Chapter 3 CASES OF PATHOLOGICAL LYING AND SWINDLING

In the group of twelve cases making up this chapter we have limited ourselves to a simple type in order to demonstrate most clearly the classical characteristics of pathological liars. How pathological lying verges into swindling may be readily seen in several of the following cases, e.g., Cases 3, 8, 10, 12, although only two, Cases 3 and 12, have had time as yet to show marked development of the swindling tendency.

For the purpose of aiding in the demonstration of the evolution of lying into swindling, and also to bring out the fact that facility in language may be the determining influence towards pathological lying and swindling, we have included Case 12, which otherwise possibly might be considered under our head of border-line mental types.

In any attempt to distinguish between pathological accusers and liars, cases overlapping into both groups are found-so some of the material in this chapter may be fairly considered as belonging partially to the next chapter.

In discussing the possibility of betterment, a fact which we as well as others have observed, consideration of Cases 1, 4, and 7 is suggested.

CASE 1

Summary: A girl of 16 applied for help, telling an elaborate tale of family tragedy which proved to be totally untrue. It was so well done that it deceived the most experienced. Shrewd detective work cleared the mystery. It was found that the girl was a chronic falsifier and had immediately preceding this episode become delinquent in other ways. Given firm treatment in an institution and later by her family, who knew well her peculiarities, this girl in the course of four years apparently has lost her previous extreme tendency to falsification.

Hazel M. at 16 years of age created a mild sensation by a story of woe which brought immediate offers of aid for the alleged distress. One morning she appeared at a social center and stated she had come from a hospital where her brother, a young army man, had just died. She gave a remarkably correct, detailed, medical account of his suffering and death. In response to inquiry she told of a year's training as a nurse; that was how she knew about such subjects. In company with a social worker she went directly back to the hospital to make arrangements for what she requested, namely, a proper burial. At the hospital office it was said that no such person had died there, and after she had for a time insisted on it she finally said she must have been dreaming. Although she had wept on the shoulder of a listener as she first told her story, she now gave it up without any show of emotion. We were asked to study the case.

Hazel sketched to us a well-balanced story of her family life; one which it was impossible to break down. It involved experiences at army posts-she stated her only relatives were brothers in the army-and her recent work as a ``practical nurse.'' She finally led on to the death of her brother, as in the tale previously told. When asked how she accounted for the fact that no such person was found in the hospital, she answered, ``Well, I either must have been crazy or something is the matter, and I don't think my mind is that bad.'' The girl evidently was suffering from loss of sleep; her case was not further investigated until after a long rest.

The next day Hazel started in by saying, ``It's enough to convince anybody that I was not in the hospital when Mrs. B. and I went there and found out that they said I had not been there. Truthfully I don't know where I was. If I was not there I must have been some place or I must have been in a trance.'' The long stories told in the next few days need not be gone into. They contained descriptions of life with her family in several towns when she was a child, of her graduation from the high school in Des Moines, and of her experience as a nurse in Cincinnati and Chicago. Our cross-examination disclosed that she knew a good many facts about obstetrics, in which she said she had had training, and about the cities where she said she had lived. For instance, she gave a description of the Cliff House at San Francisco, the seals on the rocks there, the high school in Des Moines, and so on. She also knew about life at army posts. The point that made us skeptical was when in mentioning the names of railroads she placed the wrong towns upon them. For instance, she told us her brother worked on the L. S. & M. S. at Kenosha.

Hazel's stories were successfully maintained for several days until a shrewd detective, who got her to tell some street numbers in Chicago, ferreted out her family. She had persistently denied the existence of any of them in Chicago, and, indeed, stated that her father and mother had died years previously. One of the most convincing things about her was her poise; she displayed an attitude of sincerity combined with a show of deep surprise when her word was questioned. For example, the moment before her mother was brought in to see her, she was asked what she would say if anyone asserted that her mother was in the next room. Her instantaneous, emphatic response was, ``She would have to rise out of her grave to be there.''

We soon learned that not a single detail the girl had given about her family was true. She was born and brought up in Chicago and had never been outside of the city. She had never studied nursing nor had she ever nursed anybody. In public school she had reached eighth grade.

Hazel came of an intelligent family and we were able to get a good account of the family and developmental history. Heredity seems completely negative as far as any nervous or mental abnormalities are concerned. She is one of seven children, four of whom are living, three having died in infancy. The father had just recently died of tuberculosis. There has been no trouble with the other children of any significance for us. Pregnancy with Hazel was healthy, but the mother suffered a considerable shock when she stood on a passenger boat by the side of a man who jumped overboard and committed suicide. The birth was difficult. The child weighed 12 lbs. Instruments were used; it was a breech presentation. At 2 years of age Hazel was very ill with gastritis and what was said to be spinal meningitis. She had some convulsions then. Had both walked and talked when she was about 16 months of age. During childhood she had a severe strabismus and at 8 years of age was operated upon for it. Vision has always been practically nil in one eye. Several diseases of childhood she had in mild form. After she was 2 years of age she had no more convulsions, or spasms, or attacks of any kind. From the standpoint of general nervousness Hazel was said to be one of the calmest in the family, although she was accustomed to drink five or six cups of coffee a day. Menstruation at 13 years, no irregularity.

On examination we found a very well nourished and well developed young woman of slouchy attitude and normal expression. Vision very defective in one eye and 10/20, even with glasses, in the other. Slight strabismus. General strength good. Examination otherwise negative except for the fact that she had been infected with the diplococcus of Neisser.

Mental tests proved her to have quite normal ability. Neither special ability nor disabilities of significance were discovered. For present discussion it is of interest to note that in the ``Aussage'' Test she gave a functional account, enumerating 16 items, 2 of which were incorrect, and accepted none of the suggestions which were offered.

The mother and sister brought out the facts that Hazel had been giving an assumed name recently and lying about her age. She had alleged that she was married. In the last year she had run away from home on several occasions. At one time had written to her mother about her happy married life. One letter reads, ``Dearest Mother:-I can picture your dear face when you receive my letter. I know you have your doubts about the matter, the same as I had the first few days. But mama, you know I love him and I have the satisfaction of being a married woman before Annie is.'' In the letter she describes the appearance of her imaginary husband, tells about her new dress and gloves and ``the prettiest little wedding ring that was ever made.'' In another letter she says, ``It is just one o'clock A.M. and Jack has just gone to sleep and so I stole a little time to write,'' etc. (It was later shown by the stationery used, and by the girl's final confession, that these letters were written in the rest room of a department store.)

Hazel's lying began, it seems, when she was a little girl. She would come home from school and out of whole cloth relate incidents which occurred on the way home. One of her earliest efforts was about being chased by a white horse. The mother states that for years she has had to check Hazel because she recognized her remarkable tendencies in this direction. The father's death was somewhat of a shock and it seems that after this the girl's other delinquencies began. Prior to the time she first went away from home she had some sort of hysterical spells when she said she could see her father lying in his coffin before her in the room. Her behavior became quite outrageous with some young man in her own household at just about this time. Not that she was immoral, although she once suddenly blurted out in the parlor a grave self-accusation: ``Now, John, mother thinks you must be careful. You know I am a prostitute.'' When we first saw her she had been away from home four times, on this last occasion for three weeks. Before she went she had said she wanted to kill herself. Mother had notified the police but no trace of her was found.

From Hazel's own story told at this time and even after she became more stable it seems very likely that her bad tendencies began with her acquaintance with a certain rather notorious woman. Her mother came to believe that this was undoubtedly the fact. Our inquiry into beginnings brought to light the fact that Hazel while a school girl for long associated with this woman who taught her about sex immoralities. ``I don't believe my mother knows what this Mrs. R. did to me or she would have her arrested. She started me on all this. When I was about 11 years old I first knew of those things. The first I ever heard was from that woman's daughter. I never said anything to my mother. I was always ashamed of myself to say anything about it. After I got to working with factory girls I heard a lot about it.'' The mother told us later that she thought it probable from what she now knew that this Mrs. R. may have been largely responsible for Hazel's tendency to delinquency. Hazel kept this association of several years' standing quite to herself. The mother remembers now how Hazel once stayed for hours after school and told a story in explanation that they felt sure was untrue. The teachers used to tell the mother that Hazel seemed as if she couldn't pay attention to her school work. One teacher reported to us that she remembers Hazel as a girl who seemed peculiar and hysterical. The other girls called her queer and used to steer clear of her.

The mother reports Hazel as being for several years impulsive, erratic, talkative, untidy, and rather dishonest in other small ways besides lying-all this in spite of vigorous home discipline. The girl at one time under the influence of revival meetings left the religious faith of her parents. However, they thought if any form of religion would make her better it would be all right.

At our last interview with Hazel before she was sent away, an interview which she prefaced by saying, ``I want to apologize for everything I did,'' the girl showed herself unable to avoid prevarications. Coming back, for instance, to the subject of her schooling she tells us how she won a graduating medal. This her mother said was untrue.

About her own lying tendencies she confessed that sometimes she hardly knew whether things were really so or not. Asked about her knowledge of other cities; ``I read a whole lot and learn things in that way. I used to have to write compositions and imagine we were going places. I was pretty good at that.'' One felt very uncertain about Hazel's mental condition when in almost the same breath she denied having said anything about the seals on the rocks at San Francisco, or about obstetrical cases, but, of course, the denial may have been itself another falsification. Her knowledge of army affairs was gained through her acquaintance with young soldiers. An unusual amount of what she heard or read was photographed with the greatest clearness in her mind and was recalled most vividly.

A peculiarity of Hazel's case which was quite obvious was her lack of apperception concerning her own interests. Her lies all along, after her identity was discovered, were so easy to trace, and they so quickly rebounded upon her, that there seemed every reason for her to desist. Nothing so clearly proved the absence of self-realization as her feeling under detention that other girls with whom she was in forced association were much beneath her in quality, although many of them were not nearly so untidy and had not been nearly so immoral. During all this period of several months, beginning with her running away and her writing the housewifely letters about her imaginary married life, and ending with her appeal for aid at the social center, Hazel was indulging in veritable orgies of lying. When away from home she several times picked up men on the street and stayed at hotels with them.

At the time of our first studies of this case we hardly dared to offer either a mental or moral prognosis.

In the institution for delinquent young women to which she was sent Hazel's traits were long maintained. She proved very troublesome on account of lies to her family, to the officers, and to the other girls. The latter soon discovered, however, the peculiar lack of foundation for her stories. In the institution was also noted the tendency to untidiness of which her mother spoke. The authorities steadily persevered with Hazel. They secured another operation on her eye, which successfully straightened it, and she became fully ``cured'' of her pelvic disease. She received instruction in a form of handicraft in which she quickly showed special dexterity and skill. Her tendencies to falsify gradually became less. About two years later the mother again assumed control with great success.

This is the remarkable interest of Hazel's case, to wit, that with proper discipline and the development of new interests her fabricating tendencies have been reduced to a minimum. She has made a wonderful improvement and has long been a self-supporting and self-respecting young woman with her own relation to the world realized in a way that before seemed entirely lacking.

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Mental conflict: About early secret Case 1.

experiences. Girl, age 16 yrs.

Mental conditions: Either mild psychosis

or extreme adolescent

instability.

Bad companions: Early.

Delinquencies: Mentality:

Extreme lying. Normal ability.

Running away. Psychosis (?).

Sex.

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CASE 2

Summary: A girl of 19, under partial observation for three years, was during all this time a great mystery. Brought at first to us by her family as being insane because she was such a great liar and unreliable in other ways, we never could find the slightest evidence of aberration. No satisfactory explanation was forthcoming until the remarkable denouement when we learned that the mother, whom we had come to know herself as an extreme falsifier, was not the mother at all. It seems clear that the girl's behavior was largely the result of mental conflict about certain suspected facts, and psychic contagion arising from the world of lies in which she had lived.

Beula D. has been known in several cities and in more than one court as the ``mystery girl.'' She has appeared on the scene in various places, giving a fictitious name and telling elaborate stories of herself which always proved to be without foundation. She ran away from home on several occasions, but except in one instance which we know about, has never been seriously delinquent. We saw her on many occasions and tried to get at the truth of her stories of ill treatment and the like. Investigators found there was unquestionably some truth in her statements, but never from first to last in the many interviews which we had with her was there ever any possibility of separating truth from falsehood. The girl simply did not seem to know the difference between the two. What was more, we found that the mother presented the same characteristics. She also, by her most curious and complicated fabrications, led even her most rational sympathizers into a bewildering maze. A woman of magnificent presence, tremendous will, and good intelligence, she nevertheless was soon found to be absolutely unreliable in her statements. This woman's numerous inventions, so far as we have been able to ascertain, have been quite beside the mark of any possible advantage to be gained by her or her family. Naturally we here thought heredity played an important role, until our final discovery that the two were not related. The details which we know about this case would cover scores of pages. In summary it stands as follows:

On the physical side Beula at 17 was a striking looking young woman, but of very poor development. She was only 4 ft. 7 in. in height and weighed 102 lbs. Expression was quiet, pleasant, and responsive. Unusually clear and pleasant voice. Typical Hutchinsonian teeth. All other examination negative. Menstruation first at 13 1/2, normal and regular.

Notwithstanding the mother's report of her being subnormal mentally, we found that she had fair ability. Her range of information was good. She was always desirous of writing compositions, she wanted to be a story writer, she said, but her diction was very immature and her spelling was poor, making altogether a very mild production. Never did we see any essential incoherency in her mental processes, or any other signs of aberration. A series of association tests given in an endeavor to discover some of the facts which her mother maintained she herself was desirous of knowing (but really could not have been), failed to elicit anything but the most normal reactions, even to ideas about which we considered there must be some feeling-tone.

On the ``Aussage'' Test only ten items were given from the picture upon free recital. On questioning twelve more details were reported correctly, but no less than seven of these alleged facts were incorrect. Only one out of the five suggestions offered was accepted.

No purpose would be served in recounting the details of falsehood which were told by this girl about family affairs, about the places she had worked, about the facts of home treatment, etc. Her lying was not done cleverly, but it served to create much confusion and gave considerable trouble to a number of social agencies that came in contact with the family. Even when she was applying directly for help her lies stood greatly in the way of achieving anything for her. The confusion was vastly added to by the many vagaries of her alleged parent, but, even so, one of the chief accusations of the prevaricating mother was that the girl herself was a terrible liar. The whole situation was rendered completely absurd and needless by the behavior of both the woman and the girl.

After we had known this case for about three years and the truth about Beula's antecedents had come to light as the result of a new person stepping in on the scene, the girl's tendency to falsification seemed quite inexplicable. No one who came to know the circumstances, even as we previously had been acquainted with them, felt they could blame Beula much for her attitude of dissatisfaction and her tendencies to run away. We felt, too, that the mystery which had always hovered about this girl was sufficient to have led her to be fanciful and imaginative and that the fabrications of the self-styled ``mother'' did not form an atmosphere in which the girl could well achieve respect for truth. But Beula's almost confusional state concerning the facts of her family life seemed quite explicable in the light of what we at last ascertained. Soon after we first saw the girl the woman had told us a most remarkable tale of how it was she happened to be the mother of the child, and the attempt was then made by several to straighten out the apparent doubt in the girl's mind. But it seems that the clever and tragic tale of the mother, although well calculated to do so, did not entirely cover the points remembered by this girl of her earliest childhood. Evidently for a time Beula tried to correlate the two, but doubt grew apace. It seemed almost as if her doubt as to who she was led her to say first one thing and then another. It was particularly at a period of stress of this kind that she was figuring in other cities as the ``mystery girl.''

The earlier facts of the case probably never will be known. Of the many details known by us it is sufficient to say that the woman adopted Beula as a young child and proceeded by devious methods to weave a network of lies about the situation of their relationship. Who Beula's parents really were neither she nor any one else of whom we have heard, ever knew.

Beula showed such delinquent tendencies after a time that she had

to be sent to a corrective institution. After coming out she

made off in the world for herself before we could give her the

information soon afterwards obtained by us. At her last visit we

felt that her report in a terribly tragic mood on the family

conditions was totally unreliable. She went forth to weave, no

doubt, new fabrications.

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Early experiences: Peculiar treatment Case 2.

and excessive misrepresentations Girl, age 19 years.

in home circle.

Mental influences: Contagion from long

continued untruthfulness at home.

Mystery of antecedents.

Mental conflict about the above.

Heredity and developmental conditions (?)

Hutchinsonian teeth only clew.

Delinquencies: Mentality:

Lying. Fair ability with

Running away. poor educational

Sex. advantages.

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CASE 3

Summary: In its wonderfully clear presentation of characteristics this case classically represents the type. A woman of 27 years (usually claiming to be 17), during a career of 7 or 8 years has engaged in an excessive amount of misrepresentation, often to the extent of swindling. Alleging herself to be merely a girl and without a family, she has repeatedly gained protection, sometimes for a year or more, in homes where her prevaricating tendencies, appearing with ever new details, have sooner or later thwarted her own interests. By extraordinary methods she has often simulated illnesses which have demanded hospital treatment. For long she was lost to her family, traveling about under different names, making her way by her remarkable abilities and unusual presence.

This case illustrates, again, two points we have often made, namely, that the difficulty of getting safe data concerning genetics increases rapidly with age, and that the chance of altering tendencies after years of character formation vastly diminishes. These features appear strongly here, yet our long knowledge of the person and of the many details of her career gives the history great interest.

A young woman, whom we will call Inez B., a name she once assumed for a time, arrived at a girls' boarding home in Chicago with merely a small traveling bag and money sufficient only for a few days. In appearance and conversation she gave distinct evidences of refinement. She showed indecision and confessed she knew no one in the city.

Just at this time a wealthy eastern girl, Agnes W., was missing from her home, and the police everywhere were on the lookout for her. A detective who was ordered to visit the boarding club showed a picture of Agnes W. to the matron, who instantly discerned a likeness to Inez and informed him of her recent arrival. Inez was questioned, but could or would give no satisfactory response concerning her own home. She maintained she was just 17 and had come to Chicago to make her own way in the world. After some account of herself, the details of which were somewhat contradictory, it was inferred that she might be Agnes W. She vehemently denied it, but being the same age and some likeness being discerned, the questioning was continued. Various matters of Agnes W.'s antecedents were gone into and after a time Inez burst out with, ``Well, if you must have it so, I am Agnes W.'' The girl was thereupon taken in charge by the police authorities, and she herself registered several times as Agnes W. After the family of the latter had been communicated with, however, it was ascertained that Inez was not the lost heiress.

She now said that anyhow she really was a runaway girl. She had left her adopted parents because they were cruel and immoral. It was her unhappy brooding over her own affairs that led her to lie about being the other girl. She insisted she was sorry for the many lies she had told various officers, but felt, after all, they were to blame because their obvious desire to have her tell that she was Agnes W. led her on. They deceived her first because they misrepresented themselves and did not say they were police officials. Nevertheless, she makes much of how she hates her false position, being registered under a false name and figuring as a deceiver.

The significant points in the long story of Inez, as told to us in the days of our first acquaintance with her, are worth giving. (At this period she was with us thoroughly consistent; at all times she has appeared self-possessed and coherent.) Inez states she is 17 and has just come from a town in Tennessee where she has been living for a couple of years with some people by the name of B. who adopted her. At first they were very good to her and she loved them dearly. She was quite unsophisticated when she went to them and did not realize then that they were not good people. She met them at an employment agency in St. Louis where she had gone after leaving the Smiths, the people who had brought her up. At that time the B.'s appeared fairly well-to-do, but Mr. B. had been running up debts that later carried him into bankruptcy. Inez was sick and exhausted now from having worked so hard for them. She finally ran away from that town because the B.'s wanted to go elsewhere, leaving her in a compromising position with a young man who rented their house. She first tried boarding in two places, however, before she ventured to go.

