and indifference 
 to philanthropic ends your minds and eyes, being so glued onto the 
 dollars and their sordid shape, that the object for which the Fifty 
 Thousand Dollars then years and years ago making up the Paris Prize 
 Fund now nearer Seventy-five Thousand dollars were raised, was 
 quite forgotten! Why didn't you get a move on your distinguished 
 selves and follow my lead in the case of Paris Prizemen Bryson Bur 
 roughs and Lawton Parker? There's a question for the jury indeed! 
 Therefore I do not propose to have all this undue haste mind you the 
 Prize has sent only 2 students to Paris thanks to you gentlemens' 
 sloth and indifference, aforesaid in incorporating when nothing calls 
 for the red tape and rigidity incorporation means at this stage of the 
 game, whereas the Educational side is left naked and bare. The Edu 
 cational side bear in mind is self-acting or was when I was at the 
 wheel in 1896 aforesaid. 
 
 The Educational Institutions in Art forming the Home jury are 
 still in existence or their successors and could come together as
 
 190 
 
 readily as they did to elect Bryson Burroughs and Lawton Parker. 
 Bend your bounding energies to sending a needy but gifted American 
 Art Student to Paris, my dear sir, rather than in attempts at hide- 
 binding a thing as free as Art, and at the same time as safe as the 
 United States Trust Company with premature incorporation. Lastly : 
 Things are rather upset on the continent just at present. And from 
 my way of looking at it they will continue so, for at least two (2) 
 years. Therefore at that time when Chaloner agst. Sherman reaches 
 the United States Supreme Court on Appeal at that very time will 
 the Allies enter Berlin so mote it be there or thereabouts. There 
 after all will be serene on both sides of the Atlantic. You and your 
 friend Mr. Sherman, will be invited by the Federal Court to step 
 down and out, and take your long noses out of my affairs, and your 
 long fingers out of my well-lined coffers. Thereupon a new examina 
 tion for a Paris Prizeman can be held by the aforesaid Art Presidents, 
 and a Paris Prizeman will sail into a French port, as I sail into your 
 and Sherman's conduct of my affairs. In a word, now is about the 
 worst possible time ever since the French Revolution at least to 
 rehabilitate the "Paris Prize" in Paris, after the "black-eye" your mis 
 conduct aforesaid wilfully administered to this great and unique 
 scholarship the only self -supporting Art Scholarship for Painting in 
 the metropolis of the United States! So what's the matter, my dear 
 sir, with letting sleeping dog;s lie? You put the "Paris Prize" to sleep, 
 by your acts aforesaid why not let her sleep on? You put her to. 
 sleep for nine (9) calendar years (9) ! Is there anything in law or 
 equity against letting her sleep on for a short tioo more until my 
 resurrection from the dead you know you gentlemen rendered me 
 "civilly dead" and although / personally rose from my legal resting 
 place, my property lingers in the tomb my legal grave Novembei 
 6th, 1901, when the county court of Albemarle County, Va., this 
 County pronounced me sane and competent ; in place of what your 
 criminal proceedings in the New York Courts procured by and based* 
 upon, kidnapping, conspiracy and perjury basely libelled me with. 
 
 So, my good sir, pray let well enough alone. Show a little de 
 cency whether you happen to have any or not pretend to, for once, 
 and let well enough alone. Don't make a fool of yourself and ask the 
 court what to do with the piffling little remnant of income in the second 
 rate Trust Company, put there by the late Charles F. McKim the 
 partner of my good friend and stool-pigeon the late lamented Mr. 
 Stanford White don't do that pray the court to order the said pica 
 yune sum to be turned over to the "Paris Prize Fund" nmc in hand* 
 of the United States Trust Company where it belongs. 
 
 I shall oppose in the courts any other action than this, and fight 
 you through every court in New York, and then begin in the Federal 
 Court, and fight you clean up to the Supreme Court of the United 
 States. "Let us have peace." 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 JOHN ARMSTRONG CHALONER.
 
 191 
 
 P. S. A word regarding the "Paris Prize Fund." The other 
 subscribers are a bagatelle alongside my subscription. Thus: I really 
 subscribed thirteen thousand plus twenty-five thousand Thus. My late 
 cousin, Henry Astor Carey, was dining with me one night at the 
 Somerset Club in Boston. An idea occurred to me. I said to him : 
 "Harry, you have been very generous to the "Paris Prize," you have 
 given more to it than any Art Patron I ever approached twice as 
 much in fact. Now, do one thing more. You're a millionaire and a 
 bachelor. We are both of us in the prime of life and healthy, and 
 you are younger than I. Now which ever one of us dies first leaves 
 twenty-five thousand dollars to the "Paris Prize Fund" of course 
 as it's not yet incorporated you must, to be legal leave it to me 
 "with the wish and hope that I pay it over to the 'Paris Prize Fund' 
 as soon as incorporated. I'll do the same." "Done with you," said 
 my generous cousin. The lawyer he had was one of your gang, Henry 
 Lewis Morris, familiarly known to the New York bar as "Hungry 
 Hank." 
 
 Carey went to him and said he wanted to change his will. "Hungry 
 Hanlc" staved it off until Carey died about May, 1893, and the money 
 was never left, because the new will was never made, thanks to 
 "Hungry Hank's" aforesaid unlawyerlike, to call it by no harsher term, 
 proceeding I told his brother the facts and he generously he could 
 well afford it, as he was a millionaire anyway, and Henry Astor 
 Carey's death doubled his million at the very least and he gener 
 ously made good, and paid me personally twenty-five thousand dol 
 lars in gilt edged bonds. So my foresight in thus discounting death 
 gambling on it, so to speak enables me to say that, in effect my real 
 subscription to the Paris Prize, the amount standing opposite my 
 name Henry Astor Carey's name is there also is my original dona 
 tion of thirteen thousand dollars, and said twenty-five thousand dol 
 lars, making thirty-eight thousand dollars. I differentiate thus be 
 tween the five thousand Henry Astor Carey subscribed himself, per 
 sonally, to the Fund, at its incipiency. That stands opposite his name 
 as his subscription pure and simple. But tnis twenty-five thousand 
 was not given by him, it was given by his brother, out of money left 
 by him, in accordance with an agreement made by me with him, prior 
 to his death. So you see all this talk about "the wishes of the other 
 subscribers to the Fund" t regarding the present conduct of the Fund 
 is very like piffle and poppycock, and about the weight of thistledown, 
 or as the very modest subscription of the multi-millionaires in the 
 game are to Henry Astor Carey's subscription of five thousand dol 
 lars, and the thirty-eight thousand dollar subscription of myself backed 
 by his ghost so to speak. Here are all the subscriptions 1 and amounts 
 in the order as given all made between November and Xmas, 1890. 
 
 tChoate had in a previous letter, in the matter, lugged in that 
 phrase by the ears. J. A. C.
 
 192 
 
 The late Laura Astor Delano $ 1,000 00 
 
 Mrs. John J. Chapman 1,000 00 
 
 William Waldorf Astor 1,500 00 
 
 Henry Astor Carey (deceased) 5,000 00 
 
 The late William Astor 2,500 00 
 
 The late Cornelius Vanderbilt 2,500 00 
 
 $ 13,500 00 
 
 There were six subscribing Art Patrons besides myself. More 
 than half of them are dead. They gave $13,500, and I and the ghost 
 gave $38,500. 
 
 This list is made entirely from memory and without notes but it 
 is certainly all that was subscribed by other Art patrons. I may 
 have subscribed five hundred dollars, more or less, than thirteen thou 
 sand, or possibly rather more than that, but the essential thing is that 
 the above are all the other subscribers and subscriptions, besides my 
 self, and Carey's Ghost who, together the ghost and I subscribed 
 $38,000, or $38,500. 
 
 JOHN ARMSTRONG CHALONER. 
 
 N. Y. Herald, January 26th, 1891. 
 
 "FOB THE BENEFIT OF AMERICAN ART." 
 
 A Notable Foreign Scholarship Scheme Practically Established. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner's Project. 
 
 . The Brooklyn Art Club Display and Various Shows By Painters. 
 
 An excellent scheme for the benefit of American Art has been* 
 elaborated and made actual by that energetic gentleman Mr. John 
 Armstrong Chaloner, a great-grandson of William B. Astor, and a 
 grandson of Mr. Sam Ward, who married Miss Amelie Rives, a lady 
 who to her reputation as a writer, has added in considerable degree 
 that of an Artist. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner, who returned from Europe at the end of November, 
 has raised in this city, being himself a substantial contributor, the 
 sum of $25,000 for the purpose of sending abroad for five years study 
 to return and teach at the close, an American Art student, who will 
 be allowed $900 yearly. The amount of the fund is to be paid at 
 the end of the first week in August, and the examination will be 
 held in the first week of next June. The fund under trustees will
 
 193 
 
 be incorporated under the laws of the State, and the candidate is to 
 leave for Paris the first week in September. 
 
 Mr. Ohaloner has not alone raised all the money before he has 
 made his project public, but has enlisted in its favor, with accept 
 ances to serve on the Jury such men as Daniel Huntington, President 
 of the National Academy, Henry G. Marquand, President of the Metro 
 politan Museum of Art, William M. Chase, President of the Society 
 or American Artists, J. G. Brown, President of the American Water 
 Color Society, and E. D. French, President of the Art Students League. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner having made his scheme possible in New York has 
 since made tentatory efforts to the establishment of similar funds in 
 Chicago, Boston and Richmond, and has laid his project informally 
 from a National standpoint, before Secretary of State Blaine, who 
 has unofficially given it his sanction. 
 
 The idea is to send abroad a male or female student, who is 
 to study in any centre of Art selected by the jury, and study painting 
 pure and simple, and decorating. It is thought that such a student 
 should study abroad for five years, and it is calculated that the sum 
 already mentioned would amply suffice for his needs. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner naturally thinks that people will wonder why he 
 should start such a scheme, and as many people have asked him Ms 
 object, announces that he has become interested in the matter, as he 
 has for four years, guaranteed $1,000 a year to a young American 
 Artist abroad, and is to continue that agreement for six more years. 
 He says that the improvement of this artist when freed so largely 
 from financial cares, has been marked. 
 
 The fund is to be controlled by a Society consisting of or ap 
 pointed by the donors, and the candidate is to be chosen by Com 
 petitive Examination, in drawing, painting and composition, the jury 
 being chosen from the Art Association or associations of the city or 
 cities in which the fund or funds is or are raised. 
 
 The fund is to have two branches, the financial and the artistic, 
 each distinct. The latter branch in this city is to consist of the 
 Presidents of the Academy of Design, Society of American Artists, 
 American Water Color Society, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Art 
 Students League, and two Artists chosen by the Society of American 
 Artists, the Academy of Design, Art Students League and the American 
 Water Color Society, making a jury of thirteen. 
 
 Candidates must be twenty-one and residents or coming from the 
 State in which the fund is raised, the latter clause covering stu 
 dents already abroad. No one who has received a medal or mention 
 abroad will be eligible. Should the winner be financially able he or 
 she will receive the artistically valuable honor of being chosen, and 
 the money will go to the holder of the second place. 
 
 Every three months drawings, oils, decorations or compositions 
 signed by the Master are to be sent to the jury, and if the work 
 is not up to standard the jury may order an examination for a new 
 candidate at the end of the first year. Prolonged ill-health will re-
 
 194 
 
 suit also in a new examination. The successful candidates are to 
 sign agreements to return and teach classes, to be selected by the 
 jury, gratis for two years. If no suitable candidate is chosen in any 
 one year the fund will be allowed to accumulate until a worthy can 
 didate is discovered. 
 
 The financial body of the fund is to consist of a Society of or 
 appointed by the donors and incorporated, the fund to be turned over 
 to a Trust Company. 
 
 It is hoped that in time the cities will increase the funds to 
 $60,000 thus enabling the sending of a student every year. 
 
 It is suggested to have a National jury, which is to be composed 
 of deputies from the Artistic branches to meet at least at the be 
 ginning, middle and end of five years. This Assembly is to have no 
 control over the local institutions, but is to have as an object the 
 holding of a National Salon, candidates being Jiors concours, and award 
 prizes to them and others, foreign or American. 
 
 Another suggestion is for an European Council, appointed by the 
 National Assembly, to yearly report progress of students to the Na 
 tional Assembly or to the local institutions. Examinations might, if 
 need be, be held abroad by the European Council. 
 
 The New York World, January 26, 1891. 
 
 AN ART STUDENTS FUND. 
 
 To Grive Foreign Training to Those Who Deserve It. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner's Scheme to Aid All Worthy Aspirants. 
 
 It is estimated that $900 a year will be needed for each student 
 and that a thorough course will cover five years twenty-five thou 
 sand dollars already subscribed for New York. 
 
 Following the agitation regarding an American Salon for which 
 plans are to be formulated at a meeting next Tuesday evening comes 
 another plan of equal interest and importance to American Art, the 
 idea of which originated with Mr. John Armstrong Chaloner, the 
 grandson of the late "Sam" Ward, who married Miss Amelie Rives, 
 the Virginia authoress. Mr. Chaloner, who, through his mother, for 
 merly Miss Ward, is a great-grandson of the late William B. Astor, 
 is a young man of education and property. While a student in the 
 Latin quarter in Paris in 1887, he became interested in a young fellow 
 American, an art student who was endeavoring to secure a professional 
 education in the gay capital with insufficient means. He decided to aid 
 the young man and this led to his taking a deep interest in the sub 
 ject of American Art students in Paris. 
 
 After much study of the matter and direct knowledge of the
 
 195 
 
 privations to which inaiiy promising American Art students were sub 
 jected in their efforts to secure needed art education, Mr. Chaloner 
 determined to organize a scheme by which sufficient and proper finan 
 cial aid should be given to all deserving American students who might 
 wish to go to Paris hereafter to pursue their studies. 
 
 He estimated from his experience in the case of the student he 
 had aided that $900 a year would be needed to properly educate and 
 provide for the needs of each student and so last November he re 
 turned to America and after much thought and study, he devised 
 a plan which he proceeded to lay before a number of Art patrons 
 and connoisseurs, about twenty in all in this city. 
 
 This met with the approval and endorsement of these persons 
 and has resulted in the subscription of $25,000, which is a good nucleus 
 for a larger fund to be raised in this and other cities. The names 
 of the individual donors to this fund will be given when the money 
 is paid in the first week of August next. Among them are men 
 and women prominent in the art, social, business and literary worlds 
 of the metropolis. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner has in furtherance of his scheme visited Washington, 
 where he called on Secretary Elaine and secured his unofficial endorse 
 ment as a matter of National importance, and Chicago, where he has 
 interested several leading men in his plans. The matter has also 
 been laid before prominent gentlemen and ladies of Boston and Rich 
 mond, Va., with encouraging results. 
 
 Briefly outlined, Mr. Chaloner's plan is to raise a sufficient sum 
 of money to guarantee a five years course of study abroad to any Art 
 student from any city. Forty-five hundred dollars, or $900 a year is 
 considered sufficient for this purpose in each case. The fund sub 
 scribed for this purpose is to be held by a Society consisting of, or 
 appointed by the donors. The candidates are to be chosen by com 
 petitive examination in drawing, painting and composition under the 
 auspices of a jury chosen from the existing Academy or Academies 
 or Institutes of Art in each city. The fund in each city is entirely 
 distinct and separate from the similar fund in other cities and its 
 control is purely local. 
 
 The $25,000 subscribed in New York will be payable early in 
 August next, and the examination of candidates will take place here 
 early next June. The candidate who passes the examination will 
 leave for Paris early in September next. 
 
 The New York Fund will be placed under the management of an 
 organization to be incorporated under the title of the "Institution 
 of Art of New York," which is to be composed of two branches, the 
 artistic and the financial. The jury is to number thirteen, and will 1 
 be composed of the Presidents of the Academy of Design, Society 
 of American Artists, American Water Color Society, Metropolitan Mu 
 seum and Art Students League, and two artists to be selected re 
 spectively from the Society of American Artists, Academy of Design, 
 Art Students League, and American Water Color Society. This jury.
 
 196 
 
 will pass on all candidates, decide to which foreign city the candi 
 date is to be sent, and transact all Art business. The competition is 
 to be open to women as well as men. The candidates must be twenty- 
 one years old, and must reside in or come from the State in which 
 any Institution of Art, which will be modelled upon that of New York 
 is situated. No person who has received a medal or honorable men 
 tion in any foreign Art exhibition will be eligible, and if any winning 
 candidate has sufficient means to be independent of the fund, he or 
 she will not receive any money, but will receive the title of "Winner 
 of the Paris Prize," or whatever title is selected while the person 
 holding second place in the competition will receive the $900 per an 
 num and his or her name will be bracketed with, but below that of 
 the winner of the prize. Both the winner and the second candidate 
 in this case are to return home and teach at the expiration of their 
 joint term. 
 
 Before receiving any money the successful candidate must agree 
 to send home every three months, drawings, and when sufficiently 
 advanced, oil studies, decorations or compositions signed by the Master 
 under whom he or she has worked to be passed upon by the jury of 
 the Institution from which he or she has come. If the work fall 
 below the standard required by the jury and the jury after warning 
 the candidate and assuring themselves that it is not a temporary 
 fluctuation in the work will notify the student that at the end of the 
 year a new examination will be held and a new candidate chosen. 
 This same rule will apply in case of ill-health. 
 
 Second The candidates will be required to sign a contract that he 
 or she, will, at the expiration of five years, return to his or her home 
 city and teach a class selected by the home jury, for a term of two 
 years, gratis. If no candidate is found worthy any year, none will 
 be sent abroad, and the fund will be allowed to accumulate until a 
 worthy candidate is discovered. 
 
 The financial branch of each Institution of Art will be composed 
 of the donors of the fund, and persons appointed by them, and will 
 transact all financial business. The fund will be invested by this 
 fcranch and deposited with a Trust Company. Sixty thousand dollars 
 has been placed as the sum which should be raised by each Institution 
 of Art, which at 5 per cent, will enable each to send a candidate 
 abroad every year. Mr. Chaloner also suggests a National Assembly, to 
 be composed of deputies elected by the first branches of each Institution 
 of Art, to meet at different cities in turn at the beginning, middle 
 and end of each term of five years at least. This Assembly will hold 
 National Exhibitions, in which the work of successful candidates will 
 be hors concours and award prizes to both native and foreign artists. 
 whose work is up to the required standard of admission. A European 
 Council is also suggested to be appointed by the National Assembly 
 and to report progress to the latter from year to year, or directly 
 to different Institutions of Art.
 
 197 
 
 Editorial. 
 New York Daily Tribune, January 29th, 1891. 
 
 "Mr. John Armstrong Chaloner is meeting with success in promot 
 ing his plan to advance the interests of Art, by providing funds for 
 the education of Art students. The plan is a practical one, and has 
 received approval from high authorities. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner has interested many people here in his praiseworthy 
 undertaking, and will shortly visit Boston, Chicago and other cities, 
 in order to arouse their public-spirited citizens to the importance of 
 the work which he has at heart. 
 
 New York Tribune. 
 
 New York, Monday, January 26, 1891. 
 
 TO AID ART STUDENTS. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner Is Raising A Fund. 
 
 A plan to establish an institution for helping worthy young men 
 and women to gain a Parisian education. 
 
 The artists of America have found a champion in John Armstrong 
 Chaloner, a great-grand son of William B. Astor and a grandson of 
 "Sam" Ward. Mr. Chaloner is a young man who, although he de 
 clares that he is not an artist, is an enthusiast on the subject of 
 art, and especially American Art. His wife, who was Amelie Rives, 
 the novelist, is studying Art in Paris. 
 
 A few years ago while living in the Latin Quarter, in Paris, Mr. 
 Chaloner met a poor but talented American Art student, to whom 
 he guaranteed $1,000 a year for ten years to enable him to prosecute 
 his art studies freely. In helping this man the idea occurred to him 
 of raising a fund the income of which should be devoted to defraying 
 the expenses of American Artists while studying abroad, in case they 
 were unable to pay their own way. 
 
 Among the American residents of London and Paris he raised 
 $11,000, of which he contributed $2,500 himself. He then came to New 
 York and has organized a Society, which is to be incorporated under 
 the laws of this State by the name of the Institution of Art of New 
 York, unless some other name is decided upon previously. He has 
 also raised in this city $14,000, making a total fund of $25,000, which, 
 it is expected, will be further increased by voluntary contributions. 
 
 The institution of Art is to consist of two branches. The first to 4 
 be the artistic branch, and the second to be the financial branch. Each 
 branch will be absolutely separate and distinct from the other, and
 
 198 
 
 while one will look after the artistic element, the other will simply 
 attend to the financial affairs of the institution. 
 
 There will also be a jury to examine candidates and pass upon 
 their work after they have been sent abroad and to determine the 
 details of their studies. The ex-officio members of this jury, which 
 will be under the control of the first branch will be the President of 
 the National Academy of Design, President of the Metropolitan Mu 
 seum of Art, President of the Art Students League, President of the 
 Society of American Artists, and the President of the American Water- 
 Color Society. The other members of the jury will consist of two 
 artists elected by each of the following: The National Academy of 
 Design, the Art Students League, the American Water Color Society 
 and the Society of American Artists. 
 
 The second branch will consist of members appointed by the con 
 tributors to the fund or their appointees, who will transact all the 
 financial business of the institution and control the fund. The fund 
 will be deposited with a trust company and only its income will be 
 used. 
 
 The competition for the Paris Fund, as it will be called, will be 
 open to women as well as men. The candidates must be twenty-one 
 years old, and as it is expected that institutions of art will be estab 
 lished in. all the principal cities in the country, they must live in 
 the State in which the institution which selects them is situated. No 
 person who has received a medal in any foreign art exhibition will 
 be eligible. If the candidate who passes the examination before the 
 jury has sufficient means not to need the income of the fund, he 
 will not receive money, but will have the title "Winner of the Paris 
 Prize," or whatever title is selected by the jury conferred upon him. 
 The winner of the second prize will receive the money. 
 
 A condition to which candidates must agree is that they must 
 send home every three months drawings, and later oil studies, decora 
 tions or compositions signed by the masters under whom they are 
 studying. If these samples of the work fall below the standard of the 
 jury, the jury, after warning them will inform the candidate that at 
 the end of the year a new examination must be held and a new can 
 didate selected, the same conditions will apply to those in ill health. 
 Candidates must sign a contract that at the end of five years abroad 
 they will return and teach an art class for two years for nothing. 
 Mr. Chaloner also suggests organizing a National Art Assembly, com 
 posed of delegates from all the proposed Institutions of art in the 
 country, which will be separate and distinct from one another, to 
 which assembly the work of the candidates will be submitted.
 
 199 
 
 The New York World, January 29th, 1891. 
 
 TO FORM A "BEAUX ARTS." 
 
 A Development of Mr. Chaloner's Educational Scheme. 
 
 The success which crowned the efforts of John Armstrong Chaloner 
 of this city, in originating and perfecting the scheme for sending 
 American Art students abroad has encouraged him to develop the idea 
 further. He has long entertained the view that America was ripe 
 for the establishment of a genuine Beaux Arts, or system of educa 
 tion to embrace all the higher arts. Mr. Chaloner raised $25,000 in 
 25 days to enable American students in painting and drawing to 
 secure a competent education, as described in the World of Monday. 
 
 He is now confident of being able to duplicate this excellent work 
 so as to give the same facilities to students in acting, sculpture, archi 
 tecture, and vocal and instrumental music. 
 
 His ideas were brought down to a practical and simple basis be 
 fore he outlined the scheme to any of his friends, and have already 
 received enthusiastic endorsement. Edwin Booth, after careful ex 
 amination of Mr. Chaloner's plan, yesterday sent him the following 
 letter of cordial approval. 
 
 The Players, 
 16 Gramercy Park. 
 New York, January 28, 1891. 
 Dear Mr. Chaloner: 
 
 Your scheme is an excellent one. and tends towards the cultiva 
 tion of the actor. With the same end in view, I established Booth's 
 Theatre ; in the hope that it would become, in time, a training school 
 for the American actor. This failed through my business experience 
 being less than my professional. One of the advantages of your 
 plan is that the business part of it will be in the hands of business 
 men, and the artistic in the hands of artists. 
 
 I feel quite sure that the details of your plan can be arranged 
 so that the novice can receive here the requisite training to put him 
 or her in a position to begin their work on the stage. 
 
 Your suggestion is a good one that the novice, after receiving this 
 training should spend a year or two abroad stopping long enough in 
 the different capitals to familiarize himself with the methods of the 
 different continental schools. 
 
 Wishing the plan success, I am, 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 EDWIN BOOTH. 
 
 In explanation of the details of his plan Mr. Chaloner said to 
 a World reporter who saw him yesterday : 
 
 "The Institution of Art," if no better name be found, is the en-
 
 200 
 
 tering wedge of the Beaux Arts and Conservatoire, under an Ameri 
 can name in each city of the union, which approves the scheme and 
 is interested enough to establish an Institution of Art." 
 
 "How much money will it need?" "Not as much as you would 
 think," replied Mr. Chaloner. "Jour thousand five hundred dollars 
 guaranteed every five years is sufficient to send a new Art student 
 abroad every five years and maintain him or her there an equal period. 
 For permanency it would be better to subscribe the capital necessary 
 to produce this sum at 5 per cent interest. If this plan meets with 
 approval it is presumed that the capital, $18,000, will, in time, be 
 increased to $60,000, a capital sufficient at 5 per cent interest to send 
 one art student abroad and support him or her there for a term of 
 five years, and so to do this every 12 months. The same capital would 
 enable a student of either sex in any of the proposed branches of 
 Art to be sent abroad for the same length of time, and under prac 
 tically the same conditions. These branches of Art are included ; 
 sculpture, architecture, acting, and in music, the violin, the cello, the 
 piano, and the human voice. Other branches of Art in which the 
 public is interested may be added." 
 
 "How would this scheme operate?" "This," replied Mr. Chaloner, 
 "would in time give to every city which has an Institution of Art 
 a united Beaux Arts, and Conservatoire where these lines of Art 
 would be taught under management entirely individual and distinct 
 but parallel, having in view Art as a common end." 
 
 Mr. Chaloner is confident that this will supply u distinct want 
 and the success which he has already met with justifies him in the 
 belief that it will meet with hearty and substantial approval. He 
 will visit all of the principal cities in the country, and submit the 
 plan for consideration, the intent being that it shall be truly National 
 in its operation. Daniel Huntington, President of the Academy of 
 National Design, has written Mr. Chaloner, congratulating him upon 
 the success of his scheme to establish an Art Scholarship Fund, and 
 accepting the position of one of the jury of award. Letters to the 
 same effect have been received by Mr. Chaloner from President Henry 
 G. Marquand, of the Metropolitan Museum of Art President E. D. 
 French, of the Art Student's League, and President J. G. Brown, of 
 the American Water Color Society. All speak in enthusiastic com 
 mendation of the scheme. William M. Chase has also expressed his 
 approval in a characteristic letter, in which he says "the scheme is 
 a magnificent one." Augustus St. Gaudens, the sculptor has also writ 
 ten him, approving of the plan proposed. Mr. Chaloner will leave 
 for Boston on Friday.
 
 201 
 
 IN RE JOSEPH H. CHOATE, JR., AND T. TITTLEBAT SHERMAN. 
 
 Having; received no reply to our above letter to Joseph H. Choate, 
 Jr., it becomes incumbent upon us to lift the veil a little higher over 
 his dark-lantern methods. To that end we print all that was written 
 by him in a letter dated February 8, 1915, to a member of our office 
 force upon the subject of the "Paris Prize Fund." In reading the 
 excerpt the observant reader will note the nasty sneer at the Prize 
 contained in the following phrase, to wit: "the so called Paris Prize 
 Fund." Why "so called"? 
 
 But sneering comes natural to Joseph H. Choate, Jr. It is in fact 
 bred in the bone from his hard featured Papa Joseph H. Choate, Sr., 
 than whom a more cold-blooded, colder-hearted attorney never stared a 
 witness out of countenance on the stand. 
 
 But something far more sinister than a sneer which after all, Is 
 more a question of good taste and good breeding, good bringing up 
 and gentle forbears something more sinister than the underbreeding 
 displayed by Joseph H. Choate, Jr., is! at issue here. And that sinister 
 thing is nothing less than the practical admission on the evidence 
 of said following excerpt, and also on the evidence of Joseph H. 
 Choate's statement in his brief on appeal to the Federal Circuit Court 
 for the Southern District of New York (New York City) in Chalonvr 
 against Sherman that said promising offshoot of that promising old 
 party Joseph H. Choate, Sr., has made up his nefarious mind to nothing 
 less than appropriate the thirty-eight thousand five hundred dollars 
 subscribed by us, as above described, which now after more than 
 twenty years with interest added amounts to about seventy-five thou 
 sand dollars to what said Joseph H. Choate, Jr., jauntily describes 
 as "the so-called Paris Prize Fund." That is a startling remark to 
 apply even to a man living in a place like the city of New York 
 where the motto taking the place of "God Bless Our Home" over 
 pretty nearly every mantel-piece is "Get Rich. Honestly If You Can. 
 But Get Rich Anyway." We hasten to make good said startling re 
 mark by inserting herewith said excerpt. 
 
 Our distinguished adversary shows the cloven hoof unmistakably 
 in the sinister closing sentence of his remarkably frank letter, to wit: 
 "In such an action the Court can dispose of the Fund by directing its 
 return to the subscribers. 
 Said excerpt, to-wit : 
 
 "Mr. Sherman has recently been approached by representatives of 
 the Bankers Trust Company in which has been deposited from time 
 to time income from the so-called Paris Prize Fund. Some of these 
 deposits were made by Mr. St. Gaudens and Mr. McKim, both of whom 
 have of course died. The Trust Company desiring to have its responsi 
 bility in regard to this Fund defined and limited, insists that some 
 proceedings be taken to secure the appointment of a custodian or 
 trustee of the Fund in succession to the deceased, and states its in-
 
 202 
 
 tention to bring such proceedings unless what it wants can be accom 
 plished otherwise. As the United States Trust Company also holds 
 part of the Fund, and as each of the two companies is interested in 
 only the portion held by it, no proceeding brought by either could 
 eettle all the questions involved. I have therefore advised Mr. Sher 
 man that the time has come for him to act upon the instructions con 
 tained in the order of the Appellate Division dated June 24, 1912, con 
 firming his annual account for the preceding year, and take steps to 
 ascertain the rights of the several parties interested in the Paris Prize 
 Fund and to secure the instructions of the Court as to its disposition. 
 For this purpose he proposes to bring an action to which the living 
 subscribers to the Fund, the representatives of those who have died, 
 the two Trust Companies, and Mr. Chaloner shall be parties. In such 
 an action the Court can dispose of the Fund either by carrying out 
 as nearly as may be its original purpose or by directing its return to 
 the subsribers. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 JOSEPH H. CHOATE, JR." 
 
 Now, we have shown above that "Who's Looney Now?" subscribed 
 thirty-eight thousand, five hundred dollars $38,500 or at least he and 
 his generous cousin, Henry Astor Carey's ghost to "the socalled Paris 
 Prize Fund."t So far so good. Now it must be borne in mind that 
 Joseph H. Choate's side-partner in the proposed spoliation of the 
 largest Art Scholarship as above described in the City of New 
 York that said distinguished practitioner's side-partner in this dia 
 bolical plot against an Educational Fund, by New York legal practi 
 tioners namely that featherweight lawyer that dummy and block 
 head figure head, in the firm of Evarts, Choate and Sherman, to-wit: 
 Thomas Tittlebat Sherman is in the eye of the majestic brand of 
 bunco-law ruling the New York Courts, both State and Federal, in 
 the guise of Lunacy Procedure the actual "subscriber" of said thirty- 
 eight thousand five hundred dollars! For said Tittlebat Sherman is 
 the "committee" falsely so-called of "Who's Looney Now's person 
 and estate in the revered State of New York. Therefore anything 
 subscribed by "Who's Looney Now?" to the "Paris Prize Fund" would 
 in due course provided Choate and Sherman succeeded in "pulling 
 off" their "job," and "cracking" their way into the safe where now 
 repose the Funds of said Paris Prize therefore anything subscribed 
 by "Who's Looney Now?" to the Paris Prize Fund would, in due 
 course, find its way to the bottomless pockets of Choate and Sherman. 
 Now if Choate and Sherman were honest men instead of what they are 
 
 tBy an oversight caused by not having the books of the Paris 
 Prize Fund at hand two thousand dollars should be subtracted from 
 said amount and credited to Arthur Astor Carey who subscribed 
 said sum. Said amount now amounts after more than twenty years 
 with interest added to some seventy-five thousand dollars.
 
