Misplaced Enterprise.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 12021, 21 March 1903, Page 1 (Supplement)

Misplaced Enterprise.

Hungry fof first-hand information as to the treatment accorded to lunatics, a P.aiisian journalist attired himself in fantastic raiment, and sallying forth into the Hue Royal accosted a mirthful gendarme, demanding angrily why he did not salute the

" Kmperor Napoleon" when he saw him. The gendarme, smiling bioadly, invited the journalist to accompany him" to the Prefecture, and before the man of letters quite grasped his position he was in. arcerated in an asylum as the s.ibject of "dangerous illusions." He got, therefore, a splendid, opportunity to study the nethods of lunat-ic treatment, and made every use of it. But soon he wearied of his ■role, and being anxious to acquaint his paper and the public of his experiences, lie, after sundry abortive interviews with doctors, requested to be brought before the Medical Board of Examiners, to whom he explained the situation. The doctors gravely shook their heads, and reported that they considered he was now becoming really dangerously mad. He was, therefore, kept under the closest watch and restraint, and became nearly mad with anxiety before he induced one of the nurses to convey to his paper the news of his plight. But even then his troubles were not over, for the doctors refused to accept the explanation offered, and have all certified that the man is a dangerous lunatic. A Special Commission has now been appointed to investigate the case, but if the methods of Special Commissioners in Paris are as leisurely as those in the Old Country the chanceS are that the unhappy victim of journalistic enterprise will not be released for many months.