The Smiths were the people she lived with until she was 14. She remembers first living with them, but faintly recalls bearing the name of Mary Johnson before that. Who the Johnsons were she does not know, but she feels sure of the fact that she was born in New Orleans. However, Inez does not worry about her parentage even though it is unknown. Mrs. Smith was an elderly woman of wealth who was very good to her, and by the time she was 14 she had studied German and French, algebra and trigonometry. She had a French tutor and took lessons on the piano. Always did well in school and loved her work there. The Smith children, who were much older, were very angry with their mother for all the money she spent on Inez-they would have preferred its being expended on their children. The son grew quite abusive and Mrs. S. was made to suffer so much that the girl came to feel that she was largely the cause of the old lady's unhappiness. After one particularly deplorable scene she slipped away from their home in New Orleans, traveled to St. Louis and went to an employment agency where she found the B.'s. At the present time, above all things, she does not want the Smiths to know about her when she is temporarily a failure. She will never go back to them until she can help the old lady who was so good to her.

Inez tells us she is now suffering from a wound still open as the result of an operation for appendicitis performed two years previously. She also suffered from tuberculosis a few years ago. (She was found to be running a slight temperature, and some slight hemorrhages in the sputum were observed.)

It may strengthen the portraiture so far sketched to give our impressions as stated after our first study covering a week or two; nor will it lessen the reader's interest to remark that it was not for lack of acquaintance with the pathological liar type that we failed to correctly size up this individual. Indeed, we had already studied nearly all the other cases cited in this monograph. Our statement ran as follows: ``This girl is very frank and talkative with us. With her strong, but refined features and cultivated voice she is a good deal of a personality. She is sanguine and independent. Very likely she does not exaggerate the hard times she has had in going from one home to another. One cannot but respect this unusual young woman for wanting to keep her early history secret. It would be fortunate if some one would care for the girl and get her ailments cured. With her very good ability she might easily then be self-supporting.''

A woman of strength and judgment undertook to look after Inez. The girl's personality commanded interest. In a few days she complained more vigorously of her abdominal trouble; an operation seemed imperative and was performed. (An account of this will be given later.) Later the girl was taken to a convalescent home and then to a beautiful lake resort. While here she suddenly was stricken desperately ill. Her friend was telegraphed for, a special boat was commissioned, and the girl was taken to a neighboring sanitarium. The doctors readily agreed that the case was one of simulation or hysteria. She was brought back to Chicago and warned that this sort of performance would not pay. After being given further opportunity to rest, although under less favorable circumstances, in a few weeks she was offered work in several homes, but in each instance the connection was soon severed. Then without letting her guardian-friend know, Inez suddenly left the city.

Inquiries had brought by this time responses telling something of the career of Inez in the past two years, but nothing earlier. She was the ``mystery girl'' in the Tennessee town, as she was in Chicago. The B.'s kept a boarding-house and took Inez as a waitress, knowing her first by still another alias. She worked for them about a year and then went to Memphis, where she was sick in a hospital. She had now taken the B.'s name. They were regarded as her guardians (on the girl's authority) and they finally sent for her again out of pity, although they felt she had a questionable past, and they knew she had lied tremendously while with them. Then the B.'s moved away and turned Inez over to a respectable family. While with the B.'s Inez had been regarded as a partial invalid; their physician diagnosed the case as diabetes and found it incurable. In fact, the B.'s went into debt for her prolonged treatment. Another physician, who was called in after the B.'s left, said the trouble was Bright's disease. At any rate, all regarded her as suffering from some chronic disorder. Except for her extraordinary lying, of which she made exhibitions to many, and some little tendencies to dishonesty mixed with her lying, Inez was regarded as being quite normal. The two other families with whom she lived for a time found it impossible to tolerate the girl on account of her lying. Finally, obtaining money by false representation, telling the story of a rich uncle in Chicago to whom she was going, Inez departed, taking with her a trunk containing valuables belonging to the B.'s.

Dropping our chronological account of this case we may from this time deal with it as a whole, putting together the facts as they developed by further study of Inez herself and by the receipt of information from many sources.

Since we have known her, Inez has been under the observation of several skilled medical specialists. She all along has been in good general physical condition. Having been treated previously for diabetes, special examinations were repeatedly made, but never a trace of this trouble was discernible. Her own story of having had tuberculosis, and the traces of blood in the sputum, which she presented on handkerchiefs, etc., led to repeated tests for tuberculosis. These also proved absolutely negative. Before all this, there was found on the left side of the abdomen a mass which, from the history the girl gave, was surmised to be a tubercular abscess. At this time she was running a little temperature. An operation was performed and an encysted hairpin was removed from the peritoneal cavity. This had undoubtedly found entrance through the old appendicitis wound; the hairpin had evidently been straightened for the purpose. Both wounds now speedily closed. Gynecological examination showed no disease and established the fact of virginity. Thorough neurological examination showed that the girl was not of nervous type and that there was no evidence whatever of organic disease. There was complaint of frequent headaches, but no signs of acute suffering from these were ever witnessed and by this time no reports of subjective symptoms could be credited. No sensory defects of any importance. It was always easy to get a little variation upon visual tests and the like, however. Weight 130; height 5 ft. 1 in. Color good. Head notably well shaped with broad high forehead. Strength good. Very normal development in all ways.

Most important to note as bearing on her social career was the fact that Inez was possessed of markedly strong, regular, pleasant features, including a good set of teeth well cared for, and an unusually firm chin. In attitude and expression she seemed to give complete proof of great strength of will and character. Her face suggested both frankness and firmness. When with quiet force and dignity asserting her desire for education and a place in the world, Inez presented a most convincing picture. Perhaps even more significant is the fact that Inez possesses a speaking voice of power and charm, well modulated and of general qualities which could belong apparently to no other than a highly cultivated person.

During a year there has been no variation in the general well-being of Inez, although she has been taken to hospitals in at least two more towns and has figured again as a sufferer from tuberculosis and appendicitis, and has written several times to friends that she was about to be operated on.

The diagnoses of several competent medical men are that the girl is a simulator or is an hysterical, and their findings show that she has lied tremendously about her past. (There were never any positive signs of hysteria, and our own opinion is that the case is much better called one of extreme simulation and misrepresentation, as in the diabetes and sputum affairs, etc., and of self-mutilation, as with the hairpin.)

We have had ample opportunity to become acquainted with Inez's mental qualities. She has repeatedly been given tests for mental ability. As judged by the average of those seen in our court work we are forced to regard her as having ability clearly above the normal. Her perceptions are keen and quick. She works planfully and rapidly with our concrete problems and shows good powers of mental representation. It is notable that she is very keen to do her best on tests and takes much delight in a good record. Her psychomotor control is astonishingly good. In a certain tapping test, which we consider well done if the individual has succeeded in tapping in 90 squares in 30 seconds, she did 117 and 129 at two successive trials with only one error in each. This is next to the best record we have ever seen. Our puzzle box, which is seldom opened in less than 2 minutes, she planfully attacked and conquered in 52 seconds. She also rapidly put it together again, which is an unusual performance. Reaction times on the antonym test, giving the opposites to words, were very low; average 1.4 seconds. Her immediate memory for words was normal, but nothing extraordinary. She gave correctly, although not quite in logical order, 18 out of 20 items on a passage which she read herself. On a passage read four times to her she gave 11 out of 12 items in correct sequence. The Kent-Rosanoff association test showed, to our surprise, nothing peculiar. Notwithstanding her known social characteristics, there were very few egocentric or subjective reactions.

Nor did the ``Aussage'' test show great peculiarity. On free recital she gave 17 items, two of which were incorrect. They were misinterpretations rather than inventions, however. On questioning she added 15 items. She was incorrect on 5 more details, but all of these were denials of objects actually to be seen in the picture. Not one was a fictitious addition. She rejected all the 6 suggestions proffered.

Our psychological observations were important beyond the giving of formal tests. We found her to be a fluent and remarkably logical and coherent conversationalist. Her choice of words was unusually good. Questioned about this she said she had always made it a point to cultivate a vocabulary and was particularly fond of the use of correct English. (This was all the more interesting because we later knew that she had been living recently with somewhat illiterate people and that her original home offered her very little in the way of educational advantages.) Inez told us that she had earlier carried her desire for self-expression in language to the point of writing stories and plays, but we were never able to get her to do anything of the kind for us. One of her constant pleas was that she might get the chance to become a well-trained teacher of English. Her letters never showed the same skill with English that her conversation denoted, but her meagre education probably accounted for this.

Characteristic of Inez, also, is her intense egoism and her abundant self-assertion under all circumstances. It often seemed to us as if for her the world revolved, with passing show, around a pivot from which she regarded it as existing only for what it meant for her career. These qualities have led to her statements, and perhaps to the actual feelings, that she was the aggrieved one, and had been badly treated on many occasions. This seemed to reach almost paranoidal heights at times, and yet, before passing judgment on this, one should be in position to know, what probably will never be known, namely, the actual facts of her earliest treatment. Occasionally Inez showed most unreasonable bad temper and obstinacy. This only came out when she was asked to do things which she considered occupationally beneath her. In general she felt herself much above the ordinary run of people. When she could be patronizing, as with children, she acted quite the grand lady. Indeed, in asserting herself on numerous occasions she has assumed just this attitude, which is all the more strange because our further information shows that it was not justified by any social station which her family ever held.

Going further with psychological considerations it is to be asserted that Inez showed marked lack of normal apperceptive ability in not appreciating the necessarily unfavorable results of her own lying. For that matter, she also fails to learn by experience, for very frequently she has suffered from her own prevarications. It might, however, be argued that to Inez the thought of a possible hum-drum future in which there was no adventure, no roving, and no playing the part of a successful personality, was a worse choice than that of lying, which might and, indeed, often did serve the purpose of making friends with people, who otherwise would not have entertained her. So one could hardly judge her deficient even in this particular. (Of the character of her lying and the special observations on that point more later.)

We found Inez, then, neither mentally defective nor insane. To even say that she was without moral sense would be beyond the mark, for in many ways she showed great appreciation of the best types of behavior. Her peculiarities verging on the abnormal are, however, undoubted; they render her a socially pernicious person. They are to be summed up in terms of what we have discussed above, namely, her excessive egoism, her faulty judgment or apperceptions, her astounding tendency to falsification.

Inez was next heard from in Iowa where she wrote that two doctors had pronounced upon her case and said an operation was again imperative. She asked her recently made friend for permission to have this done, and also for $150 to cover expenses. Neither, of course, was forthcoming, on the grounds of there being no guardianship. (Her age was then unknown.) Inez wrote, ``I just thought I was compelled by law to let you know of my whereabouts, for I understood I could do nothing without your consent.'' In the same letter, replete with other lies, Inez asks, ``Please forgive me now for all my willfulness and wrongdoing. I will do my best never to do it again, and Oh! I do so want to be good so that you may feel proud of me some day in the near future.''

A month or so later this friend was called up by the director of a religious home for girls in Chicago, who stated that Inez had just come to them and had been taken seriously ill. Advice was given to discount her symptoms, but she was sent once more to a hospital. Here she produced more blood as if from a pulmonary hemorrhage and more symptoms were recounted, but the doctors decided after careful examination that she was falsifying. Her illness ceased the minute she was told to leave the hospital. Matters were serious, for Inez was now without home, money, or relatives. She was once more taken under protection and greater effort was made to trace her family. They were discovered through letters containing remittances sent by Inez herself from Iowa, after years of silence. Much of her career was soon brought to light. By this time, we may note, several observers had insisted that from a commonsense standpoint the girl certainly was insane.

While affairs were being looked up, Inez conferred with us from time to time. She started by telling a thoroughly good story, the general import of which was the same as she told months previously, but there were differences in many details. In the first place she still insisted she was 17 years old and gave us an exact date as her birthday- this was in response to the mild suggestion that she might be considerably older. Since her letters, although showing very good choice of words, were incorrectly punctuated, we inquired further about her education. She said she had received 18 credits in a noted girls' seminary in the south, but later reversed this and stated she had very little education. She told us her experiences of the last few months when she had been introducing literary works in the towns of Iowa. She had done well for a beginner at this, we found from other sources, but had made misrepresentations and had talked too freely, against her employers' wishes and advice. Finally she had sent in forged orders. This was quite unnecessary, for her salary was assured and sufficient, and her employers had regarded her as an extremely promising representative. In Iowa she was receiving mail under two different names; she still found it convenient to represent herself sometimes as Agnes W. In her peregrinations she had again made close friends with some substantial people, who found out, however, in short order that she was untruthful, and her chances with them were at once spoiled.

In the next weeks, when under observation, Inez varied her story from time to time even with the same persons. She was now 17 and now 19 years old. She had an operation first in one town and then it was in another. Her antecedents in many particulars varied from time to time. Inez seemed to have lost her desire or ability to be consistent, and in particular appeared to have no conception of the effect upon the adjustment of her own case which her continual lying was likely to have. (At this time again some non-professional observers insisted strenuously that Inez was insane. They based their opinion upon the fact that she showed so little apperceptive ability, so little judgment in relating the results of her continual lying to its necessary effect upon her career.) It requires too much space to go over the complicated details of her many stories, but some of her expressions and behavior are worth noting.

We always found Inez most friendly, sometimes voluble, and she ever dealt with us in a lady-like manner. Again we noted that many a society woman would give much for her well modulated voice and powers of verbal expression. Without any suggestion of melodrama she would rise to strong passages in giving vent to her feelings of indignation and ambition. At this time we were still wondering where she could have obtained her education; it was not until later that we comprehended that her abilities represented sheer native traits.

She first came to us much hurt because a certain official had warned her, after one of her simulating episodes in a hospital, never to deceive again. ``My trying to get sympathy! I don't want any sympathy. I told her I was independent and always wanted to make my own way in the world. If they thought I wasn't sick in the hospital why didn't they say so. The doctor told me to stay in bed.

``Doctor, yes, I did lie to you about my age before; why shouldn't I? I have been deceived on all sides and have found that people are against me. If they want to leave me alone, they can get the truth, but when one is deceived one has to tell lies sometimes. I've had many troubles. Oh, doctor, if you knew what I've been through and what's in my heart you'd think I do pretty well. I would rather starve than have it cast up to me that I had asked for any body's help or sympathy. I want to make my own way. I must have an education. In September I plan to go to the M. Academy and work my way through. I am just past 18 now.

``The B.'s are ashamed of me I suppose. I ran away from them. They are refined people. But I can't be treated in that way. They adopted me. They said that I got some money dishonestly, but, doctor, it is not in me to be bad. I feel that through and through.

``Well, I know that I'm a Yankee by birth, on both sides. My people came from Mayflower stock. I will make my way in the world, I will succeed, and you'll see, doctor. I will have an education. As to going back to the Johnsons, I would commit suicide rather than do that. It was not true that I had a good education as I told you. They did not treat me well. They can write as they please and talk about forgiveness for what I have done, but it is they who were cruel and abusive. Suppose they do say I'm their child. I know I am not because I was not treated the same as the others. I was 12 or 13 when I ran away from them. How could I belong to the family? They are all so much older than I am.''

Inez now gave us, most curiously, some addresses which opened up knowledge of her career over several years. But what she told us about these new people was directly denied by return mail. At one interview her first words were, ``Do you know now, doctor, that I was in a State hospital?'' Having made this challenging statement she went no further, merely involved herself in contradictions as to the place, and would say nothing more than that she had once suffered from an attack of nervous prostration. She absolutely denied items of information about herself which we had gradually accumulated, and this type of reaction obtained all the way through our last period of acquaintance with Inez, even after we had the detailed facts about her early life from her parents.

Inez never lost an opportunity to impress upon people whom she did not regard as her equals that she considered herself much of a lady and quite above housework. On one occasion, when held as a runaway girl, she had a terrible outbreak of temper simply because she was asked to clear the dinner table. This was no momentary affair. Her recalcitrancy was kept up the larger part of one day, and she made the place almost unbearable that night by screaming and moaning. Telling me about the incident, she said it was because she would not allow herself to cater to such people. ``If a person asks me, I may do things, but nobody can tell me to. I would not give in. I would not do it.''

To some of us it has seemed highly significant that at moments which would ordinarily be expected to bring out great emotion Inez showed almost none. For instance, when going to an important interview about the disposition of her case, she first plaintively said she did not know what to say, and then immediately began to dwell with evident pleasure upon the costume of the person addressing her. Many normal emotions were seen expressed, however, and many moral sentiments were undoubtedly held, but there seemed to be curious displacements upon these levels of her mental life; there was faulty mental stratification. Probably the force which caused this is egocentrism.

In relating what we now know of the past history of this case we shall put together that which we have heard from many different sources. There is no question about all the important facts-correspondents largely corroborate each other.

Inez came from a family of French extraction, apparently stable and normal tradespeople. The old mother at 74 years wrote us an unusually well-thought-out, detailed account of her daughter's early life. The paternal grandfather was insane and an aunt had epilepsy. Defective heredity in other respects is denied. We get no history of convulsions in the immediate family, nor of any other neurotic manifestation, except that one sister is ``very excitable.''

Inez came when the mother was unusually advanced in life, and the brothers and sisters, of whom there were five, had long since been born. There was a difference of 10 years between Inez and the next older. In telling the facts, the mother dwells much on this and the bearing which her chagrin during pregnancy may have had upon the girl's physical and mental development. She was born, then, after a troubled pregnancy, a weak and sickly child, ``almost like a skeleton.''

Inez was rather slow at walking, but at one year spoke her first words. We do not know with accuracy about the earliest factors in the mental environment. (Inez has told various stories about early family friction, and even about contracting an infection at home, much of which seems highly conjectural.) Between the ages of 7 and 10 several sicknesses, diphtheria, measles with some cardiac complication, etc., kept her much out of school. Part of the time she lived in New Orleans, and part of the time in a country district. She only went to school until she was 14, and was somewhat retarded on account of changing about and illnesses. However, it is said she always liked her school and showed fair aptitude for study. At 14 she returned to New Orleans and, desiring to be a dressmaker, started in that trade. She worked in several places, but finally went back to her home.

At the age of 18 Inez met with what, according to her family, was a decisive event in her life. She was in a trolley car accident; after being knocked down she was unconscious for some time. No definite injury was recorded. Her family marked an entire change of character from that time. They say she then began lying in the minutest detail about people and seemed to believe in her own falsifications. Besides this she started the roving tendency which she has shown ever since.

The extensive information which we have received concerning the later history of this remarkable case we can only take space to give in summary. We know definitely that Inez has received attention, during periods varying from a few days to six months, in no less than 18 different hospitals. Besides this she has been under the care of physicians at least a score of times. Her swindling in this matter was so flagrant in one eastern city to which she had journeyed that she was handled through the police court and was sentenced to a state hospital for the insane for a term of 6 months. The charge was that she was an idle person and a beggar, and she was regarded as perhaps being unbalanced. The report from this town is that she would be taken with ``spells of apparent violent illness on the street, in the trolley cars, at railroad stations, and so be carried to various hospitals and doctors' homes.'' She has visited numerous cities, getting her sustenance largely through hospitals and physicians.

After being admitted into one famous hospital and showing some of her curious manifestations she was transferred to a state institution in the vicinity to be studied for insanity. Correspondence with one physician tells the story of how five years ago he was called from a medical meeting to attend this ``girl'' who had been taken from a trolley car into his home. She was apparently suffering great pain in the region of the old appendicitis scar and she was conveyed in an ambulance to a hospital. After investigation for a few days, it was decided she was hysterical or a simulator.

On numerous occasions her feigned illness has been so apparently overcoming that she has had to be transferred in an ambulance to a hospital. One of her usual performances has been to get into some home or institution and then keep others awake all night with her signs of distress. It is interesting that she has used the same methods over and over again, but has been adroit enough to vary the illnesses which she has simulated. At one time investigation in a hospital seemed to show that she was neurasthenic. She has been given chances in homes for convalescents, but has never maintained herself in such a place for long. We note she was sent back from one of these to the main hospital on account of having vomited the medicine she had been given. In fact, she has repeatedly been found resisting the treatment which had been prescribed.