 203 
 
 on the evidence safe-blowers of Educational Funds there would be no 
 serious harm accruing from the transfer of the thirty-eight thousand 
 five hundred to the bottomless pockets of the two distinguished 
 gentlemen aforesaid. But the ways of the Wall Street lawyers 
 are getting to be as crooked as the ways of Wall Street magnates 
 as base and vile as the John D. Rockefellers, William Rockefellers, and 
 the late lamented noble exponents of Christianity in business that 
 bluff old pirate, H. H. Rogers; and that undersized pirate E. H. Harri- 
 man not forgetting the Father of Wall Street crimes against the 
 public and stock-rigging, that smooth little a hundred and ten pound 
 vendor of mousetraps, the late lamented Jay Gould; of Delhi, Delaware 
 County, New York, now through the deodorization of time almost of 
 sainted memory. Therefore the transfer of the "Paris Prize Fund" 
 to the pockets of Choate and Sherman would mean the dissipation 
 of the said thirty-eight thousand five hundred dollars. The proof 
 of that grave charge? Here it is, writ large in the most mendacious, 
 inefficacious, self-damnatory purlieu of vicious and predatory sophistry 
 ever put forth by a lawyer not yet languishing behind the bars of 
 Sing Sing; or by a sophist since the days of the God-like Socrates him 
 self who sacrificed his life in unmasking sophists as Jesus Christ 
 sacrificed His divine life some hundreds of years later unmasking 
 Pharisees and hypocrites we allude to the said brief on appeal of 
 Choate. 
 
 Never, in our extended career of thirty years as a lawyer before 
 the New York County Bar have we met such a depraved production 
 emanating from a supposedly honest and reputable lawyer. Before 
 citing from said quagmire of mendacity aforesaid, we shall dally 
 with a sink as vile-smelling as itself, namely, the opening speech 
 of said distinguished gentleman, at the farcical miscarriage of jus 
 tice miscalled a trial, before ex-judge Holt of the Federal District 
 Court on Manhattan Island, in February, 1912. This citation 
 proves out of the malodorous mouth of Choate that we did perfectly 
 right to bring an action for trover and conversion against his side- 
 partner ISherman. For the said judge says and Choate hasn't the 
 effrontery to deny such an example of hornbook law from the bench 
 in the course of said trial page 56 of the transcript of Record thereof 
 to wit: 
 
 (By the Court) : 
 
 "This suit is brought against that committee for the conversion 
 of the property, on the theory that he has no right to retain it, it 
 having been demanded and that he has not given it over, which 
 amounts to a conversion." 
 
 Now, in the teeth of the above statement from the court itself, 
 that we were within our legal rights in bringing a suit for conver 
 sion, Choate has the depravity to attempt to take a shyster-advantage 
 of the nature of the suit brought and admits that he and Sherman are 
 about to attempt to appropriate our property. Hear him, and then
 
 204 
 
 marvel at New York society which tolerates such a man; and also con 
 sider that sanctimonious dignified aggregation of questionable practi 
 tioners on their record In Wall Street supporting to a man the Trusts 
 against the people consider that cave of the winds, that emporium of 
 hot air the New York ity Bar Association, of which Choate Is an 
 honoured member. Choate says, page one, of his brief: "The relief de 
 manded In the action as in all actions for conversion, is not return of 
 the plaintiff-in-error's property to him, but a judgment for damages, 
 which would necessarily be measured by the value of the property now 
 in the committee's hands, and a judgment In favor of the plaintiff 
 would vest defendant, personally with title to the property in hand at 
 the time of the alleged conversion, at the same time charging him with 
 damages which would probably be much more or much less than the 
 property's present value. 
 
 The action can have no direct effect upon the very much larger 
 amount of property which has come into the committee's hands since 
 it was commenced." Did anybody ever hear the like? One would 
 suppose that no such thinng as the Maxim, "There is no wrong without 
 a remedy" existed, and had existed since the beginning of the Common 
 Law. One would suppose that only one cut and dried method for achiev 
 ing a given end existed in law. Lastly, one would suppose that the 
 hoary old and venerated maxim: "Equity follows the law," did not 
 exist. Let us hear Judge Holt from the bench on the subject once 
 more. Page 148, Transcript of Record. [The Court.] "I suppose Mr. 
 Sherman knows what property he has in hand. If the plaintiff is 
 entitled to recover at all, he is entitled to recover all he has, I take it." 
 
 In closing this appalling spectacle of the abysmal depravity of 
 the New York County Bar, we shall not refrain from observing that 
 the reformation of the Bar and Bench suggested by "Hugh Stutfield"- 
 not to mention the revolution hinted at by Mm receives added weight 
 thereby. 
 
 "Who's Looney Now?" has proved himself during a combat with 
 the State of New York and her courts of now in its nineteenth year 
 the possessor of that ancient military virtue presumably inherited 
 from his military ancestors known as fertility of resource. 
 
 For instance. Supposing that Choate and Sherman are able to 
 hoodwink and bamboozle the New York Courts both State and Fed 
 eral as they have been eminently successful in doing for nineteen 
 years there still remains the United States Supreme Court.t 
 
 Furthermore. Supposing them successful in that august quarter 
 there yet remains this salient fact. To wit: "Who's Looney Now?" is 
 the Paris Prize Fund: In the ratio of twenty-eight thousand five hun 
 dred, to thirteen thousand five hundred.! t The latter insignificant sum 
 
 tin which our appeal in Chaloner against Sherman was filed April 
 30, 1915. 
 
 ftOr as aforesaid with over twenty years' interest as about 
 seventy-five thousand dollars is to about twenty-five.
 
 205 
 
 when compared with thirty-eight thousand five hundred is all that 
 was subscribed by outside Art Patronsftt the large sum represents 
 "Who's Looney Now's?" benefaction. So far so good. Now if a hood 
 winked and bamboozled Court or long chain of Courts both State 
 and Federal permits this scandal permits Choate and Sherman, for 
 their own nefarious dishonest and frankly thievish ends to disinte 
 grate and destroy the powerful Paris Prize Scholarship, and allow 
 Art Students to be robbed for the benefit of said two Wall Street 
 Attorneys, Choate and Sherman why in that amusing travesty of 
 justice this will take place. When "Who's Looney Now?" dislodges 
 the said distinguished gentlemen from their seat on his strong box, and 
 forces them to disgorge through the courts, their overcharges, and 
 sundry other little acts in financial matters then "Who's Looney 
 Now?" will announce in the papers that he is about to remove the 
 "Paris Prize Fund" from New York, on the ground, that said suc 
 cessful thievish assault on Educational Funds, has proved Gotham 
 an unhealthy locality for Educational Funds, and that he will set up 
 the Lares and Penates of the Paris Prize in Washington, D. C., where it 
 can be under the protection of the National Legislature rather than 
 under that of the New York Courts. 
 
 Thereupon he will add to the one hundred or two hundred thou 
 sand dollar damage suit he proposes to bring against the two chief 
 Petitioners, namely, Messrs. Winthrop Astor Chanler and Ex-Lieuten 
 ant Governor Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler the said thirty-eightj j f f 
 thousand five hundred scattered to the four winds of heaven by the 
 aforesaid sage action of the said Courts. The said one hundred and 
 fifty to two hundred thousand damage suit is merely to recover the 
 actual moneys disbursed by "Who's Looney Now?" in lawyer's, alien- 
 est's, neurologist's and psychologist's fees amounting roughly to some 
 fifty to seventy-five thousand dollars to which must be added the 
 twenty thousand dollars taken from "Who's Looney Now?" by "Bloom- 
 ingdale," the twenty thousand dollars paid Evarts, Choate and Sher 
 man for legal expenses, and the annual four thousand dollars taken 
 by those distinguished members of the Episcopal Church and of the 
 eminent Bishop Greer's See said Choate and Sherman from the well 
 lined coffers of "Who's Looney Now?" together with whatever other 
 actual disbursements not damages for loss of happiness or injury to 
 business interests through the near-criminal mismanagement of Choate 
 and Sherman but actual disbursements made by "Who's Looney Now?'' 
 for moneys caused to be spent by him, and covered by vouchers and 
 receipts through the Hellish injustice and barbarous unnatural sordid 
 greed of said two Chanlers for his million and a half backed up by 
 
 \\\ Except the two thousand dollars subscribed by Arthur Astor 
 Carey aforesaid. 
 
 ||f-f-Now amounting to about seventy-five thousand as above de 
 scribed.
 
 206 
 
 their venomous viperish jealousy, spite and malice in which noble 
 aim said gentlemen were supported by the entire Chanler family, male 
 and female. We fancy no jury will refuse to do us the above bare 
 justice. 
 
 So in time like a Phoenix from its ashes will arise the "Paris 
 Prize." 
 
 Since writing the above and while "Robbery Under Law" is 
 going through the press the complaint of Thomas T. Sherman in re 
 the Paris Prize Fund has reached us, together with the reply so 
 earnestly desired by us from his attorney Joseph H. Choate, Jr. We 
 insert said complaint, followed by said reply.
 
 In re THE PARIS PRIZE 
 
 NEW YORK SUPREME COURT. 
 
 COUNTY OF NEW YORK. 
 
 THOMAS T. SHERMAN, as Committee of the person 
 and property of John Armstrong Chaloner, etc., 
 
 against 
 BANKERS TRUST COMPANY, and others, 
 
 Plaintiff, 
 
 Defendants. 
 
 Copy. 
 SUMMONS AND COMPLAINT. 
 
 EVARTS, CHOATE & SHERMAN, 
 
 Plaintiff's Attorneys, 
 
 60 Wall Street, 
 City of New York. 
 
 NEW YORK SUPREME COURT. 
 
 COUNTY OF NEW YORK. 
 
 Thomas T. Sherman, as Committee of the person and 
 property of John Armstrong Chaloner, an incompetent\ 
 Person, 
 
 Plaintiff, 
 against 
 
 Bankers Trust Company, United States Trust Company 
 of New York, Elizabeth Winthrop Chapman, William 
 Waldorf Astor, Warren Delano, Junior, as surviving ex 
 ecutor of the will of Laura Astor Delano, deceased, Alice 
 G. Vanderbilt, William K. Vanderbilt, Alfred G. Vander- \ 
 bilt, Reginald C. Vanderbilt and Chauncey M. Depew, as 
 surviving executors of the will of Cornelius Vanderbilt, 
 deceased, Arthur Astor Carey, individually and as execu 
 tor of the will of Henry R. A. Carey, deceased, James 
 R. Roosevelt and Douglas Robinson, as surviving execu 
 tors of the will of William Astor, deceased, and the At 
 torney General of the State of New York, 
 
 Defendants. 
 
 Summons
 
 208 
 
 To the above named Defendants: 
 
 You are hereby summoned to answer the complaint in this action, 
 and to serve a copy of your answer on the plaintiff's attorneys within 
 twenty days after the service of this summons, exclusive of the day 
 of service; and in case of your failure to appear or answer, judgment 
 will be taken against you by default, for the relief demanded in the 
 complaint. 
 
 Dated, New York, April 8, 1915. 
 
 EVARTS, CHOATE & SHERMAN. 
 
 Attorneys for Plaintiff, 
 Office and Postoffice Address, 
 
 No. 60 Wall Street, 
 Borough of Manhattan, 
 City of New York, N. Y. 
 
 NEW YORK SUPREME COURT. 
 
 COUNTY OF NEW YORK. 
 
 Thomas T. Sherman, as Committee of the person and 
 propert 
 Person, 
 
 property of John Armstrong Chaloner, an incompetent 
 
 Plaintiff, 
 against 
 
 Bankers Trust Company, United States Trust Company 
 of New York, Elizabeth Winthrop Chapman, William 
 Waldorf Astor, Warren Delano, Junior, as surviving ex 
 ecutor of the will of Laura Astor Delano, deceased, Alice 
 G. Vanderbilt, William K. Vanderbilt, Alfred G. Vander- ) Complaint 
 bilt, Reginald C. Vanderbilt and Chauncey M. Depew, as 
 surviving executors of the will of Cornelius Vanderbilt, 
 deceased, Arthur Astor Carey, individually and as execu 
 tor of the will of Henry R. A. Carey, deceased, James 
 R. Roosevelt and Douglas Robinson, as surviving execu 
 tors of the will of William Astor, deceased, and the At 
 torney General of the State of New York, 
 
 Defendants. 
 
 Thomas T. Sherman, as Committee of the person and property of 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, an incompetent person, plaintiff in the 
 above entitled action, by Evarts, Choate & Sherman, his attorneys 
 therein, complains of the defendants in said action above named, and 
 thereupon states and alleges, upon information and belief, as follows: 
 
 First. Each of the defendants Bankers Trust Company and United 
 States Trust Company of New York is a domestic corporation. 
 
 Second. By order or judgment of this Court duly made and entered 
 in the office of the Clerk of the County of New York on June 23, 1899,
 
 209 
 
 ,upon inquisition duly had, the said John Armstrong Chaloner was 
 duly adjudged to be incompetent to manage himself or his property, 
 and Prescott Hall Butler was appointed Committee of his person and 
 property. The said Prescott Hall Butler duly qualified and acted as 
 such Committee until by order of this Court duly made and entered 
 on November 19, 19'01, in the office of said clerk, the resignation of 
 said Prescott Hall Butler as such Committee was accepted, and the 
 plaintiff herein was duly appointed, and he duly qualified as, and has 
 ever since been and now is, the Committee of the person and property 
 of the said John Armstrong Chaloner. 
 
 Third. In or about the year 1890, the said John Armstrong Chal 
 oner, for the purpose of encouraging and fostering the study of art 
 by men and women residing in the United iStates, by providing those 
 sufficiently qualified, and in need of such financial aid, with the means 
 of studying abroad, devised a plan or scheme as hereinafter set forth, 
 and declared the same, and thereupon and to that end he himself con 
 tributed the sum of $14,000 and obtained from other American art 
 patrons contributions as follows: From the defendant Arthur Astor 
 Carey, or from Henry R. A. Carey, since deceased, 327 shares of the 
 capital stock of the Morris and Essex Railroad Comapny, of the par 
 value of $16,350, t and from said Henry R. A. Carey the sum of $5,0<0<0; 
 from the defendant Elizabeth Winthrop Chapman, the sum of $1,000; 
 from Laura Astor Delano, since deceased, the sum of $1,000; from the 
 defendant, William Waldorf Astor, the sum of $1,500; from William 
 Astor, since deceased, the sum of $2,500; and from Cornelius Vander- 
 bilt, since deceased, the sum of $2,500. The sums of money so con 
 tributed, aggregating $27,500, he invested in $25,000 in amount at par 
 of the second mortgage five per cent, bonds of the Beech Creek Rail 
 road Company, and he thereupon deposited the said stock and bonds 
 with the defendant United States Trust Company of New York, in the 
 name of the "Paris Prize Fund," and made and delivered to the said 
 Trust Company a written statement to the effect that he had made 
 such deposit with it in the name of the "Paris Prize Fund," instead 
 of in his individual name, for the reason, that while he had full and 
 absblute control of said stock and bonds, and was responsible therefor, 
 he nevertheless preferred to keep them separate from his personal 
 account until he should feel justified in organizing a corporation for 
 the purpose of advancing his Art Scheme, when they would be trans 
 ferred to such corporation. 
 
 Fourth. The said plan or scheme, as conceived and declared by 
 Mr. Chaloner, and for the accomplishment of which the said contribu 
 tions were made, was to create a fund, and to invest the same, and 
 from the income thereof to establish a Prize, to be known as the "Paris 
 Prize," each Prize to consist of $4,500, paid at the rate of $900 a year 
 
 tBut so far above par as to be worth twenty-five thousand dol 
 lars. J. A. C.
 
 210 
 
 for five years, or such other amount as should be determined upon 
 as proper, for the support of an art student In the study of drawing, 
 painting and decoration in Paris in France and other foreign art 
 centres; and also from such income to pay the expenses incident to 
 the carrying out of said plan and such amounts as might be advisable 
 for its promotion and success. The Prize was to be awarded by a 
 competent jury as the result of competition among the applicants, and 
 to be open alike to men and women, but only to those students really 
 in need of financial aid to carry on their art studies abroad. Each 
 student receiving the Prize was to be required to do at least two years' 
 work in Paris, after which, if he should so desire and the said jury 
 should consider him sufficiently advanced, he was to be permitted to 
 work elsewhere abroad. In order to secure the permanency of the said 
 plan a corporation was to be formed, to be named the "Paris Prize," 
 for the purpose of executing the same, to which corporation the said 
 fund was to be transferred. 
 
 Fifth. The said fund was received and deposited by Mr. Chaloner 
 as aforesaid, subject to the charitable and educational trust as thus 
 generally declared. This meritorious and practically helpful charity 
 having been conceived by himself, and the contributions for the attain 
 ment thereof having been secured entirely by his own effort, it was 
 understood by the said contributors and by Mr. Chaloner that he held 
 the said fund as sole trustee, and with power, subject to the said trust, 
 to control the said fund, and himself in his discretion to decide upon 
 further details of said plan, and to apply the income of said fund in 
 accordance with such decision. Mr. Chaloner worked out the said 
 plan in further detail. He decided that it was advisable to establish 
 the Prize only in the City of New York, to be open, however, to any 
 American art student, without restriction as to residence, who should 
 not have received a Medal or Honorable Mention in any foreign Art 
 Exhibition or Salon, and that the Prize should be awarded every second 
 year, experience having proven that, until the standard of art study 
 in the United States should be raised, the supply of art students of 
 the strength demanded by the Prize was not large enough to warrant 
 the holding of an annual competition and sending an art student 
 abroad every year. He arranged for a preliminary competition, ten 
 candidates from such preliminary competition to be selected, by a 
 jury composed as hereinafter stated, for the final competition for the 
 said Paris Prize, and also for a monthly competition, the winner each 
 month to be awarded $25, the work submitted to consist alternately 
 of composition, drawing and painting, the object of which was to 
 raise the standard of the Paris Prize competitions, to which the 
 monthly competitions were to be the only avenue of entrance, as those 
 only who should win a prize or honorable mention in such monthly 
 competitions were to be eligible for the Paris Prize preliminary copeti- 
 tion, and with the further object of bringing together in monthly 
 tests the work of the representative students in the leading art schools
 
 211 
 
 of the United States and to raise the standard in such art schools, and 
 to create and nourish an equal interest in composition, painting and 
 drawing. These monthly competitions were called by Mr. Chaloner 
 the "Paris Prize Concours," and they were to be decided by a jury 
 of competent artists who should consent to act. The jury designated 
 by Mr. Chaloner for the Paris Prize preliminary and final competitions 
 was to consist of the following persons: 
 
 The President of the National Academy of Design. 
 
 The President of the Society of American Artists. 
 
 The President of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 
 
 The President of the Art Students' League. 
 
 Three artists, members of the National Academy of Design, chosen 
 by said Academy. 
 
 Three artists, members of the Society of American Artists, chosen 
 by said Society. 
 
 One artist to represent the Pratt Institute. 
 
 Two artists to represent the Paris Prize. 
 
 If no candidate of sufficient ability, in the opinion of the jury, 
 should appear, no Prize was to be awarded that year, nor until the 
 next regular biennial competition. The work of the Prize winner in 
 Paris was to be supervised by an artist residing there, and the student 
 was to agree to send home to the jury, at the end of each year, speci 
 mens of his or her work signed by the master under whom he or she 
 had worked. If the work should fall below the standard required by 
 the jury, the jury should, after assuring themselves that it was not 
 merely a temporary fluctuation in the student's work, warn him or 
 her that unless the work should reach the required standard during 
 the following year, the Prize would then be withdrawn, and a new 
 competition held. The aforesaid details of the plan, as worked out 
 by Mr. Chaloner, are here stated as indicating an apparently wise 
 and practical way of carrying out the trust as generally declared as 
 aforesaid, and the possibility of executing it by a trustee or trustees 
 appointed by the Court, or by a corporation formed for that purpose 
 to which such trustee or trustees might convey the said trust prop 
 erty. 
 
 Sixth. In or about the month of February, 1897, the said John 
 Armstrong Chaloner executed and delivered to Stanford White and 
 Augustus St. Gaudens powers of attorney for the purpose of enabling 
 them to collect the income and dividends of the said trust fund, and to 
 apply them to the purposes of the said trust. Prior to said last men 
 tioned date Mr. Chaloner had applied certain of the income arising 
 from the said trust fund and further sums contributed by himself, for 
 the support of a student sent abroad in pursuance of said plan, and 
 there remained, in May, 1898, of the income derived from the said 
 stock and bonds and unexpended for the purposes of said trust, the 
 sum of $2,579.34 in the hands of said United States Trust Company, 
 and $218.77 in the hands of Chaloner and Philip, Mr. Chaloner's law
 
 212 
 
 firm. By virtue of said powers of attorney the said Stanford White 
 or Augustus St. Gaudens collected said sums of income, and thereafter 
 deposited with The Mercantile Trust Company, in an account to the 
 credit of "Augustus St. Gaudens or Stanford White," the said sums, 
 and further interest and dividends derived from the said stock and 
 bonds, as follows: 
 
 May 6, 1897, said sum of $2,579 34 
 
 May 7, 1897, said sum of 218 77 
 
 April 14, 1898, interest for one year on said $25,000 Beech 
 Creek R. R. Co. 5% bonds collected by 
 United States Trust Co., less $75 commis 
 sions of said company 1,175 00 
 
 May 24, 1899, interest for one year on said bonds, collected 
 by United States Trust Co., less $75 com 
 missions of said company 1,175 00 
 
 July, 1897, dividends for eight years on said 327 shares 
 to ($50 each) of Morris and Essex R. R. Co., 
 
 Jan., 1905, at 1% 9,156 00 
 
 Ang. 24, 1899, a deposit of cash received from John Arm 
 strong Chaloner 2 00 
 
 Total deposits $14,306 11 
 
 The said attorneys withdrew from said account for the support 
 of a student, one Lawton S. Parker, sent abroad pursuant to the said 
 trust plan, and for expenses of the said trust, certain sums as follows: 
 
 May 6, 1897, Lawton 8. Parker (draft) $ 450 00 
 
 Sep. 16, " " " " 450 00 
 
 Dec. 10, 1897, De Vinne & Co., for printing 10 20 
 
 May 16, 1898, Lawton S. Parker (draft) 450 00 
 
 Oct. 26, " " " " 450 00 
 
 May 23, 1899, " " " 450 00 
 
 Oct. 23, " " " " 450 00 
 
 Feb. 9, 1900, " " " 450 00 
 
 Sep. 22, " " " ' " 450 00 
 
 May 29, 1901, " " " 450 00 
 
 Total withdrawals $ 4,060 20 
 
 leaving a balance of cash in said account, exclusive of interest, 
 
 of $10,245 91 
 
 Thereafter, on June 19, 1905, the said Stanford White no longer 
 desiring to act at attorney as aforesaid, the said account in The Mer 
 cantile Trust Companp was transferred to the credit of "Augustus St. 
 Gaudens or Charles F. McKim." On September 10, 1907, the said
 
 213 
 
 Mercantile Trust Company rendered to the plaintiff herein at his 
 request a statement of said account, which statement showed the 
 deposits therein and withdrawals therefrom to be as hereinbefore set 
 forth, and that said company had credited interest upon the balance 
 
 in said account, to September 10, 1907, in the amount of $ 1,712 25 
 
 and that the amount standing to the credit of said account 
 
 on September 10, 1907, was $11,958 16 
 
 The said Mercantile Trust Company was thereafter merged into 
 or consolidated with the defendant Bankers Trust Company, and the 
 said Bankers Trust Company received the said deposits and took over 
 the said account and assumed all of the obligations of the said Mer 
 cantile Trust Company in respect thereto. Each of the said Stanford 
 White, Augustus St. Gaudens and Charles F. McKim is now deceased. 
 No withdrawals have been made from said account except as herein 
 before set forth, and the said sum of $11,958.16, together with interest 
 at the rate allowed by the said companies upon deposits of like 
 amount, up to the time when the said deposits shall be withdrawn 
 by the person or persons authorized thereto by judgment of this 
 Court, is and will be due from the said Bankers Trust Company upon 
 the said account. The said Bankers Trust Company at the request 
 of the plaintiff herein, has stated to him that the balance of cash on 
 deposit with it to the credit of said account, with accrued interest to 
 December 31, 1914, amounts to $14,494.59. 
 
 Seventh. By virtue of said power of attorney, the said Stanford 
 White received from the Morris and Essex Railroad Company the 
 dividends at the rate of seven per cent, per annum declared by said 
 company on the said 327 shares of its capital stock, payable in July, 
 1905, and in January, 1906, amounting to $1,144.50, and delivered the 
 said sum to the plaintiff herein, and the said plaintiff in his name as 
 Committee as aforesaid, on January 16, 1906, deposited the said sum 
 of $1,144.50 to the credit of an account with The Farmers' Loan and 
 Trust Company, at interest, and received and holds a certificate for 
 such deposit, and the said sum, together with interest to the time when 
 the said deposit shall be withdrawn by the person or persons author 
 ized thereto by judgment of this Court; is and will be due from The 
 Farmers' Loan and Trust Company upon the said account. 
 
 Eighth. Since the said payment of January, 1906, no dividends 
 have been paid by the Morris and Essex Railroad Company upon the 
 said 327 shares of its capital stock, although dividends at the rate of 
 Iseven per cent, per annum have been in each year declared and are 
 payable upon the said shares of stock. The dividends declared upon 
 the said shares of stock and withheld by the said railroad company, 
 including the dividend payable in January, 1915, amount to $9,728.25, 
 and the said sum, together with such further dividends as may be de 
 clared and payable upon the said shares of stock, to the time when 
 the said dividends shall be paid to the person or persona authorized 
 thereto by judgment of this Court, is and will be due upon the said 
 shares of stock from the Morris and Essex Railroad Company.
 
 214 
 
 Ninth. Since the aforesaid withdrawals by Stanford White and 
 Augustus St. Gaudens from the defendant United States Trust Com 
 pany, no withdrawals have been made from the said "Paris Prize 
 Fund" account, and the said United States Trust Company continues 
 to hold the said stock and bonds to the credit of the said account, and 
 to collect the interest on the said bonds as the same becomes payable, 
 and to credit interest upon the cash balance of said account. The 
 said stock and bonds, together with the interest so collected and 
 credited to the time when the said account shall be withdrawn by the 
 person or persons authorized thereto by judgment of this Court, less 
 the proper commissions for the collection of interest on said bonds, is 
 and will be due from the said United States Trust Company upon the 
 said account. The said United States Trust Company, at the request 
 of the plaintiff herein, stated to him on January 11, 1915, that the 
 cash balance to the credit of said account, in addition to said stock 
 and bonds, amounted to $21,898.13, bearing interest at the rate of two 
 and one-half per cent, per annum.t 
 
 Tenth. The said Laura Astor Delano died June 15, 1902, leaving a 
 will which was duly proved before and admitted to probate by the 
 Surrogates' Court of the County of New York, to which court juris 
 diction in that behalf appertained, and thereafter letters testamentary 
 under said will were duly issued by the said Surrogates' Court to the 
 defendant Warren Delano, Junior, and to others since deceased, and 
 the said Warren Delano, Junior, is the sole surviving executor of 
 said will. 
 
 Eleventh. The said Cornelius Vanderbilt died September 12, 1899, 
 leaving a will which was duly proved before and admitted to probate 
 by the Surrogates' Court of the County of New York, to which court 
 jurisdiction in that behalf appertained, and thereafter letters testa 
 mentary under said will were duly issued by the said Surrogates' 
 Court to Edward V. W. Rossiter, since deceased, and to the defendants 
 Alice G. Vanderbilt, William K. Vanderbilt, Alfred G. Vanderbilt, Reg 
 inald C. Vanderbilt and Chauncey M. Depew, who are the only sur 
 viving executors of said will. 
 
 Twelfth. The said Henry R. A. Carey died April 29, 1895, leaving 
 a will which was duly proved before and admitted to probate by the 
 Probate Court of the City of Newport in the State of Rhode Island, to 
 which court jurisdiction in that behalf appertained, and thereafter 
 letters testamentary under said will were duly issued by the said 
 Probate Court to the defndant Arthur Astor Carey, who is the sole 
 executor of said will. 
 
 Thirteenth. The said William Astor died April 25, 1892, leaving a 
 will which was duly proved before and admitted to probate by the 
 
 tAdding up the assets of the "Paris Prize Fund" will show that 
 said Fund amounted to some ninety-six thousand dollars on January 
 llth last. And by January llth next will amount to some hundred 
 thousand dollars. J. A. C.
 
 215 
 
 Surrogates' Court of the County of New York, to which court juris 
 diction in that behalf appertained, and letters testamentary under 
 said will were duly issued by the said Surrogates' Court to the execu 
 tors named therein. Thereafter, in accordance with the provisions 
 of said will in that behalf, other executors thereof were duly appointed 
 and have acted as such, including the defendants James R. Roosevelt 
 and Douglas Robinson, who are the only surviving executors of said 
 
 Fourteenth. The Attorney General of the State of New York is 
 made a party to this action as representing the beneficiaries of said 
 trust, pursuant to the provisions of Section 12 of the Personal Prop 
 erty Law; and the contributors and the representatives of the deceased 
 contributors to said fund are made parties hereto for the purpose of 
 determining their rights, if any, in the said fund and the moneys de 
 rived therefrom, in the event that the said trust shall not be declared, 
 established or enforced. 
 
 Fifteenth. The said defendant Bankers Trust Company has re 
 cently called the attention of the plaintiff to the fact that the interest 
 on the moneys deposited with it as aforesaid is accumulating, and that 
 no person claims the right to withdraw the said deposits, and has 
 stated to the plaintiff that if he would not bring an action for the 
 appointment of a trustee or trustees authorized to receive the said 
 deposits, the said Trust Company would itself institute an action or 
 proceeding for the appointment of a trustee of the moneys due upon 
 the said account. The plaintiff herein, as Committee as aforesaid, has 
 annually filed as required by law his inventory and account in the 
 office of the Clerk of the County of New York, and has included in 
 said account a brief statement in respect to said "Paris Prize Fund," 
 and a statement of the sum received by him and deposited with The 
 Farmers' Loan and Trust Company as aforesaid. Pursuant to an 
 order of the Presiding Justice of the Appellate Division of the Supreme 
 Court, First Department, dated February 28, 1911, and filed in the 
 office of the Clerk of said Appellate Division on March 3, 1911, by 
 which order Lyttleton Fox, Esq., was appointed Referee to examine 
 the inventories and accounts filed or required to be filed in the office 
 of the Clerk of the County of New York, in accordance with Section 
 2341 of the Code of Civil Procedure, by the Committees of the person 
 and property of incompetent persons, since the first day of February, 
 1910, and whereby he was also directed to examine the inventories 
 and accounts of such Committees filed or required to be filed during 
 the month of January in each year subsequent to the year 1898, in 
 the said County Clerk's office which had not previously been examined 
 or judicially settled, and to make his report upon said inventories 
 and accounts with his opinion in each case, the said Referee, after 
 a hearing upon and examination of the accounts of the plaintiff as 
 such Committee so filed as aforesaid on January 31, 1910, and on 
 January 31, 1911, covering the period from January 30, 1909, to Janu-
 
 216 
 
 ary 31, 1911, by his report dated December 27, 1911, reported, among 
 other things, that the plaintiff herein, as Committee as aforesaid 
 "should be directed to take such immediate steps as he shall be advised 
 by counsel as proper and necessary for the purpose of ascertaining 
 the rights of the incompetent in the fund heretofore mentioned and 
 described as the 'Paris Prize Fund,' and in the income thereof, and 
 of reducing to possession such part, if any, of such fund and the in 
 come thereof, as shall be found to belong to the incompetent"; and 
 by order of the said Presiding Justice of said Appellate Division, dated 
 June 24, 1912, and filed in the office of the Clerk of said Appellate 
 Division on June 25, 1912, the said report of said Referee was in all 
 respects confirmed. The said fund and deposits and the dividends 
 due as aforesaid have for a long time been accumulating without use 
 either to the contributors or to the intended beneficiaries, and an 
 action or proceeding such as is contemplated by the Bankers Trust 
 Company for the appointment of a trustee of only such part of the 
 moneys as is deposited with said company, would not fully determine 
 the rights of the said contributors, nor the rights, powers and duties 
 of the plaintiff as Committee in respect to the said fund and income. 
 The plaintiff has advised with counsel as directed by said Referee's 
 report and the said order confirming the same, and he has been 
 advised that the said trust is probably valid as a charitable trust, and 
 that in order to determine the interest, if any, of the said incompetent, 
 and his own rights, powers and duties as Committee, in the premises, 
 he should institute this action for the purpose of having the said 
 trust established and enforced, if the same is enforcible, and of deter 
 mining the respective rights, if any, of the parties hereto, in the 
 premises. 
 
