290 THE ABNORMAL MAN. 



sister, struck her on the head with a hatchet, 

 fracturing the skull and stunning her so that she 

 was unconscious for two hours. 



While I was lecturing in Portland, Ore., a very 

 inoffensive, delicate, modest little lady, with a 

 kind, sympathetic face, called at my study with 

 her eight-year-old boy requesting a careful de- 

 scription and some advice in regard to his man- 

 agement. The lad resembled his mother very 

 Extreme Cruelty muc h, mentally and temperamentally, except that 

 he had an extremely cruel, revengeful nature. 

 At the end of my description the mother said, "I 

 have never been able to understand him. He de- 

 lights in torturing everything. We just can't 

 keep a cat about the place and I dare not let 

 him play with other children. He is so cruel 

 that he has become the terror of the neighbor- 

 hood." 



When the lady left the study, I remarked to 

 my wife, "That is a bad boy, he was an unwel- 

 come child and that innocent little mother has 

 attempted his destruction before he saw the light 

 A Mother's of day. Bad maternal impressions have given 

 Confession. him decided homicidal tendencies." A week 

 later I gave a lecture to ladies in one of the 

 churches in the residence portion of the city. 

 The mother of the unfortunate child was pres- 

 ent. In the course of the lecture cases similar 

 to her own were cited. As the audience was pass- 

 ing out the little lady approached my wife and 

 began weeping. In order to avoid the crowd my 

 wife took her into the parlors of the church 

 where, amid burning tears and choking sobs, the 

 heartbroken mother told the oft-repeated story of 



