Carson Daily Appeal

ROBERT T. LINCOLN'S STORY OF HIS MOTHER'S INSANITY.

The Chicago Inter-Ocean of the 19th contains a report of the proceedings had in the County Court of Cook county (the county in Illinois where Chicago is situated), regarding the examination of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln on the charge of insanity. Her medical attendant testified as to her mental hallucinations, saying that she complained that "an Indian was removing the bones from her face and pulling wires out of her eyes" and that "someone was taking steel springs out of her head and would not let her rest." He gave it as his professional opinion that she was insane. Mr. Robert T. Lincoln, her son, testified that his mother after her return from the South stopped at the Grand Pacific Hotel and that she came to his room nightly with the alarm of being assailed by poisoners. The report says he was overcome by his feelings and could not restrain his tears. He continued: Then I got Dr. Isham to attend her; on April 1 she ceased tapping at witness room door, for witness told her she must not do it or he would leave the hotel; on that day he went to her room; she was not properly dressed; she left the room under some pretext, and the next thing he knew she was in the elevator going down to the office; called back the elevator and endeavored to induce her to return to her room; she regarded witness' interference as impertinent; declined to leave the elevator; just then the bell rang several times; she was not in a condition of dress to be seen, and witness gently forced her out of the elevator by putting his arm around her waist: Maggie Gavin assisted him, and they got her into her room; she screamed, "You are going to murder me," and would not let Maggie Gavin leave the room to do her work; after a while she said that the man who had taken her pocketbook promised to return it at 3 o'clock; asked her who the man was; she replied he was the wandering Jew; had seen him in Florida; then she sat near the wall and for an hour professed to be repeating what this man was telling her through the wall; during the afternoon she slept; since the fire she has kept her trunks and property in the Fidelity Safe Deposit Company's building; in the beginning of the last week of April he called on her; she said that all Chicago was going to be burned, and she intended to send her trunks to some country town--to Milwaukee; told her that Milwaukee was too near Oshkosh, where there had been a terrible fire the night before: she said that witness' house, of all in Chicago, would be saved, and witness then suggested that was the best place to send the trunks; on the Sunday following she showed witness securities for $57,000 which she carried in her pocket: she has spent large sums of money lately: bought $600 worth of lace curtains: three watches costing $450: $700 worth of jewelry: $200 worth of Lubin's soaps and perfumeries, and a whole piece of silk. A number of tradesmen testified to the extravagance of Mrs. Lincoln's purchases. Mr. Lincoln stated that insanity was not hereditary: his mother was fifty-six years of age.