 Wherefore, the plaintiff demands judgment that the said trust be 
 judicially declared, established and enforced in accordance with the 
 aforesaid declaration of trust, or, with the consent of the survivors 
 of the said contributors, in such manner as in the judgment of the 
 Court will most effectually accomplish the general purpose for which 
 the said contributions were made, and that a trustee or trustees of 
 said trust be appointed, with power and authority to execute the said 
 trust and to receive, collect and hold the said fund, deposits, stock, 
 bonds, and the moneys and interest derived therefrom and due thereon 
 as aforesaid, and that title thereto be vested in the said trustee or 
 trustees subject to the trust as so declared; and that the said trustee 
 or trustees be authorized, empowered and directed, if and when he 
 or they shall deem it advisable, to cause a corporation to be formed 
 under the Membership Corporations Law for the purpose of exe 
 cuting said trust and for that purpose to select five or more per 
 sons to become incorporators of such corporation, who shall make, 
 acknowledge and file a certificate of incorporation thereof, according 
 to the provisions of law in that behalf, such certificate not to be 
 filed without the written approval of a justice of this Court en-
 
 217 
 
 dorsed thereupon or annexed thereto, and to convey, transfer and 
 deliver the said trust property to such corporation; or if the said 
 trust be not so established and enforced, that the rights of the parties 
 hereto in and to the said fund and moneys, and the rights, powers 
 and duties of the plaintiff as Committee as aforesaid in respect thereto, 
 be determined, declared and adjudged; that the costs of the plaintiff 
 in this action be paid out of the said fund, and that the plaintiff have 
 such other or further judgment, order or relief in the premises as to 
 the Court may seem meet. 
 
 EVARTS, CHOATE & SHERMAN, 
 
 Attorneys for Plaintiff. 
 
 STATE OF NEW YOBK, | 
 County of New York, $ ss " 
 
 Thomas T. Sherman, being duly sworn, deposes and says: that 
 he is the plaintiff in the above-entitled action; that he has read the 
 foregoing complaint and knows the contents thereof, and that the 
 same is true to his own knowledge, except as to the matters therein 
 stated to be alleged on information and belief, and that as to those 
 matters he believes it to be true. 
 
 THOS. T. SHERMAN. 
 
 Sworn to before me this | 
 
 8th day of April, 1915. $ 
 
 WM. R. MONTGOMERY, 
 Notary Public, Queens County, 
 Certificate filed in New York County. 
 
 EVARTS, CHOATE & SHERMAN. JOSEPH H. CHOATE, 
 
 Allen W. Evarts, Counsel. 
 
 Thomas T. Sherman, 
 Herbert J. Bickford, 
 Joseph H. Choate, Jr. 
 Cable Address "Evarts," New York. 
 Telephone 6890 Hanover. 
 
 60 WALL STREET, NEW YORK, 
 
 April 5, 1915. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, Esq., 
 Merry Mills, 
 
 Cobham, Virginia. 
 Dear Mr. Chaloner: 
 
 I have your letter of March 19th and will return the enclosures 
 in a short time.
 
 218 
 
 I think you have misunderstood the situation. As you will see 
 from the complaint, a copy of which I enclose, the sole purpose of the 
 suit is to secure the carrying out of your plan as originally stated 
 by you. 
 
 I note that you consider the present an inappropriate time for 
 this proceeding but for the reasons stated in my letter of February 
 8th to Mr. Money.t it is necessary to proceed within a short time. 
 
 I have also considered your suggestion that the Court be asked 
 to order the Bankers Trust Company to turn the money over to the 
 United States Trust Company to be held with the rest of the fund. 1 
 am satisfied, however, that this could not be done in such a manner as 
 to dispose of the objections of the Bankers Trust Company. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 JOSEPH H. CHOATE, JR. 
 J. H. C., JR. 
 
 (Copy.) 
 
 I 
 
 tThe member of our office force above referred to as having been, 
 written to in the premises by Joseph H. Choate, Jr.
 
 BRER FOX AND BRER 
 RABBIT/' 
 
 An examination of the above two interesting documents sheds a 
 bright light upon the dark lantern methods of Messrs. Thomas T. 
 Sherman and his eminent legal adviser, Joseph H. Choate, Jr. 
 
 We shall first consider the Complaint. 
 
 The first thing that strikes the observer therein, is that the actual 
 value of the Morris and Essex stock is disguised, bp giving in its place 
 the par value thereof which par value is some nine thousand dollars 
 ~below its actual value. This, naturally indicates a desire upon the 
 part of Messrs. Sherman and Choate to avoid stating the really form 
 idable sum represented by the Paris Prize which sum is jeopardized 
 by their aforesaid nefarious methods in the premises. 
 
 Furthermore said conclusion is strengthened by the fact that said 
 gentlemen studiously avoid stating the total value of the Prize which 
 is or will in six months by which time the interest thereon will have 
 accrued, thus be worth some one hundred thousand dollars. 
 
 The next thing that strikes the observer is that Messrs. Sherman 
 and Choate make haste to feather their nests at the very inception of 
 said nefarious game, by the following statement page 217 of said 
 complaint to wit: "that the costs of the plaintiff in this action be 
 paid out of the said fund." 
 
 This means a fat fee to Joseph H. Choate, Jr. a fee anywhere, 
 presumably, from one thousand dollars up for bringing this nefarious 
 "strike" suit. 
 
 The last thing that strikes the observer is that even Sherman 
 and Choate admit that the Paris Prize is a creditable performance 
 upon the part of "Who's Looney Now?" 
 
 It may not be out of place to observe that the "Paris Prize" 
 concours (or competitions) described on pages five and six of said 
 Complaint was conceived and committed to print in the month of 
 December, 1896, by "Who's Looney Now?" whereas this farcical con 
 spiracy upon the part of the Chanler family to make out "Who's 
 Looney Now?" an "incompetent" by reason of hopeless lunacy, states 
 in its Commitment Papers that "Who's Looney Now?" began to be 
 "looney' in November, 1896. 
 
 In closing the examination of the Complaint we shall draw the 
 attention of the Newspapers to the salient fact, that this diabolical 
 plot against the liberty, property, and happiness of an indisputably 
 sane man on the record of the conspirators on the record of the
 
 220 
 
 Proceedings brought by them in the New York Supreme Court which 
 shows that the charges against the sanity of the plaintiff in Chaloner 
 against Sherman were perjured and who merely hang on to his prop 
 erty in the desperate hope to win out on a flimsy, transparent, discred 
 itable legal technicality we shall draw the attention of the press to 
 the salient fact that this plot has not only cost an upright and on 
 his record as the Founder of a hundred thousand dollar Art Educa 
 tional Scholarship that this plot has not only robbed an upright 
 and public-spirited citizen of going on nineteen years of the enjoy 
 ment of his good name and that of his large property but that this 
 diabolical and sordid plot has robbed Art Education in the metropolis 
 of this country in which Education is the national aim of thousands 
 of dollars for years and years. 
 
 The reason is not far to seek. 
 
 It was to the obvious advantage of the conspirators and their 
 legal allies to sink from public view anything which could redouna 
 to the credit of "Who's Looney Now?" Therefore though there were 
 thousands of dollars rolling up as income from the corpus of the Paris 
 Prize Fund, and though the scheme for the practical working thereof 
 had sent two Paris Prizemen each for five years one after the 
 other to Paris and was in full working order yet and nevertheless 
 the machinery of the Paris Prize was relentlessly clogged and shut 
 down by the malevolent parties having control of the person and 
 estate of "Who's Looney Now?" by grace of the learned and enlightened 
 courts of New York. 
 
 Turning now to the examination of said letter from Mr. Joseph H. 
 Choate, Jr. 
 
 We regret to have to state that "for ways that are dark, and for 
 tricks that are vain, the heathen (Joe Choate) is peculiar." 
 
 The same we shall straightway explain. 
 
 He starts off, in said letter, with a most brazen false-statement, to 
 begin with. 
 
 He has the gall to say to a lawyer: "I think you have misunder 
 stood the situation. As you will see from the Complaint the sole 
 purpose of the suit is to secure the carrying out of your plan as 
 originally stated by you." 
 
 If the reader will now turn to the top of page 217 of said 
 Complaint, he will find the following sinister words staring him in 
 the face. To wit: "or if the said trust be not so established and 
 enforced, that the rights of the parties hereto in and to the said fund 
 and moneys, and the rights, powers and duties of the plaintiff as com 
 mittee as aforesaid in respect thereto, be determined, declared and 
 adjudged." 
 
 Being interpreted said Delphic utterance means in the identical 
 language of Mr. Joseph H. Choate, Jr., himself as set forth in his said 
 letter to Mr. Money of our office under date February 8, 1915 "its 
 return to the subscribers.''
 
 221 
 
 It is an old and revered proverb which says "a liar should have 
 a good memory.'' Evidently a powerful memory is not to be found 
 among Mr. Joseph H. Choate, Jr's mental assets. For how otherwise 
 could he have the gall to say as he does "the sole purpose of the 
 suit is to secure the carrying out of your plan as originally stated by 
 you" when, only two short months prior thereto, he had been frank 
 to say in said letter to Mr. Money: "In such an action the court can 
 dispose of the Fund by directing its return to the subscribers." In 
 a word by its total and complete destruction! Comment would be a 
 work of supererogation. 
 
 "Who's Looney Now?" being a lawyer, at once penetrated the 
 dangers surrounding the work now a quarter of a century old of 
 his hands; and straightway wrote the long and sufficiently frank 
 letter to Mr. Joseph H. Choate, Jr., given above, pointing out said 
 dangers. 
 
 But when it is borne in mind that Mr. Sherman claims as afore 
 said in said brief that "Who's Looney Now's?" property vests in Mm 
 Sherman in other and less technical words becomes the property 
 of Mr. Sherman a bright light is immediately shed upon the said 
 dark lantern methods of Messrs. Sherman and Choate anent the Paris 
 Prize. 
 
 For "Who's Looney Now's?" subscription thereto as aforesaid 
 now amounts to the formidable sum of some seventy-five thousand 
 dollars; which seventy-five thousand dollars upon its "return to the 
 subscribers" as engagingly frankly outlined by Mr. Choate which 
 seventy-five thousand dollars would revert to Mr. Sherman upon his 
 charming hypothesis aforesaid that all "Who's Looney Now's?" prop 
 erty vests in him Mr. Sherman! 
 
 Mr. Choate continues. "I note that you consider the present an 
 inappropriate time for this proceeding, but for the reasons stated in 
 my letter of February 8th to Mr. Money, it is necessary to proceed 
 within a short time." 
 
 How redolent said sentences is of guile! It fairly reeks therewith. 
 
 In our said letter to Mr. Choate it was not the time of bringing 
 before the court the question of saying where the said income-incre 
 ment held by the Bankers Trust Company should go, that exercised 
 us; but the manner in which said question was put before the court. 
 Not the settling of that subsidiary and insignificant side issue 
 subsidiary and insignificant when the amount involved is compared 
 with the amount originally placed by ourselves in the United States 
 Trust Company not that, but the criminally culpable act of jeopard 
 izing the very existence of the hundred thousand dollar Paris Prize 
 Fund, by the manner; in which a question regarding the disposal of 
 some ten thousand or more dollars of its income was wittingly, wil 
 fully and after full and fair warning of the dangers accruing to the 
 Fund thereby had been duly given in our above letter to Mr. Choate 
 was allowed to go before the court.
 
 222 
 
 Mr. Choate concludes his interesting epistle as follows: "I have 
 also considered your suggestion that the Court be asked to order the 
 Bankers Trust. Company to turn the money over to the United States 
 Trust Company to be held with the rest of the Fund. I am satisfied, 
 however, that this could not be done in such a manner as to dispose 
 of the objections of the Bankers Trust Company." 
 
 All we have to say in reply to that amazing statement is that if 
 Mr. Choate is so satisfied, no honest and learned lawyer cognizant of 
 the facts at issue could be, what earthly objections could the Bank 
 ers Trust Company or any honest Trust Company possibly, rightly, 
 have to returning an income-account to the keeping of the Trust Com 
 pany which for years twenty-five years, no less had guarded the 
 parent Fund, from which said interest account had sprung, as faith 
 fully and well as had the United States Trust Company? 
 
 Certainly no objection unless said Bankers Trust Company in 
 tended to hang onto the said interest-increment account, possibly 
 until it absorbed the United States Trust Company, as it had ab 
 sorbed the Trust Company originally holding said interest-increment 
 account. Which when one bears in mind the age, wealth, and deserved 
 fame of the United States Trust Company when weighed with that 
 of the Bankers Trust Company strikes us as about as likely as that 
 the tail should absorb the dog. 
 
 We are forced to the conclusion bearing in mind all the unscrupu 
 lous acts of Messrs. Choate and Sherman in their long career of ques 
 tionable practice to use no harsher term to blacken the character 
 of "Who's Looney Now?" in the eyes of the public, in order that they 
 may avenge themselves on him for showing them up in "Four Years 
 Behind The Bars" avenge "Bloomingdale" on him for the same 
 cause and, lastly, hang onto his million and a half, and shave four 
 thousand dollars therefrom annually not counting extra fees, com 
 missions, legal fees, et cetera, and so forth we are forced to the 
 inevitable conclusion, that said suit is nothing more than a suit en 
 gineered by Messrs. Choate and Sherman, who have induced by what 
 means we know not the said Bankers Trust Company to threaten to 
 bring a suit disastrous in its consequences as aforesaid to the wel 
 fare the very life of the Paris Prize. For two reasons. 
 
 First. For the reason of avarice. For the reason set forth above 
 that they claim that "Who's Looney Now's?" property belongs to Mr. 
 Sherman, and by said "strike" suit the Paris Prize may be destroyed 
 and some seventy-five thousand dollars turned into the yawning pock 
 ets of Mr. Thomas T. Sherman. 
 
 Second. For reasons of spite. They know that their days are 
 numbered now that the appeal in Chaloner against Sherman is filed 
 in the Supreme Court of the United States as "custodians" of "Who's 
 Looney Now's?" million and a half. They know for we have been 
 at pains to show them in our brief that the United States Supreme 
 Court has decided in Windsor versus McVeigh, United States Reports,
 
 223 
 
 9S in which decision the great civil war Chief Justice Chief Justice 
 Waite concurred as well as in Simon versus Craft, United States 
 Reports, 182, in which case the opinion of the court was written by 
 the present Mr. Chief Justice White, before he became Chief Justice, 
 that it was decided specifically that notice of the proceedings against 
 a party to a suit, as well as opportunity to appear and be heard in 
 defence to the same, were absolutely and unequivocally essential to due 
 process of law. The language of the court in the former suit was 
 pages 277-8 "Until notice is given, the court has no jurisdiction in any 
 case to proceed to judgment, whatever its authority may be, by the 
 law of its organization, over the subject matter. But notice is only 
 for the purpose of affording the party an opportunity of being heard 
 upon the claim or the charges made. It is a summons to him to ap 
 pear and to speak, if he has anything to say, why judgment sought 
 should not be rendered. A denial to a party of the benefit of a notice 
 would be in effect to deny that he is entitled to notice at all, and the 
 sham and deceptive proceedings had better be omitted altogether." 
 And again at page 278: "The law is and always has been that when 
 ever notice or citation is required the party cited has the right to 
 appear and be heard; and when the latter is denied (note the dis 
 tinction between notice and opportunity) the former is ineffectual for 
 any purpose. The denial to a party in such a case of a right to appear 
 is in legal effect the recall of the citation to him." 
 
 In Simon versus Graft aforesaid, the court said, "The essential 
 elements of due process of law are notice, and opportunity to defend." 
 
 Now the Commitment Papers on file in the New York Supreme 
 Court show that in the Committing Proceedings, when the plaintiff 
 in Chaloner against Sherman was arrested in 1897 and imprisoned in 
 "Bloomingdale" specifically state on their face that no notice of said 
 Proceedings was given said plaintiff. 
 
 The reason given being that he was so dangerous an individual 
 that notice to him would be accompanied by grave danger! 
 
 Now the record of the Proceedings in 1899 before a Commission 
 In Lunacy and Sheriff's Jury also on file in the same court shows 
 that the plaintiff in Chaloner against Sherman was in bed with an 
 affectation of the spine at the time of said Proceedings had been in 
 bed with the same trouble for three weeks previous thereto and had 
 sent word to said Commission and Sheriff's Jury by Dr. Samuel B. 
 Lyon the medical Superintendent of "Bloomingdale" at said time 
 that he was unable to be present at said Proceedings owing to his said 
 illness. 
 
 In spite of which, said Commission and said Jury went right ahead 
 and although the liberty and happiness of a law-abiding citizen was 
 at stake to say nothing of hundreds of thousands of dollars of valu 
 able real estate said Commission and said Jury rushed the Proceed 
 ings through inside of about an honr and a half, and imprisoned the 
 plaintiff for life without the least opportunity as above indicated to 
 appear and be heard.
 
 224 
 
 Lastly. There is a third leading United States Supreme Court 
 case that has an important bearing upon the interesting case of 
 Chaloner against Sherman. 
 
 Said case is known as the United States appt. versus Throckmor- 
 ton. United States Reports 98 (October term 1878): "Mr. Justice 
 Miller said: There is no question of the general doctrine that fraud 
 vitiates the most solemn contracts, documents and even judgments 
 in cases where, by reason of something done by the successful party to 
 a suit, there was, in fact, no adversary trial or decision of the issue 
 in the case. Where the unsuccessful party has been prevented from 
 exhibiting fully liis case, by fraud or deception practised on him by 
 his opponent, as by keeping him away from court, a false promise of 
 a compromise; or where the defendant never had knowledge of the 
 suit, being kept in ignorance by the acts of the plaintiff; these, and 
 similar cases which show that there has never been a real contest in 
 the trial of hearing of the case, are reasons for which a new suit may 
 be sustained to set aside and annul the former judgment or decree, 
 and open the case for a new and a fair hearing. In all these cases 
 and many others which have been examined, relief has been granted, 
 on the grounds that, by some fraud practised directly upon the party 
 seeking relief against the judgment or decree, that party has been 
 prevented from presenting all of his case to the court. On the otQer 
 hand, the doctrine is equally well settled that the court will not set 
 aside a judgment because it was founded on a fraudulent instrument, 
 or perjured evidence, or for any matter which was actually presented 
 and considered in the judgment assailed. Mr. Wells, in his very useful 
 work on Rex Adjndicata, says, sec. 499: "Fraud vitiates everything, and 
 a judgment, equally with a contract; that is, a judgment obtained di 
 rectly by fraud' The principle and the distinction here taken was laid 
 down as long ago as the year 1702 by the Lord Keeper in the High 
 Court of Chancery, in the case of Tovey v. Young, Proc. in Ch., 193. 
 This was a bill in chancery brought by an unsuccessful party to a 
 suit at law, for a new trial, which was at that time a very common 
 mode of obtaining a new trial. One of the grounds of the bill was, 
 that complainant had discovered since the trial was had that the prin 
 cipal witness against him was a partner in interest with the other 
 side. 
 
 The Lord Keeper said: "New matter may in some cases be ground 
 for relief; but it must not be what was tried before; nor, when it con 
 sists in swearing only, will I ever grant a new trial, unless it appears 
 by deed, or writing, or that a witness, on whose testimony the verdict 
 was given, were convict of perjury." As is conclusively proved by the 
 originator of the said principle namely the Lord Keeper the perjury 
 of a witness "on whose testimony the verdict was given" must be dis 
 covered and charged not during but after the said trial. 
 
 In other words, the perjury must not have been known to be per 
 jury and as perjury to have been considered by the court during 
 said trial. The perjured witness in a word gives his perjured testi-
 
 225 
 
 mony, upon which "the verdict was given," without either the Court 
 or the other side knowing at the time of the trial that same was per 
 jured. Thereafter said discovery is made, and a new trial granted on 
 the strength of the newly discovered perjury. 
 
 Mr. Choate attempts to show by this very case of United States 
 vs. Throckmorton that provided a witness has perjured himself in a 
 given trial and no matter that neither the other side, nor the court, 
 knew at the time of said trial that said witness was a perjured witness, 
 yet nevertheless because the witness gave his said perjured testimony 
 as aforesaid at said trial, that therefore the question of the perjury of 
 said witness was ipso facto necessarily "actually presented and consid 
 ered" in said trial as perjury. Whereas, the truth is, the direct antithe 
 sis thereof! Namely: That said perjury, not having been discovered at 
 the time of said trial, it could not have been "presented" at said trial. 
 Not having been "presented" it necessarily could not have been "con 
 sidered" 
 
 And although neither the court nor the other side knew at the 
 time of said trial that it was perjury: that therefore when after said 
 trial a; new trial is sought upon the ground upon the totally new 
 Question of the perjury of said witness that a new trial cannot be 
 granted because the said perjury although unknown and unhinted at 
 at saidl trial "was actually presented and considered" at said trial! 
 when in truth it had been neither one nor the OTHER. 
 
 In other words according to the mighty legal mental processes 
 of Mr. Joseph H. Choate, Jr. if a perjured witness unbeknown to the 
 court and other side perjures himself at a given trial and "gets away 
 with it" gets the court and other side to believe it that therefore 
 thereafter when the other side catches up with the perjurer, and 
 moves for a new trial that because the perjurer has unbeknown to 
 the court and other side perjured himself successfully which is to 
 say, of course, without being caught that according to Mr. Choate 
 when said perjurer is "caught with the goods" his crooked and slick 
 work when discovered cannot be taken into consideration by the 
 court cannot be "considered"! 
 
 Let us hear Mr. Choate speak for himself on this interesting and 
 elevating subject. We cite from page eleven of his brief, in Chaloner 
 against Sherman, to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the 
 Southern District of New York New York City. 
 
 "An examination of the offers of evidence made by the plaintiff- 
 in-error, the questions asked and excluded, and, indeed, of the excluded 
 evidence itself, as it appears in the depositions which were marked 
 for identification, will show that the alleged fraud complained of con 
 sisted in the giving of testimony, alleged to be false, in the affidavits. 
 upon which the commitment was had (in 1897) and in the evidence 
 upon which the plaintiff was adjudged incompetent in 1899. The al 
 leged conspiracy appears to have been a conspiracy of the relatives of 
 the plaintiff-in-error to deceive the Court by such perjury into deciding
 
 226 
 
 as it did decide. Such fraud, however, if proved, is no basis for a 
 collateral attack upon an adjudication. The question whether the testi- 
 money, given in support of one side of the case, is or is not true, is one 
 of the questions necessarily adjudged in every litigation. In the case 
 at bar the question whether the alleged perjurious testimony v,as true 
 was necessarily adjudged by the Supreme Court of the State of New 
 York in finding the plaintiff-in-error incompetent. This Court could 
 not determine whether or not the testimony in question was perjured 
 without trying over again the very same issue which the New York 
 Supreme Court decided when it made the order complained of. In 
 accordance with these principles it is well settled that the fact that a 
 judgment is procured by false testimony does not open it to collateral 
 attack. U. 8. v. Throckmorton, 98 U. S., 61." 
 
 To conclude. The perjury of Mr. Winthrop Astor Chanler in the 
 Commitment Proceedings in 1897, aforesaid, is proved upon him in 
 the cross-examination of that gentleman, by onr counsel, in a Deposi 
 tion de bene esse given by -Mr. Winthrop Astor Chanler in or about 
 November, 1905 on file in the New York Supreme Court. 
 
 Said gentleman swore in said Commitment Proceedings said 
 Commitment Papers that he had heard and seen the plaintiff in Chat- 
 oner against Sherman say and do irrational things at the said plaintiff's 
 home in Virginia. Upon the strength of which false oath "the verdict 
 was given," and the plaintiff lost his liberty and the control of, and 
 enjoyment of his property for years and years. Whereas in said 
 Proceedings in 1905, de bene esse, said gentleman admitted on the 
 stand under cross-examination that he had never in his life been 
 at, or in, said home of said plaintiff in Virginia! 
 
 The said leading cases of Windsor versus McVeigh; Simon versus 
 Craft; and United States versus Throckmorton ; therefore fit like a 
 glove Chaloner against Sherman. 
 
 The first two prove that "notice," and "opportunity," are essential 
 to due process of law. 
 
 The Commitment Papers show on their face that the plaintiff had 
 no "notice," in said Proceedings in 1897. 
 
 The Record in the New York Supreme Court shows, on its face, 
 that the plaintiff was physically incapacitated was in bed with spinal 
 trouble when the 1899 Proceedings were brought, and had been for 
 three weeks before the 1899 Proceedings were brought was incapaci 
 tated from taking a forty mile railway journey twenty miles to New 
 York and twenty miles back to White Plains where "Bloomingdale" 
 is to said Proceedings, before the Commission-In-Lunacy and Sheriffs 
 Jury in 1899. Or, in other words, did not have an "opportunity," to 
 appear and be heard owing to illness at said Proceedings. 
 
 The third proves: that a new trial may be had where "a witness, 
 on whose testimony the verdict was given, was convict of perjury." 
 
 Mr. Winthrop Astor Chanler "on whose testimony the verdict wcm 
 given" v/as as above shown "convict of perjury."
 
 227 
 
 On said three cases hang all the Law and the Prophets in Chaloner 
 against Sherman. 
 
 The above interesting testimony "Who's Looney Now?" and his 
 battle scarred lawyers have been striving for years to get before the 
 Federal court. But do what he and his lawyers may, the other side 
 have been able, up to date, to stave off the day of reckoning and sepa 
 rate the court from the above testimony and other pieces of testimony 
 fully as interesting. Now, however, that Chaloner against Sherman is 
 on the high road to the Supreme Court of the United States "Who's 
 Looney Now?" looks for a verdict supporting the learned decision in 
 his favour rendered by Judges Lacombe, Coxe and Noyes of the United 
 States Circuit Court of Appeals, sustaining his claim that he had a 
 constitutional right to try his case of Chaloner against Sherman in the 
 Federal courts. Nothing since said decision has occurred to shake 
 "Who's Looney Now's?" faith therein. Ex-Judge Holt revolted and 
 reversed the decision of his Appellate Court, the Federal Circuit Court 
 of Appeals. ' For this "Who's Looney Now?" endeavored to get the 
 learned Justice impeached at the hands of Congress. But before he 
 could bring it to the attention of the Judiciary Committee of the House 
 of Representatives Judge Holt resigned from the Bench.! He then ap 
 pealed and Judge Lacombe the President of the Court being in 
 Europe Judge Mayer was allowed to sit in his place. The Bench con 
 sisted of Judges Coxe, Rogers and Mayer. Judge Mayer wrote the 
 opinion of the Court sustaining Judge Holt in revolting against and 
 reversing his Superior Court. Now the interesting thing about said 
 decision is that Judge Mayer is not a member of the United States Cir 
 cuit Court of Appeals, but, on the contrary, comes from an Inferior 
 Court, namely, the United States District Court. Therefore an inferior 
 Judge is allowed to write the opinion of a Superior Court; by which 
 said Superior Court is made to reverse itself; and, in so doing, is made 
 to \sustain the opinion of an Inferior Court which had had the audac 
 ity to reverse it! Surely an interesting, not to say an amusing situa 
 tion. 
 
 "Revenous nous d nos moutons'": as saith the great Rabelais. "Let 
 us return to our sheep" our black sheep Messrs. Choate and Sher 
 man. 
 
 As we observed some distance back, there are two reasons two 
 moving motives back of Messrs. Choate and Sherman's bringing said 
 murderous action against the very life of the Paris Prize Fund. 
 
 The first has avarice as its main-spring. 
 
 The second spite. 
 
 On the strength of said three leading cases, said gentlemen are 
 well aware that the United States Supreme Court will support our 
 
 tWe do not desire to imply in the slightest degree that the learned 
 Judge resigned "under fire." There was necessarily considerable delay 
 in our said effort and considerable time elapsed between the decision 
 of Judge Holt and his resignation aforesaid.
 
 228 
 
 contention, that all proceedings against our sanity in the New York 
 Supreme Court are null and void for want of due process of law. Being 
 null and void they have no existence in law, and can be attacked as 
 we have attacked same in a Federal Court, without laying ourselves 
 open to the charge of collateral attack against valid proceedings in a 
 State Court. As the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the 
 Southern District of New York New York City held in Chaloner 
 against Sherman, 162 Federal Report (1908) Judges Lacombe, Coxe 
 and Noyes in writing the opinion therein, the learned Judge Noyes 
 said: "The Constitution of the United States vests in its judicial de 
 partment, jurisdiction over controversies between citizens of different 
 States. The petitioner (the plaintiff) as a citizen of the State of 
 Virginia, in bringing his said suit in the Circuit Court (since changed 
 to the District Court) of the United States, was availing himself of a 
 right founded upon this constitutional provision. And he came into 
 that Court with a decree of the Court of the 'State of which he was a 
 citizen declaring his sanity. We cannot disregard that decree. 1 ' 
 
 We therefore have a constitutional right to bring our case of 
 Chaloner against Sherman as we did eleven years ago namely in 
 a Federal Court. 
 
 Messrs. Choate and Sherman well know, therefore, that they are 
 lost since no one for a moment could suppose that the highest 
 tribunal in the land will reverse itself not only once but three times 
 running but urill support its own aforesaid three leading cases all 
 bearing directly upon the law and the facts as set forth in Chaloner 
 against Sherman. 
 
 Said reckless gentlemen, therefore following their guide, philoso 
 pher, and friend the Devil follow out the lead by him given as set 
 forth in the Scriptures when knowing his time is short and stick 
 at nothing which can vent their spite and malice upon "Who's Looney 
 Now?" Therefore they bring this faked-up suit, in order provided 
 they cannot scatter the Paris Prize Fund's hundred thousand dollars, 
 so that some seventy-five thousand there-of shall find their way into 
 their pockets on the amusing little fiction that all "Who's Looney 
 Now's?" property vests in Mr. Thomas T. Sherman therefore they 
 bring said faked-up malicious, and villainous, scoundrelly suit, to in 
 corporate said Paris Prize Fund and do so while the Founder thereof 
 cannot by any possible legal chance be one of the Trustees we being 
 an "incompetent" person in the eye of the New York State Courts, at 
 present. 
 
 Could any more sinister comment than are their own actions be 
 made upon the profession ornamented by Messrs. Joseph H. Choate, 
 Jr., and Thomas T. Sherman? 
 
 "Woe unto you ye lawyers": said the Founder of Christianity; 
 now, nigh two thousand years ago. 
 
 And Messrs. Choate and Sherman, lawyers, show, that: time can- 
 nut wither, nor custom xtnlc. their infinite rascality.
 
 ISIS UNVEILED 
 
 Richmond Times-Dispatch, Richmond, Va., Monday, February 1, 1915. 
 CHAIX)NER INCOME iLARGE. 
 
 Committee's Report Shows New Y'ork Property is Valued 
 at $1,473,000. 
 
 The annual accounting of Thomas T. Sherman, committee of the 
 property of John Armstrong Chaloner, was filed in the New York 
 County Clerk's office on Saturday. It shows that Chaloner now owns 
 property worth $1,473,000, from which the income for the past year 
 was $89,692. The accounting shows that although Mr. Chaloner re 
 ceived $24,000, and his former wife, Amelie Rives, now Princess Trou- 
 betzkoy.t got $3,600, the committee has $23,081 of income unexpended. 
 
 ISIS UNVEILED. 
 
 <rNot alimony as many New York newspapers stated in noticing 
 this item but the continuation after her re-marriage of an allow 
 ance made said Princess before divorce had ever been mentioned. As 
 is indicated by the total absence of alimony from the decree of the 
 South Dakota Court, granting the divorce, on the grounds of incom 
 patibility of temper; in the autumn of 1895. Merely the friendly in 
 terest of an Art Patron Founder of the Paris Prize aforesaid in the 
 future career of a writer and artist; with whom the said Art Patron 
 had quarrelled; largely, 'because she refused to cultivate her great 
 talent as a portrait painter her full length portrait en plein air 
 (out of doors) of Robert Winthrop Chanler so far back as 1890 in 
 Foutainebleau, France being little short of a masterpiece. Said Art 
 Patron held that her artistic gift, was as far stronger than her lit 
 erary gift, as the sun is than the moon. Which indicates that her 
 literary gift is redolent of charm to say the least. But her literary 
 gift lacks the power of creative force. The strongest trait therein is 
 that which distinguished Keats, namely, the pictorial. 
 
 Keats is not the poet of thought, but of beauty of painting in 
 words. So she excels in that respect, but lacks the dramatic creative 
 force necessary to create characters and scenes of a dramatic nature, 
 which fill the following bill, to wit: are full of dramatic incident and 
 at the same time said dramatic incident is true to life. 
 
 Two works of hers fill said bill. "The Quick Or" The Dead" and 
 "Tanis The San? Digger." The first, a novel. The second, a novelette.
 
 230 
 
 The first, done in the winter of 1887 and eight, the second in that of 
 1892 and three. To these should be added her charming magazine 
 stories, the late T. B. Aldrich liked so much such as "A Brother To 
 Dragons" 1 ; "Nurse Crumpet Tells The Tale"; and "The Farrier Lass 
 Of Piping Pebworth." Beyond this, none of her literary work has 
 satisfied said Art Patron, when measured by the side of her splendid 
 artistic power. 
 
 One of the best-known teachers of painting in Paris Charles 
 Lasar an American who has had an atelier (a studio) for American 
 Art Students in Paris for years and years, and who is one of the 
 soundest and best teachers of any nationality in Paris in Art to-day 
 had her under his instruction in Paris for two years in 1889-1891. 
 When he had finished with her he said, "I can't teach her anything 
 more in drawing." In other words, her drawing by that time was 
 that of a master. Her eye for colour was as delicate and true as her 
 eye for line. And, lastly, her ability for "catching a likeness" was 
 utterly unequalled by any portrait-painter in France, Great Britain 
 or the United States excepting neither Carlus Duran, in Paris, nor 
 John S. Sargent, in London. 
 
