VARIED ASPECTS OF FEAR.

Mataura Ensign, 20 March 1909, Page 4

VARIED ASPECTS OF FEAR.

INCIDENTS AT MESSINA. Tho aged Professor of Criminology, Cosare Lomhroso, writing, like Milton, with the help of his daughter, Siguorina Pnola Lonibroso, contributes a long article to a Paris newspaper on "The ■State of Mind during (he Italian Catastrophes.'' For many people the notes on the mentality of different peoplo who escaped and the deductions drawn from their own observations and self-critic-isms will give a' fuller idea of the inteuso horror of tho disaster than many columns of tho most vivid and colored description of the. ruins of Messina or of tho camps of the refugees. Professor Ijoinbros*-begins by saying that the. catastrophe- allowed one to sound (he very depths of tho human soul: hidden folds were revealed, and men and women acted a s they would never have done when bound by the conventions of everyday life. One of the first remarks mado about the mental state during tho catastrophe of those, who escaped reminds one of a well-known observation in the navy. A seaman falling from aloft remembers many things otherwise long forgotten, and his mind is so unusually active that more thought passes through it in a few seoonds than would pass in as manv minutes tinder usual circumstances, -•lid in the same way, in the few seconds that tho earthquake lasted, some ot those who felt all the horrors of oeath and yet escaped thought out or imagined a. complete picture of an entrv into another world.

i "I saw the last .judgment," said one ■ "hie end or the world. I am sure thai : the end ot the world must eomo about m this way. In the pitch-black night 1 saw homes; tremble, shake and subtitle and abysses open in the earth: and entiles .shrieks and cries ■ I i thought it was the reign of death, as I pictured it. in nightmares. 1 no 10ne,,,lelt ahve I thought mv.self dead " J thought that my consciousness was ihe consciousness that must follow death " SENSE OF PAIN OBLITERATED. "No one, even though seriottsiv ivPititdcu, speaks of physical suffering." t roicssur Lombroso remarks: "The panic, (he terror took possession of their senses and paralysed all sense of pain. -den who nail an arm broken ran miles Knowing it ; ,-, women whose eve v.'asso badlv hurt (hat it had to be ,'-,.- mond declares that she felt nothing. * Mb.bare , eel clad will, only „ shirt, the hrst thought, of the survivor, was to ll.v. and they setoff without thought "'" '''.'.7.''l; » itbout knowing why they ;■;». Mus says Professor Lombroso, .<■■ probably the primordial hereditary impulse which mado men or older time's bee irom forest fires and wild beasts; perhaps with those who were buried in < ho rums tor some time it was tho reaction against the compulsory immobility against which heart and muscles, thirsty lor movement, had re-lolu-d. Ihe manifestations of madness Here extraordinary. Tin, predominant lorm of madness was tho folic furiouso. Hoover, I behove that madness of this hud is neither as dangerous nor as per. •a-stent us has been said, in manv cases the a thick was providential, for it silled the consciousness of p ;m , „„<] Mi' power to comprehend the disaster I hero was a striking episode of colb'tdivo mitijsm. At the time of the catastrophe three hundred workpeople wore about to enter it factory They stayed outside and (bus were saved, but I .mi. amazement was so great 'that wnen the director of the factory called out their name; scarcely one answeredtheir own names had slipped their recol■cobon."

Professor Lombrns,, a i s „ sl>m ,, .ein.arkable instances jii which the instinct of sclf-pro.orvafion showed itself verv ?|t-o;u;lv. V'emen am) children nmiaoied tw„ .b.vy siflin.r <,,, window sills,,;, the (i,ird illK ] f n „ r) l, «„„,,,_ , ritll •' great dvor, on cither side, and vol ■hoy refused to fall a prey to sleep or latiguo. This reminds Professor Lombrns,, of M,e rcroarh often made by Uomo .-limbers thai the instinct of self, orescrvatioii '•bvats dominates any I'Mulcnov to .brained. Professor Lombroso goes on to sl, n w that children re-

■■'-'-1 terror and rain better than ■d.dts. This, he ..avs. was urobablv dne not only to Oieii- reninrknble power ~f "nf!'ocati.)ii. !>ut also to 'ln.ir ii!iP n „seion.-.,nc K ~f dnnn-er and •10, .ensat!/.,, eP fear which must err. Vilv have kilbvl the rr-riiovrtr of t.lvse •v'e, died afte.. 1,,,;,,., extricated.