The record of admission and treatment given in one hospital is of peculiar interest. She was received there four years ago and evidently had been unable just previously to take care of herself properly on account of roaming. Her clothing was dirty and her head unclean. She was found to have the old appendicitis scar, which contained a small sinus. She remained in bed after admission, complaining of much pain in her abdomen, not well localized however, and would lie moaning, crying, and rolling across the bed. She was then running a slight temperature. After a time an operation was decided upon and a hairpin was found in the abdominal wall, undoubtedly inserted through the scar by the patient herself. (The findings of the surgeon in Chicago, then, revealed a repeated performance.)

At another place the patient maintained she was unable to urinate, but at the same time strongly resisted catheterization. From the variability of her complaint it was found it could not be caused by a local condition, and examination showed no reason for the difficulty. Analysis of her symptoms undertaken at this time led to several stories, one about urethritis, which Inez claimed to have contracted from her brother at 3 years; an episode when she had received a great fright during micturition; an incident when she had seen a man exposed when she went to the toilet. (Of course, our experience with this type of case leads us to appreciate the difficulties of psychological analysis with extreme liars.)

On one occasion she entered a hospital, claiming to have been recently injured; she had been taken in a supposed fainting condition from a car. Then it was she maintained that she had been struck by an iron bar and that a spike had entered her back. She also claimed at this time to have had her toes frozen. Study of the case here, too, showed no signs of injury or frost bite. On another occasion she told of having been dropped by a nurse while being lifted from a bed. Altogether her stories and her simulations have been convincing enough to get for her on many occasions good attention during at least a few days.

We can get no account of true hysterical signs being discovered by any one. There has been no showing of anything but that she is a liar and a simulator. In the hospital records the portions devoted to previous history are thoroughly vitiated by her untruthfulness, and they contain statements which offer great contradictions, one to the other.

Inez has been observed, then, for two long periods by psychiatrists. While at the end of neither period were the observers willing to state that the young woman was compos mentis, still their verdict in this matter had to be made up from considerations of her social behavior rather than from what they were able to discern by direct observation of her mental processes. From one case-record we read that ``The patient was quiet, pleasant, and agreeable, replied promptly and intelligently to questions, and talked spontaneously of her affairs. She was quite clear as to the environment, had apparently a satisfactory memory, with the exception of a recent period preceding admission. Her statements, too, were probably not altogether truthful, but frequently a reason for the untruthfulness was made out. She thought that her mind was all right, but complained of having occasional difficulty in thinking.''

Another prolonged study of her mental status was made four years ago. From the record we learn that there were no apparent reactions to hallucinations. Consciousness was clear and the patient was completely oriented for time, place, and persons. The train of thought was coherent and relevant. Questions were readily answered and attention easily held. Memory was fair for most events. School knowledge was reasonably well retained. Judgment, to this observer, seemed impaired, although no definite delusions could be elicited. Emotionally she was found more or less irritable, fault finding, and at times a trifle despondent. (Certainly the latter would be a natural reaction under the circumstances.) Often, however, she was found cheerful and contented. No special volitional disturbances were noted. Was found to act in an hysterical manner when she felt ill. She was neat, tidy, and cleanly in her habits. Appetite was good and she slept well. Such was the report from the institution where she was held for six months. There was no material change in her condition during this time; she showed herself very proficient with the needle; she was discharged when her sentence expired.

We note a statement from one hospital that this ``girl'' gave no evidence of having had any direct sexual experience, or that she had ruminated much over these matters. Her story about frequent fainting attacks given at this time was not corroborated by observation. The diagnosis from one hospital was neurasthenia, but investigation of her case in most places seems to have led merely to the conclusion that she was a tremendous liar.

Notwithstanding our long record of this case and the accounts which have been handed in to us of experiences with her in other localities, we do not presume to know a tithe of the places Inez has been to or lived in during the last eight years. It is more than likely that she herself would find it difficult to give any accurate account of her rovings. At the time we first saw Inez her parents had not heard from her for about three years. Shortly after this we found that she had renewed correspondence with them and had sent them money as if she were now prosperous. Her family have all along, in spite of her stories, been poor. At one period she visited several cities in the southeastern states and was at a hospital in one of them. In Charleston there is a family by the name of B. (spelled the same as the name of the people she was with in Tennessee). These were the people Inez asked us to write to in an appeal, because they had long known her and were wealthy, for a chance to get an education. She stated they were immediate relatives of the B.'s in Tennessee, and that she had visited them once at their fine home in Charleston for three or four months. These people replied to us that they had been receiving letters for years from associations and organizations in regard to this girl whom they had never seen. They were convinced she had assumed their name because she had understood they were well-to-do and liberal. ``We know nothing about her education, but judge she has enough to dupe people with; posing as poor at one time, sick at another, and anxious for an education at another, as you inform us.''

From another correspondent with whom Inez had lived in Alabama for a few weeks we had a marvelous tale which they heard from her. She had told them she formerly lived in the most beautiful part of New Orleans and when 5 years old was placed in a convent, and then taken to a boarding-school, from which she was kidnapped and taken to a small town in Georgia. She was later placed in another boarding-school and there met the wealthy B.'s of Charleston who took her home with them. While there she had to go to a hospital on account of some infection. One day she was thrust into a taxicab, taken on a boat, landed at another city, etc. The B.'s of Charleston have thus figured long in her story, and we learned from several correspondents that this kidnapping has figured over and over as a big event in her life.

Once, years ago, Inez was taken into a private home accompanied by a trunk, we hear, which was found to contain a considerable amount of jewelry. This was pawned in the name of the people with whom she then lived and was redeemed later by some one else. Inez laid claim to the jewelry after a time, but apparently was unable to produce anybody who could vouch that it was really hers. Its ownership has remained unknown.

When she went to St. Louis at one time she had stated she was to meet a relative there, but the person, we have come to know, was a certain very decent young man who had become acquainted with her through a correspondence bureau. He had thought well of her and warned her not to come to that city, but when she did so he met her and took her at once to his own home where the womenfolk looked after her until she was found a place elsewhere. The deliberate attempt to throw herself upon his protection was thus frustrated by his relatives. Many other reports of the misrepresentations of Inez have been given us. She has discovered that borrowing money on the strength of invented statements is sometimes possible, particularly for her with her good presence and convincing manner. The B.'s complained that when she left Tennessee there were in her trunk many dollars' worth of articles that belonged to them.

Throughout our long experience with Inez we have never been able to make up our mind whether or not she remembered all of her past. Her lying always stood in the way of getting at anything like the real facts. On no occasion has she truthfully dealt with her career as we know it. She has professed absolute lack of knowledge of her accident, and of the time and place of its occurrence. It is interesting that none of her acquaintances mention this. Although Inez has told long stories of her past to many people, and with some inclusion of truth, she never seems to have mentioned this important event of which we learned from her family. We cannot, then, decide about possible amnesia for this occurrence.

On occasion Inez has expressed the same desire for religious experience as for education, and has written to friends that she had become imbued with the Spirit. Her story of her religious upbringing is altogether unreliable and contradictory, but while in one hospital she professed belief, took communion, and was baptized in a certain faith. Her behavior was not, however, in the least modified by this.

One serious minded woman took Inez at her word when she said she wanted to study algebra and offered her a good opportunity which was never accepted. This demonstrated clearly that the desire was a matter of words only. Inez' constant assertion of independence has been one of her main sources of temporary success. Kindly people have speedily taken up with her. Sympathy is undoubtedly, in spite of her statements to the contrary, one of the strongest needs of her nature. In one of her letters we note her expression of satisfaction in a certain situation where she found herself much ``mothered'' by kind nurses. All her chances, however, have been spoiled by her indulgence in lies.

Inez has remained adamant to every plea and suggestion made by many well-wishing friends that she reform and begin again. After her parents and other relatives were found and communicated with, her career partly known, and her mother's need of sympathy shown to her, she still refused to change her story in many particulars-even when she knew that we had discovered about her writing home within recent months. She steadily refused to acknowledge her true age. When the evidence was complete, showing that she could not be held as a runaway girl, but must be treated under the law as a woman, she went forth to begin, as we heard from many other sources, her old misrepresentations of herself, which speedily got her into further trouble.

We were not astonished, even after we had accumulated almost the entire knowledge of the career which we have outlined above, and Inez knew that we had done so, to be visited by two fine philanthropic women who wanted to consult with us about an unfortunate girl who had won their sympathy, and who had been placed by them in a leading hospital after having shown some signs of acute bronchitis. In fact, she was in such a bad condition that she had to be transferred in an ambulance. But her illness had rapidly cleared up and now after ten days of observation an eminent diagnostician had thoroughly scolded her for simulation, and the girl was once more on their hands. Indirectly they learned that we knew of the case of this ``girl of 16.'' They realized that they had been taken in, but it had been done so cleverly, and, as they expressed it, Inez showed herself such a splendid actress, that they wondered if she had not extraordinary histrionic abilities which could be utilized. (It remains to be seen whether anything constructive can be done by following this lead. We feel that previous psychiatrists who gave earlier an unfavorable prognosis in this case were perhaps quite right. But perhaps we should not let our opinions in this be swayed by the fact that my associate, Dr. Bronner, who went to this last hospital was met by an absolute denial on the part of Inez of the essentials of the above career, by her insistence that she was not the same person as the daughter of the Smiths, and that she was only 17-all this in spite of her knowledge of our correspondence with her family and others, and her own previous acknowledgments of lying.)

Summary: In summarizing the characteristics of this woman we may first insist that she has ambition, push, and energy in high degree. Her personality as expressed in general bearing, features, and facial action is remarkably strong and convincing. Her ambition was shown in her work on our tests as well as in her social behavior. (We have wondered if it was not her desire to shine which prevented the typical performance of the pathological liar on the ``Aussage'' test.) Her self-confidence as expressed on numerous occasions is no less striking. ``I tell you, doctor, that I have told lies, but you will see that I will come out on top.''

Inez has been free from the overt problems of sex life. We have repeatedly been informed that she has been a girl of good character in this respect. ``I ran away from home for a good cause. I'm not one of those girls who is crazy about the boys.'' Usually Inez shows a very even temper. It is only when her own personality is trod upon that she grows angry, and obstinacy is then her leading reaction. Some pathological liars may be weak in character, but not Inez. She is the firmest of persons. On occasions her attitude is entirely that of the grand lady. Her type of lying is clearly pathological. It would often be very hard to discern a purpose in it, and over and over again she has defeated her own ends by further indulgence in prevarications. To her the utterance of lies comes just as quickly and naturally as speaking the truth comes to other people. Even in interviews with us when she was voluntarily acknowledging her shortcomings in this direction she went on in the same breath to further falsifications.

The medical aspects of the case come under the same category as the lying. The dysuria, the spitting of blood, the sugar in the urine, the hairpins found twice in the abdomen, the simulated pains, neurasthenia, and bronchial attacks, together with her stories of accidents and fainting spells illustrate her general tendency. This behavior, like her lying, serves to feed her egocentrism, her craving for sympathy and for being the center of action. As with the lying, repetition of this type of conduct probably is largely a matter of habit.

The bearing of this case on the problems of testimony is interesting. As shown in our account of tests done, when objective concrete material was considered by this woman she reported it well. It is only when her egocentrism is brought into play that she becomes so definitely unreliable. This is a line of demarcation that students of this subject would do well to recognize.

Causative Factors: Our study of causation in this case, as we intimated at first, is necessarily incomplete. But some things, probably explanatory, stand out very clearly. Heredity is moderately defective. Inez was the outcome of an unfortunate pregnancy and was a poorly developed infant. She suffered early from a number of illnesses, which, however, left no perceptible physical defects. Her unusual relationship to the other children, based on the difference in age, was perhaps a starting point for the development of her inventional theories of her own origin. She has given us many hints of this in speaking of her earliest remembrances of hearing the Smiths whispering something about adoption, and of her feeling that the other children were too old for her to belong to their family.

Then we insist on the positive bearing which this woman's native traits have had in the production of her career. Her facility with language marks her as possessing one of the chief characteristics of the pathological liar. Added to this she showed the other personal traits which we have described in detail, leading to her success in misrepresenting herself. Her strongly developed physiognomy has caused many people to believe her older than she stated, but still one has seen such lineaments belonging to girls of 17.

The bearing which the accident at 18 had upon the case it is impossible for us to estimate. Her family are very clear on this point; they maintain that all her bad conduct has developed since then. Through unwillingness, or barely possibly real amnesia for the injury, Inez has not helped us to know the facts. Dr. Augusta Bronner, who has studied this case with me, cleverly suggests that just as anyone becomes confused in distinguishing really remembered experiences from what has been told by others was one's experience, so Inez gets confused between what has really happened and what she herself has told as having happened. This finally involves a pathological liar in a network which is difficult to untangle. Part of the causation of the present lying, then, is the extensive lying which has been done previously.

Psychological analysis in such a case is most difficult because of the unreliability of the individual's own statements about her life, inner and outer. Psychoanalysts will be delighted, in the light of what we long afterward found out, at the pregnant opening sentence of an interview, recorded above, when Inez blurted out that she was once in a State hospital. However, from what we ascertained, we may see clearly that here is an individual with a past that she desires to cover up. Much more delinquency may be involved of which we know nothing. As the result of circumstances and traits she finds herself, despite her very good ability, inadequately meeting the world. Her forceful personality carries her into situations which she is incompetent to live up to. The immediate way out is by creating a new complication, and this may be through lies or the simulation of illness, at which she has become an adept. Altogether, Inez must be thought of as one who is trying to satisfy certain wishes and ambitions which are too much for her resources. Towards the goal to which her nature urges her she follows the path of least resistance. Being the personality that she is, the social world offers her stimulation which does not come to others.

To discuss the problem of her responsibility would be to introduce metaphysics-it is sure that in the ordinary sense she is not insane. The cause of her career is not a psychosis, although we readily grant that out of the materials of her mental experience she may ultimately build up definite delusions.

CASE 4

Summary: A girl of 16 had been engaged in an extraordinary amount of clever shoplifting under the influence of her ``mother.'' In the courts where the cases against her were heard there was much sympathy with the girl, but it was difficult to carry out any measures for her benefit because of the excessive prevarications which had characterized her for a long period. Under oath she falsely accused her ``father'' of sex immorality with her. She was removed from her home, and with knowledge of the mental conflicts which beset her, splendid efforts to ``cure'' this girl met with success. It is another case where supposed inherited traits turn out to be the result of environmental influences.

Through frequent communication with the highly intelligent woman with whom Edna F. was placed in a small western city after she was taken from her previous miserable environment, we have been able to keep close check on the progress of the case for several years. It was also very fortunate for our understanding that a nurse who knew the girl's real mother in New York, where Edna was born, appeared on the scene and gave us data upon which we could base some opinions of the outcome. The case in its entirety had proved very baffling to detectives because of the mass of contradictory lies told by both the girl and her ``mother.''

Our attention was first called to this girl when a number of court people were trying to solve the mystery. She had been arrested for shoplifting and her curious attitude and statements had made some believe she was not quite right mentally. Once before she had been detected stealing things in a shop. One of her remarkable statements this last time was that her parents were implicated in the thieving and she named certain stolen articles which might be found at their home. She went with the detectives and accused her ``mother'' of wearing a dress which she, Edna, had stolen. The woman was forced to give up the dress and other articles, but it was found later that these goods had been actually bought and paid for by the parents. Later it was found that the woman was a party to the girl's stealing and this made the girl's story seem all the more strange, for if she were going to involve the people at all why did she not pick out the actually stolen articles? However, long study of the case brought out the fact that this type of statement was a characteristic of Edna's. Her word on even important points was absolutely unreliable and her own interests were frequently thwarted by her prevarications.

The case in its different aspects came up in court again and again until finally most of the truth was ascertained, enough to justify radical measures being undertaken. During this period the mother was discovered to be an atrocious liar; even with her last bitter confession that all she had said about her motherhood had been untrue, she manufactured more quite unnecessary falsehoods. In the meantime the family physician and the family lawyer had both informed me of the peculiar mysteries of the case and of the perfect mass of lies into which the statements of both mother and daughter led. This sort of thing had been going on for years. It is of no small interest to note that the woman was greatly over-dressed and made up. On numerous occasions she appealed to us to study the girl and find out why she lied so much and why she had such an inclination to steal, in the meantime attempting to fill us up with many inventions about the girl's antecedents.

Physical examination showed a perfectly normally developed girl. No sensory defects. Pleasant features. Well shaped head. Weight 101 lbs; height 5 ft. 1 in. We found no hysterical stigmata. Menstruation had first occurred at 14. No trouble or irregularity was reported. We learn the girl has never had any serious illness. She herself told of fainting spells after being whipped and so on, but these were undoubtedly falsifications. The family physician informed us he had operated on the girl for appendicitis about three months previous to the time we first saw her. He had found some evidences of an old appendiceal inflammation, but it is quite likely from the various accounts which we heard that her symptoms recounted to him were largely fabrication and that the signs which he found, at least in their excessive phases, were partly deceptions. The most important point for the court proceedings was his findings that the girl had never been sexually tampered with and had no local disease. At the time when we knew Edna she was being treated for a local infection which must have been recent and superficial, for it rapidly subsided.

We had ample opportunity to test Edna's ability and found it quite normal. She had been out of school much and had been careless in general about her education, but she had finally finished the grammar school. A long list of tests was done almost uniformly well. Where a prolonged task which required concentration was asked, Edna was inclined to work carelessly, but in general her capacities proved to be decidedly good. She was accustomed to read nothing but the lightest literature and fairy stories and her interests were of the superficial sort. Neither in powers of imagery or imagination, nor by anything else ascertained about her mental abilities did we come to know of any point of special bearing upon her behavior.

On the ``Aussage'' picture test, she gave only 12 details, all correct, on free recital. Upon questioning she gave 28 more items and almost the only variation from accuracy was in respect to the colors. Evidently she let her fancy run when she could not remember correctly; through this she got 6 items incorrect. She readily accepted 3 out of 4 suggestions.

Our earliest impressions of Edna state that she seemed much confused in her stories and in her manner of telling them, leaving sentences unfinished and trying to explain inconsistencies by other inconsistencies. At this time she was referring constantly to her doubts about her age, her family, and her origin. She then seemed highly suspicious of every one and talked of suicide. However, when she was showing these signs she could be diverted, for she worked with much pleasure at the tests, particularly certain memory tests on which she did well.

On account of the difficulties of the solution of this case under the law considerable time and effort were spent in looking up her record. It was found that some years ago Edna had run away from home and there was a newspaper article published about her. Even at that time an officer who went to the home was unable to ascertain the truth in the case. The family had frequently moved and the mother asserted it was because of the bad reputation which the girl's actions had given them. The neighbors complained of the cruelty of the parents to Edna, but this meant only the whippings which the mother had given her. By all accounts the father was a good man who insisted that affairs between his wife and Edna were not his own. (Edna always maintained that this man had been unusually good to her, although she so strangely made in court the false accusations of prolonged sex immorality on his part and reiterated these statements even to us. It was not until many months afterward that she acknowledged the falsity of her accusations, although we knew from her physician that they were not true.)

The first time Edna was in court was when she was about 14 years old. At that time she had been observed by a department store detective stealing hosiery and a bracelet. She perceived she was being shadowed and walked up to the counter and ordered some children's garments, having them charged and sent to a fictitious name and address. The detective thought this a masterpiece of slyness, this endeavor to throw them off the track. Since the family, who really kept an account at this store, appealed to the manager to have Edna let off as it was an ordinary trick of a growing girl, the charge was withdrawn. Detectives who had been employed from a private agency made a very poor showing on getting at the real facts. The husband was doing well in his business and there never seemed to be any reason to suspect his wife of being directly or indirectly connected with the shoplifting. Earlier there was some intimation that Edna was not the child of these people, but the persons who suggested this did not know the true facts and were found to have a grudge against the mother. In the meantime the latter had strongly maintained her relationship.