 She loas so indolent that she buried this divine gift wrapped in 
 a mortuary napkin in the ground of oblivion; and followed the sister 
 Art of Literature: which enabled her to sit at her ease and work. 
 Whereas portrait-painting requires standing up, and walking to and 
 from the easel, all day long. "Hinc illae lachrymae!" Hence these 
 tears! 
 
 Herewith lifts the veil heretofore shrouding in Oriental mystery, 
 that Grand Arcanum of The Mysteries the why and wherefore of the 
 divorce of "Who's Looney Now?" from his former gifted consort. 
 
 Richmond Times-Dispatch, Saturday, May 1, 1915. 
 CHAI/ONER FILES APPEAL- 
 
 Virginian Takes His Case to United States 
 Supreme Conrt. 
 
 Washington, April 30. John Armstrong Chaloner, of Albemarle 
 county, Va., to-day filed in the Supreme Court an appeal from the 
 decision of the New York Federal Court which refused to declare void 
 the proceedings in the New York State Courts by which Chaloner was 
 adjudged incompetent and his property placed in the hands of a com 
 mittee. 
 
 Chaloner seeks to recover damages from Thomas T. Sherman in 
 charge of his affairs in New York.
 
 NEWSPAPER REVIEWS 
 
 The Portland Oregonian, Portland, Ore., August 22, 1915. 
 
 "Robbery Under Law," by John Armstrong Chaloner, 50 
 cents, Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, N. C. 
 
 There are two plays in this book. 
 
 One is "Robbery Under Law," in which Lunacy abuses 
 are pictured, and "The Hazard of the Die," a three-act play 
 in blank verse treating of the conspiracy of Catiline during 
 the last days of the Roman Republic. Both plays are un 
 usual, interesting, and show the undoubted dramatic talent 
 of the author.
 
 232 
 
 The Evening Telegram, Portland, Oregon, July 24, 1915. 
 
 Robbery Under La\v. By John Armstrong Chaloner, author of 
 "Scorpio" and "Who's L/ooney Now?" Price 50 cents net. 
 Published by Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, author of "Who's Looney Now?" here 
 offers two plays, some sonnets, and a number of press clippings and 
 letters to show his sanity and the need of reform in Lunacy Laws. He 
 is the Chaloner who was judged insane in New York and sane in 
 Virginia, who was a friend of Stanford White, Harry Thaw's victim, 
 and was formerly the husband of Amelie Rives. The "Who's Looney 
 Now?" which he names on the title page as if it were a book, is the 
 widely-quoted telegram he sent his brother, "Sheriff Bob" Chanler, on 
 the occasion of the latter's separation from Lina Cavalieri. 
 
 The play, "Robbery Under Law, or the Battle of the Millionaires," 
 purports to be an autobiographical one. It is to be played, too, the 
 author says, in every State in the Union, and he will appear for a 
 curtain talk after each production to emphasize the need of Lunacy 
 Law reform. "The Hazard of the Die," a blank verse drama of Catiline, 
 in imitation of Shakespeare, follows with an epilogue in which the 
 author says this is but the first of a series of plays. The work has 
 passages of real vividness. 
 
 There is real value though to students of Abnormal Psychology in 
 the accounts of the "Napoleonic trances," of the mediumistic letters 
 and the like which the author includes in this heterogeneous volume. 
 Some of these are documents intended to prove his sanity, for he 
 quotes William James, the American psychologist, as styling him a 
 medium of unusual powers, and includes a letter from Thomson Jay 
 Hudson, author of "The Law of Psychic Phenomena," which says it 
 is unjust to call a man insane simply because he believes there is a 
 Subjective Mind, a belief scientists are coming round to.
 
 The Post-Express, Rochester, N. Y., July 24, 1915. 
 
 "Robbery Under Law; or The Battle of the Millionaires: A Play in 
 Three Acts and Three Scenes." By John Armstrong Chaloner. 
 Roanoke Rapids, N. C. Palmetto Press. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner's play, "Robbery Under Law," has obviously been 
 based on his own experiences. The plot turns on a conspiracy to have 
 a millionaire art patron and author shut up in an asylum. 
 
 In the same volume there is another play entitled "The Hazard 
 of the Die," treating of Catiline's conspiracy. It is in the manner of 
 Marlowe, even that dramatist's peculiarities of accentuation being imi 
 tated. The author shows a knowledge of Roman history which is very 
 creditable to his memory. Among the dramatis personae are the poet 
 Catullus, Cicero, Crassus, Sulla and Caesar. 
 
 The book ivill amuse and in many ways, astonish the average 
 reader.
 
 234 
 
 New York Tribune, Tuesday, June 29, 1915. 
 
 "WHO'S LOONEY NOW?" NAPOLEON PXAYWRIGHT IN 
 LUNACY CRUSADE 
 
 "Robbery Under Law," First Big Dramatic Gun in "Battle 
 
 of Millionaires," May Yet Invade New York 
 
 if Author Has Good Luck. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, phrase maker extraordinary and author 
 of "Who's Looney Now?" has written a play with which he intends 
 to fight the lunacy laws of various States. It is called "Robbery Under 
 Law; or, The Battle of Millionaires," and was ground out at Merry 
 Mills, Chaloner's estate in Virginia. There the author is a sane man 
 under the State law, while New York courts have adjudged him in 
 sane. 
 
 To give full measure in the volume Mr. Chaloner has combined 
 with "Robbery Under Law" another play, called "The Hazard of the 
 Die," numerous newspaper clippings concerning his own vicissitudes 
 and some sonnets. The frontispiece is a portrait of Chaloner in the 
 dress of Napoleon the same picture that he sent to newspapers in 
 1912, when his modesty first yielded to his resemblance to the great 
 little Corsican. 
 
 The play "Robbery Under Law" is founded upon Chaloner's own 
 adventures before and after his escape from "Bloomingdale." In the 
 prologue, in which the author refers to himself as "Who's Looney 
 Now?" Chaloner declares his intention of producing the play in all 
 parts of the country and accompanying its production with lectures 
 on the iniquity of insanity laws. 
 
 Just how Chaloner is going to manage about New York he doesn't 
 say. He surely can't be planning to omit New York from his tour, for 
 here, if anywhere, he has found iniquitous lunacy law, to say nothing 
 of "ermined anarchy." Perhaps he is reckoning on the co-operation 
 of the Supreme Court of the United States, where his appeal from an 
 adverse judgment in his suit to recover the control of his $1,500,000 
 property is pending. 
 
 It is not the first appearance Chaloner has made as an author, 
 although it is the first time he has come out as a Napoleonic crusader 
 in literature. In 1907 he wrote forty-seven sonnets, explaining his 
 ideas on hell and Bernard Shaw. A few months ago the war set his 
 pen to itching, and he gave the Germans what he gave Shaw only 
 more so. 
 
 Ag a scientist, too, Chaloner has made a deep impression upon 
 himself. Not only is he the possessor of an "X-faculty" which enables 
 him to suspend the law of gravitation, but pool balls speak to him 
 in astrological terms. 
 
 All this was for the cause, however, as Chaloner announces in 
 his prologue to "Robbery Under Law." Presumably even his appar-
 
 235 
 
 ently sincere attempts to recover command of his fortune were strate 
 gic movements intended to embarrass the New York lunacy law, for he 
 writes that he has "sacrificed the last eighteen years of my life" in 
 the cause of lunacy reform. 
 
 New York Herald, June 29, 1915. 
 
 NOW IT'S A FLAY BY " OHALONER 1ST." 
 
 Lunacy Law Reform To Be Urged on Stage by John 
 Armstrong Chaloner. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, in a fifty cent paper covered volume, 
 full of personal declarations, put before the public yesterday his 
 new play, "Robbery Under Law." "In order to serve as a sort of propa 
 ganda toward the cause of lunacy law reform, to which the writer has 
 sacrificed the last eighteen years of his life, come March 13, 1915," 
 is Mr. Chaloner's declaration in italics for the purpose of this pub 
 lication. 
 
 More interesting than the publication is the announcement it 
 carries that Mr. Chaloner proposes to present "Robbery Under Law" 
 as a dramatic performance in theatres all over the country, making 
 an address after the fall of the curtain at each performance, which 
 he solemnly agrees to limit to ten minutes. He will talk for two 
 hours every Sunday, however. 
 
 The frontispiece for the book is a picture of a portrait bust of 
 the author dressed in the uniform of Napoleon 1. with the caption, 
 "Chaloner 1st; 1911, by Criswell. 
 
 Defending "Robbery Under Law" Mr. Chaloner writes that parts 
 of it could be cut "without the least injury to the action, though not 
 to the psychological value of it as a study in the very latest and 
 furthest advanced realms of mediumship. Since that is what I am 
 a medium in the language of the late Professor William James, of 
 Harvard." 
 
 Mr. Chaloner's only successful composition heretofore was the 
 phrase, "Who's Looney Now?" written in a telegram to his brother 
 "Sheriff Bob" Chanler, when the latter's romantic and marital ex 
 periences with Mile. Lina Cavalier! became known.
 
 236 
 
 New York Sun, June 29, 1915. 
 CHALONEB HAS A SEQUEL TO "WHO'S L.OONEY NOW?" 
 
 It's a Volume, an Epic, a Work of Art ($.5O Per) John A. 
 
 Is The Hero and Everything Else, Except 
 
 Bosco and Viola. 
 
 Every once In a while John Armstrong Chaloner, author of 
 that merry little quip "Who's Looney Now?' retires into his inner 
 consciousness and after long lucubration brings forth another book 
 about John Armstrong Chaloner. Since his escape from "Bloom- 
 ingdale" Asylum in 1900 to his home in Virginia, where he is legally 
 sane, Chaloner has been attacking the lunacy laws, and his latest 
 vehicle of expression, hot off the press, is called "Robbery Under 
 Law; or, The Battle of the Millionaires." 
 
 Although Chaloner modestly takes unto himself the robes of 
 Shakespeare and Marlowe he was known, until the publication of 
 this latest collection of blank and other verse, melodrama and press 
 notices, as the brother of Sheriff Bob Chanler. of New York, who on 
 his separation from Lina Cavalieri received a telegram from brother 
 John Armstrong asking "Who's Looney Now?" Mr. Chaloner is 
 proud of that line. He puts it on the title page and uses it as the 
 climax of his relation of triumph over Pat Sligo, the asylum keeper. 
 
 For of course Chaloner is the hero of his play in three acts 
 and three scenes, with a prologue and epilogue. His adventures, 
 "the stirring cycle of events which for the past eighteen years has 
 been whirling around the head of 'Who's Looney Now' " centre about 
 the manly form of Hugh Stutfield of Rokeby, Albemarle County, Vir 
 ginia, "millionaire art patron and law writer." There are two other 
 millionaires in the play who try to get Stutfield's money and so put 
 him in the Fairdale asylum, and a man worth half a million. Mr. 
 Chaloner says it is a psychological play, he having been called a 
 medium and of psychic temperament by the late Prof. William James. 
 
 See What Bosco Does! 
 
 Bnit the psychology is not so startling as the action, to which 
 Bosco, the man servant of Stutfield, his "heavy Numidian cavalry 
 to use a bold metaphor," contributes strangle holds and half Nelsons. 
 It begins with a killing. Stutfield, in love with Viola, who is beautiful 
 but cold, is visited by her. She brings a poor woman who is beaten 
 every day by her husband with a poker because the poker won't bend, 
 and Stutfield is about to get a divorce for her when the husband 
 comes in and lays out the chivalric squire with his favorite weapon. 
 Enter Bosco. 
 
 "With that Bosco crouches like a tig,er and springs upon Bullard 
 from behind, bringing Bullard down flat on his back under him. By 
 this time Stutfield has come to and rises to his feet.
 
 237 
 
 "Viola (in a low tone) Are you hurt, my darling? 
 
 "Stutfield (in the same low voice) No, my dearest darling, not 
 a bit. You precious child! It took the threat of death of my death 
 to melt your frozen bosom. Do you love me?" 
 
 "Viola Yes, my hero, I do. 
 
 "Stutfield (in italics); Thank God, then, for those two blows! 
 You saved the day, though, dearie. As I went off into my two sleeps 
 your sweet bell-like voice was ringing in my ears like a silver 
 trumpet call, sounding the charges. And, by Gad, my black Bosco 
 heard your bugle and made good. Look at the black rascal holding 
 that murderous villain down. I hereby crown you queen of love and 
 beauty of the tournament this modern Ashby-de-la Zouche of Ivanhoe. 
 
 "Viola The Queen of Love and Beauty accepts the glorious crown 
 placed upon her unworthy head by thy glorious hand, Sir Knight of 
 Rokeby, whose headdress (a football cap of Rugby days) suggests 
 the Oriental pomp of the dauntless but ruthless Sir Brian de Bois 
 Guilbert, and whose character that of the stainless Wilfred of Ivanhoe." 
 
 After that Chaloner, or Stutfield, simply cannot resist having 
 another go with the bloodthirsty Bullard, and with the assistance of 
 the heavy Numidian cavalry the villain is shot. 
 
 Don't Be Alarmed. He Isn't Hurt. 
 
 "Viola My God. Hugh are you hurt, darling? 
 
 "Stutfield No, darling. 
 
 "(Bosco lets Bullard softly down on his back.) 
 
 "Bosco He dade. 
 
 ".Stutfield (Gravely.) Yes, Bosco. He dade." 
 (Curtain.) 
 
 After two more acts, which show how Stutfield is incarcerated 
 in Fairdale asylum by persons who wish to get his money and how 
 he escapes by overpowering the keeper, Pat Sligo, and binding him 
 with ingenious devices, he leans over Pat and says: 
 
 "Ta, ta, Pat, I'll meet you in a better world where the lunacy 
 laws presumably are more legal and equitable than in New York at 
 present. So long, Pat. Be good to yourself. (With great delibera 
 tion and pausing between each word) Who's Looney Now?" 
 
 With which stinging remark he goes out of the play and leaves 
 Pat flat. 
 
 But to make the book really worth fifty cents Chaloner throws 
 in a lot of other things, including "The Hazard of the Die," of which 
 he thinks so well that he prefaces it by the following prologue: 
 
 His Marlovian Line. 
 
 "The grand Marlovian line is surely mine 
 'Tis Marlowe's heir we are more than Shakespeare's. 
 But Shakespeare's psychology is mine my mine! 
 For the rest we're Marlowe, plus our riper years.
 
 238 
 
 Thus th' English drama's incarnate in me; 
 
 Of its two prophets we the mantle wear. 
 
 Shakespeare's knowledge of man therein you see, 
 
 Whilst Marlowe's thunder fills the ambient air. 
 
 With Marlowe's passion doth fill up our cup; 
 
 Of his heroic mould our heroes be, 
 
 While passion's cup our heroines fill up 
 
 The truth of this the d dest fool may see. 
 
 'Deep calleth unto deep' within our plays, 
 
 And Marlowe's lightning on Shakespeare's moonlight plays." 
 
 After which one simply can't help reading the play, only to meet 
 at the end the lines: 
 
 "Fair reader, this grim play scarce but begins 
 A chain of plays that equals Shakespeare's length. 
 In saying this think not the chorus sins 
 We know our productivity and strength." 
 
 And lest there be any misunderstanding as to the worth of 
 Shakespeare in making comparisons, Mr. Chaloner reproduces a part 
 of an essay by George Saintsbury to show that the bard was once 
 considered a regular writer. 
 
 New York Call, June 29, 1915. 
 
 "WHO'S LOONEY NOW?" WRITES A NEW PLAY. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner Is Author of the Great Drama hi 
 Three Acts, Three Scenes, Etc. 
 
 Every once in a while John Armstrong Chaloner, author of 
 that merry little quip "Who's Looney Now?" retires into his inner 
 consciousness and after long lucubration brings forth another book 
 about John Armstrong Chaloner. Since his escape from "Bloom- 
 ingdale" Asylum in 1900 to his home in Virginia, where he is legally 
 sane, Chaloner has been exposing the lunacy laws, and his latest 
 vehicle of expression, which comes hot off the press, is called "Robbery 
 Under Law, or the Battle of the Millionaires." 
 
 Although Chaloner modestly takes unto himself the robes of 
 Shakespeare and Marlowe he was known, until the publication of 
 this latest collection of blank and other verse, melodrama and press 
 notices, as the brother of Sheriff Bob Chanler. of New York, who on 
 his separation from Lina Cavalieri received a telegram from brother 
 John asking "Who's Looney Now?" Mr. Chaloner is proud of that 
 line; he puts it on the title page and uses it as a climax of his 
 triumph over Pat Sligo, the asylum keeper.
 
 239 
 
 Chaloner Is Hero of His Play. 
 
 But, of course. Chaloner is the hero of his play in. three acts and 
 three scenes, with a prologue and epilogue. His adventures, "The 
 stirring cycle of events which for the past eighteen years have been, 
 whirling around the head of 'Who's Looney Now?' " centre about the 
 manly form of Hugh Stutfield. of Rokeby, Albemarle 'County, Va., 
 "millionaire art patron and law writer." There are two other mil 
 lionaires in the play who try to get Stutfield's money, and so put him 
 in the Fairdale asylum, and a man worth half a million. Mr. Chaloner 
 says that it is a psychological play, he having been called a medium 
 and of psychic temperament by the late Prof. William James. 
 
 But the psychology is not so startling as the action, to which 
 Bosco, the man servant of Stutfield, his "heavy Numidian cavalry, to 
 use a bold metaphor," contributes strangle holds and half Nelsons. 
 It begins with a killing. Stutfield, in love with Viola, who is beautiful 
 but cold, is visited by her. She brings a poor woman who is beaten 
 every day by her husband with a poker, because the poker won't bend, 
 and Stutfield is about to get a divorce for her, when the husband 
 comes in and lays out the chivalric squire with a poker. Enter Bosco. 
 
 Bosco's Noble Deed., 
 
 "With that Bosco crouches like a tiger and springs upon Bullard 
 from behind, bringing Bullard down flat on his back under him. By 
 this time Stutfield has come to, and rises to his feet. 
 
 Viola (in a low tone)i Are you hurt, my darling? 
 
 Stutfield (in the same low voice) No, my dearest darling, not 
 a bit. You precious child! It took the threat of death of my death 
 to melt your frozen bosom. Do you love me? 
 
 Viola Yes, my hero, I do. 
 
 Stutfield Thank God. then, for those two blows! You saved the 
 day, though, dearie. As I went off into my two sleeps your sweet bell- 
 like voice was ringing in my ears like a silver trumpet call, sounding 
 the charge. And, by Gad, my black Bosco heard your bugle and "made 
 good." Look at the black rascal holding that murderous villain down. 
 I hereby crown you Queen of Love and Beauty of the tournament 
 this modern Ashby de la Zouche of Ivanhoe. 
 
 Viola The Queen of Love and Beauty accepts the glorious crown 
 placed upon her unworthy head by thy glorious hand, Sir Knight of 
 Rokeby. Whose headdress (a football cap of Rugby days) suggests 
 the Oriental pomp of the dauntless, but ruthless, Sir Brian de Bois 
 Gilbert, and whose character that of the stainless Wilfred of Ivanhoe." 
 
 'Snuff!
 
 240 
 
 New York Mail, June 28, 1915. 
 
 J. A. CHALONER WRITES BOOK IN SANITY CRU8ADK. 
 
 Author of Phrase "Who's Looney Now?" Will Also Lecture to 
 Prove Laws Are Wrong. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, made famous by the query, "Who's 
 Looney Now?" has started a crusade to prove the sanity laws of 
 the majority of the States are all wrong. 
 
 In a book which appeared on the stands to-day he is putting 
 forth, admittedly founded on his own experience, his commitment to 
 "Bloomingdale," his escape and his finding of a refuge in Virginia, 
 whose courts dec'ared him sane. 
 
 Chaloner sets forth in a prologue he has "sacrificed the last 
 eighteen years of his life" in the cause of lunacy reform. His play 
 is entitled: "Robbery Under Law, or The Battle of the Millionaires." 
 
 Another play, "The Hazard of the Die," is also included in the 
 volume, which contains numerous clippings from newspapers dealing 
 with his own case. 
 
 His purpose, he isays, is "to put before the public the deadly 
 disease eating the fiber of our body politic in vicious lunacy legis 
 lation obtaining in 40 per cent, of the States of the United States as 
 'damaged goods' put before the public the deadly disease eating the 
 flesh of alas! but too many of the peoples of the earth." 
 
 New York Telegram, June 28, 1915. 
 
 "WHO'S LOONEY?" BARES BLOT ON OUR ESCUTCHEON. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner Before the Footlights With 
 Scathing Attock on the Law. 
 
 REINCARNATED NAPOLEON HAS WRITTEN BOOK 
 ABOUT IT. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, author of "Who's Looney Now?" has 
 a brand new crusade. 
 
 He has set out "to put before the public the deadly disease eating 
 the fibre of our body politic in vicious lunacy legislation obtaining 
 in forty per cent, of the States of the United States, as 'Damaged 
 Goods' put before the public the deadly disease, eating the flesh of 
 alas! but too many of the peoples of the earth." 
 
 To that end he has written a new play entitled "Robbery Under 
 Law; or, The Battle of the Millionaires," and is offering it to the
 
 241 
 
 public in book form. It made its appearance on the book stands 
 here to-day fresh from the press. 
 
 The work, which embraces besides the play, numerous newspaper 
 clippings, dealing with his now famous case, another play called 
 "The Hazard of the Die," and some new essays into the field of 
 poetry, covers 244 pages, set off with a frontispiece portrait of the 
 author made up as Napoleon. 
 
 He Means Business, All Right. 
 
 Most of the clippings refer to Chaloner's incarceration in the 
 "Bloomingdale" Asylum in this State and the actions of the New 
 York and Virginia courts which respectively held him insane and 
 sane. In the prologue Chaloner declares that he has "sacrificed the 
 last eighteen years of my life" to propaganda toward the cause of 
 lunacy reform. His schemes for furthering the propaganda are an 
 nounced in the following paragraphs culled from the book: 
 
 " 'Who's Looney Now?' proposes to address the audiences after 
 the fall of the curtain in 'Robbery Under Law' for ten minutes pre 
 cisely; and put before them in each city he plays in all through 
 the United States, the black and foul stigma now staining the fair 
 name of law, justice and liberty in these United States in the name 
 of the Lunacy Law. Furthermore, each Sunday afternoon 'Who's 
 Looney Now?' will hire the largest hall each city contains and for 
 two hours hold forth on the interesting topic of criminal lunacy 
 legislation now masquerading under the name of law in forty per 
 cent, of the States of the Union. * * * 'Who's Looney Now?' opines 
 he will draw a large crowd.' 
 
 Founded on Own Ups and Downs. 
 
 The play, which is admittedly founded on Chaloner's ups and 
 downs since he was committed to the asylum, is summarized as 
 follows: 
 
 Hugh Stutfield, of Virginia and New York, wealthy art patron 
 and writer on law, has an enemy in James Lawless, also wealthy, 
 who conspires with his relatives to get him out of the way. Hugh 
 and Lawless are rivals for the hand of Viola Cariston, and fearing; 
 that he has little chance of winning her from the Virginian, Lawless 
 determines to resort to any means rather than lose her. Constantia 
 and Winston Blettermole, cousins of Hugh's, are bitterly jealous of 
 him, and as they are the next heirs to his millions, if he does not 
 marry, they listen readily to the criminal suggestions of Lawless and 
 his lawyer, Spink. 
 
 Although Hugh has a certain clairvoyant sense which warns him 
 of trouble, they manage to have him shut up in an asylum, as a* 
 dangerous lunatic. From this place he eventually makes his escape, 
 and by wit and courage gets the better of his persecutors. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner declares in his introduction that the first act of 
 the play, in which the shooting and death of one of the characters
 
 242 
 
 occur, is taken "bodily character and action from life." Act II. 
 Is described as a "thinly disguised statement of cold, hard facts, bar 
 only the love motive, which is entirely imaginary." He adds: "The 
 only main differences being that the fight with the "Bloomingdale" 
 keeper took place in my cell at "Bloomingdale," instead of in the 
 wood at "Bloomingdale"; and, also, that I escaped from "Blooming- 
 dale" by flight, unaided by support from outside that Institution 
 outside the Insane asylum as in the play." 
 
 In his fight to prove his sanity before the Virginia court which 
 ultimately decided he was sane, Chaloner deposed that he had dis 
 covered a new application of animal magnetism and that his facial 
 lineaments had changed in recent years so as to resemble portraits 
 of Napoleon Bonaparte. 
 
 Chaloner's last court fight here took place last year when he 
 made an unsuccessful effort in the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals 
 to recover possession of his $1,500,000 estate from Thomas T. Sher 
 man, who was appointed committee of his person when he was com 
 mitted to the asylum. 
 
 New York Telegram, June 29, 1915. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner now blooms as the Napoleon of a new 
 reform. A St. Helena for a lot of reformers is something, very much 
 needed. 
 
 New York American, June 29, 1915. 
 
 \M1UK RIVES FIGURES IN CHALONER'S BOOK. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, whose long fight to prove his sanity 
 made him famous, has issued a book made up in part of a three-act 
 play, "Robbery Under Law; or, The Battle of the Millionaires." He 
 includes a chapter, "Isis Unveiled," explaining why, he says, Amelie 
 Rives, now the Princess Troubetzkoy, is still paid $3,600 from his 
 income. 
 
 'The allowance of $3,600 to Princess Troubetzkoy, is not alimony, 
 but a continuance, after her remarriage, of an allowance made said 
 Princess before her divorce was even mentioned. It is merely the 
 friendly interest of an art patron in the future career of a writer and 
 artist, with whom the said art patron had quarrelled, largely because 
 she refused to cultivate her great talent as a portrait painter."
 
 243 
 
 New York World, July 4, 1915. 
 
 CHALONER MAKES HIMSELF THE HERO OF HIS OWN PLAY 
 
 " Robbery Under Law," He Says, Is an Epitome of His Fight 
 Against Lunacy Proceedings. 
 
 MUCH OF THE DIALOGUE AND SOME INCIDENTS REAL 
 
 One Scene Reproduces a Tragedy in Which Ohaloner Was 
 One of the Actors. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner has written a play entitled "Robbery 
 Under Law" to illustrate, as he says, the mischief of lunacy proceed 
 ings in New York State. When he finished the play last fall he sent 
 it through friends to a reader for a city theatrical manager. It 
 was rejected by the reader, who criticized it as "far-fetched and 
 sensational in plot, the behaviour of the characters being highly 
 unconvincing under all circumstances." Mr. Chaloner says the rejec 
 tion is a prime literary asset to him, as practically all the characters 
 in the play and all the scenes are from life, relating his own experi 
 ences under the lunacy law. So he has published the play in book 
 form, together with other of his writings. 
 
 The Virginia Tragedy. 
 
 In the dramatization Mr. Chaloner poses as chief character, with 
 the name of Hugh Stutfield of Rokeby, Albemarle County, Va., and 
 New York, millionaire art patron and law writer. James Lawless 
 of New York, rejected suitor of Viola Cariston, who loves Stutfield; 
 Winston Blettermole, cousin and heir-at-law of Stutfield; Belisarius 
 P. .Splnk, a learned and unscrupulous New York lawyer, and Albert 
 Wedge, an inventor, are the other important characters in the play. 
 
 Viola and the love romance woven about her are dramatic inven 
 tions; but, Mr. Chaloner says, the other characters correctly portray 
 relatives and others who had him placed in "Bloomingdale" Asylum, 
 from which he escaped after he had been kept there nearly four years, 
 and that many of the utterances in the play were made by actual 
 persons in the proceedings against him. 
 
 The play opens at Rokeby, Stutfield's Virginia Place, where iStut- 
 field is visited by Viola, accompanied by Mrs. Bullard and her little 
 daughter, wife and child of an English machinist. Bullard had beaten 
 his wife until she had resolved to obtain a divorce from him and 
 Viola had taken her to Rokeby to consult Stutfield as a lawyer. 
 
 While they are talking, Bullard enters. He attacks his wife with 
 a pair of tongs. Stutfield springs to her relief and, after a prolonged 
 encounter, a pistol for which Stutfield and Bullard have been strug 
 gling, is discharged, killing Bullard. This act is said to reproduce
 
 244 
 
 substantially an occurrence in which John Gillard, an English wife- 
 beater, was killed by a pistol in the hands of Gillard and Chaloner, 
 while Chaloner was, in good faith, according to actual verdict of a 
 coroner's jury, trying to prevent Gillard from shooting Mrs. Gillard. 
 
 The Lunacy Plot 
 
 Act II. brings together Lawless, Blettermole and wife, and Lawyer 
 Spink in the Cariston home, where Spink unfolds a plan by which 
 Stutfield may be declared insane and commtted to an asylum and 
 his fortune of $5,000,000 divided among his relatives. It is arranged 
 that Blettermole, as nearest blood relative, and Lawless, as "best 
 friend," shall apply to the court to commit Stutfield to an asylum as 
 a dangerous lunatic, a maniac with suicidal and homicidal tendencies. 
 Stutfleld's psychological studies and manifestations in subconscious or 
 trance utterances were to be points against him, and the killing of 
 Bullard a supporting incident. 
 
 With the departure of the conspirators from Cariston's, Stutfield 
 arrives there. He talks with Viola of having awakened that morning 
 with a subconscious depression of spirits, which warned him of 
 trouble for himself within the next twenty-four hours. Lest it may 
 affect him financially, he has brought with him in his saddle-bags 
 $2,250,000, the proceeds of an investment in a needle-threading inven 
 tion of Wedge's five years previously. This money he wishes Viola 
 to put away for him in her safe. As no one will know of the deposit 
 except the two lovers, Stutfield wants it in the safe in order that no 
 court may reach it. Stutfield has a low opinion of the Bench, which 
 he explains at length. Viola puts the money in the safe. Chaloner 
 says this act is the thinly disguised statement of cold, hard facts, 
 barring the imaginary love motive. 
 
 In a New York Hotel. 
 
 Act II. opens with Stutfield in the Hotel Kensington, New York, 
 where he is visited by two doctors, who profess interest in his powers 
 as a medium. He g,oes into a supposed trance for their benefit, in 
 which he denounces both of them as rogues and hirelings. The 
 doctors summon three manhandlers to seize Stutfield as a lunatic. 
 Stutfield drives out the entire party at the point of a pistol and says 
 he will discuss the matter the next afternoon. This scene, Chaloner 
 says, is almost verbatim and actually from life. 
 
 The next scene, declared to be practically from life, Is three 
 months later, in Stutfield's cell, "Fairdale" asylum. He is writing a 
 letter to Viola, which he intendes to intrust for delivery to the in 
 ventor Wedge, whose allowance from Stutfield on account of the 
 needle-threading invention is running low and in danger of stopping, 
 and who has been admitted frequently to the asylum to call on Stut- , 
 field, because the asylum authorities look upon him as a safe visitor, 
 being only an inventor, "without much good sense."
 
 245 
 
 This letter lays out a plan of escape. Viola is to tell her father 
 of their engagement and of the money in the safe. Capt. Cariston, 
 the father, is to have access to that money to pay $2,500 to Wedge; 
 $2,500 each to three ex-Confederate veterans not too old to shoot 
 straight, with promise of as much more the day they land Stutfleld 
 safely in Virginia; $1,250 to the owner of any Norfolk ocean-going 
 tug, that sum to be doubled when he lands Stutfield on the Virginia 
 coast; $2,500 for a Connecticut farmer, a friend of Wedge, to transport 
 any four men, behind a pair of speedy horses, from the "Fairdale" 
 wall to the Sound, within thirty minutes. There the party will take 
 the ocean-going tug and head for Virginia. 
 
 The Escape. 
 
 When all is ready Wedge is to call at the asylum, bringing with 
 him a "quietus" in the form of a steel harness, which will handcuff, 
 foot-bind, gag, blindfold and ear-muffle its wearer; also a chain and 
 padlocks. The apparatus is intended for Pat Sligo, Stutfleld's guard, 
 with whom Stutfield intends to pick a quarrel in the asylum woods. 
 He has figured out how he can choke Sligo into insensibility and 
 then bind and lock him so that Sligo can give no alarm, see nothing, 
 hear no approaching or departing footsteps and cannot be unharnessed 
 except by long filing. 
 
 This plan is carried out in the play and works perfectly. Chal- 
 oner says it is "practically" the way he escaped from a real asylum, 
 the main difference being that the fig;ht with the keeper took place 
 in the cell, not in the woods, and that the escape from the asylum 
 grounds was made without help from outside. 
 
 New York Times. June 25, 1915. 
 
 FALLACIES OF THE ALIENIST IN COURT 
 
 Errors of His Expert Opinion in Contrast With the Judgment 
 of Average Common Sense A Remedy Proposed. 
 
 New York, June 23, 1915. 
 To the Editor of the New York Times: 
 
 We cannot but regard with extreme disfavor and denounce with 
 a feeling of the outraged decency of our profession the part too 
 frequently acted by professional alienists when called upon to decide 
 in law courts the legal competency of individuals. Upon the expressed 
 opinion of these insanity experts hang often the issues of life and 
 death, vast property interests, or the freedom or incarceration of men 
 and women. Need I mention that frequently, for some considerable 
 length of time, the testimony given by prominent alienists in the 
 courts of this city has been of such a character as to bring discredit
 
 246 
 
 not only upon themselves but upon the profession to which they 
 belong? 
 
