THE OREGON SUNDAY JOURNAU PORTLAND, SUNDAY , MORWNG JANUARY V 1903
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Ricli Burglar's Crime
Charged, to fie . Spirit of
an fctmoDian
Criminal
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oiuUitr Th ruJt wm aa Intana ecrudcenc '6t
Interest In th wboit general subject, with the speedy,
publication of the moat 'remarkable of all, caaes, be
cauae reported directly, and tn complete aelenlflo de-
, tall, by the phyalclan In attendance..-
The aubject vaa a young, pretty, cultivated, mor
ally auperaenalilv American girl, who waa obaeaaed
. by another peraonallty that forced her to do all man
ner of , undignified and ' Ill-bred actlona, repeatedly
overcoming the moat desperate efforts of her normal
nature and will,' and dlaolaylng extremes of 'passion,
' petty, malic and distinctly vicious tendencies. Under
. t&atmsnt the girl actually developed a third person
allty, almost as pronounced In well-defined, distinct
! traits, as thasecond abnormal nature, i 1 $;. :
v ..This case acquired such v wide notoriety that It
set up a whole series of Investigations, followed by
the publication, about a year ago, of a novel by Gelett .
Burgess, in Which the heroine's' dual personality di
lemma gave rise to some romantio adventures far less
1 astonishing than the "simple and. unvarnished truths
already established by science.'' - i : '." ,
Puring the last five years the worlds of advanced
thought and of experimental science have been 4n the '
qui vive for 'discoveries' which shall. In the spiritual
, plane, equal If ot surpass in Importance the recent
demonstrations of the amasing properties of the new;
metal, radium; the remarkable achievement ef Pro-'
feasors Pierre and Madame Curie, in Franoe. Flam
marion laments the untimely death of M. Curie, who,"
like all the other great ,mlnda of science, participated -
in the studies of manifestations of mysterious and un-
Mrs. Bomadka, wbose Intelligence made It apparent Ji-J.7J9-JJL 3?,.
her that all her former life and all her husband's Carea 7QSOWet
&?ri&ojBitefzs Soul
mechanic who shed his personality, one night at his.
New England home,- as a t snake sheds Its cuticle
tramped southward to Philadelphia, and for half a
generation conducted a business totally different from
his own trade, under a totally different name, and
with a totally different personality, so far as his
, knowledge of himself was conscious of his person
'allty. . -
, Mr. Myers adduced many other cases of undeni
ably dual personality, and still others of multiple per-
S IT POSSIBLE for US tO conceive m" 'I Survival rxfter Bodily ,
, v.- , Death-V the, outcome, of years' of close scrutiny of;
that a White, Wdmatt, beautiful, CdUCat- , the labors of the. London' Society for Psychical Re-
. A tht, tt, In', m.tJj( A .J search, with which he was so actively associated, was
edt wealthy, the loving wife of a mod- glven t0 the world, v s ; , .r
em millionaire, Could develop.' by slow and " " " included , the . famous esse, first reported to a
. ... - .t - 1 t i ..meeting of physicians some years previously by. Dr.
irresistible evolution, the SOUl Of an - Oban- & Weir Mitchell, of Philadelphia, of the New England
doned, criminal, ignorant negresst '' ; ;
And, if such a thing is not only possible
cf conception, but literally true in fact, what
woman living, however high her morals, her
culture or her position, can .assure herself of
immunity from the abhorrent obsession of
some other appalling identity, as terrifying
to the normal mind and spirit as this of the
degraded negress, r which has fastened upon
brilliant Evelyn Romadka, the wife .of the
millionaire trunk manufacturer ' of Milwau
keet , : ' :" ' ,' -.:v. .
The convicted accomplice of Chicago's
negro burglars 'and sneak-thieves, she is now
serving the indeterminate sentence of from '
one year to twenty years, to which she was ,
condemned, upon her plea of guilty, by fudge
Brentano. ' . . '. , ' - , -
' The physicians who attended her 'in
'prison agree as to the obsession; and one of
them goes so far as to declare his conviction
;that her case is one long relegated by science
to the limbo of antiquated superstitions, that
passed away when demoniacs find sorcerers .
became the laughing stocks of enlightened 1
humanity. - '
Evelyn Romadkcts fall, from the heights ,
wealth could not avail to seoure her acquittal under
the evidence of gjillt which had been secured against
her, made a full confession, the facts of which have
not even been questioned by, the judge who sentenced
her. No more graphic, no more appalling narrative of
misfortune could be given She says: ; A
i EfiD ASTjRAY BX ACCIDENT
"The newspaper stories giving graphic accounts of
crimes made me want to meet realrooks.- I hadan
idea that I would be absqrbed In the stories a real live
burglar 'could telL , t.
