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Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 7894, 10 April 1897, Page 3

A writer in a medical journal some time I ago called attention, not only to the in- I ( crease of insanity, but to the growing singularity of the forms of it. One marked characteristic of modern mind disease, according to this authority, is the proneness of those who become mentally unhinged to believe that tbey are animals of various kinds, and to behave accordingly with a perfection of imitativenesa which ia incredible. In Mr Kipling's dreadful narrative, " The Mark of the Beast," thiß strange perversion of the brain ia presented with thrilling horror. A case I in real life hardly lesa shocking has boen reported from Victoria, which also points 4 the moral that no miscreant is more deserving of being violeutly and painfully put to death than the average practical joker. A young man, who among other duties had to feed a dingo, was snapped ( at by the animal without being bitten, u whereupon, it seems, certain facetious c persons found a good deal of quiet enjoy- n ment jn magnifying the danger to which 4 ho had been exposed, and hinting at future possibilities. As a result the victim of these pleasautries began to believe he was a dingo, and act accordingly. Ho snarls, crouches, looks side- I ways, and otherwise fulfils hia imaginary y role ; in the courthouse.to which he was _ taken he bit a piece out of a deal form. Such cases as this seem to corroborate 4 in a measure what is urged by faith healers concerning the power of suggestion, and to show how careful people should be to abstain from the cruel pleasure some r of them derive from startling and scaring thoso who have special fears and anti- I ( ,| pathies. p