It was months after this and just before we saw the case when a detective, who had kept the case in mind, went to the house to get the goods which Edna maintained had been stolen. There he found the ``mother'' and another woman smoking and thought he detected signs of their being drug habitues. Later, I myself felt sure of this point, but we were never able to state to what drug they were addicted. Edna frequently stated she had been accustomed to buying morphine for these women, but her statements about its appearance and its cost were so at variance with the facts that though it is likely she had bought something of the kind, yet no amount of inquiry brought out the definite facts. The woman's appearance and her remarkable lack of veracity were both highly suggestive of a drug habit.

In our several interviews with this woman we were amazed by her strange self-contradictions. It was not only that she stated something different from what she had said a week before, but even at different times on the same day her statements would be changed. Concerning her relationship to Edna she gave us the facts of the girl's birth and laughed off the idea that she was not the girl's mother. ``Why, I can remember every moment of my pregnancy with her.'' It was anomalous that this woman had hired a righteous man as a lawyer to represent her and the girl. This attorney, consulting with me, soon came to the conclusion that the only interest he would serve in the case was that of the girl, and then only in the effort to save her from the miserable influences of her mother.

Edna's school record was most peculiar. She had been frequently changed on account of her dishonesty. In one sectarian school she was said to steal all sorts of useless things-bits of string, pieces of pencils, and articles no one else would want. She also stole a two dollar bill from a grocery store; the cashier followed her and recovered the money from her person right there in the school. Edna always denied that she took things. While in another school she had flowers sent to all the teachers and the florist's bill was presented to her there. In still another school she took a pair of shoes from a boy at recess, wore these and left her old ones in the locker room. Her word was everywhere recognized as being most unreliable.

After the case had long been in court and Edna still stoutly maintained that she was not the child of these parents, but had complicated her story by adding incidents which were known to be untrue, such as her ``father's'' immorality with her, that there had been another adopted child in the family, that even the dishes the family used were stolen by her, and so on, the woman came and suddenly blurted out that she herself had been lying all along and that this was not her child. She then alleged the parentage was so and so, but this matter was in turn looked up and found to be false. It was adjudged that these people had absolutely no parental rights, and then work was begun on constructive measures of redeeming the girl if possible. It was not long after this that the nurse came to us who had known the girl's real mother in New York and who had taken charge of Edna as an infant before her foster mother had taken her. It seems that the mother was an American, that this child was illegitimate. A few months after her birth the mother abandoned her, became dissolute and is said to have since died.

Edna had run away from home on several occasions and slept in hallways for a night or two at a time. She had not been sexually immoral until just previous to our seeing her. Then while away from home she had gone with a man to a hotel, and probably had also been with boys. These were her first and last experiences of the sort, but how much these affairs had been on her mind we obtained some intimation of from herself.

``My mother took me to S's when I was 8 years old and told me to take anything I could and I got into the habit of it. I can't stop myself. I take anything I want. Mother said she would kill me if I told the truth. I had to say lots of things that were not so. I had to lie and say mother did not beat me, but she had a horsewhip that was plaited, father burned it. Then they bought a little one, but she beat me with a rubber hose and everything. The first thing I think I stole was jewelry in a store down-town. The woman I call `auntie' said if I would give her the goods she would pay me for them.''

``My mother fixed it up that if she got the goods and got caught she would get a clerk to make out receipts and get them stamped paid. She has not done this yet, but I think she will in this case.'' (This was a statement at the very first interview with Edna and no doubt had reference to the fact that the mother could produce receipted bills for the dress and other articles which Edna had maintained to the detective she herself had stolen. Of course the girl's story of this was untrue; the receipts were genuine.)

``One of my sisters is adopted, but my father does not know it. She ain't real. It was this way. When my pa was out west for a year ma asked me to look in the papers for a baby and I looked and found an advertisement about one. Ma said she must not be redheaded because that ain't like the family. We went and got her and ma went to bed for nine days and pretended it was her baby. She took a shawl and gave the nurse $25 and made out adoption papers. She took me with her. It was a month old. She made me go and tell my aunt I had a little sister. My aunt said it looked kind of big for 3 days old, but ma said she had been keeping it in an incubator. She had padded herself out before, and pretended it was her own child. Pa came home when it was six months old and he loved the baby just like his own. I ain't jealous, but it makes me sick to hear such lies.''

This alleged fact, reiterated to us and testified to in the court, was in itself a source of the whole case being farther followed up. The nurse was found who took care of Edna's ``mother'' during her confinement and it was found that Edna's whole story was quite untrue. It was evidently an elaborate fabrication representing the facts as they might have been about Edna herself. The only part of it that was true was that one of the younger children had been for a time in an incubator.

``Since I was 10 years old I have known about that. I have known I was not her child. She said something that sounded queer to me once when I ran away. It made me think she was not my mother.

``Why do I tell lies? I got started at it when I was small. She used to make me tell lies to my father. I began to steal when I was about 8 years old. My little sister has started to take things already. She is only 4. I was trying to break her and mother said, `Let her alone.'

``She's had about nine different servants. She never can keep any. She used to make me forge letters. She made me sign a girl's name to a receipt for wages which the girl never received. The girl had no case against her because she had the receipts. The poor girl lost it.

``I am going to tell the truth. There's going to be lots of things come out. I am going to tell the judge I lied when I told him I did not steal the things. Why did I lie? Well, she gave me just one look and I knew what she would do to me when I got home. Everything I told you about my father is the truth. Where else would I get that disease? I was never allowed to go out with boys.''

At another time when we inquired what bothered or worried her more than anything else we obtained an account of her sex repressions. Of course there would always be difficulty in knowing just how true the details were but probably she gave us the main factors in her mental life.

``I used to be out in the streets all the time. There were hardly any houses around there then. I used to hear mother talk about things. She would send me out of the room and say it was not for me to hear. Then boys lived near me and they asked me to do bad things. I first heard about those things from a boy on the porch. I was 7 or 8. I was always thinking about it-what my mother said at that time, I mean. She did not explain it enough. I am always fidgety, always nervous. My hands and feet are always going. Whenever I would see a boy it would always come up in front of my eyes. It was mostly when I saw boys. If she had explained it more it would not have come up that way. I know a girl who does that thing. She's bad. She does it with boys too. The people said so. When I was little I imagined there were some bad girls. You can't tell, but you can guess a little. That boy had lots of things. I don't know if he took anything. It was when I was about 4 until I was 8 that I played with him. These things never came up in my mind when I was taking things. It was only when I was not busy. I was always thinking about it when I haven't anything else to do. These few little words were not enough to explain. I remember I asked my aunt once. I tried to put things together what I heard, and what words about it meant.''

The above excerpts from many interviews with this girl represent points upon which there is the least contradiction. It is obviously useless to give any more of her story because of the variation from time to time. Even on the last occasion when we talked earnestly to her before she was taken to her new home, she lied to us about a number of points. Any attempt at an accurate analysis of her impulse to steal seemed quite beyond the mark in the light of her ever-ready fabrications.

The after-history of this case is of the utmost importance. A woman of strong character took Edna and surrounded her with new interests. Conference was had with us on the nature of the case. For the next few months reports came that the girl was a liar through and through and grave doubts were entertained of ultimate success. It was after she had been tried in her new environment for 3 months that, seeing us again, she confessed that her stories about her foster father were absolutely untrue. From about this time on there has been steady improvement. No more elaborate fabrications have been indulged in. On several occasions when Edna has been late from school she has lied about it, but even that tendency for the last year has been nearly obliterated. A good deal of interest in boys has been maintained, but not with any show of immorality. There has been nothing but normal flirting; accounting for the occasions when Edna has been late from school.

At two or three periods during her new life Edna has engaged in stealing. She has taken articles for which she had no particular use and has told lies about the matter. The thieving has not been a single event, but each time has seemed to represent a state of mind she has been in, and for a week or so numerous articles have been taken. We warned her good friend to make a study of her social and mental influences at such periods. It was found then that Edna was undergoing special stress on at least one such occasion. A young man had been making up to her, and later she confided that this given period was one of great turmoil because of the renewed arousal of many ideas about sex affairs. After this there was still more attempts to win Edna's confidence about her daily experiences, including such as the above. There has been the gradual development of character, and Edna is now, two years after she was taken from her bad environment, only very occasionally guilty of falsifying, and she is otherwise trustworthy.

Our study of the causative factors of this girl's delinquency and particularly of her extraordinary lying led us to see that perhaps all of the following have a part: (a) Heredity. Father unknown. Mother a free-living woman. (b) Home conditions. Mental and moral bad influences in the home life on account of the foster mother conniving at stealing and being herself an extreme liar. (c) Psychic contagion from the atmosphere of lies in which the girl has been brought up. (d) Mental conflict arising from the suspicion of her parentage, early acquaintance with sex knowledge, and the irregular morale of her home life. (e) Bad companions, including her foster mother's friends, and boys and girls.

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Mental Conflict. Case 4.

Girl, age 15 yrs.

Home influences: Extremely bad, including

excessive lying.

Bad companions.

Heredity (?).

Delinquencies: Mentality:

Much stealing. (Shop lifting, etc.) Fair ability.

Excessive lying.

False accusations.

Sex immorality.

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CASE 5

Summary: A young woman of 20, bright mentally, strong physically, ``confessed'' to a professor of a university where she was studying that she had shot and killed a man. The facts were known to only three or four people and she was terribly worried about it all. Upon her information the affair was taken up by a group of professional men, one of them a lawyer of large practical experience. She aided in an investigation which attempted to uncover the ``white slave'' feature of the case. The data of verification proved most elusive. Later, the young woman implicated herself in a burglary, and altogether an elaborate story of her life was evolved. It was found that from early years she had been a great fabricator.

While a first year student at a university Marie M. begged for an interview with one of her instructors at his home and there, with him and others, she told a detailed story of how some months previously she had escaped a difficult situation by killing a man.

The exceedingly long account which was given at intervals to several professional men and enlarged upon in response to inquiry, or as the occasion otherwise demanded, we are not justified in taking space to retell. This case figures, as a whole, in somewhat anecdotal fashion among our others, we freely confess; it is cited to show the extent to which apparently purposeless fabrication can go. It has been found impossible to gain a satisfactory idea of the genesis of this young woman's tendency, quite in contrast to the other cases we have cited. It forms the only instance where we have drawn from our experience with merely partially studied cases.

Marie's story involved many items of her life since she was about 12 years of age. A distant relative who had come to know her whereabouts (she was an orphan living with friends) figured extensively in her narrative. This relative had hounded her in an effort to get her to engage in an evil life. His attentions varied greatly; sometimes for months she was not bothered with him. Once when she was on her way to Milwaukee a gray haired man approached her on the train, said he knew her relatives, they were rather a bad lot of people, and he wanted to protect her from them. Then came a long account of being driven in a carriage, changing her clothes in a hotel, having her picture taken in an immodest costume, signing a paper at police headquarters, and, at last, safely returning home, all guided by the mysterious gray haired man. Another trip led to an encounter with a man who took her in an automobile under the promise of meeting a friend. Entering a building where men carried revolvers and girls were given hypodermic injections, just as she was about to receive the needle in her arm, she reached the man's revolver and shot him in the back. Events follow swiftly in her tale, but all is thoroughly coherent, and a number of facts are included which could be substantiated. The professional men could not help being impressed and spent much valuable time before they felt convinced that it was a fabrication. The exact locations could not be discovered, but then Marie was a stranger in the city.

When we saw her the whole story was reiterated with but few changes, which, however, from the standpoint of testimony were most important. We soon found we could get direct testimony on physical features which were provably untrue. For instance, the description of a certain hallway in a building where she had gone with one of the men interested in the events was totally unlike anything that existed there. Then, too, certain embellishments, which by this time included the payment of a large check to her as hush money, a check which she as easily gave away again, seemed altogether improbable. Marie by this time was implicating herself in a burglary with this relative, and some other curious incidents were given. In all of these, as we later found, there was a central event about which her statements MIGHT have been true. There was such a burglary; she had said in previous years that she was hounded by a man, and so on. We, too, were struck by the uselessness and lack of purpose in the lying-for we soon felt assured that it was such.

Physically we found Marie to be a decidedly good specimen. She weighed about 140 lbs. Strong and firm in carriage. Vivacious in expression. The physical examination at the university had shown her to be without notable defect of any kind. We can summarize Marie's characteristics by stating that from the earliest age of which we can get satisfactory record, when she was about 10 years old, she has been persistently addicted to falsehoods. Even then she made up, without any basis, stories which puzzled many people. It is much to the point that she has been a great loser on account of this tendency; it has injured her reputation on numerous occasions and destroyed many of her good chances. When she was about 15 it was noticed that she was a great day-dreamer. She thought she could write stories and once began a novel. Much more peculiar than this was the fact that she repeatedly wrote letters to her friends which were simply a mass of fabrications, describing such things as imaginary excursions.

Tests for mental ability were not given in this case, there was no need for it. Her marks in the preparatory course were just fair. It had been noted by her teachers, as well as by her foster parents, that she was prone to have periods when attention to her work seemed difficult. Aside from her peculiarities, which showed themselves entirely in her fabricating tendency and her assumed illnesses, nothing much out of the way in her mental life had ever been noted. On several occasions she had taken to her bed, but when a physician was called, a diagnosis was given of simulation, or hysteria. Nothing like major hysterical attacks at any time occurred,

From most excellent sources of information we have obtained an account of the family history. No instance of insanity is known, but it is said there is much evidence of ignorance and superstition. Marie's mother bore a good character, but was decidedly ignorant. At about the age of 50 she made a homicidal attack upon a second husband and then killed herself. The father was an industrious and sober laborer, but unable to support his large family. At his death in Marie's early childhood the family was broken up and the ten children were distributed about. None of the children is said to be abnormal mentally, but there has been a tendency to free living, even on the part of the older sisters. It seems very sure that no other member of the family was given to telling false stories. The brothers have been inclined to be shiftless and to roam, but then the environmental conditions often have been against them. However, some of them have done well. In general, as far as Marie is concerned, it may be said early home environment was not bad except on account of poverty. Marie bears no traces of having suffered from defective conditions before or after birth. Her early developmental history appears to be negative. She has lived about in several different homes, the longest stay being about seven years. In one place she was suspected of masturbation, but we were unable to get a perfectly definite statement that she was addicted to the habit.

Two years prior to the time we knew Marie she had worked up a story of adventure in which she was the heroine. She used the telephone to call for help, stating that she stood with a revolver covering a burglar. From this incident she gained a good deal of notoriety. The police found there was nothing to the case and later Marie herself made a confession. By the time we saw her this story varied somewhat from her original statement, but was still persisted in, although she must have known that we could readily trace the actual occurrence.

After Marie had continued her stories for a few weeks while attending the university they had grown so that they included night visitations in her boarding-house from the man who was said to be hounding her, she was found once more impossible to deal with and, as her work became poorer, she had to leave. At this period it was most significant to us that in spite of her expressed desire for freedom from persecution she did not want us to look further into her case because of certain mysterious letters which would incriminate her. We felt entirely convinced that the several reports which we received of her career in preceding years gave a satisfactory clew to her character, although we were never able to analyze the case far enough to ascertain the genetic features. Thus it is impossible to make any summary of causative factors.

CASE 6

Summary: A thoroughly characteristic example of the type of pathological lying which led to the invention of the term pseudologia phantastica. A young woman, well endowed physically and mentally, for years has often been indulging in extensive fabrications which have no discernible basis in advantages accruing to herself. The peculiarities of the falsifications have given rise to much trouble for her, her family, and for many others who have been incidentally connected with the situation. The genesis of the tendency was finally found in early experiences about which there have been much mental repression and conflict. In the background there was also defective home control and chronic neuropathic tendencies in both parents and in their kin.

Janet B., 19 years old, we saw first in an eastern city at the request of her parents. There she had become involved in troubles which seemed particularly hard to unravel. However, we were told that this was an old story with her. A diagnosis of her mental condition was asked, and recommendations for the future. Janet had told some very peculiar stories at her place of employment where she was doing very well as a newcomer, without any seeming reason for fabrication. Several who had become interested in her were wondering if she were quite sane.

After having made her way alone to New York, Janet readily obtained employment. After a couple of weeks she approached a department manager of the concern for which she worked and related a long story, which at once aroused his sympathy. She told him that her father and mother had died in the last year and that she was entirely dependent upon herself. When she was about four years of age she had been in a terrible accident and a certain man had saved her life. Naturally, her father had always thought very highly of this person and had pensioned him. Formerly he lived up in the country with his family, but at present was old, penniless, and alone in the city. Now that her parents were dead she was in a quandary about keeping up her father's obligation to the old man. Out of her $8 a week it was hard to make both ends meet. She had to pay her own board and for this man also. She found that he needed to be taken care of in every way; she had to wash his face and dress him, he was so helpless. She made no demand for any increase of salary and the story was told evidently without any specific intent. The services of a social worker were enlisted by the firm and the girl reiterated the same story to her, even though it was clearly intended that the case should be investigated. Janet's boarding-house was visited and there she was found to be living with distant relatives whom she had searched out upon her arrival in the city. They knew she had run away from home and, indeed, by this time the mother herself was already in New York, having been sent for by them.

The situation then became more complicated through the girl's giving more explanatory details to the social worker, somewhat accusing her own family. It was at this time I first saw her. She then acknowledged that this story of a man who had saved her life was purely an invention. Now she stated that in the western town where she lived she had been engaged to a young man who was discovered to be a defaulter and who had recently died. When this fellow was in trouble, his mother, while calling on Janet's family, used to make signals to her and leave notes under the table cover, asking for funds with which to help him out. This was a great strain upon Janet and even more so was his death. She could stand it no longer and fled the city. Her lover's stealing was a secret which she had kept from her own family.

Before we had become acquainted with the true facts about the family this girl gave us most extensive accounts of various phases of her home life which included the most unlikely and contradictory details. For instance, they had a large house with beautiful grounds, yet before she left home she bought a sewing machine for her mother, which she is paying for on weekly installments. Her $8 a week is very little for her to live on because she is paying this indebtedness. Janet wishes now to take out a twenty year endowment policy in favor of her mother. Her brothers and sister are all very bright, she tells us, but she has never been particularly close to any member of her family except her mother. The others always remind her that they are better educated than she is. She expects to take up French and Spanish in the evenings because they would be very helpful to her commercially. She does not care to grow up, prefers simple enjoyments, and has no desire for social affairs. She is only desirous of improving her education. She relates her success as a Sunday School teacher. She thinks at times she is very nervous, and especially when she was in the high school she showed signs of it. Then she used to stutter much, but of late she has been able to control this.

At another time, very glibly and without the slightest show of emotion, she continues with her story. Tells of frequent fainting spells when she goes from one attack into another. She has not had them just recently, but she used to have them at home. Tells us now that her mother has been very sick and she has been worrying much about her. She wanted to send money to her and help support her. `It's awfully hard on one to know your mother is terribly sick and to think you can't reach her if anything should happen.'' (It is to be remembered that all this was told when the girl must have known, if she had thought at all, that we would certainly get the full facts in a day or so.)

On the physical side we found a very well developed and well nourished young woman. Weight 148 lbs. No sensory defect noted. Moderately coarse features, broad deep chest, quiet and strong attitude. No signs whatever of nervousness. Her only complaint at present is of headaches and ``quivering'' attacks. (We could get no corroboration at all of either of these from any one else.) She frequently spoke of herself as entirely healthy except for these slight ailments. Some months later, vide infra, it was discovered that Janet had a chronic pelvic trouble. The most notable finding was Janet's facial expression when confronted by some of her incongruities of behavior. Then she assumed a most peculiar, open-eyed, wondering, dumb expression. When flatly told a certain part of her story was falsehood, she looked one straight in the eyes and said in a wonderfully demure and semi-sorrowful manner, ``I am sorry you think so.'' Her expression was sincere enough to make even experienced observers half think they must themselves be wrong.

On the mental side she demonstrated good ability in many ways. She had been through two years of high school and showed evidences of her training. We tested her for a number of different capacities and, with one exception, we found all through that she did fairly satisfactory work, showing herself to have normal mental capabilities and control.