 Another instance where a man of world-wide reputation as skilled 
 in the treatment and diagnosis of insanity, displaying a facile weak 
 ness, sets also in a strong light the untrustworthiness of much of the 
 testimony given by alienists. A number of years ago this noted New 
 York physician was called upon to examine a young man who had 
 killed another with an axe in a rural district up the State. It appears 
 that the one who had committed the murderous assault was subject 
 to epileptic fits, and the physician, after an examination, gave as his 
 expert opinion that the wielder of the axe was a psychic epileptic, and 
 as such not responsible for his actions. Soon after giving this opinion 
 the doctor was closeted for some length of time with the prosecuting 
 attorney on the case, with the result that on the following morning 
 he requested of the court the privilege of revising his testimony, which 
 was granted. He then changed it so that it would appear as if the 
 act was deliberate, the perpetrator hesitating, with the axe uplifted, 
 before he struck the fatal blow. 
 
 Recently an object lesson in a disputed insanity case was pre 
 sented to the public of New York City, when John Armstrong Chaloner 
 took the initial steps toward having himself declared legally sane in 
 the State of New York. For some time past Mr. Chaloner had held 
 the disagreeably anomalous position of being legally insane in the 
 State of New York, while declared legally sane in Virginia. This 
 irregularity, the result of divergent opinions expressed by alienists 
 simply gives additional emphasis to a suspicion very generally enter 
 tained by the laity, that such expert opinions are worthy^ of no con 
 sideration whatever. In the instance just mentioned great money 
 interests were involved which doubtless made it peculiarly interesting 
 to others as well as insanity experts. 
 
 So I might go on, almost interminably, citing case after case, 
 equally flagrant, not limited to the city or State of New York, but 
 co-extensive with the entire country. Surely there must be some 
 remedy for a crying evil which has not only resulted in numerous 
 acts of injustice being done, but has also brought contempt upon a 
 noble profession. Dr. Samuel W. Smith, formerly New York State 
 Commissioner in Lunacy. 
 
 Brooklyn, N. Y. Times, June 29, 1915. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, who escaped from Bloomingdale sev 
 eral years ago, has written a book to show that the insanity laws in 
 this country are all wrong. Harry Kendall Thaw is of the same 
 opinion.
 
 247 
 
 New York Evening Sun, June 29, 1915. 
 
 THE SUN DIAL. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner has published another volume proving 
 he is sane. We would rather take the contention for granted than go 
 into the book, but we suppose it contains a chart showing the Union 
 marked off into black or white States, indicating where the cause has 
 triumphed and where the light has not yet shone. 
 
 Boston, Mass., Daily Globe, June 30, 1915. 
 
 i 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner has published a play "in order to serve 
 as a sort of propaganda toward the cause of lunacy reforms, to which 
 the writer has sacrificed the last 18 years of his life, come March 13, 
 1915." It is called "Robbery Under Law," and if it's as good as his 
 "Who's Looney Now?" telegram, written to his brother, "Sheriff Bob" 
 Chanler, when the latter's marital experiences with Mile. Cavalieri 
 became known, there should be many appreciative readers. 
 
 Meriden, Conn., Journal March 17, 1909. 
 
 WAS SHOT DEAD.t 
 
 Virginia Husband Who Was Beating Wife. 
 
 BATTLE WITH CHALONER. 
 
 Amelie Rives' Divorced Husband Took Woman's Part. 
 
 Charlottesville, Va., March 17. In a desperate struggle for the 
 possession of a revolver between John Armstrong Chaloner, once 
 Chanler, of the influential New York family, and John Gillard, a 
 
 tAbove is one of a mass of notices relative to the Gillard affair, 
 which "Who's Looney Now?" ran across at haphazard recently. It is 
 added as a graphic account of the said affair the stock Associated 
 Press story that was sent out at the time by their representative in 
 Charlottesville, Albemarle county, Va. There are several glaring errors 
 therein. The two most marked being that (a) Gillard was drunk; (b) 
 that Gillard was pinioned on the floor by three men, and that "Who's 
 Looney Now?" "begged Gillard to desist" from murdering his (Gil- 
 lard's) wife, (a) Gillard was a total abstainer, did not drink, smoke 
 nor use tobacco in any form, (b) The battle occurred precisely as 
 described in Act I, Scene I in Robbery Under Law, except that Mr. 
 Ernie Money not the negro servant not "Bosco" as in the play 
 was the man who sprang upon and threw Gillard when "Who's Looney 
 Now?" was temporarily hors de combat.
 
 248 
 
 powerful Englishman, at the Chaloner home near here Monday night, 
 Gillard was killed by a shot from the weapon. 
 
 Chaloner had entered his dining room to find Gillard beating Mrs. 
 Gillard with a pair of tongs. The woman's assailant was raining 
 savage blows on her head, and would have had her life within a 
 moment or two. 
 
 A coroner's jury of substantial farmers wholly absolved Chaloner 
 yesterday from all blame in the tragedy. The people of this section 
 are unanimous in praising Chaloner for his courage in unhesitatingly 
 entering an unequal combat to protect a woman, mother of seven chil 
 dren, and poor to destitution. The big family of children witnessed 
 the death of their father. 
 
 The tragedy adds one more dramatic episode to Chaloner's stranyc 
 career, in which is blended with it romance, love, madness, intense 
 hatred of kinsmen, and a probably unparalleled battle in the courts 
 of several States for a legal decree restoring to him the rights of a 
 sane person. The romance had its ending in a divorce by Amelie 
 Rives, the novelist, now living in New York, and wife of Prince Pierre 
 Troubetzkoy, Russian artist, because of incompatibility of temper. 
 
 Chaloner was never under even technical arrest for his part in 
 the death of Gillard. The man, given to drink and violence toward 
 his family, has been a pensioner of Chaloner, because of pity for the 
 wife and helpless children. Only recently his benefactor had notified 
 him that he would be given a mule, in order that he might earn more 
 for his family. 
 
 "Merry Mills," Chaloner's Albemarle county estate, is just beyond 
 Cobham, near here. Gillard's home is near Campbells, two miles 
 distant from the Chaloner house. He came to this country from Aus 
 tralia two years ago; lived a short time at Richmond, moving thence 
 to his late home. 
 
 It was notorious in the community that he habitually maltreated 
 his wife and children. Mrs. Gillard had appealed several times to 
 Chaloner, who had talked with her husband about his drinking and 
 his evil nature. , 
 
 The master of "Merry Mills" was entertaining a guest, Ernie G. 
 Money, when Mrs. Gillard and her children, the oldest a boy of four 
 teen, were admitted to the dining room by a servant. They were 
 announced, but Chaloner lingered a while upstairs with his guest. 
 Meanwhile Gillard, in pursuit of his wife, forced his way into the 
 house and into the dining room. 
 
 Wild with drink and rage, he seized a pair of heavy tongs and 
 began beating his wife over the head. Alarmed by the screams of the 
 woman, her children and the servants, Chaloner and Money ran down 
 to the dining room. 
 
 Gillard was holding his wife by the hair, meanwhile striking her 
 again and again. The woman was covered with blood. Chaloner, his 
 guest, and a colored man servant grasped the madman, while Chaloner
 
 249 
 
 begged him to desist in his murderous attack. Gillard, powerful and 
 frenzied, fought so desperately that the three men were all but ex 
 hausted and were hardly able to hold him. 
 
 They finally pressed him to the floor, his arms and legs pinioned 
 by their hands. The colored servant was sent for a rope with which 
 to bind him. Chaloner had brought down a revolver, and as Money 
 held the winded giant he stood by with the revolver, hoping to intimi 
 date him. 
 
 Before the servant could return, Gillard broke from Money, sprang 
 upon Chaloner and grasped the revolver. Intent upon murdering his 
 wife, he tried to bring the weapon in line to fire it at the terrorized 
 woman. As Chaloner and the maniac struggled for possession of the 
 revolver, it discharged. Gillard fell dead, shot through the heart. 
 
 No one, not even Chaloner, appears to know who pressed the 
 trigger, so fierce and close was the struggle, but Mrs. Gillard says she 
 is quite sure that her husband sent the missile through his own heart. 
 
 The condition of the dining room which, with the body, was left 
 until yesterday just as it was when death ended the battle, in order 
 that the authorities might see it, fully corroborated the testimony of 
 the witnesses. The furniture was turned topsy turvy and was broken; 
 the big tongs, bent from the blows, were covered with blood and 
 matted hair. The woman's hat, parts of her clothing and her hair 
 pins were scattered all about. 
 
 Immediately after Gillard met death, Quintus L. Williams, magis 
 trate, was summoned, as was the coroner. The inquest was held yes 
 terday, Mrs. Gillard and her oldest son testifying for Chaloner. The 
 woman showed many wounds from the murderous beating. 
 
 She testified that she had been badly beaten on the preceding Satur 
 day and Sunday, and that her husband had declared he would kill her. 
 He became violent again and, taking her brood with her, she had fled 
 to "Merry Mills" to ask Mr. Chaloner's protection. 'She asserted that 
 Mr. Chaloner and the others had tried to pacify her husband, had 
 tried to avoid injuring him and had told him that they merely in 
 tended handing him over to the officers of the law. The boy corrobo 
 rated his mother. 
 
 Magistrate Williams had declared at the outset that Chaloner had 
 merely done that which any brave and humane man would have done, 
 and his statement was justified by the jury of farmers which brought 
 in a verdict of accidental death, exonerating Chaloner, Money and the 
 servant. 
 
 New York Staats Zeitung, June 29, 1915. 
 
 A REVEALING BOOK ABOUT CHALONER. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, the originator of the great question 
 "Who's Looney Now?" depicts in a book now to be obtained on the 
 news stands, his experiences, his assignment to "Bloomingdale," his
 
 250 
 
 flight and his rehabilitation in the State of Virginia. He is anxious 
 to spread abroad the information that the Lunacy Laws in the State 
 are full of flaws and pernicious. 
 
 The Globe, New York, July 1, 1915. 
 
 THAW, FREE ON $35,000 BAIL, LEAVES NEW YORK 
 
 HENDRICK ASSAILS ALIENIST WITNESS 
 
 In Confirming Verdict of Jury, Justice Declares Testimony by 
 
 Doctor (Austin Flint, Senior) Who Helped Prepare Case 
 
 Is Evil Which Should Be Cured. 
 
 Harry K. Thaw was to-day declared sane by Justice Hendrick and 
 freed from custody in $35,000 bail pending appeal from the justice's 
 decision by the attorney general. 
 
 Thaw's bond was signed shortly before 1 o'clock and he Immedi 
 ately started for Pennsylvania in an automobile. 
 
 Justice Hendrick's Opinion. 
 
 Justice Hendrick said he based his decision that Thaw was sane 
 on his own judgment, fortified by the advice of a very intelligent jury. 
 "We have had men here from New Hampshire, not alienists, but men 
 of large experience, who know the difference between a sane and an 
 insane man. We have had women here of undoubted high repute who 
 also testified that this man is sane," said Justice Hendrick in his 
 decision. The testimony of these people impressed me very much. 
 
 "We have been told by one alienist that it was impossible for a 
 layman to determine whether or not a man has paranoia; that only an 
 alienist could determine that. 
 
 "I want to say here a word about alienists in our courts that it 
 is fast becoming a scandal. If this court and jury are to depend upon 
 the opinion of alienists who have made it their business for years 
 for pay to render what they term expert testimony I want to say that 
 opinion to me has no value. 
 
 An Evil To Be Cured. 
 
 "The idea that a doctor of repute should interview witnesses and 
 publish his opinion in the public prints and help in the preparation 
 of a case and then go on the witness stand is a state of affairs that 
 must be remedied. 
 
 "If the medical profession does not cure this evil I hope the legis 
 lature soon will. 
 
 "I have adopted the vedict of the jury, and it is the opinion of 
 this court that Harry K. Thaw is sane."
 
 251 
 
 New York City Call, July 21, 1915. 
 
 THAW "SANE ALL OVER," SAYS ATTORNEY GENERAL. 
 
 Harry K. Thaw at the present time is "sane all over," geographi 
 cally speaking, it was said at the Attorney General's offices at 299 
 Broadway, yesterday, when an opinion was requested as to Thaw's 
 present legal status. 
 
 "As matters now stand," Deputy Attorney General Edgar A. 
 Bromberger said, in answer to a question, "Thaw has the privilege, 
 for instance, of bringing a suit for divorce from Evelyn Nesbit in 
 Pittsburg." 
 
 "Is he at liberty to come back here and sue for divorce in New 
 York State?" 
 
 "I suppose so," answered Mr. Bromberger. 
 
 "What procedure is necessary here," Mr. Bromberger was asked 
 further, "in order to have Thaw placed in the same legal position in 
 which John Armstrong Chaloner stands insane in this State and sane 
 outside of New York?" 
 
 "The only way that could be brought about," Mr. Bromberger 
 answered, "would be an Appellate Court reversal of Justice Hendrick's 
 recent decision declaring Thaw sane. In other words, if the appeal 
 which the Attorney General has taken is sustained by the higher court, 
 then Harry Thaw will be legally insane in New York State. There is 
 no other way of having; him declared legally insane in this State." 
 
 New York Evening Sun, July 19, 1915. 
 
 STATE PLANS TO KEEP THAW OUT LIKE OHALONER. 
 
 Reversal of Hendrick Ruling Would Make Pittsburgher " Insane " 
 
 in New York. 
 
 WOULD FORFEIT BAIL AND BE A FUGITIVE. 
 
 Hendrick Won't Comment on Foreman's Remarks Jurors 
 At Odds With Robinson. 
 
 New York State will fight to put Harry K. Thaw in the same 
 status in regard to his sanity as that of John Armstrong Chaloner, 
 author of the famous quip "Who's Looney Now?" Chaloner is "sane" 
 in Virginia, but "insane" in this State. 
 
 To attain this result the State legal department will strain every 
 point to obtain a reversal of Justice Hendrick's findings declaring 
 Thaw sane.
 
 252 
 
 Hendrick Is Non-Committal. 
 
 Justice Hendrick when asked this afternoon what action might be 
 taken by the courts in view of the remarks of Foreman Robinson, put 
 the affair squarely up to Attorney General Woodbury. 
 
 "I cannot discuss any phase of this case," he said, "except to say 
 that I will consider any move that comes before me. I could not pos 
 sibly discuss now any action I might take. If the Attorney General 
 wishes to take some action he must decide for himself what it is to be. 
 The matter rests with him." 
 
 Justice Hendrick said he had read the account of Foreman Robin 
 son's remarks and added: 
 
 "I do not care to say what I think of them." 
 
 "Would you say it was indiscreet of the juror to follow Thaw to 
 Atlantic City and register at the same hotel before making remarks 
 that show he disobeyed your instructions?" 
 
 "If others think it was indiscreet" said the Justice, "that is their 
 opinion. I do not care to discuss it." 
 
 Case In The Discard. 
 
 When asked if he cared to say how much he had been influenced 
 in his decision by the jury the Justice said: 
 
 "There is my decision. I do not care to add to it. I have seen 
 that Mr. Stanchfield said when asked about the case that it is now 
 in the discard. If I knew the legal term for 'in the discard' that 
 would about express my attitude. I am anxious to be through with 
 the case. I want to get away to my country place as soon as possible." 
 
 The Justice refused to make any comment as to how serious he 
 regarded the violation of his instructions as revealed by Robinson. 
 He said any action he might take in holding a juror accountable for 
 violated instructions in the Thaw case would not deviate from the 
 usual action in any case. 
 
 Deputy Attorney General Edgar A. Bromberger said this morning: 
 
 "In any event Thaw cannot be extradited even if the appeal goes 
 against him. If he refused to return his bail would be forfeited." 
 
 If Thaw refused to return to New York in case the appeal were 
 decided against him he would find himself in the same position as 
 John Armstrong Chaloner sane in one locality and insane in another. 
 
 Maynard Miller, fur-dealer, 148 West 24th Street, said this morning 
 to a reporter for the Evening Sun: 
 
 "Now, after the verdict was reached we discussed the murder, not, 
 however in connection with the verdict we were expected to render. 
 WE DECIDED THAT THAW WAS JUSTIFIED IN KILLING STAN 
 FORD WHITE. 
 
 I should add that the thing that Influenced us most next to the 
 obvious fact of Thaw's sane behavior while in New Hampshire, was 
 the testimony of the State's alienists. DR. FLINT'S TESTIMONY 
 WE REGARDED AS ABSURD AND SELF-CONTRADICTORY. THE
 
 253 
 
 STATE'S OWN ALIENISTS DISAGREED AS TO WHAT FORM OF 
 INSANITY THAW MIGHT BE SUFFERING FROM. DR. FLINT DE 
 CLARED HE WAS INSANE FROM CONSTITUTIONAL INFERI 
 ORITY AND THAT THIS TROUBLE IS NOT RECOVERABLE. THEN 
 IT WAS SHOWN THAT NINE SUCH CASES OUT OF TEN HAVE 
 RECOVERED." 
 
 "Justice Hendrick was wise in. agreeing with the advisory jury 
 that Thaw is sane now, whether he may have been in former years. I 
 agree with him also in his scathing rebuke of the alienists, who are 
 willing to change their medical opinions according to their fees. An 
 impartial spectator of the scenes in court would have concluded that 
 the lawyers were insane, not Thaw. The talk of the Attorney General 
 about taking an appeal which put Thaw under bail, instead of giving 
 him full freedom was clearly an evidence of insanity, and POOR 
 OLD AUSTIN FLINT, WHO COMMITTED PROFESSIONAL SUICIDE 
 IN THE WITNESS BOX, should have thus defined it on the usual 
 terms. The Thaw case has been a scandal and disgrace for many 
 years, maintained solely to give a livelihood to certain lawyers. When 
 he was acquitted of murder on the ground of temporary insanity this 
 ought to have ended the case and would have ended it had Thaw 
 been a poor man. But the Thaw millions were too tempting to legal 
 vultures, who fattened upon him until Counselor Stanchfield stopped 
 their game. I do not believe that any friend of Stanford White ever 
 instigated the continuous persecution of Thaw, who had only obeyed 
 the unwritten law in a quarrel over a shameless hussy, who mis 
 chievously stirred up trouble between the two men, going from one to 
 the other as suited her purposes. She supplied the lawyers with 
 material to harass Thaw, and she has done much mischief and cost 
 the State and Mrs. Thaw much money. At the last she had the grace 
 to fall ill and refuse to testify against her husband, and she asks to 
 be let alone to earn a living on the stage and she should be let alone 
 severely. If the daily papers will let Thaw alone also, he will have 
 a much better chance to redeem himself by going into business and 
 leading a normal life. There is no moral in the story which has 
 been told a thousand times as the eternal triangle except that we 
 should have one court brave enough to choke off the legal and alienistic 
 jackals that misuse the law to prey upon their victims." 
 
 Exchange, July 22, 1915.
 
 254 
 The News-Leader, Richmond, Va., Saturday, July 17, 1915. 
 
 OHALONER WRITES ON VERDICT I3V THAW CASE 
 Lord of Merry Mills Says It is Epochal and Just. 
 
 At the request of The News Leader, John Armstrong Chaloner, 
 who is legally insane in New York and sane in Virginia, to-day gave 
 his views of the verdict which brought about the liberation of Harry 
 K. Thaw. Chaloner came to Richmond to-day from his home, "The 
 Merry Mills," Cobham. He characterized the decision in Thaw's case 
 as "the most epochal announcement ever made by any judge, at any 
 time, in any lunacy proceedings in any country now on record." He 
 laid stress on the court's instructions to the Thaw jury to "totally 
 disregard the preposterously amusing claim" of the chief alienist 
 opposed to Thaw. 
 
 His statement follows: 
 
 (By John Armstrong Chaloner.) 
 
 This epochal verdict has three bearings. First, regarding, the 
 verdict itself. Second, regarding the charge of the learned Judge Hen- 
 drick. Third, regarding the evidence adduced at the trial. 
 
 The first shows the intelligence and honesty of the average 
 American jury. Also, that trial by jury is truly what Sir William 
 Blackstone termed it in his "Commentaries" namely, "The bulwark 
 of our constitutional liberties." The second shows that what I, as a 
 law-writer have maintained since my book, "The Lunacy Law of the 
 World," first appeared in 1907, finds support in the charge to the jury 
 of Mr. Justice Hendrick namely, that "the test of sanity is a mental 
 test wholly within the power of the accused to accomplish and without 
 any witnesses, professional or lay, to back him up." That all that is 
 needed is to permit the accused to be present at his own trial as I 
 was not permitted in my two trials in New York in 1897 and 1899 
 and testify in his own behalf in rebuttal to the charge of alienists 
 opposed to him. 
 
 Mr. Justice Hendrick's charge to the jury specifically stated and 
 this was the gist of his admirably learned, and honorable, and unbiased 
 charge that the jury was to totally disregard the preposterously 
 amusing claim of Dr. Austin Flint, Sr. the chief alienist opposed to 
 Thaw, as that celebrated gentleman is also the chief alienist opposed 
 to me with Dr. Carlos F. MacDonald a close second in both Thaw's 
 case and my own to disregard the claim, of Dr. Austin Flint, 8r., 
 "that the question of Thaw's sanity could only be decided by alienists." 
 As a law-writer I hail with joy this pronouncement from the bench by 
 Justice Hendrick; and da not hesitate to say that it is the most 
 epochal announcement ever made by any judge, at any time, in any 
 lunacy proceedings in any country now on record. As The News- 
 Leader has heard, I have sacrificed eighteen years of my life in the
 
 255 
 
 cause of lunacy law reform. For I could have obtained both my liberty 
 and my property so far back as 1899. This is not generally known, 
 but it is on record in my deposition at Charlottesville in 1911-1912 
 in Chaloner against Sherman, and my testimony was entirely unshaken 
 in the gruelling cross-examination supplied me by my redoubtable 
 adversary in said proceeding^, former Judge R. T. W. Duke, Jr., lead- 
 Ing counsel, with the late learned lawyer John B. Moon, of Charlottes 
 ville, in said proceedings. 
 
 The testimony I brought out was that a now prominent United 
 States senator then a congressman visited me in my cell at "Bloom- 
 ingdale" in the interest of the Chanler family and offered me my 
 freedom and my property provided I would let the matter drop hush 
 the matter up in the courts. This I declined to do, and the result is 
 that I am now in my nineteenth year of my quest of the Holy Grail 
 in my case the restoration of my property. 
 
 Heretofore it has been practically the universal custom in lunacy 
 proceedings in New York, and some forty per cent, of the States of 
 the Union, to either try a man in absentia in his absence from the 
 courtroom as was the case in both my trials in New York or when 
 present to take the say-so of the hostile alienists, disregarding practi 
 cally utterly the language and bearing of the accused upon the stand. 
 The theory being that insanity was so technical a thing that none but 
 experts could pronounce upon it. 
 
 No one, for an instant, can compare insanity technical as that 
 is with, say, chemistry, for technicality. Take the case of a murder 
 trial, where the g,ist of the evidence for or against the accused con 
 sists in the chemical contents of the murdered man's stomach, at the 
 time of the crime. Whether or not it contained poison and if poison 
 sufficient to cause death. Chemical formulas are the most technical 
 things on earth so technical that not one college graduate out of a 
 thousand can keep them in his head a year after graduation, and yet 
 the innocence or guilt of the accused, in said murder trial, hangs en 
 tirely upon chemical formulas, which are given to the jury; and the 
 jury the majority of which is certainly not college graduates and 
 therefore utterly unfamiliar with same the jury is called upon to 
 decide the guilt or innocence of the accused upon such a thing as 
 "H20," and yet no one was ever heard to maintain that a jury was 
 incapable of bringing in a verdict of innocent or guilty based entirely 
 upon their opinion of the chemical formulas brought forward by the 
 Commonwealth's Attorney and the counsel for the defense. 
 
 Nevertheless, in insanity trials the alienists have heretofore 
 before the enlightened ruling aforesaid of Mr. Justice Hendrick in 
 the Thaw case been able to throw dust in the eyes of the court, the 
 jury, and the public, by shouting in unison, "Insanity is too technical 
 to be decided by any but an expert in insanity." This bugaboo is 
 forever laid at rest by Justice Hendrick. 
 
 The third bearing of said proceedings in the Thaw case proves 
 the truth of what I have steadily maintained in season and out of
 
 256 
 
 season, during my come September next three years' monthly course 
 of lectures at the Rex theatre here on "Topics of National Import 
 ance" namely, that the sole and only insane act Thaw was ever 
 proved guilty of was the shooting of Stanford White; that I have 
 always maintatined was done in a fit of temporary insanity upon the 
 part of Thaw. No other insane act has ever been proved agaitist the 
 Pittsburger. My reason for honestly stating that that act was an in 
 sane act in Thaw's case is as follows: Thaw was, at that time what 
 is usually known as a "high-roller." His manner and bearing showed 
 the effects of his irregular life. He was nervous and quite the reverse 
 of calm in his manner and bearing before the shooting. In striking 
 contrast to his usual manner was his bearing when the shooting 
 occurred. Nothing could have been calmer than his manner immedi 
 ately preceding, during, and immediately subsequent to that act. Now 
 calmness is one form of insanity is the outward visible sign of an 
 insane mind. During the nearly four years of my incarceration at 
 "Bloomingdale" I had ample opportunity of studying the various forms 
 of insanity, and nothing could have been calmer than the aspect and 
 general bearing of a large number of my insane "colleagues" in that 
 institution. Hence, I infer that Thaw's act aforesaid was the act of 
 a temporarily insane man since his manner during said act was in 
 complete and total contradiction to his usual manner before the said 
 act. 
 
 In June, 1917 when my case now pending on appeal before the 
 United States Supreme Court, will come on for hearing I look forward 
 supported by the law and the facts in Chaloner against Sherman 
 to the same happy issue out of my afflictions, which now on the 
 evidence awaits Thaw. 
 
 The News-Leader, Richmond, Va., Monday, August 16, 1915. 
 
 CHALONER NOW PUTS HIMSELF IN GEOGRAPHICAL LUNA 
 TIC CLASS. 
 
 Harry K. Thaw, slayer of Stanford White, may be the most famous 
 lunatic in the world. He has occupied the spotlight for many year?, 
 but he's a piker when compared with John Armstrong Chaloner, author 
 of the famous "Who's Looney Now?" telegram. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner offers strenuous objection to the desire of the New 
 York papers to put Thaw in a class with him. The master of "Merry 
 Mills" claims the field all by himself. He offers The News-Leader in 
 dubitable proof to back up his contention that his unique position in 
 the eyes of the law is shared by no other man. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner is the only man in the United States, he contends, 
 so far as the records show, who has been termed a "geographical
 
 257 
 
 lunatic" a man whose lunacy depends on State lines a madman in 
 New York a sane man everywhere else. 
 
 The owner of "Merry Mills" still lays claim to the championship 
 of this class. In this respect Harry K. Thaw is to be regarded as a 
 "white hope." Mr. Chaloner holds the crown alone and he does not 
 relish the idea of sharing his laurels with Stanford White's slayer. 
 
 A lawyer by profession, his mind active, keen and alert, the fact 
 that he has been declared insane to the contrary notwithstanding, Mr. 
 Chaloner has never let up in his attacks on the persons and the meth 
 ods used to place him in the position he now occupies, and to-day he 
 gave The News-Leader a further discussion of Justice Hendrick's de 
 cision in the Thaw case, at the same time challenging Thaw's right to 
 be placed in a class with himself. Mr. Chaloner gave out the following 
 information to-day: 
 
 "The following clipping has just reached me from my news clipping 
 bureau, showing that there is a strong desire on the part of certain 
 New York papers to put Thaw in my class a class which has been 
 well termed that of the 'geographical lunatic' a man whose lunacy 
 depends on State lines a madman in New York, a sane man every 
 where else. I now insert the said clipping: 
 
 'New York City Call, July 31, 1915. 
 
 "Thaw Sane All Over," Says Attorney General. 
 
 "Harry K. Thaw at the present time is 'sane all over,' geographi 
 cally speaking, it was said at the Attorney General's offices at 299 
 Broadway yesterday, when an opinion was requested as to Thaw's 
 present legal status. 
 
 " 'As matters now stand,' Deputy Attorney General Edgar A. Brom- 
 berger said, in answer to a question, 'Thaw has the privilege, for in 
 stance, of bringing a suit for divorce from Evelyn Nesbit in Pitts 
 burgh.' 
 
 " 'Is he at liberty to come back here and sue for divorce in New 
 York State?' 
 
 " 'I suppose so,' answered Mr. Bromberger. 
 
 " 'What procedure is necessary here,' Mr. BTomberger was asked 
 further, 'in order to have Thaw placed in the same legal position in 
 which John Armstrong Chaloner stands insane in this State and sane 
 outside of New York?' 
 
 " 'The only way that could be brought about,' Mr. Bromberger 
 answered, 'would be an appellate court reversal of Justice Hendrick's 
 recent decision declaring Thaw sane. In other words, if the appeal 
 which the attorney general has taken is sustained by the higher court, 
 then Harry Thaw will be legally insane in New York State. There is 
 no other way of having him declared legally insane in this iState.' " 
 
 The above article introduces two things: 
 
 First. New matter which has not appeared in any Richmond paper,
 
 258 
 
 which I have seen, concerning Justice Hendrick's real reason for de 
 ciding in favor of Thaw at the recent trial. 
 
 Second. It brings to the legal mind the question, "What chance 
 has the attorney general of New York to win his appeal against the de 
 cision of Justice Hendrick?" 
 
 Referring to point (1). Mr. Justice Hendrick said he based his 
 decision that Thaw was sane on his own judgment "fortified by the 
 advice of a very intelligent jury." He then went on to say: 
 
 "We have had men here from New Hampshire, not alienists, but 
 men of large experience, who know the difference between a sane and 
 an insane mn. We have had women here of undoubted high repute 
 wJho also testified that this man is sane. The testimony of these 
 people impressed me very much. 
 
 "We have been told by one alienist (Dr. Austin Flint, Sr.,) that it 
 was impossible for a layman to determine whether or not a man has 
 paranoia; that only an alienist could determine that. 
 
 "I want to say here a word about alienists in our courts that it 
 is fast becoming a scandal. If this court and jury are to depend upon 
 the opinion of alienists who have made it their business for years for 
 pay to render what they term expert testimony, I want to say that 
 opinion to me has no value. 
 
 "The idea that a doctor of repute should interview witnesses and 
 publish his opinion in the public prints and help in the preparation 
 of a case and then go on the witness stand is a state of affairs that 
 must be remedied. 
 
 "// the medical profession does not cure this evil, I hope the legis 
 lature soon will. 
 
 "I have adopted the verdict of the jury, and it is the opinion of 
 this court that Harry K. Thaw is sane." 
 
 Taking up now point (2). 
 
 "What chance has the Attorney General of New York to win his 
 appeal against the decision of Justice Hendrick? As a lawyer, I never 
 was more surprised in my life than when I read that the New York 
 attorney general had taken an appeal. This appeal is entirely based 
 on a reporter's statement of what the foreman of the jury told him. 
 In the first place, the foreman of the jury entirely denies the truth of 
 the reporter's statement. Also, all the other jurymen who have been 
 interviewed deny it, so far, at least, as they themselves are concerned. 
 
 Herein lies the absurdity of the New York attorney general's 
 appeal : 
 
 To drop into the vernacular "it cuts absolutely no ice" what any 
 or an of the jury thought, did, or said, in the premises, for, as The 
 News-Leader well knows, the jury had no real authority in the decsion. 
 By special arrangement, the decision as to Thaw's sanity or insanity 
 was left solely and entirely to Mr. Justice Hendrick, with full authority 
 to override the verdict of the jury whatever that might be. 
 
 The jury sat purely and solely in an advisory capacity. So far
 
 259 
 
 as I know, as a lawyer, this is the first time it has occurred in the 
 history of law. In this unique case the facts, as well as the law, were 
 in the hands of Justice Hendrick to decide as seemed best to him. 
 
 If this is so and The News-Leader knows it is so the distin 
 guished New York attorney general is as we lawyers say left "with 
 out a leg to stand on." 
 
 Justice Hendrick's opinion, which has been cited above gives full, 
 ample and most learned grounds for him to find as he did, namely, arf 
 to Thaw's entire and complete sanity since he killed White. 
 
 That the jury happened to coincide with Mr. Justice Hendrick s 
 said opinion, spoke well for the intelligence and perspicacity of the 
 jury. That was all: it did not give Thaw his liberty. What gave Thaw 
 his liberty was the conviction of Mr. Justice Hendrick that Thaw is 
 sane. 
 
 In the premises any lawyer would conclude that the appeal of the 
 New 1 York attorney general must fall to the ground and thereupon, 
 Thaw will have perfect liberty to go and come to New York as he 
 chooses and cannot be termed a "geographical lunatic." 
 