"Albert Jones, the negro man, came to do some
..cleaning for the woman from whom I rented a room.
I saw him and asked him the time. He drew from his
pocket a woman's Watch, and with It, Inadvertently, a
woman's diamond ring. He glanced at me surrepti
tiously and stealthily put it back into his, pocket
V"A strange thrill crept over me., and i did not hear
him tell the time. I was thinking fast. Here was I
face to face with my dreams, so to speak. I became
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calm, but with a sort of ecstacy. We were at the door
of my apartment. I pulled him into If . : .. '
" believe you are a crook,' I said, and then
stopped him as he was about to speak and move away.
-Stay, here. t said. 1 have wanted to meet a
' burglar or something for a -long time. I am Intereited.
I want to know yon. I will not give yoa away.' ;
"I can tell you some stories about stealing that
will make your hair stand on end,' Jones told me, or
something like that and that Was the way we be
came acquainted, x ' i '. '
. "I talked with him, getting ' the stories at first
hand and not from the 'yellow newspaper any more.
Then I planned with him to try ray own hand."
The noteworthy feature of, Mrs. Roraadka's confes
sion Is that she Is absolutely unconscious of any other
personality controlling her normal nature. She saw.
when- she made it, only with her own natural brain
ISKORMofibeML
of refinement and happiness to the depths of
'shame and degradation, has been made no
torious throughout the length and breadth of :
the land. But the mysterious and terrible in
fuence that has clutched her in the midst of
Vicr wealth and her happiness and has encom
passed her destruction has, thus far, failed ut-,
terly to be comprehended in the full measure
of its dark' significance to the rest of mankind.
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and spirit blaming herself, giving a perfectly natural ':
r and lucid account of the fall of soul, such as a pni 7
tent might, have glvn in the confessional.
Such complete forgetfulness of the agencies of ob
session is typical of many subjects. The dlsoovery of
their peculiar form 'of obsession Is, usually, made by
the nurses and physicians In attendance, as It Was .
made in the Instance of Mra Romadka. -, .1 '
In prison, after her arrest she raved and pleaded
for the companionship of negroes, talked the, lowest
and vilest negro dialect, and referred constantly to
her husband as podr white trash." Dr. Alsx Ous
tafson, an experienced alienist who attended her there,
was positive la his diagnosis, - v ,
, "I am sure," said the alienist, "that this woman ta,
possessed by an Ethiopian spirit, which has absolute
control over her actions. , She Is absolutely Innocent of
wrongdoing.. except when this spirit overpowers her :
wni and forces her to do Its bidding." ; v
Dr. Sheldon . Leavltt, a well-known practitioner,
connected with many medical societies and several
Chicago hospitals, called into consultation, found him- -self
-constrained to admit that the ease of Mrs.. Ro
madka confirmed , his belief in phases of mentality ,
which are still disputed by the majority of his pro
fession. ' .-''.', V
This la the first example of obsession, or ofpos
session," as Dr. Leavltt prefers to define It of a whfte
woman by the spirit of negress. f
- Can It be that In-every white Individual.' there re- '
mains enough of the common ancestry, deduced by
science from the discovery of the specimen plthecan-
mropus itrapanensls, ' to permit of an 'unforeseen,
overpowering uprising of the germ of a conquering
negro soul? : And can' It be hoped that science. In Its
broad and beneficent range, will ultimately find the
means of safeguard? .' t , . , ,.
A
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. LL Italy, ,.t turning its apprehensive gaze
upon .uiovanm (JiohtU, the prune min
ister, ' now quails in the terror of the
' belief that be possesses the evil eye.