This exception was in the ``Aussage'' or testimony test. Here in reporting on our standard picture she gave in free recital 17 items, which is a fair result, but she added several incorrect details. On questioning she gave 12 more items, but invented still more details. Of the seven standard suggestions offered she very curiously accepted only one, and that not important. As an example of how she would supply details from her fancy is the following: The picture represents a little girl standing by the side of an older person. Janet said it was a little boy, that he had his hands in his pockets, a muffler on his neck, a stocking cap on his head, and black shoes and stockings. All of these were voluntarily offered and all were incorrect.

Beyond this curious performance, and her peculiar lack of foresight and shrewdness, or whatever it is that causes her so readily to falsify and fabricate, we found not the slightest evidence of aberration. Her conversation was coherent and to the point.

In the information obtained from the intelligent parents the following points stand out clearly. The heredity is of interest. There has been no known case of feeblemindedness, insanity, or epilepsy on either side, but there is a great admixture of very good with quite unstable qualities. This is true of both sides. Some members of the family have taken high positions in the community, and been exceptionally endowed mentally. Others have been notoriously lacking in stability. We are informed that on one side some have shown a marked inclination for tampering with the truth, and it is suggested that Janet's tendency is the result of early influence. The care of an incompetent grandmother, whose word was notoriously untrustworthy, devolved upon the family and it was impossible to prevent Janet from being much with her. All of the children were aware of the old lady's untruthfulness. One of Janet's parents had been addicted to narcotics, but had managed to shake off the habit. The other parent has had a severe attack of ``nervous prostration,'' largely induced, it is maintained, by worry over family affairs. It is most interesting to note that the other children, two boys and one girl, have turned out remarkably well; two being university graduates, and all being very stable in character. Both parents are people of good moral ideals, and in spite of their own nervous defects have given their children very good care.

The pregnancy with Janet was not entirely healthy, but no worse than with the other children. Her birth and infancy were normal. Walked and talked early. Started to school at 6. Menstruated first at 13; not irregular. She never had any severe illnesses of any kind. As a child she once fell down some steps and was unconscious for a few minutes, but the accident was not known to have left any bad effects. Janet's own stories of fainting are much exaggerated. In fact, the mother has never really seen her faint, nor is there any evidence of any minor lapses of consciousness. At times the girl would feel faint and ask that water be poured on her forehead-that was all there was to it. She was removed in the middle of her high school course on account of general nervousness. The doctor felt she was working too hard. Her parents are sure she was never a great sufferer from headaches. Nothing else of importance could be found in her physical history.

The story of this girl's falsifications and fabrications as obtained from her people is exceedingly long. As a young child she was not over-indulged in fairy stories, and the parents noticed nothing peculiar about her then. She was not regarded as a child who had any unusual powers of imagination. Somewhere about 12 years of age, her parents cannot be certain just when, they noticed she began the exaggeration and lying which has continued more or less ever since. In the past two or three years this has grown upon her and she has been making not only untrue statements, but has been concocting peculiarly long and intricate fabrications. The curious thing to the family is that Janet seems to have little shrewdness in lying; of normal ability in other things, she seems to have the mind of a child in this. Very many deceptions are discovered in short order, but even then the girl will sometimes argue at length that what she has said was really the truth. The parents insist she must know that she is lying, but her anomalous behavior has been so excessive that they have long felt she should be studied by a psychiatrist. Her mother asserts there is some periodicity in Janet's tendencies. She maintains she has noticed that most of her lies are told in the two or three days preceding menstruation. (This was certainly not true during the period we observed the girl.) The parents are sure there has never been any particular mental shock, and the mother has always felt that Janet was particularly free from contamination by bad children. At times she seems to realize her own bad behavior, and not long ago said she would become a nun, for in the tranquil life of the convent her tendency to lying would not be stimulated.

Further inquiry brought out the fact that it was true, as Janet stated, that in her high school course she became nervous to the extent of jerking and twitching, and that also for a time she stuttered. Their physician said, however, that there was no definite nervous disease.

As a young child the parents never thought this girl in any way different from the rest of the family. As she grew older she has been regarded as physically the most robust, but, as she stated to us, she has done the poorest intellectual work and that has often been a matter of family comment. The other children are careful truth tellers.

The type of Janet's lying has been not only in the form of falsifications about matters which directly concerned herself, but also involved extensive manufacture of long stories, phantasies. Meeting people she might give them extensive accounts of the wealth and importance of her own family. She once spread the report that her sister was married and living in a fine home close by, giving many elaborate details of the new household. Such stories naturally caused much family embarrassment. Then she worked up an imaginary entertainment and gave invitations to her brothers and sister at the request of a pretended hostess. Just before the event she, simulating the hostess, telephoned that an accident had taken place and the party would not be given. An extremely delicate situation arose because she alleged a certain young man wanted to marry her. The truth of her assertions in this matter never was investigated. The parents felt it quite impossible to go to the young man about the facts on account of the danger of exposing their daughter. They were long embarrassed by the extent to which she kept this affair going, but it finally was dropped without any social scandal occurring. In this and other affairs the family situation was at times unbearable because of the possibility that there might be some truth underlying the girl's statements. As the years went on Janet, of course, suffered from her loss of reputation, but still continued her practices of lying. In the two years before she left home she worked as a clerk. Previously she had held two or three situations and was reported to give good satisfaction in her work, but something would always come up about money matters, or other things, which would finally give rise to trouble. It is not known that she ever really took any money except the last time when she ran away and took a considerable sum from her parents.

A period of extensive untruthfulness and deception occurred before she left home. Janet represented to her parents that she was working at a certain place after she had left. She got into some mix-up about money matters, the rights of which never were straightened out. As usual, the affair was too complicated to be understood by anything short of a prolonged investigation. After things had come to this pass and her parents hardly knew what to do with her, she took money from them and ran away. She was readily traced because the ticket agent in her home town could give a description of her. She had bought a ticket to an intermediate point and there stopped over night. Her father followed her thus far. It seems when she finally got to New York she hunted up the distant relatives who took her in and informed the mother. The girl intended to earn her own living and soon found a good place. She was always able to make a good presentation of herself, being a quiet and convincing conversationalist.

Out of the mess of lies surrounding her New York experience, it was finally found that she had met a young man in a boarding-house and had become infatuated with him. He was an honest enough fellow, but fell in readily with her forwardness. He took her to shows, and letters, intercepted by the mother, showed that between them there had been some premature love passages. At that time Janet started making weekly payments on a gold watch to give to this young man at Christmas, a curious and quite unwarranted expenditure. Perhaps this was the fact around which some of her fabrications at that time centered. Perhaps it was this money which became now the amount she was paying to her father's pensioner, now what she had to send home to her mother, and, again, her payments upon an imaginary sewing machine. In this affair, as at other times, the lying was extremely childish, inasmuch as the truth, through receipts found in her room, proved to be readily ascertainable.

A good example of the character of Janet's falsifications was the story about the death of her lover, told to us at our last interview with her when she had come to us with the specific purpose of trying to get herself straightened out once and for all. She was not aware that her parents had given me any account of this young man, but she might well have supposed that I had inquired about him, or at least would inquire. Only a few minutes previously she had told about her lying and given a very definite account of its beginnings which was much in accord with what her parents had said. Mentioning her love affairs, she maintained that, unbeknown to her parents, she had been engaged to this man, but that he had proved to be a thief, stealing money and robbing the mails. She started off on a story of how another young man was accused, but no evidence was forthcoming about him, and soon afterward her lover died. Getting him safely buried for us, she was quite willing to go on to another topic.

The workings of Janet's mind in connection with her alterations of a story were sometimes most curious. We were interested to study a long letter quite coherently written to her mother a few days before we saw the young woman, and about the time when she first told her long story to the department manager. In the letter she spoke of the extraordinary opportunities she now had in this place of employment, exaggerating her salary to $14 a week. She stated she had already had a raise, and could get work for other members of her family at good salaries. She was about to start a bank account, and so on. But instead of making any remittances to her mother (such as she asserted at one time) she requested her parents to send her $5 to tide her over. We counted no less than nine definite falsehoods in this epistle. We were keen to know if Janet could remember her own prevarications and so asked her if she could recall what she had written to her mother. She trimmed her statements most curiously then, being aware we knew her salary to be $8 a week. She said she had told her mother her salary was $10, but in answer to our reply, ``Oh, you said more than that,'' she blurted out, ``Well, I said $14.'' It was quite evident she remembered this, as well as certain other exaggerated statements and figures in the letter.

We were fortunate enough to be able to analyze out much of the genesis of this girl's career as a pathological liar. After the immediate situation was somewhat cleared and Janet asserted she was anxious to make a new start in life, we began our inquiry into beginnings. Janet showed willingness to enter into the question of her mental antecedents and tendencies which she maintained she heartily deplored. To be sure we had evidence that even in her most sincere moments she was unable to refrain from occasional falsifying, but the main facts seemed self-evidently true, and some of them were corroborated at interviews with the parents.

After considering her own career with us for a time, she asserted that it now was clear to her just how and when she began lying. As a child of about 12 years it seems she was wont to meet with a certain group of girls on a hillside and they indulged in many conversations about sex matters. Evidently the circumstances surrounding this important introduction into affairs of sex life were indelibly impressed upon her mind. She was there instructed not only in the general facts, but also in methods of self-gratification. It is clear to her, she states, that it was exactly at this time that she first began deceiving her mother and telling lies. She explains these tendencies as the result of a guilty conscience. It comes out that the mother did not know this group of girls to be undesirable companions for Janet, but the latter's consciousness of their frailties always led her to state that she had been with other children when in reality she had been in this bad companionship. Through dwelling on their teachings she began sex practices by herself, and in order to carry this out she had to indulge in other deceptions. She remembers distinctly her willful repression of the facts, and states that the nervousness which she displayed for two or three years in her school work was undoubtedly due to this cause. In fact, she thought so at the time, but persisted in deceiving her mother and her physician in regard to the matter.

Her mental repressions and conflicts did not begin, however, at this period. By digging further into her memory Janet tells us about a girl in another town where they used to live, a girl who, when Janet was about 7 years old, wanted to show her about sex practices. Janet knew this girl to be bad by general reputation, and ran away when this offer was made, but it was too late-the mental impress had been formed. She thinks her mother would remember this girl. The things which this bad girl started to tell came frequently up in Janet's mind and she wondered much about them. No practices, however, were indulged in and even the thoughts were fought against until the time mentioned above when other sex ideas were implanted. Janet's mother had neither given nor received confidences on this subject, and indeed never throughout the daughter's life has there been anything except vague warnings on the part of the mother about the general dangers of sex immorality.

We gradually came to learn that Janet had been subject to much sex temptation from her own physical feelings. She never was a good sleeper, she thinks, and she often lies awake, or will wake up for a time in the middle of the night and think of sex affairs. She feels sure there has been considerable stress upon her on account of this temptation which she has felt should be combated. The occasional giving way to sex habits also resulted in mental stress and, as she expresses it, worry.

At the time of her failure to do well in school work her internal conflicts were especially acute. There was before her continually the success which the other members of her family had made, which she herself admired, and for which she was ambitious. She hid at that time the cause of her nervousness and failure; there was the danger of its being discovered. After thus reviewing her case with us, Janet reiterated that she was sure her tendency to prevaricate came on at the time when she first began her bad sex habits.

This girl was probably not much of a day-dreamer. She denies being so, saying she had always been too busy for such to be the case. We also obtained corroboration of this from others who had closely observed her. She says she had lived no specially imaginative life beyond occasionally thinking of herself as a well-to-do lady with many good clothes to wear, or sometimes lying in bed and imagining she had a lover there. Further inquiry into her imaginative life seemed futile because she was not trained in introspection and because even in her frankest moments we were always afraid that she might fall into her strongly formed habit of prevarication. We ascertained that in her home life special efforts had been made to keep her busy and she could not be regarded as a dreamer. Janet strongly denied the periodicity in her lying which her mother maintained, but the girl did state that her periods of sex temptation were mostly just preceding her menstrual period.

In giving the above account of what was ascertained by analysis with Janet we have offered such of her statements as are clearly probable or which are corroborated by the parents. Our many experiences with the young woman led us to be particularly careful in accepting as veracious any of her statements unless, as in what is given above, they clearly followed the type of fact which may be ascertained in the investigation of other instances of pathological lying where the individual's word is more reliable. The parents were able to corroborate many points. The mother remembers the older girl in the town where they lived when Janet was 7 years old and that this girl was notorious for her sex tendencies, although she was not in the least aware that Janet had been contaminated. Then she recollects that Janet used to tell her so particularly about going with a special crowd of girls (those which she now says were not her companions). Both parents considered the matter at great length in order to help my study of the case and both are very certain that it was just about this period when Janet says she was beginning her covert sex experiences that she began the lying, which was petty at first, but after a time expanded into the type of detailed falsifications we have enumerated above. Altogether there was little doubt in our minds that Janet was giving the truth in its main outlines. Undoubtedly it was merely her habit which always led her to alter somewhat the details.

We were interested to note that in her letters and in her ordinary conversation Janet took up the topics that a fairly well educated girl would naturally discuss. For instance, she would give us some account of her recent reading, or a visit to an art gallery, telling us with normal vivacity about a couple of pictures which had deeply impressed her. She spoke not only of their subjective influence, but discussed the details of composition and coloring. We might mention that in a characteristic way she interjected some remarks that she herself used to be very good at drawing and won several prizes at it. She stated that she thought of going farther in art, but that her parents could hardly afford to allow her to do this. These remarks were found later to be quite aside from the truth.

Telling us the story of her school career, Janet insists her memory had never been good for learning poems or for languages, particularly Latin, but anything in the way of a picture she could recall with ease. What she has read she often thinks of in the form of pictures. Concerning her lying she denied it was done particularly to cover up things, at least since the time when the habit was first formed. She feels that it really is a habit, a very bad one. She hardly knows she is going to prevaricate; the false statement comes out suddenly. In thinking about it all she harks back once more to that crowd of girls; everybody thought they were good, but she knew they were not.

After a time of quieting down in her behavior tendencies, although there was never complete cessation of the inclination to falsify, a new exacerbation of lying arose. This time it seemed to center about a clandestine love affair of a mild type. There was one trouble with this case which neither I nor any one else was able to clear for the parents. It was perfectly apparent that the girl might naturally be expected to marry at some time. Now, when an honest young man felt inspired to keep company with this vivacious, healthy, and generally attractive young woman, what were the parents to do? It was easy enough for them to decide that she must not go with a man of bad character, but were they bound in honor to inform any young man, before affairs had gone too far, that the girl had this unfortunate tendency and that she had had rather a shady career? It was perfectly clear to them that she herself would not tell him. This was how the matter stood at the time we last heard of the case, and while the parents were holding back, a young man's affections and the girl's fabrications were growing apace.

Janet had been suffering from a chronic inflammation of the bladder, which, however, did not cause any acute symptoms. A chronic pelvic inflammation was discovered, for which she was operated upon in her home town. The surgeon reported to the parents that conditions were such that they would naturally be highly irritative, although there had been no previous complaint about them. The girl made an exceedingly rapid recovery. It was after this that her last affair of the affections was causing the parental quandary and distress.

Our final diagnosis of this ease, after careful study of it, was that it was a typical case of pathological lying, mythomania, or pseudologia phantastica. The girl could not be called a defective in any ordinary sense. Her capabilities were above the average. She showed good moral instincts in many directions and was at times altogether penitent. Nor could she be said to have a psychosis. The trouble was confined to one form of conduct.

The lying, as in all these cases, seemed undertaken sometimes for the advantages which thereby might accrue. On the other hand, at times the falsification seemed to have no relation to personal advantages. Indeed, this girl had experience, many times repeated, that her lying very quickly resulted in suffering to her. There were aspects of her falsifications which made it seem as if there was pleasure in the mere manufacture of the stories themselves and in the living, even for a short time, in the situations which she had created out of her imagination and communicated to others. Frequently there seemed to be an unwillingness on her part to face the true facts of existence. In her representation of things as different from what they really were she seemed to show even the desire for self-deception. Another point: no student of cases of this kind should allow himself to forget the potency of habit formation. There can be little doubt but that a large share of this girl's conduct was the result of her well developed and long maintained tendency to trim the facts.

As far as we were able to determine, and we undoubtedly got at the essential facts, this girl's falsifying trait was based on the following: The fact that she came of neuropathic stock would make us think that she possibly inherited an unstable mental make-up. To be sure, the only evidence of it was in this anomalous characteristic of hers, namely, her pathological lying. She seemed sound in her nervous makeup. The idea that the grandmother passed on as inheritance her prevaricating traits is open to discussion, but we have seen that environmental influences from this source may have been the only effect, if there was any at all. Very important in this case, without any doubt, is the early sex teaching, its repression and the mental conflict about it for years, and then the reintroduction into the subject just before puberty. Probably this is the vital point of the girl's whole career. The success she early achieved in deceiving her mother, not by denials, but by the elaboration of imaginary situations, has been the chief determinant of her unfortunate behavior. Added to that was the formation of a habit and of an attitude towards life in which the stern realities were evaded by the interposition of unrealities. Even the affair of the imaginary social gathering can be conceived in this light, for evidently she and her family were not engaged then in social affairs and the preparation for a gay event would for a time be a source of excitement and pleasure. Her autoeroticism may have helped towards the production of phantasies and the general tendency to evasion of the realities of life.

It was clear from first to last that the exploration of the genesis of the tendencies in such a case as this could be but one step towards a cure. What was also needed was prolonged disciplinary treatment under conditions which were well nigh impossible to be gained at her age. Willingness on the part of the individual to enter into any long period of discipline or education, such as an institution might offer, is not easily obtained.

--------------------------------

Mental conflict: early and severe. Case 6.

Early sex experiences and habits. Girl, age 19 yrs.

Mental habit formation.

Home conditions: defective understanding

and control, although ordinarily good

home. Early acquaintance with lying.

Heredity: neuropathic tendencies on

both sides.

Delinquencies: Mentality:

Excessive lying. Ability well up to

Runaway. the ordinary.

--------------------------------

CASE 7

Summary: A girl of 16 brought to us by her mother, who regards her as abnormal mentally because she is an excessive liar and delinquent in other minor ways, proved to be an habitual masturbator. Under direction, the mother succeeded in curing her of this habit, with the remarkable result that the young woman became in the course of a couple of years quite reliable.

We first saw this young woman of 16 with the mother who maintained that there must be something wrong with the girl's mentality because of her lying, recent running away from home, and some minor misconduct. There had been trouble with her since she was 7 years old. She was the twin of a child who died early and who never developed normally. Her mother said she seemed smart enough in some ways; she had reached 7th grade before she was 14, but even at that time she was a truant and would run off to moving-picture shows at every opportunity. Her father was a rascal and came of an immoral family. He had a criminal record, and that was another reason why the mother felt this girl was going to the bad. The mother herself was strong and healthy; she was remarried. The existence of feeblemindedness, epilepsy, or insanity on either side was denied.

We quickly observed by the physical conditions of this girl that something was the matter. Expression sad and dull. Long thin face and compressed lips. Vision almost nil in one eye, but normal in the other. Hearing normal. Color only fair. Weight 115 lbs.; height 5 ft. 4 in. Most notable was her general listlessness. ``I feel draggy and tired. I'm yawning all the time.''

On the mental tests we found much irregularity. Tasks that were done without effort were done fairly well. The girl was a good reader and wrote a good hand. A long task in arithmetic was with difficulty done correctly. When she was able to get hold of herself she could do even our harder tests with accuracy. Her failures were apparently from lack of concentration and attention. Although she did some things well we felt obliged to call her dull from physical causes, feeling that if she were in better condition she might give a much better performance.

On the ``Aussage,'' or Testimony Test, 11 items were given on free recital and 2 of these were wrong. Upon questioning, 17 more details were added and 4 of these were incorrect. 2 out of 5 suggestions definitely accepted.

Under observation it was just as the mother said. The girl was an extreme falsifier. As one observer puts it, ``she is not malicious in her lies, but just lies all the time and seems to try to make herself believe what she is saying.''