 The News-Leader, Richmond, Va., July 20, 1915. 
 
 EXTRA! EXTRA! CHALONER HAS GONE INTO THE JITNEY 
 
 BUSINESS. 
 
 Ix>rd of " Merry Mills " and Unremitting Foe of Speeding Autoists 
 
 Purchases Car To-day and Enjoys the Joke. His Jitney 
 
 Will Run in Albemarle County, Where He 
 
 Made "Road Hogs" Live Hard. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner to-day bought an automobile. 
 
 (That ought to be worth a smile.) 
 
 The car will be placed in service as a jitney. 
 
 (That line's surely worth a laugh.) 
 
 Even Chaloner himself, propounder of "Who's Looney Now?" mas 
 ter of "The Merry Mills," and all that, had to laugh when he told The 
 Newsreader about it. 
 
 It's a considerably better joke than the average when one recalls 
 that until very lately Chaloner drove armed in a horse-drawn vehicle 
 over Albemarle county roads determined to hold up at the point of 
 his sawed-off shotgun any automobilist that was rash enough to try 
 to crowd him and his horse into the ditch. "Road hogs," was Chalo- 
 ner's contemptuous designation of auto-owners. One of his favorite 
 pastimes was neatly planting bullets in the tires of automobiles that 
 exceeded the speed limit. Speeding, then became a flat failure. 
 
 Famous for many reasons, among them that, a millionaire, he is 
 legally a lunatic in New York and sane in Virginia, Chaloner's violent
 
 260 
 
 antipathy to automobiles received wide publicity, and "road hogs" 
 soon made it a habit to take to the ditch and allow Chaloner the whole 
 roadway. Chaloner would not ride in an automobile and nearly lost 
 his life while on his way one night last winter to a theatre in this 
 city, where he was scheduled to lecture. He was in a horse-drawn 
 cab and had a narrow squeak from being run down by a large and 
 swiftly moving automobile. 
 
 To-day the sworn enemy of "road-hogs" is the proud owner of a 
 gas-propelled vehicle. He wasn't exactly bragging about it, being rather 
 in an explanatory state of mind. 
 
 "So, you are turning jitneur?" Chaloner was asked. 
 
 The author of "Robbery Under Law," a stirring play in which 
 Chaloner intends to star himself, touring the country in a tent, ex 
 plained as follows: 
 
 "The car though registered in my name is not for me far from 
 It. It is merely an act pro bono publico upon my part. Thus: A friend 
 of mine at Cismont, one and one-half miles from 'The Merry Mills,' is 
 an expert engineer and can take an automobile to pieces and set it up 
 again and run it. 
 
 "There is a wide demand on the part of the ladies in that section 
 of Albemarle for an automobile bus line from Cismont to Charlottes- 
 ville, which will enable them to shop in Charlottesville fourteen miles 
 off and return, without being bored by having, to drive two miles to 
 catch a train. So I decided to advance my friend rather more than 
 half the price of the car, which price is $515, t he paying the balance 
 from his earnings. 
 
 "This is a development of the jitney business of which I highly 
 approve, and use here in Richmond. I am not interested in the said 
 bus line financially, beyond a desire to see my money again." 
 
 Richmond, Va., Journal, July 7, 1915. 
 
 CHALOXER MAKES SELF HERO OF I>URID DRAMA 
 
 " Robbery Under La\v," He Says, Is An Epitome of His Fight 
 
 Against Lunacy Proceedings Much of the 
 
 Dialogue and Some Incidents Real. 
 
 The New York World prints the following: 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner has written a play entitled "Robbery 
 Under Law," to illustrate, as he says, the mischief of lunacy proceed 
 ings in New York State. When he finished the play last fall he sent 
 it through friends to a reader for a city theatrical manager. It was 
 rejected by the reader, who criticised it as "far-fetched and sensational 
 
 Ford Touring Car.
 
 261 
 
 in plot, the behavior of the characters being highly unconvincing 
 under all circumstances." Mr. Chaloner says the rejection is a prime 
 literary asset to him, as practically all the characters in the play and 
 all the scenes are from life, relating his own experiences under the 
 lunacy law. So he has published the play in book form, together with 
 other of his writings. 
 
 The Virginia Tragedy. 
 
 In the dramatization Mr. Chaloner poses as chief character, with 
 the name of Hugh Stutfield, of Rokeby, Albemarle county, Va., and New 
 York, millionaire art patron and law writer. James Lawless, of New 
 York, rejected suitor of Viola Cariston, who loves Stutfield: Winston 
 Blettermole, cousin and heir-at-law of Stutfield; Belisarius P. Spink, a 
 learned and unscrupulous New York lawyer, and Albert Wedge an 
 inventor, are the other important characters in the play. 
 
 Viola and the love romance woven about her are dramatic inven 
 tions; but, Mr. Chaloner says, the other characters correctly portray 
 relatives and others who had him placed in Bloomingdale Asylum, 
 from which he escaped after he had been kept there! nearly four 1 
 years, and that many of the utterances in the play were) made by 
 actual persons in the proceedings against him. 
 
 The play opens at Rokeby, Stutfield's Virginia Place, where Stut 
 field is visited by Viola, accompanied by Mrs. Bullard and her little 
 daughter, wife and child of an English machinist. Bullard had beaten 
 his wife until she had resolved to obtain a divorce from him and 
 Viola had taken her to Rokeby to consult Stutfield as a lawyer. 
 
 While they are talking, Bullard enters. He attacks his wife with 
 a pair of tongs. Stutfield springs to her relief and, after a prolonged 
 encounter, a pistol for which Stutfield and Bullard have been strug 
 gling is discharged, killing Bullard. This act is said to reproduce 
 substantially an occurrence in which John 'Gillard, an English wife- 
 beater, was killed by a pistol in the hands of Gillard and Chaloner 
 while Chaloner was, in good faith, according to actual verdict of a 
 coroner's jury, trying to prevent Gillard from shooting Mrs. Gillard. 
 
 The Lunacy Plot. 
 
 Act II brings together Lawless, Blettermole and wife and Lawyer 
 Spink in the Cariston home, where Spink unfolds a plan by which 
 Stutfield may be declared insane and committed to an asylum and 
 his fortune of $5,000,000 divided among his relatives. It is arranged 
 that Blettermole, as his nearest blood relative, and Lawless, as "best 
 friend," shall apply to the court to commit Stutfield to an asylum as 
 a dangerous lunatic, a maniac with suicidal and homicidal tendencies. 
 Stutfield's psychological studies and manifestations In subconscious 
 or trance utterances were to be points against him, and the killing of 
 Bullard a supporting incident. 
 
 With the departure of the conspirators from Cariston's Stutfield 
 arrives there. He talks with Viola of having awakened that morning
 
 262 
 
 with a subconscious depression of spirits, which warned him of trouble 
 for himself within the next twenty-four hours. Lest it may affect him 
 financially, he has brought with him in his saddlebags $2,250,000, the 
 proceeds of an investment in a needle-threading invention of Wedge's 
 five years previously. This money he wishes Viola to put away for 
 him in her safe. As no one will know of the deposit except the two 
 lovers, Stutfield wants it in the safe in order that no court may reach 
 it. Stutfield has a low opinion of the bench, which he explains at 
 length. Viola puts the money in the safe. Chaloner says this act is 
 the thinly disguised statement of cold, hard facts, barring the imagi 
 nary love motive. 
 
 In a New York Hotel. 
 
 Act III opens with 'Stutfield in the Hotel Kensington, New York, 
 where he is visited by two doctors, who profess interest in his powers 
 aa a medium. He goes into a supposed trance for their benefit, in 
 which he denounces both of them as rogues and hirelings. The doctors 
 summon three manhandlers to seize Stutfield as a lunatic. Stutfield 
 drives out the entire party at the point of a pistol and says he wili 
 discuss the matter the next afternoon. This scene, Chaloner says, is 
 almost verbatim and actually from life. 
 
 The next scene, declared to be practically from life, is tnree months 
 later, in Stutfield's cell, "Fairdale" asylum. He is writing a letter to 
 Viola, which he intends to intrust for delivery to the inventor Wedge, 
 whose allowance from Stutfield on account of the needle-threading 
 invention is running low and in danger of stopping, and who has been 
 admitted frequently to the asylum to call on Stutfield, because the 
 asylum authorities look upon him as a safe visitor, being only an in 
 ventor, "without much good sense." 
 
 This letter lays out a plan for escape. Viola is to tell her father 
 of their engagement and of the money in the safe. Captain Cariston, 
 the father, is to have access to that money to pay $2,500 to Wedge; 
 $2,500 each to three ex-Confederate veterans, not too old to shoot 
 straight, with the promise of as much more the day they land Stutfleld 
 safely in Virginia; $1,250 to the owner of any Norfolk ocean-going 
 tug, that sum to be doubled when he lands Stutfield on the Virginia 
 coast; $2,500 for a Connecticut farmer, a friend of Wedge, to transport 
 any four men, behind a pair of speedy horses, from the "Fairdale" 
 wall to the Sound, within thirty minutes. There the party will take 
 the ocean-going tug and head for Virginia. 
 
 The Escape. 
 
 When all is ready Wedge is to call at the asylum, bringing with 
 him a "quietous" in the form of a steel harness, which will handcuff, 
 foot-bind, gag, blindfold and ear-muffle its wearer; also a chain and 
 padlocks. This apparatus is intended for Pat Sligo, Stutfield's guard, 
 with whom Stutfield intends to pick a quarrel in the asylum woods. 
 He has figured out how he can choke Sligo into insensibility and then
 
 263 
 
 bind and lock him so that Sligo can give no alarm, see nothing, hear 
 no approaching or departing footsteps and cannot be unharnessed 
 except by long filing. 
 
 This plan is carried out in the play and work perfectly. Chaloner 
 says it is "practically" the way he escaped from a real asylum, the 
 main difference being; that the fight with the keeper took place in the 
 cell, not in the woods, and that the escape from the asylum grounds 
 was made without help from outside. 
 
 The News-Leader, Richmond, Va., Friday, July 16, 1915. 
 
 NOW WE SHALL SEE IF BOOTH HAD ANYTHING ON 
 CHALONER AS A THESPIAN 
 
 Author of "Who's Looney Now?" Writes a Play, in Which He 
 
 Will Star Himself It Was Turned Down by a Play 
 
 Reader, But That Only Proves That "Truth is 
 
 Stranger Than Fiction." Audiences Will 
 
 Hear Lectures on Lunacy Laws 
 
 as Curtain Speeches. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner is going on the stage. 
 
 He will star in his own play, "Robbery Under Law," enacting the 
 role of Hugh Stutfield, "millionaire art patron and law writer." Most 
 of the incidents in the piece have been drawn from Chaloner's own 
 life, and he is, of course, the hero. Stutfield is the name he gives 
 himself in the dramatization of his extraordinary experiences. 
 
 The author of the amusing quip, "Who's Looney Now?" promises 
 to take to the "road" with a, good company. Should he find the 
 theatres closed against him he will follow the illustrious example of 
 Madame Sarah Bernhardt under similar circumstances and present 
 "Robbery Under Law" in a tent. 
 
 "What kind of a fist can 'Who's Looney Now?' make at acting? 
 Can he act?" Chaloner himself inquires and promptly answers: "Who's 
 Looney Now?' undoubtedly can act." He asserts he "came within one 
 ace of being born on the stage of being actually born on the boards." 
 He explains this as follows: 
 
 " 'Who's Looney Now's?' mamma was very fond of the theatre. 
 The night before 'Who's Looney Now?' appeared in this world 'Who's 
 Looney Now's?' mamma was seized with a desire to attend a theatrical 
 performance that was taking place on the next block from the house 
 she was then visiting. This house was the town house of her grand 
 father the late William B. Astor, in Lafayette Place, New York, in 
 the shadow of the Astor library. 'Who's Looney Now's?' papa humored 
 his wife's whim it being the first time such a thing had occurred,
 
 264 
 
 'Who's Looney Now?' being his mamma's first born and accompanied 
 his wife to the playhouse and the best box therein. Before the play 
 was over to cut a long story short 'Who's Looney Now's?' mamma 
 had to hurry home in order to avoid a most sensational denouement." 
 
 Harbored Secret Intent. 
 
 Chaloner points out that under the circumstances it is not sur 
 prising he has had from earliest childhood a penchant for the stage. 
 He has always felt, he says, "that provided circumstances were favor 
 able to such a sensational and unusual thing he would one day go on 
 the stage." With this secret intent he has always avoided strenuously 
 "taking any active part in that morgue for histrionic ability, private 
 theatricals." 
 
 In anticipation of the time when he would take to the boards 
 Chaloner has been in training at the Rex motion-picture theatre at 
 Seventh and Broad streets, Richmond. He lectured there twice a 
 month from the first week in September, 1912, until January, or later 
 in 1914, when he cut his appearances down to the last Sunday night 
 in each month in place of two Sunday nights in the month. 
 
 In his published announcement of the forthcoming production of 
 "Robbery Under Law," Chaloner says: "He (Chaloner) has had so 
 little difficulty in attracting audiences to the Rex that after the first 
 few months, way back in 1912, he ceased to advertise his appearance; 
 and since then has not had to pay out so much as one dollar for adver 
 tising purposes. 
 
 "Incidentally all this time 'Who's Looney Now?' was training and 
 cultivating his voice for the stage. For this purpose no better spot 
 on earth than this same Rex theatre could have been chosen for 
 strengthening the voice and enabling it to shout at top pitch for an 
 hour or more above a competitive and persistent roar. For along 
 Seventh street runs a trolley line within some twelve or fifteen feet 
 or so of the stage. The sides of the Rex are open at the top for venti 
 lation. Hence 'Who's Looney Now's? voice has had to compete with 
 and dominate the crash and roar of a trolley car: to which is to be 
 added the brazen clang of its bell. 
 
 "An hour and a quarter of this sort of thing once a month for 
 two years and a half has given 'Who's Looney Now?' a pair of lungs 
 ready and willing to compete with the bellowings of the bull of 
 Bashan itself. Therefore the intelligent reader will gather that there 
 has been a method lurking in the background of 'Who's Looney Now's?' 
 three years' shouting at the Rex, to-wit: voice and lung culture." 
 
 Unique Curtain Speeches. 
 
 Chaloner states that in each city he visits with "Robbery Under 
 Law" he will address the audiences after the fall of the curtain "for 
 ten minutes precisely" on "the black and foul stigma now staining 
 the fair name of law, justice and liberty in these United States in the 
 name of lunacy law."
 
 265 
 
 In addition to this, "each Sunday afternoon 'Who's Looney Now?' 
 will hire the largest hall each city contains and for two hours hold 
 forth on the interesting topic of criminal Lunacy Legislation now mas 
 querading under the name of law in 40 per cent, of the States of the 
 Union. These lectures will be, of course, free and will be advertised 
 a day or so before in the local papers, or on billboards and hoardings 
 as the case may be." 
 
 Chaloner asserts there is "somewhat more than a passing likeness 
 between the storm-tried face of "Who's Looney Now?' and that of 
 Edwin Booth." He has been told, he says, that the tones of his voice 
 strongly resemble those of Edwin Booth. During one winter, while he 
 was an undergraduate at Columbia University, in New York, Chaloner 
 took lessons in gesture and intonation and the use of the throat and 
 lungs from a professional in that line whose business it was to train 
 professional actors. 
 
 In protraying Hugh Stutfield in "Robbery Under Law," Chaloner 
 says he will merely be copying the role he has created in real life and 
 adds: "It should not be very difficult for a man to copy himself." 
 Chaloner says his "formidable resolve" to become an actor will assume 
 definite shape as soon as he recovers his million and a half of property 
 for which he is fighting in New York. 
 
 Founded on Fact. 
 
 Chaloner has just published his play in a volume which contains 
 another play, "The Hazard of the Die," numerous newspaper clippings 
 and some sonnets. "Robbery Under Law" is founded upon Chaloner's 
 own adventures before and after his escape from "Bloomingdale" 
 asylum. Chaloner says of his play: "All the characters with the ex 
 ception of the heroine's which is entirely an imaginary one have 
 been photographed actually, so to speak, from life; and all the actions 
 of all the characters bar the heroine's have been practically copied 
 from court records." 
 
 A professional play-reader in New York read "Robbery Under 
 Law" and pronounced it hopeless for stage purposes. "This so-called 
 play is a lengthy and far-fetched narrative, very sensational in plot 
 and diffuse in dialogue," commented the reader. "The speeches are 
 almost all pages in length and the authors are apparently quite 
 ignorant of the form in which plays are written. There is nothing 
 in the story which is worth considering the behavior of all the 
 characters being highly unconvincing under all circumstances." 
 
 To all of which Chaloner replies that Lord Byron was indubitably 
 correct when he wrote: "Truth is stranger than fiction."
 
 266 
 
 Record, Harrisonburg, Va., July 7, 1915. 
 
 JOHN ARMSTRONG CHALONER OP "WHO'S LOONKY NOW?" 
 FAME WRITES NEW BOOK. 
 
 New York, July 6. Every once in a while John Armstrong Chal- 
 oner, author of that merry little quip, "Who's Looney Now?" retires 
 into his inner consciousness and after long lucubration brings forth 
 another book about John Armstroni Chaloner. Since his escape from 
 "Bloomingdale" Asylum in 1900 to his home in Virginia, where he is 
 legally sane, Chaloner has been exposing the lunacy laws, and his 
 latest vehicle of expression, which comes hot off the press, is called 
 "Robbery Under Law, or the Battle of the Millionaires." 
 
 Although Chaloner modestly takes unto himself the robes of 
 Shakespeare and Marlowe, he was known, until the publication of this 
 latest collection of blank and other verse, melodrama and press notices, 
 as the brother of Sheriff Bob Chanler, of New York, who, on his sepa 
 ration from Lina Cavalieri, received a telegram from Brother John 
 asking, "Who's Looney Now?" Mr. Chaloner puts that line on the 
 title page, and uses it as the climax of his triumph over Pat Sligo, the 
 asylum keeper. 
 
 Chaloner is the hero of his play in three acts and three scenes 
 with a prologue and epilogue. His adventures, "the stirring cycle of 
 events which for the past eighteen years has been whirling around 
 the head of "Who's Looney Now?" center about the manly form of 
 Hugh Stutfield, of Rokeby, Albemarle County, Va. There are two 
 other millionaires in the play who try to get Stutfleld's money and 
 so put him in the "Fairdale" Asylum, and a man worth half a million. 
 Mr. Chaloner says that it is a psychological play, he having been called 
 a medium and of psychic temperament by the late Professor William 
 James. 
 
 New York Times, July 4, 1915. 
 
 POETRY, DRAMA AND ART. 
 
 Robbery Under Law: or, The Battle of the Millionaires. A play in 
 three acts and three scenes. By John Armstrong Chaloner. North 
 Carolina: Palmetto Press. 50 cents. 
 Contains another play, "The Hazard of the Die," treating of the 
 
 conspiracy of Catiline. Mr. Chaloner is the author of "Scorpio."
 
 267 
 
 The Burlington Hawk Eye, Burlington, Iowa, July 26, 1915. 
 
 Bobbery Under iL/aw, a play by John Armstrong Chaloner; 50c. 
 Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. 
 
 "Robbery Under Law, or The Battle of the Millionaires," is the 
 title of a play in three acts and three scenes by the author of "Scorpio." 
 The time of the action of the drama is 1887, and it treats of the adven 
 tures of the author of "Who's Looney Now?" The volume is paper 
 covered and contains also a second drama, entitled "The Hazard of the 
 Die," and many personal declarations by the author. 
 
 Pittsburgh, Pa., Dispatch, July 2, 1915. 
 
 CHALONER NOW AUTHOR. 
 
 New York: John Armstrong Chaloner author of "Who's Looney 
 Now?" has a brand-new crusade. He has set out "to put before the 
 public the deadly disease eating the fiber of our body politic in vicious 
 lunacy legislation obtaining in 40 per cent, of the United States, as 
 'Damaged Goods' put before the public the deadly disease, eating the 
 flesh of alas! but too many people of the earth." To that end he has 
 written a new play entitled "Robbery Under Law; or The Battle of the 
 Millionaires," and is offering it to the public in book form. It made 
 its appearance on the book stands here to-day from the press. The 
 work, which embraces besides the play, numerous newspaper clippings, 
 dealing with the now famous case, another play called, "The Hazard 
 of the Die," and some new essays in the field of poetry. Most of the 
 clippings refer to Chaloner's incarceration in the "Bloomingdale" In 
 sane Asylum in this State and the actions of the New York and Vir 
 ginia courts which respectively held, him insane and sane. Chaloner's 
 last court fight here took place last year, when he made an unsuccess 
 ful effort in the Federal Court to recover possession of his $1,500,000 
 estate. 
 
 Chicago Herald, June 29, 1915. 
 
 " WHO'S LOONEY NOW? " PENS BOOK ABOUT LUNACY LAWS. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner Wants Insanity Statutes of Most 
 States Changed a Bit. 
 
 New York, June 28. (Special.) John Armstrong Chaloner, made 
 famous by the query "Who's Looney Now?" has started a crusade to 
 prove the insanity laws of the majority of the States are all wrong
 
 268 
 
 In a book which appeared to-day he is putting forth admitted facts 
 in his own experience, his commitment to Bloomingdale, his escape 
 and his finding of a refuge in Virginia whose courts declared him sane. 
 
 IChjaloner sets forth in a prologue he has "sacrificed the last 
 eighteen years of his life" in the cause of lunacy reform. The book 
 contains a play entitled "Robbery Under Law, or the Battle of the 
 Millionaires." Another play, "The Hazard of the Die," is also included 
 in the volume, which contains numerous clippings from newspapers 
 dealing with his own case. 
 
 Will Put Public Next. 
 
 His purpose, he said, "is to put before the public the deadly 
 disease eating the fiber of our body politic in vicious Lunacy Legis- 
 tion obtaining in 40 per cent, of the States of the United States as 
 'Damaged Goods' put before the public the deadly disease eating the 
 flesh of, alas, too many of the peoples of the earth." 
 
 The book has a frontispiece portrait of the author in the make-up 
 of Napoleon. It also contains some poetry. 
 
 In furtherance of his crusade he intends to speak in the larger 
 cities, of which purpose he says: 
 
 "'Who's Looney Now?' proposes to address the audience after the 
 fall of the curtain in 'Robbery Under Law' for ten minutes precisely 
 and put before them in each city he plays in all through the United 
 States the black and foul stigma now .staining the fair name of 
 law, justice and liberty in the United States in the name of the lunacy 
 law. 
 
 Sunday Matinees, Too. 
 
 "Furthermore, each Sunday afternoon 'Who's Looney Now?' will 
 hire the largest hall each city contains and for two hours hold forth 
 on the interesting topic of criminal lunacy legislation now masquerad 
 ing under the name of the law in 40 per cent, of the States of the 
 Union." 
 
 In the chief play the hero, Hugh Stutfield, of Virginia and New- 
 York, has an enemy who conspires with his relatives to get him out 
 of the way and who manages to get him incarcerated in an insane 
 asylum. In his introduction Chaloner says the first act, in which 
 one of the characters is shot and killed, is "taken bodily, the characters 
 and action, from life." 
 
 Other incidents are also from life, he explains, including a fight 
 with a Bloomingdale keeper, which is from his own experience. 
 
 Last year Chaloner made an unsuccessful attempt in the courts 
 here to gain possession of his $1,500,000 which was turned over to a 
 committee when he was sent to Bloomingdale.
 
 269 
 
 Boston Globe, July 30, 1915. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner has published a play "in order to serve 
 as a sort of propaganda toward the cause of lunacy reforms, to which 
 the writer has sacrificed the last eighteen years of his life, come 
 March 13, 1915." It is called "Robbery Under Law," and if it's as 
 good as his "Who's Looney Now?" telegram, written to his brother, 
 "Sheriff Bob" Chanler, when the latter's marital experiences with Mile 
 Cavalieri became known, there should be many appreciative readers. 
 
 Chicago, 111., Journal, July 9, 1915. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, author of the interrogative "Who's 
 Looney Now?" which enriched for awhile the speech of the slangsters, 
 has written and published a play, "Robbery Under Law," in which he 
 introduces a hero whose career somewhat resembles his own and 
 through whom he undertakes to show how bad are the insanity laws 
 of the State of New York. The play is in blank verse and it is pub 
 lished with the conclusions of Prof. Joseph Jastrow, of the University 
 of Wisconsin, who believes that Chaloner exercises a form of graphic 
 automatism writing without the complete and conscious co-operation 
 of the writer. 
 
 Bridgeport, Conn., Post, July 23, 1915. 
 
 The latest move is to make Harry Thaw a fugitive from New York 
 State, thereby putting him in the same class with John Armstrong 
 Chaloner. But Harry has promised faithfully not to write a book. 
 
 The News Press, Poughkeepsie, N. Y., June 30, 1915. 
 "BOB" CHAMBER'S BROTHER HAS WRITTEN NEW PLAY. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, brother of former "Sheriff" Bob Chan 
 ler, one time resident of Rhinebeck, has written a new play entitled 
 "Robbery Under Law." It will be remembered that Mr. Chaloner broke 
 into the news columns a few years ago when he coined the phrase 
 "Who's Looney Now?" 
 
 "In order to serve as a sort of propaganda toward the cause of 
 lunacy law reform, to which the writer has sacrificed the last eighteen 
 years of his life, come March 13, 1915," is Mr. Chaloner's declaration in 
 italics for the purpose of this publication. 
 
 More interesting than the publication is the announcement it car 
 ried that Mr. Chaloner proposes to present "Robbery Under Law" as a 
 dramatic performance in theatres all over the country, making an
 
 270 
 
 address after the fall of the curtain at each performance, which he 
 solemnly agrees to limit to ten minutes. He will talk for two hours 
 every Sunday, however. 
 
 The frontispiece for the book is a picture of a portrait bust of the 
 author dressed in the uniform of Napoleon I, with the caption, "Chal- 
 oner 1 1st; 1911, by Chiswell." 
 
 Defending "Robbery Under Law" Mr. Chaloner writes that parts 
 of it could be cut "without the least injury to the action, though not 
 to the psychological value of it as a study in the very latest and 
 farthest advanced realms of mediumship. Since that is what I am 
 a medium in the language of the late Professor William James, of 
 Harvard." 
 
 Cincinnati, O., Times-Star,^ July 23, 1915. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, author of "Who's Looney Now?" has 
 written a play with which he intends to fight the lunacy laws of several 
 States. It is called "Robbery Under Law" and was written at "Merry 
 Mills," Chaloner's estate in Virginia. There the author is a sane man 
 under the State law, while New York courts have adjudged him insane. 
 The play is founded upon Chaloner's own adventures before and after 
 his escape from "Bloomingdale." (Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, 
 N. C.) 
 
 St. Louis Globe-Democrat, June 29, 1915. 
 
 New York, June 28. John Armstrong Chaloner, made famous by 
 the query, "Who's Looney Now?" has started a crusade to prove the 
 insanity laws of the majority of the States are all wrong. 
 
 In a book which appeared on the stands to-day he is putting forth, 
 admittedly founded on his own experience, his commitment to Bloom 
 ingdale, his escape and his finding of a refuge in Virginia, whose 
 courts declared him sane. 
 
 Chaloner sets forth in a prologue he has "sacrificed the last eighteen 
 years of his life" in the cause of lunacy reform. His play is entitled 
 "Robbery Under Law, or the Battle of the Millionaires." 
 
 His purpose, he says, is "to put before the public the deadly disease 
 eating the fiber of our body politic in vicious lunacy legislation obtain 
 ing in 40 per cent, of the States of the United States." 
 
 St. Louis, Mo., Republic, July 17, 1915. 
 
 All those who are interested in the author of "Who's Looney 
 Now?" may now come forward and obtain a new volume by the same 
 
 tThis notice also appeared in the Star, Cincinnati, O., July 23, 1915.
 
 271 
 
 author, who bears unchallenged the name of John Armstrong Chaloner, 
 entitled "Robbery Under Law." "Robbery Under Law is "a play in 
 three acts and three scenes," and it is further enriched by the inclu 
 sion of other plays and a lot of miscellaneous matter touching John 
 Armstrong Chaloner. Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, N. C., 50 cents. 
 
 Batavia, N. Y., Daily News, July 6, 1915. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner ("Who's Looney Now?") denies that he 
 had the automobile business in mind when he wrote his latest book 
 "Robbery Under Law, or the Battle of Millionaires." 
 
 The Post, Houston, Texas, July 27, 1915. 
 
 SOME RECEXT PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED BY "THE POST." 
 
 Robbery Under Law By John Armstrong Chaloner, author of 
 "Scorpio." Published by the Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, 
 North Carolina. 
 
 John Armstrong, Chaloner, phrase maker extraordinary and 
 author of "Who's Looney Now?" has written a play with which he 
 intends to fight the lunacy laws of various States. It is called "Robbery 
 Under Law, or the Battle of Millionaires," and was ground out at 
 "Merry Mills," Chaloner's estate in Virginia. There the author is a 
 sane man under the State law, while New York courts have adjudged 
 him insane. 
 
 To give full measure in the volume Mr. C'haloner has combined 
 with "Robbery Under Law" another play, called "The Hazard of the 
 Die," numerous newspaper clippings concerning his own vicissitudes 
 and some sonnets. The frontispiece is a portrait of Chaloner in the 
 dress of Napoleon the same picture that he sent to newspapers in 
 1912, when his modesty first yielded to his resemblance to the great 
 little Corsican. 
 
 The play "Robbery Under Law" is founded upon Chaloner's own 
 adventures before and after his escape from Bloomingdale. In the 
 prologue, in which the author refers to himself as "Who's Looney 
 Now?" Chaloner declares his intention of producing the play in all 
 parts of the country and accompanying its production with lectures 
 on the iniquity of insanity laws. 
 
 Just how Chaloner is going to manage about New York he doesn't 
 say. He surely can't be planning to omit New York from his tour, for 
 here, if anywhere, he has found iniquitous lunacy law, to say nothing 
 of "ermined anarchy." Perhaps he is reckoning on the co-operation 
 of the Supreme Court of the United States, where his appeal from an
 
 272 
 
 adverse judgment in his suit to recover the control of his $1,500,000 
 property is pending. 
 
 It is not the first appearance Chaloner has made as an author, 
 although it is the first time he has come out as a Napoleonic crusader 
 in literature. In 1907 he wrote forty-seven sonnets, explaining his 
 ideas on hell and Bernard Shaw. A few months ago the war set his 
 pen to itching, and he gave the Germans what he gave Shaw only 
 more so. 
 
 As a scientist, too, Chaloner has made a deep impression upon him 
 self. Not only is he the possessor of an "X-faculty" which enables 
 him to suspend the law of gravitation, but pool balls speak to him in 
 astrological terms. 
 
 All this was for the cause, however, as Chaloner announces in his 
 prologue to "Bobbery Under Law." Presumably even his apparently 
 sincere attempts to recover command of his fortune were strategic 
 movements intended to embarrass the New York lunacy law, for he 
 writes that he has "sacrificed the last eighteen, years of my life" in 
 the cause of lunacy reform. 
 
 This notice from the Houston Daily Post was repeated also in the 
 following papers: 
 
 The News, Lima, Ohio. 
 
 The Herald, Fall River, Mass. 
 
 The Dispatch, Wilmington, N. C. 
 
 The Courier, Waterloo, la. 
 
 The Journal, Niagara Falls, N. Y. 
 
 The Times, Rochester, N. Y. 
 
 The Graphic, Pine Bluff, Ark. 
 
 The Republic, North Yakima, Wash. 
 
 The Herald, Dayton, Ohio. 
 
 The Scimitar, Memphis, Tenn. 
 
 The Times, Akron, Ohio. 
 
 The News-Times, South Bend, Ind. 
 
 The Tribune, Bay City, Mich. 
 
 The News, Mansfield, Ohio. 
 
 The Leader, Gloversville, N. Y. 
 
 The Freeman, Kingston, N. Y. 
 
 The Reporter, Fond Du Lac, Wis. 
 
 The Examiner, Ogden, Utah. 
 
 The Star, Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 The Philadelphia Star has the following headlines before the 
 article : 
 
 " 'Who's Looney Now? 1 Becomes Playwright. John Armstrong 
 Chaloner to Produce 'Robbery Under Law' Throughout Country. He 
 Fights Insanity Laws."
 
 273 
 
 The Buffalo Commercial, July 24, 1915. 
 
 "The latest offering from the pen of John Armstrong Chaloner is 
 a play in three acts and three scenes called 'Robbery Under Law, or 
 The Battle of the Millionaires.' The author says the play was written 
 to illustrate the mischief of lunacy proceedings in New York State. 
 All the characters are drawn from life, according to the author, and 
 the scenes are real. Although Chaloner modestly takes for himself 
 the role of the hero he has taken into consideration all the persons 
 who took an active part in having him declared insane. The story 
 has to do with one Hugh Stutfleld, of Virginia and New York, a mil 
 lionaire, whose enemy and rival, James Lawless, conspires with his 
 relatives to get him out of the way. How he manages to escape from 
 the insane asylum and to keep his freedom, form important chapters 
 in the play. In the same volume is also presented "The Hazard of the 
 Die," a drama in three acts, and several sonnets and other composi 
 tions. The paper-covered volume is published by the Palmetto Press." 
 