Italy., where belief in thn viTpva is (1
dwwc, -areeu. can me mooern inieueciV; as laitn ,n the existence of a personal devil, has
compel itself to admit so much as the possi- ' hfl(J ita most -h'roni it r.r .KMin. 0f5-
NX.T by the adducing of many other cases, upon
the authenticity and genuineness of which 1
.i sty of the horrible phenomenon of Waich beautiful
. trs. Romadka is the victim. :' ;
Religion, throughout all the centuries, has Insisted
upon not merely ' the possibility of falls from grace
end virtue, but upon the certainty of inevitable catas
trophe without; divine intervention and constant hu
man striving toward an Ideal of perfection. In medi
eval tiroes, and as far back as the days of the-Re-deemer
himself, possession by demons, with' exorcism
for the casting of them out Was a master of com
mon. faith, If nowadays many deny It was a matter of
knowledge."-;-' '';nl'!Ji:.!'SO:, -.i:
Science, after a long and total denial of the super
naturaleven of the preternitural has of late found
It expedient to broaden Its own narrow limitations. :
IVhere It Insisted, upon cutting the wonderful and
the Incomprehensible, out of religion. It Insists how -upon
its right to absorb all ot them into itself. Bays
the great Camilla Flammarlon, in his latest work.
Mysterious Psychlo Forces." in which he adduces the '
Ions and patient ' investigations of Sir William
Crookes, as well as hir own: !
"If the forces of which we are "to ,treat are reaC7
tury cannot but be natural forces, we ought to admit
-tion aroused into a dread whiph refuses to abate
by tlie long genes of deaths and shocking misfortunes-
that ,l have descended upon successive
members of .the prime minister's cabinets.
s The recent end of the , minister of public
' works, ' Emmanuelo ; Giant urco, in the ' prime of
life for he had just passed the half centuryby
- the agency of - thafmost ' repulsive of diseases,
- cancer, marked the . seventeenth man upon whom
- a blight of some, sort by- many regarded as the t
i- prime minister's - destructive glance has fallen, ;
" f Italy r is asking itself : "Can this ' evil eye,
which overlooks all the affairs of the nation; have "
cursed the very land itself ts Does the earth trem- -
ble and vomit forth its lava fire- because he gazes
upon it too fixedly!":' :'.tv ' v .
irtsciecfty ?xer Ja?Ai f7rA
habit as the connoisseur of eyes. " . '
But none that he will conjure upthe piercing, black,
close-set eye which he thinks of first or the pale, chill
ing, habitually antagonistic, eye. or the slant-lidded, glint
: Ing, secretively Insolent eye which he Instinctively recog
nlzes as treacherous will be the evil eye .of which Italy
stands in awe.
No one has yet lived who could define the evil eye
in words 9 color, form or expression. It is there when
it Is therethat Is all. ; . u ' " r ;
, It may be brilliant and round; It may be long and
dreamy (of regard; it may be black or brown, behind
lashes scant or sweeping. fl Yet In Its blighting depths, al
though the soul of its unfortunate owner be a well spring'
of love"for his kind, lurks some evil, blighting genius
, whose presence every Italian intuitively feel- hn ;
temperament are capable of awakening among men of .
all classes, his care as prime minister of Italy must
; have ended with the, first suspicion. that hewas cursed
i with jettaturs, or the qualities of the evil eye.' '
' -,t It has. however, happened that as the list of the un
fortunates In direct association with him grew long, he v
' xouna increasing difficulty In replacing those' whorp un
: expected death or grave, prostrating illness: took away
, from their duties rf state.
Among the victims, was the postmaster general, Stel-'
lutl Scala, whose sudden death shocked all hW colleagues;
Signor Gallo. scarcely inducted into" his labors as minister
of Justice when he was found dead In his bed; Slgnon
Rossano, another minister of ; Justice, who -committed
suicide, and Masalmine, minister of finance, who died of
paralysis In the Chamber of Deputies, .stricken with ln
stant death In the midst of an important addresaV
Signor Glanturco,Vwhose death of cancer has startled
Italy, himself succeeded, .In the ministry of public works,
a minister upon f whom heart disease fastened, forcing;
.. him Into private life. The most famous of ministers' of
finance, De Broglle, has been crippled by acute rheuma
- tism; his successor, Wollamberg, Is Insane.
' ; MAN AFTER MAN SUCCUMBSi
Ony a short time has elapstyf since another minister
o? finance, Majorana, selected by the eye of Ololittl es-:.
peclally for his youth -and etrength, was debarred from
his post by . a sudden cancer, against the dire ravages
of which he has struggled, hoping against the hope that
failed Glanturco. , .'
Prenettl, foreign-minister,' stricken with the hemor- '
malevolence -Is visited upon all who sustain the ruth- rhage bt apoplexy; TIttenl. ioreiim minis ter. trfakan with
less glances long.v ' ' j , , , - , 'ordinary cerebral hemorrhageman after man. they have
Some Cur ious Facts
PUBLICATION recently1 Issued by the Central Es-'
peranUst office In Paris shows that there are ts
Esperanto ; societies throughout the world, and '
thirty-eight Journals 'are published specially devoted t(T
the propagation of the language. ? ,; ; .