``I was in the 7th grade. Had a hundred jobs since then. Can't keep them because I'm so draggy. They want their money's worth-they want a more live girl. Sometimes I don't mind my mother and I get spunky. I feel lonesome and get mad. I feel tired. I can't please my mother no matter how hard I try. I'd like to go in some little home where I could have a chance.''

After a few days we found this girl in a decidedly good mood, wanting to be helped. She willingly entered into the analysis of her case with us and said she thought most of her trouble came because she was a day-dreamer. ``Sometimes I dream of things in the day time. I'll sit and stare and stare and think of different things. I'll think I'm doing them. I'll dream of things what I do and if I read a good play I'll dream of that. When I think of myself or somebody starts looking at me I'll stop dreaming.''

To another observer this girl gave a vivid description of how she felt after seeing pictures in the nickel shows. She states that love-making scenes lead her to practice self-abuse. This matter was taken up with her mother who stated that when this child was 7 years old she and the father had caught her at this habit and had severely reprimanded her and had thought she had stopped it. We were particularly interested to hear this because it was exactly the time the mother had specified as the beginning of her lying and general bad behavior. Going farther into the case with the mother and the girl we ascertained that her bad sex habits had been continued more or less during all these years, and of late, particularly under the influence of picture shows, and of what some other girls were doing in the way of delinquency, the habit had become worse than ever. It was closely connected evidently with day-dreaming all these years and with the development of the fabricating tendency.

The mother who had been apparently so negligent of causes proved now to be a stalwart in this case and took the girl under her immediate charge. There was steady betterment. The girl went back and finished school and at the end of a year was reported as tremendously improved. There was no further complaint about her lying. We know that after this she long held a good position which any hint of untrustworthiness or lack of capacity would have lost her. Thus the cure of her sex habits brought about cessation of her extreme untruthfulness.

-------------------------------- Bad sex habits long continued. Case 7. Heredity. (?) Father immoral Girl, age 16 yrs. and criminal. Home conditions. Lack of understanding and supervision. Delinquencies: Mentality: Excessive lying. Dull from physical Early truancy. causes. (Later Running away. quite normal.) --------------------------------

CASE 8

Summary: A thoroughly illustrative case of long continued, excessive pathological lying on the part of a very bright girl, now 17 years old. As this young woman has well known, her falsifications have many times militated against the fulfillment of her own desires and interests. In the face of clear apperception of her fault, the tendency to react to a situation by lying sometimes appears to be fairly imperative. The only ascertained bases of the tendency are her early reactions, unthwarted by parental control, followed by habit formation; all in an environment peculiarly favorable to deception. The lying passed over into swindling.

Gertrude S., who immigrated from England with her parents ten years previously, was seen by us when she was 17, after she had been engaged for months in a career of misrepresentation which had led her case into the hands of several social agencies. Much difficulty was encountered because repeatedly when people had tried to help her she had led them astray in their investigations by telling ridiculously unnecessary falsehoods. Her parents came to see us and gradually we obtained a detailed and probably quite reliable family and developmental history. About the evolution of the young woman's mental life we have unfortunately had to rely much upon her own word. This has made our studies rather more unsatisfactory than in other cases where corroboration from parents was obtained. However, there is much that rings true and is of interest even in the unverifiable part of the study.

There is not much to be said about the physical examination; it was negative in most respects. She is of rather slight type; weight 110 lbs., height 5 ft. 1 in. Delicate features of mature type. Expression intelligent and decidedly refined for her social class. Gynecological examination made by a specialist revealed nothing abnormal and no evidence of immorality. Menstruation said to have taken place at 13 years and to be regular and not difficult.

In studying Gertrude's mental powers we gave a considerable range of tests and found her to be well up to the ordinary in ability. She showed no remarkable ability in any direction, but gave an almost uniformly good performance on tests. Concerning her other mental traits and especially her range of information and reading more will be said later. No signs of aberration were discovered by any one.

The record on the ``Aussage'' picture test is as follows: She gave 16 items on free recital with considerable reference to functional details and with side comments as to who the little girl might be, and what the dog wanted, and so on. So far, this was the performance of a rational, quick-minded person. On questioning, 28 more items were added, but no less than 12 of these were incorrect-she evidently supplied freely from her imagination. Of the 7 suggestions which were offered she took 5. Twice not only was the main suggestion accepted, but imaginary details were added. Naturally, this is a very unusual record from a normal person.

There is absolutely nothing of significance in the heredity, according to the accounts received by us. All the grandparents are still alive in the old country. They are small townspeople of good reputation. Epilepsy, insanity, and feeblemindedness are stoutly denied and are probably absent in near relatives. The father is a staunch citizen who feels keenly the disgrace of the present situation. He is a hard working clerk. We early learned the mother was not to be relied upon. Our best evidence of this came from Gertrude. She told us she had always been accustomed to hearing lies in her own household. According to the father his wife's falsifications are merely to shield the children and she only shows the ordinary deceit of woman. We have no history of this woman ever having indulged in elaborate fabrications and, in general, she is of thoroughly good reputation. In delicacy of feature the girl is her mother over again.

Gertrude's birth was comparatively easy after a normal pregnancy. After a healthy first infancy she had an illness at 2 years which lasted for three or four months. The exact nature of this is not plain, but it was probably bronchitis with complications. There were no evidences of any involvement of the nervous system. She walked and talked early, at about 1 year of age. She has had no other serious illness in all her life and has had no convulsions. None of the children has suffered from convulsions. Gertrude is one of five, all of whom are alive and well. In the last couple of years she has complained a little of headaches and some other minor troubles. It was typical of the family situation that after Gertrude had told us of a series of fainting spells a year previously, the mother corroborated her and, indeed, made them out even worse. But when the reliable father was consulted on the matter it turned out there had been no such fainting attacks, nor could they be verified by communication with a doctor who is said to have attended Gertrude. Unquestionably they never occurred. Gertrude went to school at the usual age, but on account of poverty and immigration missed many long periods. However, at 14 she had gone through the 6th grade.

About Gertrude's moral evolution we got very little aid from the parents or indeed from any others. It was very evident that from earliest childhood the girl had led a mental life of which her relatives knew nothing. Naturally, the mother gave us no account of the development of the tendency to lying; she merely glossed over her daughter's deceptions. The father, who had been obliged to work away from home much during Gertrude's early years, merely knew that at about the time she left school, namely 14 years, she began to lie excessively.

Anything like a complete account of Gertrude's prevarications, even as we know them, would require much space. Some idea of their quantity and quality may be gained from the facts which we have gleaned from several sources. As might be supposed, Gertrude has established a reputation for falsification among many of her acquaintances. One friend tells how she represented herself as a half orphan, living with a hard-hearted step-mother. Demanding promises of secrecy, Gertrude told this girl about a sum which she had with much difficulty gradually saved from her earnings in order to buy needed clothes. She asked the friend to come and help her make a selection. (Now the $20 or so that was spent Gertrude had stolen. By following her strange impulse she, with danger to herself, related a complicated story to this other girl who needed to know nothing of any part of the affair.) We have knowledge of scores of other fabrications which were detected. They include her alleged attendance at a course of lectures, her possession of a certain library card, and her working in various places. For many of these stories not a shadow of a reason appeared-especially during the time we have known her she has had every incentive to tell the truth about everything.

When by virtue of our court work we first knew the case, her lying centered about her other delinquencies, but even so its peculiar characteristics stood out sharply.

Gertrude was held to the adult court in the matter of the forgery of a check, which had been presented in an envelope to a bank teller by her and cashed as in the regular line of business between the bank and the firm for which she worked. Finding the girl had lied about her age, she was held, after the preliminary hearing, to the proper court. There, in turn, she did not appear at the right time, it being stated that she was sick in a hospital. One officer knew better and further investigation showed that Gertrude herself had come to the court, represented herself as her sister, and made the false statement about the illness. A telephone call the same afternoon to her house Gertrude answered.

Months of difficulty with the case began now. Her employer and all concerned experienced much difficulty in getting at the truth of the forgery, particularly through her clever implication of a man who had no easy task in freeing himself. Even after the girl confessed herself a confirmed liar she told more untruths which were peculiarly hard to unravel. Gertrude's firm bearing, her comparative refinement and her ability made every one unusually anxious to do her justice, and to save her from her own self-damaging tendencies.

During the continuance of the case, when all her interests demanded her good behavior, Gertrude could not refrain from what were almost orgies of lying and deceit. She well realized how this would count against her and, indeed, wrote letters of apology repeatedly for her misconduct.

``Let me come and tell you all. The time has come when things must stop, therefore I feel that I must talk to someone. I have lived a lie from the day I was born until now.''

After these letters she went on making false statements which could readily be checked up. Nothing is any more curious in Gertrude's case than the anomaly of her telling several of us who tried to help her that up to the time of the given interview she had not thoroughly realized how bad it was to lie, and how she now felt keenly that she must cease, while perhaps at the end of the very same interview a reaction to a new situation would produce more fabrications. Personally I have seen nothing any more suggestive of the typical toper's good resolutions and sudden falling from grace.

The story of the forged check was fancifully embellished and ever more details were supplied at pleasure. While this matter was under investigation Gertrude stayed away from home several nights, two of which have never been accounted for. She told fairly plausible stories about going out of town, but she first should have studied time tables to make them wholly convincing. The mother, too, told that the girl had been out of town, but in this she was caught, for it was found that Gertrude had been part of the time with other relatives.

The main story of the check involved a man who worked in the same office. She stated that he made an immoral proposal to her on the basis of immunity from prosecution. After a couple of months Gertrude got round to confessing that she alone was responsible for the entire forgery and that her previous quite clever stories were not true. Her main confession was made in the form of a long letter written entirely aside from the influence of any one. In this she also stated that she had stolen money and jewelry, which was known to have been taken. There was no untrue self- accusation, except that she may have exaggerated her own tendency to falsify at a very early age. Naturally, in such a case as this, even the latest confession must always be taken cum grano salis.

Passing from the above probably sufficient account of Gertrude's falsifications as we knew them, we can take up her mental life and traits. We have had to rely on the girl herself, as we stated above, for many of these facts. She was brought up in poor circumstances in a manufacturing town in England where there had been many labor troubles. On two occasions when she was a child she had seen encounters on the street, and during one riot in their neighborhood her uncle was injured. She was considerably frightened, but, so far as we could learn, this was the only time in her life that she experienced any fear. Very early she found that stories told to frighten her were untrue, and what was said about the undesirability of certain children as playmates proved false when she came to know them. She early discovered that for self-satisfaction she would have to live a mental life of her own. There were many things which she could not discuss with her mother. In early childhood she was a great reader of novels and spent many hours lying on the bed living an imaginary life. She never discussed her ideas with any one. Later she took to more serious reading, and of recent years she has assailed many of the world's greatest problems. Particularly she tells of the influence of Tolstoi's ``Kreutzer Sonata'' upon her. During two years she has read it four times and it has convinced her of the shams of character and that people lead dual lives.

When she was about 9 or 10 years old she began talking with other girls about sex problems and up to the present time has never consulted any grown person about them. Her first information of this kind was obtained from a crowd of girls who used successfully to lie to their teachers and mothers to get out of school work. Going further into the question of this hidden knowledge of sex things, she tells us she has never worried much about the things she has heard, but she has wondered a great deal and they have often come up in her mind. She pursued the course of asking many girls what they knew about this subject and then, getting unsatisfactory answers, picked up what she could from ordinary literature. Gertrude maintains that all her dwelling upon sex affairs never aroused within her any specific desires. (Gertrude is anything but a sensuous type and it may be that her statement in this respect is true.) When she went to work she fell in with girls who talked excessively about boys and sex affairs, but at this time she had a mental world of her own and so did not pay much attention to them. Gertrude talked much to us of the possibility of her studying civil law, history, economics, and so on-it is very clear that she has really dwelt on the possibility of being a student of serious subjects.

Very willingly this young woman entered into the problem of solving the genesis of her own tendencies. She repeatedly said that she, of all things, wanted to break herself of this. She maintains she can perceive no beginnings. It seems to her as if she has always been that way. She spoke at first of this crowd of girls who successfully lied to their parents and talked to her about sex things, and we are inclined to believe that this really may have been the beginning, but later she affirms this was not the beginning and that her lying began in earlier childhood. All that she knows is that it has grown to be a habit and now ``when I speak it comes right out.'' After she has told a lie she never thinks about it again one way or another. Her conscience does not trouble her in the matter. She does not tell lies for what she gets out of it, nor does it give her any particular pleasure to fool people. She does not invent her stories, but at the time of talking to people she simply says untrue things without any thought beforehand and without any consideration afterward. To one officer she flung the challenge, ``Oh, I'm clever, you'll find that out.'' After months of effort and when it was clear that the girl for her own good must be given a course of training in an institution she quite acquiesced in the wisdom of such procedure, after a few hours' rebellion.

It has been noted by many that one of Gertrude's outstanding traits is her lack of emotion. She never cries and only rarely does the semblance of a blush tinge her cheeks. She neither loves nor hates strongly. She seems remarkably calm under conditions where others storm. She says she never is frightened, that she never worries, or is sorry. She is well aware of her own ego; that she may be trespassing upon the rights of others never seems to enter her head. Certain simulations of physical ailments, which at times she showed, we could only interpret as part of her general tendency to misrepresent.

Our summary of the causative factors in this case, made, unfortunately, partly on the basis of this unreliable girl's testimony, offers the following explanation of her remarkable tendencies:

(a) There was early development of an inner life which dealt vividly in imaginary situations. This grew into a mental existence hidden entirely from the members of her family.

(b) There was early experience with successful lying on the part of others, and this as a main episode probably occurred at the time when the emotion natural to first knowledge of sex life was present.

(e) There was frequent experience with the falsifications which were her mother's frailty.

(d) For her lying there were no parental disciplines or corrections at any time, so far as we have been able to learn.

(e) The young woman shows unusually little emotion, and only sporadically demonstrates conscience.

(f) There is unquestionably marked habit formation in the case.

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Habit formation: Very strong. Case 8.

Lack of parental correction. Girl, age 17 years.

Early experience with lying.

Development of inner life: Imaginative and

hidden.

Delinquencies:

Excessive lying and misrepresentation.

False accusations.

Forging. Mentality:

Stealing. Good ability.

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CASE 9

Summary: A girl of 14 had been notoriously untruthful for years. She had created much trouble by her petty false accusations, and her lying stood often in the way of her own satisfactions and advantages. Analysis of the case shows the girl's dual moral and social experiences and tendencies, her inner conflicts about the same, and her remarkably vivid mental imagery- all of which leads her to doubt sometimes concerning what is true and what is false.

A strange admixture of races, of religion, and of social and moral tendencies was brought out in the study of Amanda R. and of her family conditions. We were much helped in the study of this case, which has long been a source of many social difficulties, by the intelligence of certain relatives who knew well the family facts, and also by the good mental capacities of the girl herself.

Amanda is an orphan and has been living for years with relatives. She has caused them and others, even those who have tried to help her, extreme annoyance on account of her quite unnecessary lies, her accusations, and some other delinquent tendencies. The main trouble all concede to be her falsifications, which vary from direct denials to elaborate stories invented without any seeming reason whatever. Reports on her conduct have come from a number of different sources. Neighbors have complained that she has come to them and borrowed money with the statement that her family was hard up. At school she stated for a time that she had come unprovided with lunch because her people were so poor, but it was ascertained that she had thrown away her lunch each day. The lies which she told to the other school children were extraordinarily numerous and fertile; unfortunately they sometimes involved details about improper sex experiences. A long story was made up about one of her relatives having committed suicide and was told to the school teachers and others. She defamed the character of one of her aunts. To her pastor she told some outrageous falsehoods. A home for delinquent girls, where she was once placed on account of her general bad behavior, would not put up with her, so much trouble arose from her prevarications. She accused the very good people there of not treating her well because she was not of their race. All of the above is quite apart from the girl's own romantic stories which have been told in her family circle and have done no especial harm. Of these we had the best account from the girl herself.

An intelligent relative gave an account of the facts. Amanda has been tried in a number of households, but has been given up by everyone after a short period of trial. Her word is found so unreliable that in general she is regarded as thoroughly untrustworthy. This particular relative, who is most interested in her, tells us she thinks the girl is mentally peculiar. She states that in general her mind is both romantic and rambling. She constantly has the idea that her beauty will bring her a wealthy husband. She lies about other people to these relatives and about them to others. They have a comfortable home and are very anxious for Amanda to do well, and many times have had serious talks with her, all to no purpose. They themselves have attempted to analyze the nature of the girl's characteristics, and say it is quite evident that the telling of untruths with this girl is the result of quick reaction on her part. Fictions of all kinds come up in her mind constantly and are uttered quickly. It is doubtful whether she premeditates her stories. She has threatened suicide. They think she is the biggest liar that ever lived and can't understand how she can engage in such unforesighted behavior unless she is somewhat abnormal. Only once did they ever notice anything suggestive of a mental peculiarity other than her lying. Then she did talk quite incoherently and at random for a time (she is a great talker anyhow), but later she said she realized what she had done, and said not to mind her-she had just let her tongue rattle on and did not mean anything by it.

On two or three occasions Amanda has started to school in the morning and wandered off and kept going all day. She had been immoral with boys, but not to any great extent. She undertook to be religious for a time, but her sincerity was always in question. She knows the character of her own mother and threatens at times to follow in her tracks.

The racial heredity of this girl is a strange mixture. Her father was a Scandinavian and her mother colored. The maternal grandfather was colored, and the maternal grandmother was an alcoholic Irish woman and died in an insane hospital. It is possible, also, that there is Indian blood in the family. The mother kept an immoral resort and drank at times. The father is said, even by his wife's relative, to have died some years ago of a broken heart about her career. She died of tuberculosis a few years after him. Amanda was the only child. About the early developmental history we have no reliable information. The girl was taken by relatives before her mother died, but was allowed to visit her, and there was evidently real affection between mother and daughter. Long contention over religious affairs in the family led to some bickering about placing the girl.

We found Amanda to be rather a good looking girl with very slight evidences of colored blood. Quiet and normal in her attitude and expression. Slightly built-weight 93 lbs.; height 4 ft. 10 in. Vision R. 20/80, L. 20/25. Coarse tremor of outstretched hands. No evidence of specific disease. All other examination negative. The girl complains of occasional sick headaches with photophobia. Pelvic examination by a specialist negative.

On the mental side we quickly found we had to deal with a girl of decidedly good general ability. Tests were almost uniformly done well. Memory processes decidedly good- span for eight numbers auditorily and for seven numbers visually. No evidence whatever of aberration.

Results on the ``Aussage'' test: Amanda on free recital gave 12 details of the picture; on questioning she mentioned 32 more items, but a dozen of these were incorrect. Of 7 suggestions offered she accepted 6. This was an exceptionally inaccurate performance.

In the course of our study of this case we obtained from Amanda a very good account of her own life, deeply tragic in its details, and a probably correct analysis of her beginnings in lying. It seems that she remembers well her mother, particularly in the later visits which the relatives allowed. These must have been when she was about 5 or 6 years old. ``I know a lot. There isn't anything bad that I have not seen and heard. I try to forget it, but I can't. What's the use anyhow? When I think of my mother it all comes up again. When I was very little I would sit in a room with my mother and a crowd of her friends and they would say everything in front of me. I would see men and women go into rooms and I kept wondering what they did in there. I think I was quicker and sharper then than I am now. I think I was about 3 when I used to see them smoking and drinking. Then I used to think it was all right. I thought it was swell and that I would like to do it too. I thought about it a lot. Mother, you see, would tell me to be good one minute and the next would teach me how to swear. I remember once when I was about 7 they brought her home drunk. She looked terrible. I can close my eyes and see her just as plainly as if it is there before me. A protective society once found me and took me to their place. Then I lived with my grandfather. Mother stole me from them and then my uncle took me. I lived around in lots of places. I have done lots of bad things. . . . .