 The Gazette, Worcester, Mass., July 23, 1915. 
 
 Robbery Under Law By the author of "Scorpio." Palmetto Press, 
 Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. Price, bound in paper, 50 
 cents. 
 
 Many people remember the sensation which the publication of 
 "The Quick or the Dead," written by Amelie Rives, created. It was 
 the first of many subsequent novels which have pleased people who 
 delighted in the sensational, in that variety of the sensational which 
 bordered on the salacious and, written by an engaging young lady of 
 Virginia the wonder grew, though the story, first appearing in Lippin- 
 cott's Monthly, acquired an amazing sale. The next source of wonder 
 was the marriage of Miss Rives to a member of a prominent New 
 York family, John Armstrong Chaloner. Naturally the public was 
 more than interested in the man, as it had been in the woman. Ere 
 many years, the public was again in the condition of amazement when 
 it appeared that Mr. Chaloner had been adjudged insane and had been 
 committed to an asylum for that class of unfortunates in "Blooming- 
 dale," New York. There he was confined four years and at last suc 
 ceeded in making his escape. Naturally he cherished much animosity 
 towards his relatives who had brought about his incarceration, and, as 
 a means of setting himself right before the pubic, he wrote a play 
 with the title given above, which he submitted to certain playwrights 
 for their judgment and criticism. When the play is read one does not 
 marvel that it was not considered adapted to the stage, at least as 
 written, and to allow the public to judge for itself he puts the entire 
 play into print. In this way, he brings to view a considerable part of 
 his former life, especially the death of a certain man who, at the
 
 274 
 
 time, was engaged in the somewhat reprehensible occupation of beat 
 ing his wife. Mr. Chaloner claims that his relatives were anxious to 
 secure his fortune, hence their part in the immurement. This volume 
 of 350 pages contains, not alone the play, but several other literary 
 efforts of the writer which, undoubtedly, will afford a deal of pleasure 
 to seekers after the curious and strange in deed and thought. Mr. 
 Chaloner includes in his volume, not only what he has himself written 
 but, apparently, all that he can find of what others have written about 
 him and his writings. As to the controversy, the Gazette has no dis 
 position to take a part, though we are quite ready to assert that the 
 walls of bedlam do not contain nor have they ever held any consid 
 erable portion of the really insane, the trouble being that, too often, 
 the craziest are on the outside. Mr. Chaloner's book creates the im 
 pression of a man easily excited, ever ready to assert his opinions 
 and to defend them, if necessary. All lovers of the curious in litera 
 ture will desire a copy of "Robbery Under Law." 
 
 The News, Baltimore, Md. f July 21, 1915. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, he of "Who's Looney Now?" fame, has 
 written a play "Robbery Under Law; or The Battle of the Millionaires'" 
 is its title, and it is in three acts, and three scenes. 
 
 "Robbery Under Law" has a mission, according to the author, 
 "the object being to put before the papers the deadly disease eating 
 the fiber of our body politic in vicious lunacy legislation obtaining 
 in 40 per cent, of the States of the United States" is the way Chaloner 
 puts it. In a lengthy prologue he explans that the characters of his 
 play are sketched from the real, all except the heroine, and that most 
 of the vivid scenes are pages from his own book of life. The play is 
 lengthy, has a sensational plot, and lots of dialogue. Along with the 
 play the reader gets more of the Chaloner plays, some poetry, personal 
 letters, and so forth. 
 
 ("Robbery Under Law," John Armstrong Chaloner. Palmetto 
 Press, Roanoke Rapids, N. C., publisher.) 
 
 Denver, Colo., Post, July 25, 1915. 
 
 "WHO'S IXXJNEY NOW?" REAPPEARS. 
 
 Apropos of the interest taken in the case of Harry Thaw, who is 
 just now very much in the public eye and who for a fortnight has 
 been on the front page of nearly every newspaper of the country, is 
 the case of John Armstrong Chaloner. of "Who's Looney Now?" celeb 
 rity.
 
 275 
 
 The latter gentleman has written a long play and a thick book, 
 both of which have been printed, and by the courtesy of the publishers 
 have just reached the office of The Denver Post. 
 
 The Chaloner story is much older that the Thaw tale, but the 
 present publication revives it and makes it a timely topic for discus 
 sion. 
 
 The purpse of the present book and the play, is a crusade to prove 
 the sanity laws of a majority of the States are all wrong. 
 
 In this volume, which is only a fornig;ht old, Mr. Chaloner puts 
 forth, admittedly founded on his own experience, his commitment to 
 Bloomingdale, his escape and his finding of a refuge in Virginia, 
 whose courts declared him sane. 
 
 Chaloner sets forth in a prologue he has "sacrificed the last 
 eighteen years of his life" in the cause of lunacy reform. His play is 
 entitled, "Robbery Under Law, or The Battle of the Millionaires." 
 
 His purpose, he says, is "to put before the public the deadly disease 
 eating the fiber of our body politic in vicious Lunacy Legislation 
 obtaining in 40 per cent, of the States of the United States as 'Dam 
 aged Goods,' put before the public the deadly disease eating the flesh 
 of, alas! but too many of the peoples of the earth." 
 
 Chaloner's only successful composition heretofore was the phrase 
 'Who's Looney Now?" written in a telegram to his brother, Bob 
 Chanler, when the latter's romantic and marital experiences with 
 Mile. Lina Cavalieri became known. 
 
 Many readers of this page will recall the mysterious sensation 
 occasioned years ago by the incarceration in Bloomingdale Asylum, in 
 New York, and the subsequent escape of John Armstrong Chaloner, 
 the wealthy Virginian and member of the New York bar. 
 
 For four months the friends of Mr. Chaloner supposed that he 
 was away taking a trip for his health. For weeks after his escape 
 and return to his State of Virginia, newspaper speculation was rife as 
 to the causes which led up to the imprisonment. He was subsequently 
 declared sane in an action tried in the courts of Virginia and was 
 adjudged competent to manage his own affairs. Beyond the fact that 
 he had brought actions against persons, however, the matter has since 
 fallen away from public attention and has in many respects remained 
 ever since a mystery. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner was especially known in the South by reason of 
 his marriage to Amelie Rives, the brilliant Virginia novelist, whose 
 book, "The Quick or the Dead," created a national furore at the time 
 of its publication. 
 
 That story, as you may remember, tells the old love of a beautiful 
 widow for her dead husband and her newer love for another man in 
 the flesh. 
 
 Jock Dering, the hero, was Chaloner. This Chaloner was declared 
 by the courts sane in one State and insane in another. He is cousin 
 of the Astors, one time chum of the late Stanford White; lawyer, col-
 
 276 
 
 lege graduate, student of psychics and, say, ex-husband of that brilliant 
 woman, Amelie Rives, later the Princess Troubetzkoy. 
 
 His story is one of the most remarkable of modern times, and 
 as printed In the New York papers at the time, from which the fol 
 lowing facts are taken, reads like fiction. Here is a man of independ 
 ent means, a man of affairs, a brilliant writer, an ardent sportsman, 
 a clever raconteur, sent to Bloomingdale adjudged hopelessly insane 
 "progressive," the physicians called his case. 
 
 There he stays for nearly four years. He knows it is hopeless to 
 protest. There he is, behind the bars, gone from the world forever. 
 He dreams of freedom by night; by day he ponders over the problem 
 of getting it. He knows that to be violent would see the end of his 
 hopes; he acquiesces in everything his keepers order, without a word 
 of protest. It is the careful working of a mind bent on accomplishing 
 its object freedom! 
 
 He waits his time. He gets the trust of everyone about him. He 
 does meekly everything that he is bidden everything except admit 
 to the doctors that he is insane. He gets permission to take walks 
 without a keeper. He makes his daily jaunts farther and farther 
 away, deliberately practicing the art of covering great distances in a 
 short time. He finds a postoffice where he may receive letters under 
 an assumed name, because nothing may reach him at the asylum until 
 it has been scrutinized. In this way he manages to borrow $10 this 
 man with an income of $40,000 a year. 
 And now what does he do? 
 
 One day he does not return from his daily walk. No, he has 
 walked well and far he has taken a train to New York from an 
 obscure railroad station miles distant from White Plains, where Bloom 
 ingdale now is. By nightfall he is safe in Philadelphia. 
 
 Does he go into paroxysms of impotent rage at those who incarce 
 rated him, as do so many of the insane when they escape? Does he 
 try to kill those whom he might imagine responsible for his sufferings? 
 Does he break out in incoherent ravings against fancied evils? 
 
 No. He goes straightway to a sanitarium 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 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 physicians tell Mr. Chaloner he is well balanced. Then 
 suddenly he appears at his old hime, "Merry Mills," Cobham, Va., 
 where he has stayed to this day, master of his estate, as at Roanoke 
 Rapids, N. C. 
 
 After his discharge from the asylum Mr. Chaloner wrote a book. 
 Not the book now before me, but one, at present, nearly ten years old. 
 There he describes with bitterness the manner in which he was lured 
 to Bloomingdale by Stanford White, who soon after was killed by 
 Harry Thaw.
 
 .277 
 
 "I received a telegram from my friend, Stanford White, proposing 
 to visit me in company with a mutual friend. As I was on rather 
 unfriendly terms with Mr. White at the time, owing to an abusive 
 letter he had recently written me, I did not look forward to a visit 
 from him with pleasure. I therefore sent him a telegram to say that 
 I was not well enough to see him. A few days later Mr. White walked 
 in on me, in company with a physician. I shall not attempt to picture 
 my surprise. Let it suffice to say that I was struck dumb. 
 
 "Mr. White hastily excused his intrusion and implored me to ac 
 company him to New York for a 'plunge in the metropolitan whirl.' As 
 I had some business which needed my attention in New York, I con 
 sented." 
 
 He was then hurried to Bloomingdale by White's aid and declared 
 mad. 
 
 iChaloner thinks "the play's the thing," and that he can reach the 
 public better through the stage than by literature. So he publishes 
 the drama, and announces he will act in it. He has had considerable 
 experience in histrionics during his early life. 
 
 Chaloner is the hero of his play, which is in three acts and three 
 scenes, with a prologue and epilogue. His adventures, "the stirring 
 cycle of events which for the past eighteen years has been whirling 
 around the head of 'Who's Looney Now?' " center about the manly 
 form of Hugh Stutfield, of Rokeby, Albermarle county, Va., "million 
 aire art patron and law writer." There are two other millionaires in 
 the play who try to get Stutfield's money and so put him in the Fair- 
 dale asylum, and a man worth half a million. Mr. Chaloner says that 
 it is a psychological play, he having been called a medium and of 
 psychic temperament by the late Prof. William James. 
 
 He is determined to present his play with himself in the lead. 
 He expects to encounter difficulties, however. 
 
 "If we find the theater closed against us," he says, "for the same 
 reason we find the newspapers whatever that reason may be we 
 shall follow the example of Madame Bernhardt under the precise and 
 identical circumstances, and act in a tent." 
 
 Then he puts his case, his ability and his purposes forth as fol 
 lows: 
 
 Having a million and a half of property, we are. in a fairly strong 
 position as regards carrying out to the letter the above pushful pro 
 gram. The first question that will present itself to the reader will be 
 "What kind of a fist can 'Who's Looney Now?' make at acting? Can he 
 act?" To which we hasten to make answer, " 'Who's Looney Now?' un 
 doubtedly can act." Thus. In the first place, there is a good deal of 
 heredity and environment at birth. Now "Who's Looney Now" came 
 within one ace of being born on the stage of being actually born on 
 the boards! The remarkable facts are as follows, "Who's Looney 
 Now's mamma was very fond of the theater. The night before "Who's 
 Looney Now?" appeared in this world "Who's Looney Now's? mamma
 
 278 
 
 was seized with a desire to attend a theatrical performance that was 
 taking place on the next block from the house she was then visiting. 
 This house was the town house of her grandfather, the late William 
 B. Astor, in Lafayette place, New York, in the shadow of the Astor 
 library. "Who's Looney Now's?" papa humored his wife's whim it 
 being the first time such a thing had occurred "Who's Looney Now?" 
 being the mamma's first-born and accompanied his wife to the play 
 house and the best box therein. Before the play was over to cut a 
 long story short "Who's Looney Now's?" mamma had to hurry home 
 in order to avoid a most sensational denouement. 
 
 Under the circumstances aforesaid it should not be surprising to 
 an open-minded reader that "Who's Looney Now?" has had from 
 earliest childhood a penchant for the stage. Such being the fact, 
 "Who's Looney Now?" has always carried it locked in the inmost 
 recesses of his breast that provided circumstances were favorable to 
 such a sensational and unusual thing he would one day go on the 
 Stage! With this secret intent he has always avoided strenuously 
 taking an active part in that morgue for histrionic ability, "Private 
 Theatricals." Two facts stand out in "Who's Looney Now's?" later 
 years, indicating his ability to make good on the boards. The first 
 fact indicates ability in said line. The second fact indicates serious 
 study along and in said line. Fact number one is that "Who's Looney 
 Now?" surprised and delighted his father his mother being now- 
 dead by taking first prize i ndeclamation at a military academy, by 
 name "St. John's School," Ossining-on-Hudson, New York, at the early 
 age of thirteen out of a school of seventy-five boys many of whom 
 were four or five years "Who's Looney Now's?" senior. Anyone who 
 knows anything about acting knows it's harder to be interesting on a 
 naked platform, against a whitewashed school room's wall, than sur 
 rounded by all the sensuousness and fairy glamor of the footlights. 
 
 Fact number two is that "Who's Looney Now?" devoted a whole 
 winter while an undergraduate at Columbia university, in New York, 
 to taking lessons in gesture and intonation, the use of the throat and 
 lungs, from a professional in that line; whose business it was to train 
 professional actors that early day being long before dramatic acade 
 mies for fitting aspirants for the stage had been dreamed of. "Who's 
 Looney Now?" being a great admirer of Edwin Booth whom he knew 
 personally and considering him the greatest actor of his day, if not 
 of any day spent about four nights out of each week during Booth's 
 last and longest season at Booth's theater, at Twenty-third street and 
 Sixth avenue during the same year that he was studying elocution 
 professionally and also sent his dramatic instructor aforesaid to the 
 same theater frequently supplying the instructor with the necessary 
 tickets. The next day "Who's Looney Now?" would read the solilo 
 quies in "Hamlet" and "Richard III." to the instructor, rendering the 
 same with as nearly the same tone, accent, and inflection as Booth had 
 given them the night, or nights, before.
 
 279 
 
 When to the above serious active work in the dramatic art is added 
 the fact that, some years later, "Who's Looney Now?" carried his 
 lares and penates to Paris and set them up in a house or private apart 
 ment of his own for five consecutive years, during which time there 
 was hardly a week elapsed without his going to the Theatre Francois 
 at least once, if not twice, as well as once or twice each week to some 
 other of the leading French theaters, it becomes palpable to the poorest 
 observation that "Who's Looney Now?" was "going some" to theaters 
 to school. All this time "Who's Looney Now?" had the starry end 
 in view, to one of these days provided always and only that Fate 
 should be propitious that circumstance should point the way to that 
 rugged and daring path of toil and disappointment and severe work 
 the starry end in view to at the proper time have a dash on th4 
 boards. And all this time therefore 'Who's Looney Now?" was watch 
 ing Coquelin Aine, or Coquelin Jeune, or Mounet-Sully at the Frangais 
 for tips and points and what not, for his own particular use at the 
 proper time French dramatic art being as much at the top of all 
 dramatic art to-day, as French painting and sculpture and architecture 
 are at the topmost pinnacle of their respective branches of art to-day. 
 
 Therefore "Who's Looney Now?" would mount the stage with a 
 far from unsophisticated attitude toward the stage. Now what would 
 "Who's Looney Now?" be required to do in his initial step the step 
 that breaks the ice le premier pas qui coute step upon mounting 
 the stage in "Robbery Under Law?" Why, nothing more difficult than 
 copy the role he had created in real life on the stage of the world 
 when he fought Gillard in the dining room at "Merry Mills" that 
 March afternoon six years ago; or when he held up the doctors in his 
 suite at the Hotel Kensington three times as many years ago; or later 
 when he fought his strapping Irish keeper in his cell at "Bloomingdale" 
 runtil the latter bellowed "Help" at the top of his powerful lungs 
 seventeen years ago; or, lastly, when he escaped. 
 
 Chaloner, like Thaw, killed his man. But in the case of the former 
 it was not the result of an unclean brawl, but in defense of a woman 
 whose drunken husband was beating her and would have had her 
 life had not Chaloner interfered, saved the wife and shot the man. 
 This occurred in Virginia and a jury of substantial farmers wholly 
 absolved Chaloner from blame in the tragedy; in fact, complimented 
 him on his bravery in protecting a defenseless woman. 
 
 The main purpose of the Chaloner book is to supplement Charles 
 Read's well-known novel, "Hard Cash," in an effort to prevent sane 
 persons being locked up in asylums without proper process of law. 
 
 No doubt the law in many States is defective. 
 
 As was well said by one of our leading law journals not long ago, 
 the fact that many mentally deranged persons are incapable of com 
 prehending the nature of the steps taken to place them in custody, the 
 custom has become prevalent that no process is needed to place them 
 on trial as to their sanity.
 
 280 
 
 It is to be remembered that in every State of the Union, and, in 
 'fact, in every country of the world, fraud has been perpetrated on 
 men and women of means by greedy relatives and the unfortunate 
 ones placed in asylums for no other purpose than to secure control of 
 their property. And further it should be remembered that one once 
 adjudged insane, if he cannot secure a hearing of his right to restora 
 tion through the influence of true friends, is forever barred of the 
 right to be heard. 
 
 He has lost the standing of a citizen. 
 
 Mr. Chaloner, whether he be "queer" or not, is certainly mentally 
 brilliant and in deadly earnest in all he does. 
 
 He must also have a generous heart, for to this day he pays his 
 divorced wife, Amelie Rives that was, and now the Princess Troubetz- 
 koy, $3,000 a year as a pleasing remembrance of once happy days. 
 
 Naturally he is very bitter in his denunciation of New York so 
 ciety, which he maintains was instrumental in his downfall. In a 
 series of published "sonnets," some of which are genuine poetry, he 
 has this on the famous Horseshoe of the Metropolitan Opera House, 
 New York, where the fashionable 400 gather in force, on Caruso nights 
 especially. 
 
 He calls it "The Devil's Horseshoe," and describes the gracious 
 company thus: 
 
 A fecund sight for a philosopher 
 
 Rich as Golconda's mine in lessons rare 
 That gem-bedizen'd "horseshoe" at th' opera, 
 
 Replete with costly hags and matrons fair! 
 His votaresses doth Mammon there array, 
 
 His Amazonian Phalanx dread to face! 
 To Mammon there do they their homage pay! 
 
 Spangl'd with jewels, satins, silks and lace, 
 Ghouls when they speak one hears the grave-mole squeak 
 
 Beldams whose slightest glance would fright a horse; 
 Ghouls when they speak one hears the grave-mole squeak 
 
 Their escorts parvenus of feature coarse, 
 A rich array of Luxury and Vice! 
 
 But, spite of them, the music's very nice. 
 
 It may be hoped that Mr. Chaloner's book, as well as his play, 
 will have some good effect in awakening the public to that iniquitous 
 system against which Charles Reade waged his long war in England. 
 
 Both the novelist in Europe and the aristocrat in America put 
 the case strongly. 
 
 Their criticism of the practice of adjudging persons incompetent 
 and depriving them of their liberties without due process of law is 
 the theme well developed in this story. 
 
 It shows that people may still be incarcerated in insane asylums 
 without notice and without an opportunity to be heard. Once in an
 
 281 
 
 asylum a patient has little chance of any liberty; small protection 
 against the keepers. 
 
 The lunacy laws of the world certainly 'need reform. 
 
 Philadelphia North American, July 29, 1915. 
 
 PLAY BY CHAIX)NER. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, who is sane in Virginia but crazy in 
 New York, has gone into print again this time with a play, "Robbery 
 Under Law, ' printed by the Palmetto Press, in North Carolina. Fol 
 lowing this is a blank verse three-act drama of the Roman Republic's 
 last days, "The Hazard of the Die." Further on about half of the 
 book is a rescript of most of the matters connected with Mr. Chal- 
 oner's invasion of the law's strong arm in New York. 
 
 The Journal, Milwaukee, Wis., July 31, 1915. 
 
 OUR LUNACY LAWS. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner has had some very unpleasant experi 
 ences. In "Robbery Under Law, or The Battle of the Millionaires," he 
 makes his wrongs public. According to this story he was imprisoned 
 for lunacy, although perfectly sane. This was done, he explains, by 
 his brothers and sisters who thought thereby to obtain his share of 
 his father's estate. There are many letters, essays and various writ 
 ings included, by which he would prove his sanity. From his account 
 it would appear that he had real cause for complaint. The avowed 
 motive of Mr. Chaloner in making public his wrongs, is to bring about 
 reforms in lunacy law that no one else may ever suffer what he has 
 endured. Mr. Chaloner is a lawyer. He was married to Amelie Rives, 
 and divorced from her previous to her marriage to Prince Troubetzkoy. 
 Besides the play "Robbery Under Law" he publishes another, entitled 
 "The Hazard of the Die." ("Robbery Under Law." Palmetto Press, 
 Roanoke R.apids, North Carolina. 50 cents.) 
 
 The Detroit Free Press, Detroit, Mich. 
 
 "Robbery Under Law." By John Armstrong Chaloner. A play in 
 three acts and three scenes, by the author of the famous inquiry, 
 "Who's Looney Now?" Paper, octavo, pp. 240. 
 
 (Roanoke Rapids, N. C. Palmetto Press.)
 
 282 
 
 Los Angeles Express, Los Angeles, Calif., August 7, 1915. 
 "ROBBERY UNDER L.AW." 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner has written a play or more properly 
 two of them, but it is the first which gives title to the book containing 
 them. 
 
 "Robbery Under Law" is founded upon episodes in the author's 
 career, including his confinement in, and escape from, "Bloomingdale" 
 Asylum. Some may find in it an answer to Chaloner's famous query 
 to his brother, Robert, upon the latter's marriage to an opera star. 
 
 The second is a three act play in blank verse, the setting being in 
 the last days of the Roman Republic. 
 
 Then there are some other writings all of which combine to make 
 a volume of formidable proportions. 
 
 The Evening Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wis., August 10, 1915. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner continues his propaganda for reform 
 of the lunacy laws. He has just issued from the Palmetto Press, Roan- 
 oke Rapids, N. C., a paper-covered book (50 cents) entitled "Robbery 
 Under Law, or The Battle of the Millionaires," a play in three acts 
 and three scenes treating of the adventures of the author of "Who's 
 Looney Now?" 
 
 The Rochester Democrat, Rochester, New York, August 6, 1915. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, author of "Scorpio" and of the noted 
 phrase "Who's Looney Now?" and famous for his many years' fight 
 after his escape from "Bloomingdale" asylum to prove himself sane, 
 has written a new play entitled "Robbery Under Law." The piece has 
 been created, he says "in order to serve as a sort of propaganda toward 
 the cause of Lunacy Law reform, to which the writer has sacrificed 
 the last eighteen years of his life, come March 13, 1915." A portrait 
 bust of the author garbed as Napoleon 1st, with the line "Chaloner 1st; 
 1911, by Chiswell," is the frontispiece of this paper-covered volume. 
 This prepares one for the great surprise that Chaloner himself is the 
 hero of his play, the scenes of which are filled with episodes from his 
 own stormy life. He is quite frank in admitting that parts of his play 
 could be cut "without the least injury to the action, though not to the 
 psychological value of it as a study in the very latest and furthest 
 aldvanced realms of a mediumship. Since that is what I am a 
 medium in the language of the late Professor William James, of 
 Harvard." Chaloner has been generous, crowding another play en 
 titled "The Hazard of the Die," and many newspaper clippings dealing
 
 283 
 
 with his own case, into the new volume. Price, 50 cents net. Pub 
 lished by the Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, N. C. 
 
 Utica Daily Press, Utica, New York, August 12, 1915. 
 
 "Robbery Under Law," by John Armstrong Chaloner. Published 
 by The Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, N. C. Price, 50 cents. 
 
 Boy, page Harry Kendall Thaw! 
 
 The man who immortalized himself with "Who's Looney Now?" 
 once a husband of Amelie Rives, now Princess Troubetzkoy; adjudged 
 insane in New York and sane in Virginia, has written the story of his 
 own trials and tribulations in play form. 
 
 The play goes under the alias of "The Battle of the Millionaires," 
 and is a thing fearful and wonderful to read. A wife-beater is killed 
 in the first scene, and from then on, there is plenty of action, with the 
 hero, Stutfield, who is, of course, none other than J. A. Chaloner. The 
 acts and scenes of "Robbery Under Law" are acts and scenes from 
 the author's life, dressed up a bit and adorned with some fearfully 
 long speeches. The hero pulls one five pages long and never seems 
 to notice it. A little later on, when he is incarcerated in an insane 
 asylum by relatives who wish to get his money, he breaks into a letter 
 nearly as long. 
 
 In the course of the play Mr. Chaloner gets a great deal off his 
 chest concerning the Insanity Laws and the Courts; his hero always 
 rises above the situations which confront him, and is a wonder at 
 strangle-holds. Of course, Stutfield escapes from the asylum, binding 
 and gagging his keeper, and leaving him with the capitalized remark 
 "Who's Looney Now?" of which the author seems quite proud. He is 
 assisted in his escape by the father of his beloved Viola and the whole 
 thing draws to an end in absolute silence, for, while there is plenty 
 of action in the last page and a half of the play, not a word is spoken. 
 But there is plenty in the rest of the work to make up for it, and so 
 the reader is not likely to regret this feature. 
 
 "The Hazard of the Die" is a play in three acts concerning the 
 last days of the Roman Republic, and concerns the conspiracy of 
 Catiline. It goes along pretty well until the denouement is reached, 
 when the author apparently gets so excited over his theme that he 
 relapses into prose and past tense until the hullabaloo is over, when 
 he goes back to blank verse. The remainder of the book is hashed 
 newspaper clippings concerning the troubles of the author, with some 
 treaties of poetic writing thrown in for luck.
 
 284 
 
 Houston Post, Houston, Texas, July 23, 1915. 
 
 Till' PURSUIT CONTINUES. 
 
 The country had commenced to hope that the end of the Thaw 
 case had been reached, but Albany dispatches state that the attorney 
 general has ordered an investigation of the jury which recently de 
 clared Thaw sane, with a view to nullifying the action of Justice 
 Hendrick's court and opening the entire question again. 
 
 This investigation comes about as the result of the garrulity of 
 one of the jurors who declared in an interview last Sunday that the 
 jury had disregarded Justice Hendrick's instruction that they must 
 proceed upon the hypothesis that Thaw was insane when he was com 
 mitted to Matteawan and then decide if he were sane at present. 
 
 Instead of observing this instruction this juror declared the jury 
 concluded that Thaw had always been sane and that in killing White 
 he had merely followed the "unwritten law," and ought to have been 
 acquitted in the first trial. 
 
 The position of the attorney general is, therefore, that the jury's 
 verdict was not legally reached as the jury had violated the court's 
 instructions. Just how much is in this point is for the lawyers to 
 thresh out, but as it was Justice Hendrick's decision that released 
 Thaw and not the jury's, it is difficult to see how the judgment can 
 be upset merely because of the mental attitude of the jurors in the 
 jury room. 
 
 The justice was empowered to disregard the verdict of the jury. 
 Had the jury found Thaw insane, the justice could have released him. 
 Or he could have remanded Thaw to Matteawan regardless of its favor 
 able verdict. As the jury was acting merely in an advisory capacity, 
 its verdict was not vital. 
 
 The public had hoped that the State would not prosecute the 
 appeal of which it gave notice, but if it does, and the decision of 
 Justice Hendrick is set aside, there is no likelihood that Thaw would 
 return to New York for another trial. His $35,000 bond would be 
 forfeited, but there is no way to extradite him, for he is charged with 
 no crime in New York. He would be in the same position that John 
 Armstrong Chaloner is; legally insane in New York, but legally sane 
 everywhere else. 
 
 Unless for purposes of exploitation or revenge, there could be no 
 reasonable motive for New York to wish to take Thaw from his native 
 State or elsewhere and impound him in an institution for the criminal 
 insane. 
 
 It is plain, however, that Thaw would be wise to give New York 
 a wide berth, regardless of the result of the State's appeal. Were he 
 to sojourn there again, his enemies might easily conspire to get him 
 in the toils again and there is no reason to doubt that they would 
 exhaust every resource to do so.
 
 285 
 
 Pennsylvania is the safest place in the world for him, and the 
 closer he sticks to his mother the better it will be for him. 
 
 Portland Evening Express, Portland, Maine, August 21, 1915. 
 
 "Robbery Under Law," by the author of "Scorpio," is a play by 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, phrase-maker extraordinary and author of 
 "Who's Looney Now?" intended to fight the lunacy laws of the various 
 States. The play is founded on Chaloner's own adventures before and 
 after his escape from "Bloomingdale." It will be remembered that 
 Chaloner was adjudged insane under New York law but was cleared 
 of the charge in Virginia. The writer says it is his intention to pro 
 duce the play in all parts of the country and to accompany its pro 
 duction with lectures on the iniquity of the insanity laws. A picture 
 of Chaloner in the dress of Napoleon forms the frontispiece. Published 
 by The Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, N. C. 
 
 The Sun, Baltimore, Md., August 1, 1915. 
 
 "Robbery Under Law, or The Battle of the Millionaires." By John 
 Armstrong, Chaloner. (Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, N. C. Paper 
 cover, pp. 240, 50 cents.) A play in three acts and three scenes, time, 
 1887, treating of the adventures of the author of "Who's Looney Now?" 
 
 The Scimitar, Memphis, Tenn., July 15, 1915. 
 
 Prom the Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, N. C., comes a fat 
 volume garnished in purple and gold, with two splashes of red across 
 the front paper cover, the author of which is John Armstrong Chaloner, 
 who startled the reading public some time ago by the famous query 
 "Who's Looney Now?" During the course of his trial the other day 
 Harry Thaw honored the Virginian by repeating the query. The 
 volume contains a play called "Robbery Under Law" and another called 
 "The Hazard of the Die," together with a vast amount of comments 
 and correspondence that he has gathered up and assembled. In New 
 York, if he should venture there, Chaloner would probably be called the 
 brightest crazy man alive. In Virginia he is legally sane and certainly 
 a most industrious writer and man of affairs. His play shows that 
 his reading has been discursive and by no means desultory,, and if he 
 is a madman, then all the great icriters can be convicted of the same 
 charge. He certainly has imagination and inventive genius, and his 
 workmanship shows a command of literary technique not to be de 
 spised. His gifts are eminently respectable, and he is fortunate in 
 having the money to place himself before the public in spite of the 
 Pharisees and the guardians of our literary morals."
 
 286 
 
 The Age-Herald, Birmingham, Ala., September 5, 1915. 
 
 "ROBBERY UNDER LAW, OR THE BATTLE OF THE MILLION 
 AIRES." (A play in three acts and three scenes.) By John 
 Armstrong Chaloner. The Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, North 
 Carolina. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, author of "Scorpio," presents a play 
 under the title of "Robbery Under Law, or the Battle of the Million 
 aires," which has attracted widespread attention. 
 
 Among other things interesting things about the play, is Mr. 
 Chaloner's "prologue," which throws considerable light on the subject 
 as follows: 
 
 "Since finishing the play, 'Robbery Under Law,' last fall, the 
 undersigned has written another play found herewith, entitled, 'The 
 Hazard of the Die,' a three act play in blank verse treating of the 
 conspiracy of Catiline during the last days of the Roman Republic. 
 
 "A word of explanation is germane to the matter in hand. Upon 
 finishing 'Robbery Under Law,' this last fall, the writer sent it to a 
 friend a lady upon a large New York daily paper. She in turn sent 
 it to another lady a friend of hers with the request that she bring 
 the play to the attention of her friends a large New York theatrical 
 manager's play reader. 
 
 "In closing this introduction to an introduction so to speak it 
 might be observed that the length of the first play a thing which can 
 be remedied by a blue pencil and judicious and experienced cutting, 
 without in the least interfering with the action of the drama the 
 length has been retained even added to since the letter below was 
 written in order to serve as a sort of propaganda towards the cause 
 of Lunacy Law reform, to which the writer has sacrificed the past 
 eighteen years of his life come March 13, 1915. All the characters 
 with the exception of the heroine's which is entirely an imaginary 
 one having been photographed actually so to speak from life; and 
 all the actions of the characters bar the heroine's having been prac 
 tically copied from the court records as is indicated in the subjoined 
 letter. To that end the writer has left his comments unpruned, upon 
 the abominable laws, and the even more abominable administration 
 of said laws, by the New York courts, both State and Federal, set forth 
 in 'Robbery Under Law.' 
 