Only one, on an average, out of every thousand mar
rled couples live to celebrate theft golden weeding.
The empress of Japan is a great advocate of the
spread of education in her nusband's dominion
r-Turklsh women do-not come into -controi of thelfTBri.
- vate fortunes until after marriage. They can then dispose
of one-third of It (without the 'husband's' consent -
l BIgamlsU In. Hungary are compelled to submit to aJy'
odd punishment: The man who has married two wives
Js legally; forced to live with both of them in the, same '
, house. ? ' N 1 - ' i" i
The throne of Persia, known as ths Wonderful Pea
cock Throne, Is probably the most costly in the world.
- It Is literally covered with Jewels, and is valued at be-
What Is considered to.be the largest telegraph clr
, .' cult in dally operation in the world is that between Lon
' don and Teheran,, the capital of Persia, which Is some
, 4000 miles In length. The line is divided into twelve see-tlons.-
,
In Sweden the ptiblio houses ars closed on Saturday
v payday while ths savings banks , are kept i open until '
' midnight 'No government can force a man to ave his
moneyj but this. Swedish system at least encourages him
to deposit H where it is most likely to be of use.
" Egg shells as gas mantels is an idea from Germany, '
The contents are drawn or blown out, the ends are nestly ,
' cut off, and the body of the shell is fixed in nosltlon Ilka si
; the regular article. The light thus Obtained Is very good, -
" while thenew form of mantle is much more durable. . i
- There are.no newsboys In Spain; women sell news
papers In the streets... '
; , , The, queen of Norway takes a great Interest In- book
binding. ' The collecting of beautifully bound books Is one
-of her hobbies. ,
The eye-of Premier Glollttl shows a broad, level orb.
under lids significant of equal firmness and intelligence.
It Is what a Stevenson might have called "an emlfiently
human eye,'-beaming with perceptlveness. lambent with
active thought kindled always with some spark of the
genial that makes a man likable.
i; It Is precisely .the quality of "likableness" which has
aistinguihed an the unfortunates who have boon doomed
succumbed.
r' The first, envelope ever made is kept tn the British
' U It to the curse of Giollttl's Jettaturaf AH Italy" . In marriage announcements In Spain the aks of both
says scexplalnlng the discrlmlnatiosTln the natures of nartlM are-vivmi .- t.-f ;. . w
theafflictions sustained by different Individuals, and the
intensity, of the various plights to which they have been
reduced, by the commonly -accepted belief that while
few, if any,' human beings are totally immune against
jettatura. all have various powers of resistance.
T
to earry about with them, from cruel cradle to merciful i No one blames the unfortunate premier all 'concede
O AMERICANS accustomed to look directly Inlo
the eyes of , every v .human - being they : face a
practice which, test "of unflinching courage as it.
s . absolute pr.nciplethat everything is In nature. levtl ZTmiTtt S
iB ... i Xli J have shown in anotoer work - . rlpUons. might be WcaUed as the peculiarly evll eye.
It as in I03 that Myers' monumental work. rHu- -because the American may be acceptedTfrom his naU.nai
grave, the awful burden of their own windows to the
soul. They have had countless friends; they have been
devotedly loved;fand theyhave beheld those who loved
them bast whom best they loved, perish before their
lethal eyes of theery love light that Inspired humanity's
noblest passion. i . - '
Had It -not been for the supreme confidence and th
extreme affection which Premier Giollttl's character and she created.
The average weleht of Ivory obtained from a atnviaV
elephant Is about fifty pounds: t " , , "
The license law in Sweden forbids any one to buy
dnnk without buying something to eat at the same time.
' The machine which cuts up wood to make matches
turns out 40,000 "splints," as they are called, in a single
minute.v. . '" , ! ' - . .
History is taught to young children at a school tn
Brussels by means of dolls, which represent great men
and women in characteristic attitudes.
; In parts of Trance it Is net 'an uncommon occurrence
...hu . JtM. ........ tnnlii.lt... V. J.t . - . I . .
under the .curse of .somec monster to hu-j, many firms making a specialty of letting out
his motives to be above reproach and ' his supposedly
malevolent Influence to be Involuntary. ;;i,-fV; . ''.
, . But with the people at large beginning at length to
imagine they discern some relevancy between his alleged
evil eye' and the succession of misfortunes, that have i
befallen the country, it seems to them Bow as though
Nature herself
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