``I picture these things too-I can't help it. The pictures come up in my mind as plain as can be-not just at night, but in the daytime too. The only thing I have ever been really afraid of is the dark. Then I imagine I hear people talking. I see things too. I see whole shows that I have been to. But then, as I have said, I see them when I'm awake and in the daytime. I dream about them also. Sometimes they are so real I don't know whether I'm asleep or awake. For instance, a long time ago I read Peck's Bad Boy and I can see those pictures now just as plain as when I read the book. It is always that way about what I read. The things I read I always see in pictures. It's that way with the love stories too. I used to read lots and lots of them. I like to read about murders. I can see those too. When I read about the R. murder in the papers lately I just felt like I was there. I could see everything he did. I don't know why I like to read such things so much. It was the same way last winter. I read a story with suicide in it and someway I just wanted to commit suicide myself. I did go to the railroad tracks and stood around until the train came and then walked away. . . . .

``My aunt says that I am too attractive and that I stare at the men. Well, when she was with me a man did stare at me and I stared back at him. I could have turned my head away, but I'm not that kind of a girl. I'm a bad girl. Everyone believes me so and I might just as well be. When I was little in my mother's place I used to smoke and drink. I dream every night-often about men doing bad things. I wake up and sit up to see if men are there or if they are gone. My dreams are always just that plain. If I read a book I can sit down and imagine all the people are right before me. I can get it just by reading. If anybody speaks to me I jump, and it is all gone. When I go to the theatre or the nickel show I can come home and see the whole show over again. I have been that way ever since I could understand things. When I was small and people would tell me things I could imagine them right in front of me. Even now I will be sitting still and I will imagine I see my mother taking me up in the way she used to. When I came to see her she would rock me to sleep, and I can plainly see her lying in the coffin. Often I think I see my mother brought home drunk.

``If I have anything to recite in school I just think of it all the time. I dream a good deal about what that boy did and about these other things. I can sit and think of everything he did to me. I go to bed and I lie awake and think all these things and I can't get them off my mind and then I start to dreaming about them.

``There is always this trouble-my mother wasn't good and I can't be good. That's what people say, but, of course, that's not so. I know I start talking to girls about these things when they are talking to me. I sometimes think that things will come back-that the Chicago fire is coming back, and that slavery is coming back.

``About my lying? I don't know why I tell things like that about my aunt committing suicide-it just came into my head. Oh, I've got lots of things in my head. I never had any chance to forget. I can't forget at school. School does not interest me any more. That's why I want to go to work. Perhaps then I should be interested in something new.

``I used to tell lots of things that were not so out there at P. Sometimes I did it as a joke and sometimes I meant it. It is hard sometimes to tell just what is the truth, I imagine things so hard. I can remember lots that I've read.''

Amanda in several interviews went on at great length in a very rational way, but altogether the gist of her view of her case is to be found in the above. She told that she was a masturbator, as might be supposed. She feels she can't help this and never felt it was so particularly bad. Apparently it is a part of her life of imagination at night. She insisted frequently on the vividness of her mental content, and indeed was anxious to talk about her peculiarities in this respect. It was very apparent that she showed real understanding of the forces which had influenced her. It should be noted that we felt sure that it is not only the strength of imagery, namely, of actually recollected material, but also of imagination which is characteristic of this girl's mental make-up. This was noticeable, as we have shown above, in the ``Aussage'' Test. In our notes on psychological findings we stated that the girl has both strong emotions and strong convictions, together with her other qualities. She expressed herself with considerable vehemence, and under observation we noted changes from pleasantness to extremely ugly looks when her relatives were mentioned. It was true that she had seen immorality in other households than that of her mother, and this, of course, rendered her even more skeptical about true values in life.

It seemed clear that this bright girl had experienced so many contradictions in life that she was much mixed about it all. We might venture to suggest that the delinquency involved in lying could seem very little compared to the actual deeds with which she had come in contact. No idea that falsification was wrong was expressed by her. She had used double sets of standards in behavior all through her life. What she was urged to be and to do seemed impossible in the light of her past and its connections. Even her apparent decency belied the reality underlying her career, she thought. With all this and her vivid imagery it is little wonder that her magnificent powers of imagination had full sway and that she said and half believed all sorts of things which were not true. Then, probably, habit-formation of indulging in day-dreams accentuated the falsifying tendency.

It is too early to report on further progress of this case. For some months she has been in a school for girls where discipline and education are both emphasized.

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Mental traits: special powers of imagery Case 9.

and imagination. Girl, age 14 years.

Early immoral experiences: much later conflict

about them.

Home conditions: unstable for many years.

Heredity (?): mother immoral,

maternal grandmother

alcoholic and insane.

Delinquencies: Mentality:

Excessive lying. Good general ability,

Sex. special capacities.

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CASE 10

Summary: A boy of 14, supernormal in ability, coming from family circumstances which form a remarkable antithesis to his intellectual interests, is found to be a wonderful fabricator. His continuous lying proves to be directly inimical to his own interests and, indeed, his own satisfactions are thwarted by the curious unreliability of his word. The case unfortunately was not followed far, but study of it clearly shows beginnings in the early obtaining of advantages by lying, and brings out the wonderful dramatic and imaginative traits of the boy and his formation of a habit of falsification.

This case in its showing of intrinsic characteristics and incidental facts is of great interest. Robert R. for about a year when he was 14 years old we knew intimately, but after that on account of the removal of the family we have no further history of him. Intellectually and in his family and home background he presented a remarkable phenomenon. His parents were old-country peasants who just before Robert was born came to the United States. The father had never been to school in his life and could not read or write. Here he was a laborer; before immigration he had been a goose-herd. The mother was said to have had a little schooling at home and could read and write a little in her native language. In 15 years in the United States she had failed to learn to speak English. It is needless to say that our knowledge of the forebears is almost nil. Inquiry about mental peculiarities in the family brought negative answers. These parents had had nine children, seven of whom had died in early infancy. Robert was the older of the two living. We did not learn that the other child displayed any abnormalities. The mother helped towards the support of the family by doing coarse sewing.

About the developmental history we had the assurance that it was entirely negative as regards serious diseases. Pregnancy and birth were said to have been normal. For long, Robert had been very nervous and frequently slept an unusually small number of hours. Sometimes he would go to bed very late and get up early. Although he was a very small boy he was accustomed to drinking six or seven cups of coffee a day. No suspicion from any source of other bad habits or of improper sex experiences. The boy's home was clean and decent. The father was accustomed to celebrate once a month or so by getting intoxicated, but otherwise was a well behaved man.

On physical examination we found the boy in fair general condition, although very small for his age. Weight 80 lbs.; height 4 ft. 7 in. Well shaped, normally sized head. No prematurity or other physical abnormality. Somewhat defective vision. No complaint of headaches. All other examination negative. Regular sharp features. Much vivacity of expression. A nervous, alert, responsive, apparently frank and humorous type. Speech notably rapid.

Our acquaintance with this boy on the intellectual side proved to be a great treat. He was only in the 4th grade. His retardation was the result of having been changed back and forth from foreign-speaking to English schools and having been sent away to an institution for truancy. In spite of his backwardness Robert had a fund of remarkably accurate scientific and other information which a mature person might envy. We found our regular series of tests were all done unusually well, except those which called for foresight and planfulness. It was interesting to note that when a problem in concrete material was given that required continuous thoughtful effort he proceeded by a rapid trial and error method and without the application of the foresight that many a slower individual would show. He consequently did not always make a good record.

It seems an important fact that on the ``Aussage'' Test this exceedingly bright lad gave a fairly good detailed narrative account of the picture and proved himself not in the least suggestible, but he added a number of items which were not seen.

It was in the field of general information, obtained from a really wide range of reading, that this young boy shone. We found that he remembered an unusual amount of history he had read, that he had a lot of knowledge picked up from the newspapers, and that he had digested considerable portions of scientific works. He described correctly the main principles involved in the use of telescopic and other lenses, he knew well the first principles of electricity, and he could draw correctly diagrams of dynamos, locomotives, switchboards, etc. We noted he had read books on physiology, astronomy, physics, mechanics, etc.

It seems that neither his school nor his home offering him much intellectual satisfaction, he had frequented the public library, sometimes being there when he was truant from school, and staying there in the evening when his mother supposed he was out in a street gang. In regard to his selection of reading: he had perused novels and books on adventure, but ``I wanted to read something that tells something so that when I got through I would know something.'' He copied plans and directions, and with a hatchet, hammer and saw attempted at home to make little things, some of which were said to have been broken up by the parents. The boy had much in mind the career of great men who had succeeded from small beginnings, and he spoke often of Benjamin Franklin, Morse, and Bell, all of whom had started in the small way he had read of in their biographies. Robert had not been content with book knowledge alone, but had sought power-houses and other places where he could see machinery in actual operation.

Our acquaintance with Robert began and continued on account of delinquencies other than lying. He had run away from home at one time, he had stolen some electrical apparatus from a barn and was found in the middle of the night with it flashing a light on the street. He also had taken money from his parents and had threatened his mother with a hatchet. After much encouragement and help he yet stole from people who were trying to give him a chance to use his special abilities, and he began various minor swindling operations which culminated in his attempt to arrest a man at night, showing a star and a small revolver. Before we lost sight of him Robert had gained the general reputation of being the most unreliable of individuals.

Given splendid chances to use his special capacities, his other qualities made it impossible for him to take advantage of them. His wonderful ability was demonstrated in the school to which he was sent; there the teacher said that if she had the opportunity she really believed she could put him through one grade a month. His mental grasp on all subjects was astonishing and he wrote most admirable essays, one of the best being on patriotism. But even under the stable conditions of this school for six or seven months the boy did not refrain from an extreme amount of falsification and was much disliked by the other boys on account of it.

Robert had continued his lying for years. At the time when we were studying his case his prevaricating tendencies were shown in the manufacture of long and complicated stories, in the center of which he himself posed as the chief actor. These phantasies were told to people, such as ourselves, who could easily ascertain their falsehood, and they were told after there had been a distinct understanding that anything which showed unreliability on his part would militate against his own strongly avowed desires and interests. After special chances had been given this boy with the understanding that all that was necessary for him to do was to alter his behavior in respect to lying, on more than one occasion new fabrications were evolved in the same interview that Robert had begged in fairly tragic fashion to be helped to cure himself of his inclination to falsify.

A great love of the dramatic was always displayed by this boy, which may largely account for the evolution of his lying into long and complicated stories. When truant one day he boldly visited the school for truants, and when under probation, after having fallen into the hands of the police two or three times, he impersonated a policeman. The latter was such a remarkable occurrence and led to such a peculiar situation that much notice of it was taken in the newspapers. The incongruity between apperception of his own faults and his continued lying, considering his good mental endowment, seemed very strange. One day he sobbed and clung to my arm and begged me to be a friend to him and help him from telling such lies. ``I don't know what makes me do it. I can't help it.'' Over and over he asserted his desire to be a good man and a great man. This was at the same time when some of his most complicated fabrications were reiterated.

No help was to be had from his parents in getting at the genesis of this boy's troubles; we had to rely on what seemed to be the probable truth as told by the boy himself. It is only fair to say that in response to many inquiries we did receive reliable facts from the lad. My assistant also went into the question of beginnings and was told at an entirely different time the same story. Robert always maintained that his lying began when he was a very little boy, when he found out that by telling his grandmother that his mother was mean to him he could get things done for him which he wanted. Later it seems he used to lie because he was afraid of being punished or because he did not like to be scolded. We found there was no question about the fact that his parents never were in sympathy with his library reading and his attempts to learn and be somebody in the world. At first, then, there seemed to be a definite purpose in his lying. At one time he pretended to be hurt when taken in custody and thought because of this he would be allowed to go home.

On many occasions this boy made voluntary appeal to us, describing his lying as a habit which it was impossible for him to stop, and implored aid in the breaking of it. Up to the last that we knew of him he occasionally made the complaint to strangers of mistreatment by his family, which in the sense in which he put it was not true at all. The dramatic nature of his later stories seemed to fulfill the need which the boy felt of his being something which he was not, and very likely belonged to the same category of behavior he displayed when he attempted to impersonate a policeman in the middle of the night, and to pose as an amateur detective by telling stories of alleged exploits to newspaper reporters. A long story which he related even to us, involving his discovery of a suspicious man with a satchel and his use of a taxicab in search for him, was made up on the basis of his playing the part of a great man, a hero. When we ran down this untruth (it was long after he had told us what a liar he was) it seemed quite improbable that he had suddenly improvised this story. It was too elaborate and well sustained. Later, when the boy again tragically begged to be helped from making such falsifications, he said the incident had been thought out some days previously and it seemed an awful nice story about the things that he might do. Daydreaming thus masked as the truth.

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Environmental maladjustment: Case 10.

incongruity between Boy, age 14 yrs.

supernormal ability and home

conditions.

Innate characteristics: nervous, active,

dramatic type.

Stimulants: excessive use of coffee.

Mental habit-formation.

Delinquencies: Mentality:

Lying excessive. Supernormal in ability.

Petty stealing.

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CASE 11

Summary: An orphan girl of 10 had been in several institutions and households, but was found everywhere impossible on account of her incorrigibility. The greatest difficulty was on account of her extreme lying which for years had included extensive fabrications and rapid self-contradictions, as well as defensive denials of delinquency.

We were asked to decide about this girl's mentality and to give recommendations for her treatment. We need take little space for describing the case because the facts of development and heredity and of earliest mental experiences are not known by us. The case is worthy of short description as exemplifying a type and as showing once more the frequent correlation of lying with other delinquency, and especially with sex immorality.

We found a girl in good physical condition, small for her age, but without sensory defect or important organic trouble. Hutchinsonian teeth. High forehead and well formed features. Expression old for her years and rather shrewd, and notably unabashed. No evidence of pelvic trouble. Clitoris large. All the other examination negative.

Mentally we found her rather precocious. Tests well done. Reads and does arithmetic well for her age, in spite of much changing about and other school disadvantages. No evidence whatever of aberration. The examiner noted that she seemed a queer, sophisticated child, laughing easily and talking fast and freely. Evidently tries to put her best foot forward. Cooperates well on tests.

On the ``Aussage'' test this little girl did remarkably well both as to the details and general ideas expressed in the picture. Absolutely no suggestibility shown. The examination was made before our later methods of scoring this test, and the inaccuracies were not counted, but even so the positive features are of interest, namely, the good memory and non-suggestibility .

We found this youngster all along to be evasive, shifting and self-contradictory, even on vital points. She glibly stated anything that came into her mind, and ideas came very rapidly. She told us stories that with a moment's thought she must have known we could discover were false.

This child was a foundling, and was adopted by people whose family was broken up by death when she was about 6 years old. By the time she was 8 years old she was expelled from school and was generally known as an habitual liar and a child who showed most premature sex tendencies. She then went much with little boys and was constantly in trouble for stealing as well. Occasionally good reports were made of her, but sometimes she was stated to have a perfect mania for taking things. A number of people who have tried to help her have spoken of the elaborateness of her verbal inventions. At one place she destroyed letters and took a check from the mail and tore it up. She talked freely of sex affairs to many people, particularly to women, and showed evidence of intense local feelings. At one time she expressed great desire to be spanked, probably from a sex impulse. One intelligent person reported her as being simply animal-like in her desires. In a country home a thoroughly intelligent woman was unable to cope with her and she was finally delivered into the hands of an institution.

Through dearth of reliable information about the antecedents in this case we were unable to make a card of causative factors. It is sure, however, that the pathological lying and other delinquencies sprang from a background of congenital defect, probably syphilitic in nature, of lack of early parental care, of precocious sex desires, and sex experiences.

In the school for girls, where this unfortunate child remained for four years, it is stated that her tendencies to prevarication were mitigated, but never entirely checked. Her school record was decidedly good; she was regarded as a bright girl, and advanced rapidly to the eighth grade. She was tried again in the world midway in her adolescent period with the most untoward results. She found temptations offered by the opposite sex irresistible and began a career of misrepresentation concerning her own conduct. Through her lies, proper oversight was not given in the home which received her once more. Pregnancy ensued and again she had to receive institutional care.

CASE 12

Summary: An extremely interesting case showing strong development of a tendency to swindling on the part of a young man of curiously unequal mental abilities, a subnormal verbalist. Pathological lying in this case quite logically developed into swindling. The main behavior-tendencies of this individual closely follow the lines of least resistance, the paths of greatest success. As a matter of fact, the use merely of his general subnormal abilities would never have led to as much advancement as he has enjoyed. His special capabilities with language have brought him much satisfaction at times, even if they have also led him into trouble. An astonishingly long list of legal proceedings centers about this case, illustrating very well the urgent need for cooperation between courts.

Adolf von X., now just 21 years old, we, through most unusual circumstances, have had more or less under observation for a number of years. Correspondence with several public and social agencies has given us close acquaintance with his record during this time, and earlier. Our attention was first called to Adolf in New York, when he was a boy under arrest in the Tombs. A fine young lawyer, a casual acquaintance of Adolf's through court work, asked us to study the case because he felt that perhaps grave injustice was being done. Before his arrest the boy, who seemed to be most ambitious, had been about the court rooms looking into the details of cases as a student of practical law. He had attracted attention by his energy and push; he earned money at various odd jobs and studied law at night. At this time the boy was under arrest charged with disorderly conduct; he had beaten his sister in their home.

We found a nice looking and well spoken young fellow who said he was 17. Although he had been in this country only three years from Germany, he spoke English almost without an accent and did quite well with French also. He had been brought up in Hamburg. His statement added to that previously given by the lawyer aroused in us great interest concerning the constructive possibilities of the case. It seemed as if here was an immigrant boy for whom much should be done.

``I was taking up law suits, little law suits. There was a case on before Judge O. and I wanted a new suit of clothes to wear to go to court in. My sister said I could not take my brother's suit. He told me to take it and bring it home in good condition at night. My sister is supposed to be the plaintiff, but she did not make the complaint. The landlady came in and hit me three times in the head with a broom. My sister called her in and then she threw a piece of wood after me. Sister started crying, but she did not get hit. The landlady got hit. When I fell down I striked her with my head and hurt my head bad. I think I hit her with the left side of my head. The landlady made complaint in German to an Irish policeman. He could not understand. The officer did not do what the law tells because he took a complaint from a boy of the age of 6 years. He translated for her.

``The trouble started because I wanted to get my brother's suit because I wanted to appear before Judge O. to protect a party in the hearing of a case. I took a few lessons over in the Y.M.C.A. class and in a law office I read books through. I have books at home, rulings of every court. I know I got a good chance to work up because I know I have a good head for the law. My father he wont believe it, that's the trouble. I know I could stand my own expenses. I said, `Officer, wait here a minute. I'll explain how this is.' He began stepping on me. He threw me on the floor. I wanted to go out the back way so nobody would see me. He kicked me down the front way. There was a big crowd there. Another rough officer pinched my arm. At the station when the officer said this boy hit his sister, my sister said, `No, he did not hit me,' but she said it in German.

``I was in court awhile ago because father thought I would not work. I was paroled. I was trying to find a position. This man that had the rehearing said, `You wont lose anything.' He made as much as a contract with me. He said to another person in my hearing, if that fellow wins my case I will pay him $10 for it. The first case I had was in X court. I was interpreter there. I want to make something out of myself. Labor is all right, but I like office work or law work better. I tell you, doctor, if I come up before the judge I will tell him just the same story I tell you. I can remember it just that way.''

This young man told us he had graduated from intermediate school in Hamburg; in this country he had attended for about a year and a half and, in spite of the language handicap, he was in sixth grade. There is a brother a little older and an older sister. Mother has been dead for 5 years. His father is an artisan and makes a fair living.

We soon found means of getting more facts concerning this case. The first point of importance was concerning his age. It appeared that he at present was lying about this, probably for the purpose of concealing his previous record in the Juvenile Court and in other connections. There had been previously much trouble with him. He had been long complained of by his father because of the bickering and quarreling which he caused in the household and on account of his not working steadily. He had shown himself tremendously able in getting employment, having had at least twenty places in the last year and a half. He was known to lie and misrepresent; on one occasion when he was trying to get certain advantages for himself he falsely stated that he was employed by a certain legal concern, and once he tried to pass himself off for an officer of a court.