 "The object being to put before the papers the deadly disease 
 eating the fibre of our body-politic in vicious Lunacy Legislation obtain 
 ing in 40 per cent, of the States of the United States as 'Damaged 
 Goods' put before the papers and public the deadly disease eating the 
 flesh of alas! but too many of the peoples of the earth." 
 
 Charles Reade's brilliant and powerful novel, "Very Hard Cash," 
 of some 50 years ago, revolutionized the treatment of prisoners behind 
 the bars of English insane asylums. It is far too much to expect the 
 same result from "Robbery Under Law," but for what it is worth as a 
 photographic exposition of cold, hard, every day facts, in our alleged 
 humane and civilized and upright community of the United States, it is 
 hereby launched upon the perilous seas of literature." 
 
 From the foregoing the object of the play may be deducted and 
 the brilliant manner in which the author has handled the subject is 
 in keeping with the other clever things he has written.
 
 Decision of Judges lacombe, Coxe and Noyes 
 
 162 Federal Reports, 19. 
 
 CHALONER vs. SHERMAN. 
 (Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.) 
 May 11, 1908. 
 
 No. 201. 
 
 In error to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern 
 District of New York, W. D. Reed for plaintiff-in-error ; Evarts, Choate 
 and Sherman (J. H. Choate, Jr., and George L. Kobbe, of counsel), for 
 defendant-in-error. 
 
 Before Lacombe, Coxe, and Noyes, Circuit Judges. 
 
 Noyes, Circuit Judge. "This appeal is from the denial of a petition 
 for an auxiliary order in the nature of a writ of protection, in an 
 action at law for conversion. 
 
 "The situation as disclosed by the record in the action and by the 
 affidavits upon the petition may be thus briefly stated. 
 
 "(1) In 1897 the petitioner being the plaintiff in said action 
 was adjudged insane by a justice of the Supreme Court of New York 
 and ordered committed to Bloomingdale Asylum, an institution for 
 the custody of the insane, to which he was duly taken and from which 
 he escaped in 1900 and went to Virginia. 
 
 "(2) In 1899 an order was made by the Supreme Court of New 
 York finding that the petitioner was of unsound mind, and appointing 
 a committee of his person and property, which office is now held by 
 the defendant in this action. 
 
 "(3) In 1901 upon an application made to the County Court of 
 Albemarle County, Virginia, where the petitioner then resided, alleging 
 that he had previously been adjudged insane in New York and praying 
 for an examination as to his then condition, said court found that he 
 was sane and capable of managing his affairs. 
 
 "(4) In 1904 the petitioner brought this action in the Circuit 
 Court as a citizen of Virginia averring that he was sane, and had so 
 been declared by the Virginia court and that said orders of the Su 
 preme Court of New York and of the justice thereof were void for 
 want of jurisdiction, and demanding, damages from the defendant 
 upon the theory that he had converted the property of the petitioner 
 in his hands as committee. , 
 
 "(5) The defendant in his answer, not only relied upon said New 
 Your orders, *but went further, and alleged that the plaintiff the 
 petitioner was and had teen in fact insane, and that the judgment of 
 the Virginia Court was collusive and void.
 
 288 
 
 "(6) The time for the trial of said action approaching, the plaintiff 
 filed the present petition, stating that his presence as a witness at 
 the trial was imperatively required, but that, in case he returned to 
 New York he was threatened with reincarceration in the asylum, not 
 withstanding the Virginia decree. 
 
 "He therefore prayed for an order protecting him while coming 
 into the State of New York, attending the trial and returning. 
 
 "It is apparent from the record, that upon the issues as they stand, 
 the attendance of the petitioner at the trial is necessary. His case 
 cannot be presented without him. And it is also most probable that, 
 if the petitioner return to New York without protection he will be 
 apprehended and retaken to the asylum, as an escaped patient. With 
 out relief he is in this predicament. He must abandon his action for 
 the recovery of a quarter* of a million dollars in order to retain his 
 freedom or must abandon hia liberty in order to try his case. The 
 Constitution of the United States vests in its judicial department 
 jurisdiction over controversies between citizens of different States. 
 The petitioner as a citizen of the State of Virginia in bringing his said 
 suit in the Circuit Court$ of the United States, was availing himself 
 of a right founded upon this constitutional provision. And he came 
 into that court with a decree of the court of the State of which he 
 was a citizen, declaring his sanity. 
 
 "We cannot disregard that decree. In considering it we do not 
 ignore the orders of the courts of New York. Insanity is not neces 
 sarily permanent. For the purpose of this petition laying aside 
 jurisdictional questions we may properly consider that the petitioner 
 was insane when so declared in New York, but that he had recovered 
 his sanity when he was declared sane in Virginia. 
 
 "The question, then, is whether a circuit court of the United 
 States has power to protect a person in the situation of the petitioner 
 while attending the trial of his cause therein. It is objected at the 
 outset that the Circuit Court has no power to grant a protective order 
 because it would have the effect of restraining proceedings in a State 
 court. Sec. 720 of the Revised Statutes prohibits the granting of 
 writs of injunction to stay proceedings in any court of a State, except 
 when authorized in bankruptcy proceedings. But, assuming that the 
 order at present prayed for would have injunctive effect, our attention 
 has been directed to no proceeding pending in a State court which it 
 would stay. 
 
 "It appears that ten years ago a judge of a State court signed an 
 order committing the petitioner to an asylum, and that the order was 
 complied with. It does not appear that those proceedings are still 
 pending or that resort to them would be necessary to recommit the 
 
 *Italics ours. 
 
 tThe sum technically sued for; in reality largely over a million. 
 
 ttSince been changed to District Court.
 
 289 
 
 petitioner to the asylum. The Statutes of New York apparently pro 
 vide that patients escaping from insane hospitals may be returned by 
 peace officers and by designated hospital attendants. 
 
 "No proceedings in court seem necessary or to be provided for. 
 The only other proceedings in New York those in which a committee 
 was appointed if still regarded as pending would not be stayed by a 
 protecting, order, because it was not the object of those proceedings 
 to commit the petitioner to an asylum. He was already in one when 
 they were instituted. 
 
 "The next objection is that the petitioner ought to apply to the 
 courts of the State of New York for the recision of the orders commit 
 ting him to the asylum and appointing a committee of his person and 
 property. We have not the slightest doubt that full justice would be 
 don- the petitioner should ' t submit himself to the jurisdiction of ihe 
 State courts. 
 
 "But to assume that he was under any obligation to resort to 
 them is to beg the whole question at issue. To say that the orders 
 in question were valid and must stand until set aside by the tribunal 
 which granted them is to assert that the petitioner has no cause of 
 action in the Circuit Court. But he states a cause of action. He as 
 serts that the orders were wholly void for want of jurisdiction. And 
 if they were void, they were of no effect, and the petitioner had a 
 right to assert their invalidity in any court. 
 
 "We now come to the broad question of the power of the Circuit 
 Court to grant a protective writ. 
 
 "Such writs have been issued since early times to protect wit 
 nesses, and parties coming; from one State into another to attend a 
 trial from arrest and detention upon civil process. It is true that if 
 the petitioner were retaken as an escaped insane patient, it would not 
 be upon civil process. But whatever the form of the process if any 
 at all were necessary the power exercised to retake him would be 
 that of the police. With the exercise of the police power of a State a 
 court of the United States should not lightly interfere. But we have 
 no doubt of its right to interfere when necessary for the efficient exer 
 cise of its own jurisdiction and where the threatened act under the 
 police power must rest for its justification upon the validity of the 
 very matter which the court is called upon to determine. 
 
 "The petitioner was given the right under the laws of the United 
 States to try his case in the courts of the United States. He is not 
 permitted to exercise that full right, and the court in effect is not 
 permitted to exercise its full jurisdiction, if, while attending the trial 
 and perhaps before he can be heard, he may be seized and taken to 
 an asylum and so seized for the reason, that he had been previously 
 committed under an order which the petitioner in the very case was 
 asserting to be wholly void. Under such extraordinary conditions, we 
 think the Circuit Court had the power to grant the protective writ. 
 
 "Having determined the question of power, we come to the pro 
 priety of exercising it.
 
 290 
 
 "Notwithstanding the fact that the petitioner is at liberty in other 
 States, it is suggested that it would be unsafe for him to be brought 
 to New York. // any danger were to be apprehended it would furnish 
 o good reason for refusing the writ. There is, however, nothing in 
 the record to indicate the probability of any such danger and the peti 
 tioner's prayer for relief is based upon the express condition that he 
 remain in the custody of United States marshals during his entire 
 sojourn in the State. 
 
 "For these reasons we think a writ of protection should issue if 
 the pleadings' in the case remain as they are. The defendant joins 
 issue upon the fact of sanity after the New York orders were made, 
 and also sets up that the Virginia decree was obtained' by collusion 
 and is void. With respect to these questions the presence of the peti 
 tioner upon the trial would be imperatively required. //, however, the 
 defendant as a committee appointed by the Supreme Court of New 
 York, stood squarely upon the decrees of that court as justifying his 
 acts and asserted that such decrees while unreversed, constitute a 
 complete defense regardless of the fact whether the petitioner had 
 since recovered his sanity, the question upon the trial in the Circuit 
 Court would simply relate to the validity of those decrees. 
 
 "That question would be principally a question of law. Practically 
 the only facts involved would be as to notice given the petitioner 
 if notice is necessary and perhaps as to his residence. 
 
 "With respect to these questions, the proof would necessarily be 
 within narrow limits, and the petitioner's testimony, if required might 
 be taken by deposition. Upon such issues we think the personal pres 
 ence of the petitioner not so necessary that he should be granted the 
 extraordinary relief prayed for here. 
 
 "The order of the Circuit court is reversed, with costs to the peti 
 tioner, and the matter is remanded to the court with instructions, in 
 case the issues remain as at present, to issue a writ of protection to 
 the petitioner prohibiting any person from apprehending or taking 
 him for the purpose of returning him or committing him to an insane 
 asylum while attending the trial of this said action and for such 
 reasonable time before and after the trial as said court may determine 
 is necessary for him to come into the State and return, provided that 
 he shall submit himself during such time to the custody of one or 
 more United States marshals, shall obey their directions and shall 
 pay the expenses of their employment. But that in case all the issues, 
 except with respect to the validity and effect of the said orders of the 
 Supreme Court of New York and of the justice thereof, be eliminated 
 within sixty days, then said writ of protection do not mue."t 
 
 tSaid issues remain in statu quo.
 
 291 
 
 What the Law Reviews Have to Say about " The 
 Lunacy Law of the World." 
 
 By John Armstrong Chaloner, A. B., A. M., Member of the Bar. 
 
 NORTHEASTERN REPORTER. 
 
 St. Paul, Minn., July, 1907. 
 
 "The Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, N. C., has printed a book on 
 The Lunacy Law of the World,' by John Armstrong Chaloner, of the 
 same place. It is an examination of the laws of the States and Terri 
 tories, and of the Six Great Powers of Europe, on this subject, and is in 
 terms a very severe arraignment of most of them. It would appear 
 that the iniquitous system against which Charles Reade waged war 
 has by no means disappeared. People may still be incarcerated in 
 insane asylums without notice, and without an opportunity to be 
 heard, either in person or by attorney and once in an asylum, a 
 ' patient has little protection against the keepers. They may be wise$ 
 and kind, but the instances of cruelty which occasionally reach the 
 public indicate that this is not a safe assumption. Mr. Chaloner holds 
 a brief for the accused, and puts his case very strongly, but, in view 
 of the cases he cites, it would be impossible to state the matter too 
 strongly. He says: 
 
 " 'A survey of the field of Lunacy legislation the world over pre 
 sents to-day an appalling spectacle. It affords, to put it mildly, the 
 strongest card in favor of anarchy of no law ever laid upon the 
 table of world-politics and throws into lamentable relief the fact that 
 in about forty per cent, of the 'States and Territories of the United 
 States neither the Bench with many honourable exceptions the Bar 
 nor the Legislature, can be entrusted with safeguarding that funda 
 mental principle of liberty, the absolute rights of the individual.' 
 "The book should awaken public interest in an important matter." 
 
 THE OHIO LAW BULLETIN. 
 
 Norwalk, Ohio, July 29, 1907. 
 Chaloner, Lunacy Law of the World. 
 
 "A criticism of the practice of adjudging persons incompetent and 
 depriving them of their liberties without due process of law, fortified 
 by decisions of the courts, is the theme upon which the author has de 
 veloped this interesting and instructive work. The lunacy law of all 
 the States of the Union and six of the Great Powers of Europe are
 
 292 
 
 reviewed, and surprising ag it may seem, nearly half of the States and 
 Great Britain fail to require notice of the inquisition to be given the 
 alleged lunatic or incompetent; twenty-four of the States and Ger 
 many and Great Britain fail to afford him opportunity to appear and 
 be heard. The author makes it conclusively appear that there is 
 needed revision of these laws. Edited by John Armstrong Chaloner, 
 counsellor at law. Published by the Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, 
 N. C. 
 
 THE OKLAHOMA LAW JOURNAL. 
 
 Guthrie, Oklahoma, September, 1907. 
 "The Lunacy Law of the World, 
 
 By John Armstrong Chaloner. 
 
 Published by the Palmetto Press, 
 
 Roanoke Rapids, N. C. 
 
 This is a volume of nearly four hundred pages, well printed, but 
 bound in paper covers a point always detrimental to the sale as well 
 as the dignity of a law book. However, when the contents are care 
 fully read and reflected upon, it is found one of the best and most 
 needed books that has appeared for many years. 
 
 The subject of Lunacy Law in spite of all the legislation we have 
 had in other departments, has received little attention. In fact, it is 
 little better than when Charles Reade wrote his book, entitled 'Hard 
 Cash.' From the fact that many mentally deranged persons are in 
 capable of comprehending the nature of the steps taken to place them 
 in custody, the custom has become prevalent that no process is needed 
 to place them on trial as to their sanity. It is to be remembered 
 that in every State of the Union and in fact, in every country of the 
 world, fraud has been perpetrated on men and women of means by 
 greedy relatives and the unfortunate ones placed in asylums for no 
 other purpose than to secure control of their property. And further 
 it should be remembered that one once adjudged insane if he cannot 
 secure a hearing of his right to restoration through the influence of 
 true friends he is forever barred of the right to be heard. He has 
 lost the standing of a citizen. There is much in Mr. Chaloner's book 
 that should be well studied by every lawyer and legislator as to what 
 should be done to secure the constitutional rights of every one alleged 
 to be of unsound mind. The book carefully goes over the law of 
 lunacy in the forty-five States and Territories as well as that of the 
 leading nations of Europe."
 
 293 
 
 LANCASTER LAW REVIEW. 
 
 Lancaster, Pa., September 30, 1907. 
 "The Lunacy Law of the World, 
 
 By John Armstrong Chaloner, Counsellor at Law. 
 Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, N. C. 
 
 The work is a review of the lunacy laws of the States and Terri 
 tories of this country together with those of Great Britain, France, 
 Italy, Germany, Austria and Russia, with a view of showing their de 
 fects mainly in regard to affording proper protection to the alleged 
 lunatic. 
 
 To those of us who have been accustomed to look with compla 
 cency on our lunacy laws, remembering how\ lunatics were thrown 
 into dungeons and chained and tortured but a short time ago, this 
 book brings home some startling truths. It shows clearly the dan 
 gers of that class of legislation in force in England and many of our 
 States (as our own Act of April 20, 1869, P. L., 78), which permits an 
 alleged lunatic to be incarcerated upon the certificate of 'two or more 
 reputable physicians.' 
 
 The author contends that in lunacy proceedings notice to the al 
 leged lunatic ought to be absolutely essential and that the trial should 
 be by jury in the presence of the alleged lunatic-; that any other prac 
 tice is a violation of his constitutional rights and dangerous, in that 
 it might be used by designing relatives for fraudulent purposes. 
 
 The importance of a jury trial in such cases has been recognized 
 by Judge Brewster in Com. ex rel. vs. Kirkbride, 2 Brewster, 402. 
 The writ of habeas corpus is not a sufficient safeguard. 
 
 In setting forth the importance of allowing the alleged lunatic an 
 opportunity to appear, the author says: 
 
 "The test of sanity is a mental test wholly within the power of 
 the accused to accomplish and without any witnesses, professional or 
 lay, to back him up. Suppose two paid experts in insanity in the pay 
 of the other side, swear defendant's mind cannot tell what his past 
 history has been that said defendant's mind is a total blank upon 
 the subject. Would that professional and paid for and interested oath 
 stand against the defendant's refutation thereof by taking the stand 
 and promptly and lucidly giving his past history, provided he were 
 afforded his legal privilege of taking the stand in place of being kept 
 away from court and having to allow his liberty and property to be 
 perjured away from him in his enforced absence?" (Page 217.) 
 
 Collusion would be very difficult to prove. It has been held that 
 no presumption arises from the fact that the parties certifying to the 
 alleged lunacy were in fact mistaken. Williams vs. Le Bar, 114 Pa., 
 149. 
 
 The subject is an important and interesting one, and the book 
 shows extensive and careful research. It is forcefully written and car 
 ries conviction."
 
 294 
 
 LAW NOTES. 
 
 Northport, New York, September, 1907. 
 "The Lunacy Law of the World, 
 
 By John Armstrong Chaloner, 
 
 Palmetto Press, Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. 
 The writer is assuredly earnest, . . . setting forth the unques 
 tionable abuses to which the state of the lunacy law has given rise. 
 The exhaustiveness of his research into the question compels ad 
 miration; an author who can work through lunacy laws from the 
 time of the Emperor Conrad down to the present."
 
 Harper's Weekly, (New York), August 14, 1915. 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner, Esq., of Virginia, who, apropos of Mr. 
 Trevor's articles, said: "It is a splendid idea, and, so far as I know, 
 absolutely original, to have nwn's wearing apparel treated by a gentle 
 man and a litterateur." Vanity Fair. New York, July, 1915.
 
 297 
 
 Harper's Weekly, (New York), August 14, 1915, 
 PEN AND INKLINGS. 
 By Oliver Herford. 
 
 Who's Pantaloony Now? 
 
 Disrespectfully dedicated to John Armstrong \Chaloner, Esq. 
 
 Astride your charger (like Napoleon) seated, 
 Upon the world, this jewel you confer. 
 "How splendid to have men's attire treated 
 Sic by a gentleman and litterateur." 
 
 Ah me! Had Horace when his muse was flagging, 
 But given laughing Lalage a rest, 
 And kept Maecenas' pantaloons from bagging, 
 (Or whatever 'twas he wore below his vest.) 
 
 If Tommy Moore when not devoutly pressing 
 His suit in amorous rhyme, had pressed instead 
 His patrons' lordly "pants," it is past guessing 
 What titles had been showered on his head. 
 
 Had Bobby Burns renounced his Highland lassies, 
 And tuned his pipes to "Gentlemen's attire," 
 He might in time have risen from the masses 
 And been addressed as Eobert Burns, Esquire. 
 
 Come, Chaloner, confess like a good feller 
 By "Gentleman and litterateur" you meant 
 The literary style of the Best Seller 
 And the strictly pure refinement of the Gent.
 
 DAVID-UP-TO-DATE 
 
 A SEQUENCE OF SIX DRAMATIC SONNETS 
 To Henry Brinsley. 
 
 I. 
 
 I am the modern David that '* my claim. 
 Apply four lives the deadly parallel 
 And thou shalt see that sans the slightest blame 
 He was forced to run the gauntlet of black Hell ! 
 Then song to him was given Divine gift! 
 With which to sing his woes and praise his God 
 With which to sing life's lute and her sad rift 
 With which to sing grim Saul his iron rod! 
 T'Adullam's Cave he then was forced to flee 
 And gather there his future "Mighty Men" 
 In Adullam's Cave "The Merry Mills" ye see 
 And as he drew the sword, draw I the pen. 
 I call upon my God, Jehovah Jah! 
 The Supreme Being! God the "Man of War!" 
 
 II. 
 
 The mighty Goliath he first did slay 
 
 That haughty formidable Philistine 
 
 The boldest deed sun e'er shone on I say! 
 
 In days full modern or in days pristine. 
 
 The modern Philistine's the Mad-House Trust 
 
 Which held me captive for four fetid years 
 
 Hoping thereby my courage could be crusht 
 
 Hoping my soul would drown herself in tears. 
 
 David then fled an exile from his home 
 
 And to save 's life did feign insanity 
 
 I to save mine to th' Sunny South have come 
 
 And tables turned! Courts proved my sanity! 
 
 I call upon my God Jehovah Jah ! 
 
 "The God of Battles!" God the "Man of War!"
 
 299 
 
 III. 
 
 Goliath, with the law as sling, I'll slay! 
 
 And cut his head off, and stamp on the same. 
 
 As fighting-dog I sure shall have my day 
 
 Then from the world my meed of fame I'll claim! 
 
 In His good time the Lord did conquer Saul 
 
 And that grand spirit nobly took his life 
 
 Drowning his sorrows in a sea of gall 
 
 Thus baffling Philistines o' th' fruits of strife ! 
 
 David then entered on his glorious wars! 
 
 And King of Israel did rule the land. 
 
 His glory mounts for aye unto the stars! 
 
 His name's a household word on every hand ! 
 
 David, as God said, was a "man of blood" 
 
 So falls my pen on rogues with bloody thud! 
 
 IV. 
 
 As David drew the sword, draw I the pen 
 
 Poet-pen-militant! The pen of war! 
 
 And with its edge draw I the blood of men 
 
 A magic edge that slays or near or far ! 
 
 Nought can escape me in the Universe! 
 
 Kings, Potentates, and Princes Monarchs all! 
 
 For each a pit is digged within my verse 
 
 For each is spread a winding-sheet a pall. 
 
 The rich and' haughty are my chopping-block 
 
 The block on which my Headsman's axe doth strike 
 
 Their swollen heads and swollen guts I mock, 
 
 My lictor's rods scourge fools whom I dislike! 
 
 We crown ourselves THE KING OF WARLIKE VERSE 
 
 And smile while hostile critics rave and curse.
 
 300 
 
 V. 
 
 I haste to say some critics are my friends, 
 
 A goodly roll of talent supports me 
 
 A goodly roll of critics back my ends 
 
 A goodly roll my aim's pure ends do see. 
 
 But Bushwhacker-Banditti of the Pen 
 
 Blackguard Swashbucklers and Draw-Can-Sirs fell 
 
 Who lick the boots of low-born rich-quick-men 
 
 Anent my Muse the d dest lies do tell ! 
 
 These paltry, petty, furtive human-lice 
 
 These gray-back-body-lice that run so fast 
 
 Unless one is upon them in a trice 
 
 The day of reck'ning's gone! Its hour full past! 
 
 Against these vermin do I detonate 
 
 And jet pure vitriol both soon and late. 
 
 J. A. C., Richmond, Virginia, Jefferson's Birthday, 1915. 
 
 L/ Envoi 
 
 VI. 
 
 We point unto our record quietly. 
 
 The Tribune and the World admit by we 
 
 The Kaiser and his crew entirely 
 
 In purest vitriol deep soused be. 
 
 And other leading papers say the same 
 
 Anent our modest book Pieces of Eight 
 
 North, South and West do frank admit naught's tame 
 
 That therein pictures for said crew our hate. 
 
 All frank admit that we possess the "punch" 
 
 The "punch" that lands the "knock-out" coveted 
 
 The "punch" which swift all consciousness doth crunch 
 
 Pulverize and put out i' th' buffeted. 
 
 T'all said distinguished judges of our "swat" 
 
 We bow our compliments and doff our hat. 
 
 J. A. C., Richmond, Virginia, May 19, 1915.
 
 301 
 
 INDEX 
 
 AM BABA AND THE FORTY THIEVES (A Romance in 
 High Life in New York showing how the Vendetta is 
 
 operated on Fifth Avenue) 82-136 
 
 ALADDIN AND HIS WONDERFUL LAMP 148-178 
 
 Author of "Who's Looney Now?" Gets Spirit Message from 
 
 Hades, etc 169 
 
 Art Students, to Aid 197 
 
 Art Students' Fund, an 194 
 
 Brinsley, Henry, in "Vanity Fair" 175 
 
 "Beaux Arts," To Form a 199 
 
 Booth, Edwin, Letter of 199 
 
 "BRER FOX AND BRER RABBIT" 219-228 
 
 Chaloner, John Armstrong Speaks 127 
 
 Chaloner, Via Mr 174 
 
 Chaloner to Choate, Letter of 187 
 
 Chaloner's Income Large 229 
 
 Chaloner Files Appeal 230 
 
 Chaloner on War Path 133 
 
 Chaloner on War Path 134 
 
 Chaloner Writes on Verdict in Thaw Case 254 
 
 Chanler-Family Letters, The 110 
 
 Correspondence Elicited by First Edition of "Hard Cash".. 137 
 Choate, Jr., Joseph H. and T. Tittlebat Sherman, In re. ... 201 
 Copy of Letter Addressed to Members of Press, Washing 
 ton, D. C 165 
 
 Chronicle, San Francisco, "A New Vision of Hell" 173 
 
 DAVID-UP-TO-DATE 298-300 
 
 Decision of Judges Lacombe, Coxe and Noyes, 162 Federal 
 
 Reports, 19 287-290 
 
 Frontispiece Opposite Title Page 
 
 Frontispiece, Note to 185 
 
 Four Years Behind the Bars of Bloomingdale 103 
 
 Four Years in Bloomingdale 117 
 
 Hell 173 
 
 Hell, The Call of 164 
 
 Hell, Message from 173 
 
 Hell, New Vision of 173 
 
 Hendrick's, Mr. Justice, Statement in the Thaw Case and Opin 
 ion Based Thereon 254 
 
 History of English Prosody, A 61 
 
 HAZARD OF THE DIE, THE 1-58
 
 302 
 
 Hazard Of The Die, Prologue to 2 
 
 Hazard Of The Die, Epilogue to 59 
 
 Hudson, Thomson Jay, Statement of 159 
 
 Herald, New York, "For Benefit American Art" 193 
 
 Herald, Washington, "Author of "Who's Looney Now Gets 
 
 Spirit Message" 169 
 
 ISIS UNVEELED 229-237 
 
 Jastrow, Prof. Joseph, Statement of 152 
 
 James, Prof. William, Statement of 157 
 
 Journal, Richmond Evening, "Hell" 173 
 
 News-Leader, Richmond, Note to Frontispiece 185 
 
 News and Observer, Raleigh, "Four Years in Blooming- 
 dale" V 117 
 
 NEWSPAPER REVIEWS 231-286 
 
 Prologue I-VI 
 
 PRISON HOUSE, THE 137-147 
 
 Press Statement 108 
 
 PARIS PRIZE, IN RE, THE 207-218 
 
 Preface to "Hard Cash" 137 
 
 Passing Show, The 174 
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW or THE BATTLE OP THE MIL 
 LIONAIRES 1-97 
 
 Robbery Under Law, Inset to vi 
 
 Robbery Under Law, Epilogue to 98 
 
 Roanoke News, Weldon N. C. "Chaloner on War Path". . . 133 
 
 "SHAVING OF SHAGPAT," THE 187-206 
 
 Scholarship, Benefit American Art 193 
 
 Scorpio 177 
 
 Saltus, Edgar, in "Vanity Fair" 175 
 
 Stop Thief, Give Me My Million 122 
 
 State, New Orleans, "The Passing Show" 174 
 
 Summons and Complaint, In re Paris Prize 207 
 
 Shakespeare and Blank Verse 61 
 
 Shakespeare's Predecessors in English Drama 69 
 
 "THE PLAY'S THE THING" 179-184 
 
 TEMPLE OF APOLLO AND THE MUSES, THE 61-81 
 
 Telegraph, New York, Satan Is A Gentleman" 175 
 
 Times-Dispatch, Richmond, "John Armstrong Chaloner 
 
 Speaks" 127 
 
 Tribune, New York, Editorial 197 
 
 Tribune, Chicago, "Via Mr. Chaloner" 174 
 
 Virginian, Richmond, "The Call of Hell" 164 
 
 Who's Pantaloony Now? 296-297 
 
 What The Law Reviews Have to Say About "The Lunacy 
 
 Law of the World" 291-294 
 
 World, New York, "Stop Thief, Give Me 'My Million" 122 
 
 Wood, Dr. Horatio Curtis, Statement of 148
 
 303 
 
 ALIGNMENT OK CONTENTS 
 
 Frontispiece Opposite Title Page. 
 
 Prologue 1-VI 
 
 Inset To "Robbery Under Law." VI 
 
 ROBBERY UNDER LAW or THE BATTLE OP THE MIL 
 LIONAIRES 1-97 
 
 Epilogue To "Robbery Under Law." : 98 
 
 THE HAZARD OP THE DIE 1-58 
 
 Prologue To The Hazard Of The Die 2 
 
 Epilogue To The Hazard Of The Die 59 
 
 THE TEMPLE OP APOLLO AND THE MUSES 61-81 
 
 "Shakespeare and Blank Verse." 61 
 
 "Shakspere's Predecessors In The English Drama." 69 
 
 ALI BABA AND THE FORTY THIEVES 82-136 
 
 "Four Years Behind The Bars of Bloomingdale." 103 
 
 Press Statement 108 
 
 The Chanler-Family Letters 110 
 
 "Four Years In Bloomingdale" The News and Observer, Raleigh, 
 
 North Carolina, October 18, 1906 117 
 
 Stop Thief! Give Me My Million! The World, New York, Novem 
 ber 11, 1906 122 
 
 John Armstrong Chaloner Speaks. The Times-Dispatch, Rich 
 mond, Virginia, October 17, 1906 127 
 
 Chaloner On The War Path. The Roanoke News, Weldon, North 
 
 Carolina, October 18, 1906 133 
 
 Chaloner On The War Path. News-Leader, Richmond, Virginia, 
 
 October 15, 1906 134 
 
 THE PRISON HOUSE 137-147 
 
 ALADDIN AND HIS WONDERFUL LAMP 148-178 
 
 Statement By Dr. Horatio Curtis Wood 148 
 
 Statement By Professor Joseph Jastrow 152 
 
 Statement Of Professor William James; 157 
 
 Statement Of Thomson Jay Hudson 159 
 
 The Call Of Hell. Richmond Virginian, August 12, 1912 164 
 
 Copy of Letter Addressed To A Score Or So Of The Members Of 
 
 The Press Of Washington, D. C 165 
 
 Author Of "Who's Looney Now?" Gets Spirit Message From Hades 
 From Friend Who Says He Is There. Washington Herald, 
 
 August 5, 1912 169 
 
 Hell. Richmond News-Leader, October 28, 1912 173 
 
 A Message From Hell. Richmond Times-Dispatch, October 30, 1912. 173 
 A New Vision Of Hell. San Francisco Chronicle, August 6, 1912.. 173
 
 304 
 
 Via Mr. Chaloner. Chicago (111.) Tribune, August 6, 1912 174 
 
 The Passing Show. New Orleans (La.) States, August 8, 1912 174 
 
 In re Hell. New York Tribune, August 6, 1912 175 
 
 In re Hell. New York Telegraph August 6, 1912 175 
 
 Edgar Saltus In "Vanity Fair," New York, January, 1914 175 
 
 Henry Brinsley in "Vanity Fair," New York, January, 1914 175 
 
 Scorpio (Sonnets) The Academy, London, August 8, 1908 177-178 
 
 "THE PLAY'S THE THING." 179-186 
 
 Note To Frontispiece The News-Leader, Richmond, Virginia, 
 
 October 5, 1911 185 
 
 "THE SHAVING OP SHAGPAT." 187-206 
 
 Letter of Chaloner to Choate 187 
 
 "For the Benefit Of American Art." New York Herald, January 26, 
 
 1891 192 
 
 An Art Students Fund. New York World, January 26, 1891 194 
 
 To Aid Art Students. New York Tribune, January 26, 1891 197 
 
 Editorial New York Tribune, January 29, 1891 197 
 
 To Form A "Beaux Arts" New York World, January 29, 1891. . . . 199 
 
 Letter From Edwin Booth To John Armstrong Chaloner 199 
 
 In re Joseph H. Choate, Jr., and T. Tittlebat Sherman 201 
 
 IN RE THE PARIS PRIZE 207-218 
 
 Summons and Complaint In re Paris Prize 207 
 
 "BRER POX AND BRER RABBIT." 219-228 
 
 ISIS UNVEILED , 229-230 
 
 Chaloner Income Large Richmond Times-Dispatch, Richmond, 
 
 Va., February 1, 1915 229 
 
 Isis Unveiled 229 
 
 Chaloner Files Appeal. Richmond Times-Dispatch, May 1, 1915.. 230 
 
 NEWSPAPER REVIEWS 231-286 
 
 Chaloner Writes on Verdict in Thaw Case 254 
 
 Hendrick's, Mr. Justice, Statement in the Thaw Case and Opinion 
 
 Based Thereon 254 
 
 Decision of Judges Lacombe, Coxe and Noyes, 162 Federal Re 
 ports, 19 287-290 
 
 What the Law Reviews Have to Say about "The Lunacy Law of 
 
 the World" 291-294 
 
 Who's Pantaloony Now? 296-297 
 
 DAVID-UP-TO-DATE . ..298-300
 
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