SOME STRANGE CAPRICES.

North Otago Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 7267, 15 October 1891, Page 4

SOME STRANGE CA PRIC ES.

A mot bid love of tho sensational sometime? leads young people, more especially young women, into strango paths. Many extraordinary instances me on record of tlio singular manner in which they have imposed upon relatives and fiicnds, representing themselves as sufToring from a bariling malady in some cases, in others us victims of injustice or persecution. A case < f the latter kind was that of the Canadian pit I said to bo persecuted by tho icceipt of scurrilous anonymous letters 'I he whole populnce was roused in sympathy and indignation, and fche herself was driven finally into her «ravo, amid tho lamentations of the community, by her malevolent and undiscoveral le accuser A tyerwurd, an examination of her papers nnd letters revealed tho fact that she herself was the unknown writer ! It would seem remarkable that one should bo one's enemy to such an extent as to commit suicide by self- persecution in this manner. Yet psychologists know that such cases ate not infrequent. A iccent illustration of these extraoidintiry tendencies is that afforded by a spinster milliner, who not only wroto herself persecuting letters, but actually set on tiro and destroyed some of her pctsonal t fleets in her little shop, in oidcr to satisfy her morbid craving for the sympathy and attention of tho cotnmuni'y in which she lived. «*'ome years ago n rather more sti iking example of caprice occurred when a young woman of good family earned on for a >ear or two a most extraordinary system of deception. She asserted that whilo on a visit to 7 ondon she- had becomo acquainted with a young man of enormous wealth. They became attached to one another, corresponded, and wc»e engaged. Every week or so she received letters from her imaginaty lover, and thetso she would read to and talk over with hei many fiiends. 'Mio wedding day was nciually announced when a telegiam seut the news of tho death of the expected swain. The bride seemed overwhelmed with grief, but her friends became suspicious, and an investigation quietly cariied on rovealfid the fact that letters and message had origin with hersc'f, and no lover had ever existed.