A SEA SERPENT MONOMANIA.

At Bowstreet, G6orge Drevor, acaptain m the merchant service, .was charged on remand before Mr Mowers with having sent letters threatening the life of Mr H. 0. Bothery, wreck commissioner.. Mr Poland appeared to prosecute. The prisoner's certificate was suspended m 1879, after an investigation into the loss of the vessel Norfolk on the Boa Vista, one of the Cape de Verde Islands. In one of his letters the prisoner called the wreck commissioner a "modem Jesuit," and said that desperate remedies were required for desperate wrongs. He asked for " recompense, employment, or an asylum," and said if he did not get what he asked for he would "charge his blood and that of another on the nation that had so cruelly wronged i him." When arrested, the prisoner told Inspector Swanson that he might go into Court and shoot the ,wreck commissioner on the bench. : 'i His reason for writing the letters was partly, he said, for the insults he had received from Mr Bothery because;" he was doing the Almighty's work m making his wondere known." /; He believes he has captured a specimen of the sea serpent, .and showed .the inspector a serpent, m. a bottle of spirits; It was " about 4ft or sft i long, and somewhat peculiar formation." The prisoner saiil ,one, 'of, his officers had caught] '.it while it was m the act of swallowing a: fish pf£ ; the coast of South Africa. Pamphlets were produced by Mr Poland which 1 showed that the prisoner believed he haci'discovered the sea serpent! Iii :i bne of these the prisoner wrote, "I sincerely: believe that God, for some wise purpose, lias been' pleased to reveal the greatest wonder of animated nature to me." The doctor of the House of Detention reported that the prisoner was suffering from monomania- 'on the subject of the sea serpent. The .prisoner made a long statement, injwhioh he said his log book, which would show it was not his fault -that: the! vessel-; was lost, was placed in' Mr Rothery'K.hands, and he could not gefc'it back.'' "Kc'lmd ; sent the threatening , letter to compel them to come forward, and to, call public attention to gross wrongs that existed m his profession. I!e was committed for trial. . ■ i -1