The father willingly came to see us and proved to be a somewhat excitable, but intelligent man of good reputation. We obtained a very good history before studying the boy himself. Mr. von X. began by informing us that we had a pretty difficult case on our hands, and when we spoke of the boy's ambition he became very sarcastic. He stated that up to the time when the boy left school in Hamburg he had only been able to get to the equivalent of our third grade. To be sure, it is true that Adolf had learned English quickly and much more readily than any one else in the family, and in the old country had picked up French, but ``he hasn't got sense enough to be a lawyer.''

Both the older children did very well in school, and the father and mother came from intelligent families. All the children are somewhat nervous, but the two older ones are altogether different from this boy. They are quiet and saving. A grandfather was said to have been a learned man and another member of the family very well-to-do. The mother has one cousin insane and the father one cousin who is feebleminded. All the other family history from this apparently reliable source was negative. Both the father and mother were still young at the birth of this child. The mother died of pneumonia, but prior to this sickness had been healthy.

The developmental history of Adolf runs as follows: His birth was preceded by two miscarriages. The pregnancy was quite normal; confinement easy. When he was a few days old he had some inflammation of the eyes which soon subsided. Never any convulsions. His infancy was normal. He walked and talked early. At three years he had diphtheria badly with delirium for a couple of weeks and paralysis of the palate for some months. After this his parents thought the boy not quite normal. He had slight fevers occasionally. At 9 years he was very ill with scarlet fever. Following that he had some trouble with the bones in his legs. Before he left Hamburg he had an operation on one leg for this trouble which had persisted. (It was quite significant that in our first interview Adolf had told us his leg had been injured by a rock falling on it, necessitating the operation.) Up to the age of 14 this boy, although apparently in good physical condition, used to wet the bed always at night, and sometimes during the day lost control of his bladder. Also lost control of his bowels occasionally after he was 10 years old. He sleeps well, is moderate in the use of tea and coffee, and does not smoke.

When young he played much by himself. After coming to this country his chief recreation was going to nickel shows. He was fond of music as a child. He had been a truant in Hamburg. As a young child he was regarded as destructive. The general statement concerning delinquency is that Adolf is the only one of the family who has given trouble and that the father was the first to complain of the boy to the authorities. Before he reported it there had long been trouble on account of frequent changing of employment and misrepresentations. The boy had forged letters to his family and others. In the office of a certain newspaper he once represented himself to be an orphan, and there a fund was raised for him and he was outfitted. The father insists that the boy, in general, is an excessive liar.

Further inquiry brought out that other people, too, regarded Adolf as an extreme falsifier. The principal of a school thought the boy made such queer statements that he could not be right in his head. In the office of a clerk of a court he represented himself to be employed by a certain legal institution and demanded file after file for reference. Everybody there was friendly to him at first, but later they all changed their attitude on account of his unscrupulous and constant lying.

Physically we found a very well nourished boy, rather short for his age. Weight 121 lbs.; height 5 ft. 1 in. Musculature decidedly flabby; this was especially noticeable in his handshake. Attitude heavy and slouchy for a boy. Expression quite pleasant; features regular; complexion decidedly good. A North European type. Eyes differ slightly in the color of the irides. Noticeable enlargement of breasts. Well shaped head of quite normal measurements; circumference 54.5, length 18, breadth 15 cm. No sensory defect, nor was anything else of particular interest found upon examination.

The mental study, particularly the testing for special abilities, has been of very great interest. Fortunately for the scientific understandings of the problems involved we have been able to see Adolf many times at intervals and to check up previous findings. Our first statement will be of the results obtained at the earliest study of the case.

When we first saw Adolf, although he talked so intelligently, we asked him to give us some evidence of his educational ability, and to our tremendous surprise he failed to be able to multiply simple numbers or even to do addition correctly. There was no evidence of emotional upset, but we waited for further testing until we had seen the father, that we might be sure of the school history. As mentioned above, we found that the boy had entirely misled us.

We then entered upon a systematic study of the boy's abilities and found some strange contrasts. Perceptions of form and color were normal. Given a very simple test which required some apperceptive ability, he did fairly well. Given simple ``Construction Tests'' which required the planful handling of concrete material, Adolf proceeded unintelligently. He showed no foresight, was rather slow, but by following out a trial and error procedure and with some repetition of irrational placing of the pieces he finally succeeded. Moderate ability to profit by trial and error was shown, but for his age the performance on this type of test was poor. On our ``Puzzle-Box,'' which calls for the analysis of a concrete situation, a test that is done by boys of his age nearly always in four minutes or less, Adolf failed in ten minutes. He began in his typically aggressive fashion, but kept trying to solve the difficulty by the repetition of obviously futile movements. On a ``Learning Test,'' where numerals are associated in meaningless relation with symbols, Adolf did the work promptly and with much self-confidence, but made a thoroughly irrational error, inasmuch as he associated the same numeral with two different symbols-and did not see his error. His ability to mentally represent and analyze a simple situation visually presented in our ``Cross Line Tests'' was very poor. In this he failed to analyze out the simple parts of a figure which he could well draw from memory. This seemed significant, for the test is practically always done correctly by normal individuals, at least on the second trial, by the time they are 10 or 12 years of age. A simple test for visual memory of form also brought poor results.

As an extreme contrast to the above results, the tests that had to do with language were remarkably well done. A visual verbal memory passage was given with unusual accuracy, also an auditory verbal passage was rendered almost perfectly. Considering that the former has 20 items and the latter 12 details, this performance was exceptionally good. Also, the so-called Antonym Test, where one is asked to give as quickly as possible the opposite to a word, the result, considering his foreign education, was decidedly good. Three out of twenty opposites were not given, apparently on account of the lack of knowledge. The average time was 2.3 seconds. If two of the other time-reactions were left out, which were probably slow from lack of knowledge, the average time would be 1.6 seconds for 15 opposites. This shows evidence of some good mental control on the language side. Motor control was fair. He was able to tap 75 of our squares with 2 errors in 30 seconds, just a medium performance. A letter written on this date contains quite a few mis-spelled short words: ``My father Send me to This Court for The troubels I had with my sister,'' etc.

While awaiting trial Adolf, stating that he was desirous of doing so, was given ample opportunity to study arithmetic. After a few days he told us unhesitatingly that he now could do long division, but he utterly failed, and, indeed, made many errors in a sum in addition. He had acquired part of the multiplication table.

Study of his range of information brought out some curious points. He told of some comparative merits of law schools, had some books on home-taught law, and was a great reader of the newspapers. In the latter he chiefly perused reports of court cases. He was quite familiar with the names of various attorneys and judges. He could give the names in contemporary politics, and knew about sporting items. His knowledge of the history of this country was absolutely deficient, but he does not hesitate to give such statements as the following: ``The Fourth of July is to remember a great battle between President Lincoln and the English country.'' Again he makes a bluff to give scientific items, although he has the shallowest information. When it comes to athletics, much to our surprise, we hear that our flabby boy is a champion. Of course, he knows some of the rulers in Europe and by what route he came to New York, but he informs us that Paris is the largest country in Europe.

Adolf says he plays a very good game of checkers, that he had played much, but on trial he shows a very poor game, once moving backwards. When purposely given chances to take men he did not perceive the opportunities.

We asked him to analyze out for us a couple of moral situations, one being about a man who stole to give to a starving family. He tells us in one way the man did right and in another way wrong. It never is right to steal, because if caught he would be sent to the penitentiary and would have to pay more than the things are worth, and, then, if he was not caught, a thief would never get along in the world. The other was the story of Indians surrounding a settlement who asked the captain of a village to give up a man. Adolf thought if he were a chief he would say to give battle if the man had done no wrong, but on further consideration states that he would rather give up one man than risk the lives of many, and if he were a captain he would surely rather give this man up than put his own life in it. He thinks certainly this is the way the question should be answered.

On our ``Aussage'' or Testimony Test Adolf gave volubly many details, dramatically expressing himself and putting in interpretations that were not warranted by the picture. Indeed, he made the characters actually say things. On the other hand, he did not recall at all one of the three persons present in the picture. He accepted three out of six suggestions and was quite willing to fill in imaginary details, besides perverting some of the facts. This was unusually unreliable testimony.

Our impressions as dictated at this time state that we had to do with a young man in good general physical condition, of unusually flabby musculature, who showed a couple of signs that might possibly be regarded as stigmata of inferiority. Mentally, the main showing was irregularity of abilities; in some things he was distinctly subnormal, in others mediocre, but in language ability he was surprisingly good. No evidence of mental aberration was discovered. The diagnosis could be made, in short, that the boy was a subnormal verbalist. His character traits might be enumerated in part by saying that he was aggressive, unscrupulous, boastful, ambitious, and a continual and excessive liar. In the exercise of these he was strikingly lacking in foresight. This latter characteristic also was shown in his test work. The abilities in which he was overbalanced gave him special feelings of the possibility of his being a success and led him to become a pathological liar. From the family history the main suggestion of the causation of the mental abnormality is in illness during developmental life, but neither ante-natal nor hereditary conditions are quite free from suspicion.

At the time of this first trial Adolf maintained a very smart attitude and tried to show off. He had succeeded in having two witnesses subpoenaed in order to prove that he did not hit his sister, but on the stand it came out that one of them was not there at all, and the other, who was a little girl, stated that she saw Adolf hit some one. Just why the boy had these witnesses brought in was difficult to explain. Perhaps he had the idea that some one ought to be called in every case, or perhaps he thought they would be willing to tell an untruth for him. His statement in court did not agree with what he had told us and was utterly different from what his sister stated. It came out that he had struck her on a number of previous occasions. It was shown clearly that the boy was a tremendous liar. The case was transferred to the Juvenile Court and from there the boy was sent away to an institution for a few months. After the trial his father said in broken English, ``To me he never told the truth.''

Just after his release the family moved to Chicago and Adolf soon put himself in touch with certain social agencies. He found out where I was and came to see me, bright, smiling, and well. He had gained eight pounds during his incarceration. He wanted to tell all about his life in the institution and because we were busy said he would come the next day. He did not do this, but a few months later came running up to me on the street with a package in his hands, saying he was already at work in a downtown office and was doing well and going to night school. Five years more would see him quite through his law course. A few months after this he applied at a certain agency for work as an interpreter and there, strangely enough, some one who knew him in New York recognized him. He, however, denied ever having been in court and produced a list of twenty or twenty-five places where he worked and gave them as references. It is to be remembered that at this time he had already been brought up in court at least three times, that he had been on probation, and been sent away to an institution.

During the last four years we have received much information concerning the career of Adolf, although his activities have carried him to Milwaukee, Cleveland, St. Louis, and other towns, in several of which he has been in trouble. He has very repeatedly been to see us and we have had many opportunities of gauging his mental as well as his social development.

His family continued to live in one of the most populous suburbs of Chicago and Adolf maintains that his residence is there, an important point for his political activities which are mentioned later.

What we discovered in our further studies of Adolf's mental condition can be told in short. We have retested him over and over. (When he has been hard up we have given him money to induce him to do his very best.) There are no contradictions in our findings at different times. Once, in another city, in connection with his appearance in court, Adolf was seen by a psychiatrist who suggested that he was a case of dementia precox, but nothing in our long observation of him warrants us in such an opinion. His mental conditions and qualities seem quite unchanged in type during all the time we have known him, and instead of any deterioration there has been gradual betterment in capacities, certainly along the line of adjustment to environment. His wonderful ability to get out of trouble is evidence of these powers of adjustment, as is also, perhaps, his keen sensing of the utility of the shadier sides of politics and criminal procedure.

In work with numbers Adolf is still very poor. He is unable to do long division or multiplication, and cannot add together simple fractions. Addition he does much better, but even at his best he makes errors in columns where he has to add five numerals. He now can do simple subtraction such as is required in making change, but fails on such a problem as how much change he should get from $20 after buying goods costing $11.37. His memory span is only six numerals, and these he cannot get correctly every time.

After numerous attempts to mentally analyze our simple ``Cross Line Test,'' with much urging and extreme slowness he finally succeeded at one time in getting it correctly. As stated above, this is a test that is done with ease usually by normal individuals 12 years of age. On our ``Code Test,'' requiring much the same order of ability, but more effort, he entirely failed. For one thing, he has never known the order of the alphabet either in English, German, or French. Our ``Pictorial Completion Test,'' which gauges simple apperceptive abilities, he failed to do correctly, making three illogical errors.

The result on the Binet tests are most interesting. From years of experience with them we ourselves have no faith in their offering sound criteria for age levels above 10 years. Adolf goes up through all of the 12-year tests (1911 series) except the first, where he shows suggestibility in his judgment of the lengths of lines. In the 15-year tests he fails on the first, but does the three following ones correctly. Two out of the adult series are done well-those where the definition of a word is required and the statement of political ideas. Two or three of his specific answers are worth noting: ``Honor is when a person is very honest. It means he will never do what is wrong even if he can make money by it.'' ``Pleasure is when everything is pleasant, when you are enjoying yourself.'' Adolf tells us that the king is head of a monarchy, he has not the power to veto, and he acquires his position by royal birth. In contrast to this he says the president is the presiding executive of a republic, he has the power to veto, and he gains his position by election. It is perfectly clear in this case, as in many others, that the Binet tests show very little wherein lies the nature of a special defect or ability. Adolf's capacity for handling language has grown steadily. He has been reading law and knows by heart a great deal of its terminology. In a short conversation he talks well and is coherent. The aggressiveness which is ever with him leads him to stick to the point. He has had very little instruction, his pronunciation is often defective and he does not know the meaning of many of the longer terms with which any lawyer should be acquainted. He speaks fluently and has now long posed, among other things, as an interpreter.

Our final diagnosis after all these mental tests is, that while he could by no means be called a feebleminded person, still Adolf is essentially subnormal in many abilities-we still regard him as a subnormal verbalist. Probably what he lacks in powers of mental analysis has much relation to the lack of foresight which he continually shows in his social career. His lying and swindling have led him almost nowhere except into difficulties.

Adolf has been steadily gaining weight, although he has grown only an inch and a half in these years. He is stout and sleek-looking and as flabby as ever. He has not been seriously ill during this time. Whereas before he used to be untidy in dress he now gets himself up more carefully.

The following are examples of Adolf's conversation and show many of his characteristics: (Soon after he came to Chicago we spoke to him of his progress.)

``The other day I met a fellow and he says, `How long have you been in this country?' and when I says four years he says, `You're a liar. There never was a fellow I ever heard of who got hold of the language and was doing as well as you are in four years.' '' A few months later he tells us he is selling goods on commission and descants on how much he can make: ``That's `Get-rich-quick-Wallingford' for you. There's Mr. A. and Congressman X., they started out from little beginnings just the same as me. I'm going along their line.

``Do you know I got sued by the Evening Star for libbel. That's what I got for testifying in that case. I tell you what I would like and that's vice investigation work.''

At another time: ``Well, doctor, I am general manager for my brother's business now. He's got a bottle business. There's money in that, ain't there? I was down in court to-day. I tell you, there was a fellow who got what was coming to him. It was a case before Judge H.-assault and battery. He was fined $10 and costs-all amounted to about $30. Well, I had a little dog and I tell you I have a heart for animals just the same as persons. He kicked the dog and I told him not to do it and he says, `You're a liar,' and then he ran down stairs and pushed me along the stones over there. I called the police and they did not come for about three quarters of an hour.

``I'm studying law. Taking a correspondence course. They give you an L.L.B. It's a two years work and you get all the volumes separately,'' etc. ``Then we have a slander suit. A neighbor called my sister dirty names. I am going to file a $5000 slander suit. I would not let that man call names like that, and then he's got about $5000 in property.

``Some people are down on me, but I tell you I have been a leader of boys. We got the Illinois championship-you know, the boy scout examinations. There was an examination on leaves. I was their leader. I had 9 boys up and there were 117 leaves and every boy knew every leaf. Of course I told them or they would not have known. Some people are down on me for what I do for the boys, but I tell you I've been in court and I've made up my mind I will help other kids. Sometimes kids can be helped by talking to. Then there is me. I won the boxing championship this year.'' (At this period I enquire about his prowess and the recent encounter with the young boy who dragged him over the stones. With a blush he says he never was any good at real boxing or real fighting.) ``I'm this kind of a fellow. If they let me alone I'm all right, but if they start monkeying with me something is going to happen. When you start a thing don't start it until you can carry it through. These people that started with me were not able to do that.''

Later it came out that the alleged fighting with the boy is all in Adolf's mind. He tells us, without noticing any discrepancy, that no complaint against this boy, who he said had been already tried and fined, would be received by the police authorities, nor will they issue a warrant.

Within the last year or two there has been almost complete cessation of Adolf's attempt to become a lawyer. At an earlier time he came to us with a speech written out in a book. He was going to recite it when a certain case came up in the Municipal Court. As a matter of fact we heard that the boy said nothing on the occasion. At various times we have heard of his getting mixed up in different ways in a number of cases. Once he succeeded in giving testimony in a notorious trial. His own account of his interest in the case is shown in the following:

``Doctor, you remember that X. boy and that Y. boy. Judge B. is going to try them. They are down in the S Station and they are going to stay there unless they sign a jury waiver and they can't do that. They are only 15 years old-I got their ages-it cost me $1 to get their ages and I am going to be there when they are being tried.'' (The statement of the ages is untrue.) ``It ain't right to keep these boys down there. They look pale. They don't give them anything but black coffee. I'm going to represent them boys. You know, doctor, I'm working in three places now-holding three jobs. Two days in the week I work for the A's, two for Mr. B.-he ain't exactly my boss-and then for myself. The A's pay me $6, Mr. B. pays $3, and then I make $7 or $8 myself interpreting. I'm saving it up to go to law school. In three years I graduate. They are going to hold it up against them boys, their records, and I am going to deny it. It ain't right. I was talking to the detective that arrested X. and I says to him, `Look here, you took the knife. What right have they got to take in one fellow without the little fellow?' I want to represent this case myself.''

Adolf has worked for law firms and aided at times as an investigator of criminal and vice situations. Occasionally he has been much worried about his own court record. He did not want it to stand against him. He thought he could get his sister to swear that he never quarreled at home. Shortly afterwards he served a short sentence for stealing from a law firm. Later he came in and said he had a job in the legal department of a large concern and that he had changed his name because he believed his old name was ruined. ``I'm determined to be a lawyer. Ever since a little fellow I have wanted to be-ever since I have had an understanding of what the law means. I used to play court with the other little ones and talk about law.'' At this time he wanted a little loan. He had become particularly interested in philanthropic work and thought he could do something on the side about that-perhaps become a leader of boys, or help the unprotected in some way. Adolf was really employed now to investigate cases by some lawyer. About this time he had been wearing a badge, impersonating an officer of a certain philanthropic society.

For long this young man was concocting all sorts of schemes how he might work in at the edge of legal affairs, as an interpreter, a ``next friend,'' an investigator, etc. More recent activities have taken Adolf away from the field of his first ambitions and he has tried to use his talents in all sorts of adventuresome ways. The accounts of his lying and impostures belong logically together, as follows.

During all our acquaintance with Adolf we have known his word to be absolutely untrustworthy. Many times he has descended upon his friends with quite unnecessary stories, leading to nothing but a lowering of their opinion of him. Repeatedly his concoctions have been without ascertainable purpose. His prevaricating nearly always centers about himself as some sort of a hero and represents him to be a particularly good-hearted and even definitely philanthropic person-one who loves all creatures and does much for others. Pages might be taken in recounting his falsehoods. Most of them, even when long drawn out, were fairly coherent. I remember one instance as showing how particularly uncalled for his prevarications were. After hearing one of his tales, we started downtown together, but missed a car. Adolf walked to the middle of the street and said he could see one coming just a few blocks away. Being doubtful, I a minute later went to look and no car even yet was in sight. Adolf sheepishly stared in a shop window. He never took any pleasure in his record of misdeeds. He was never boastful about them and indeed seemed to have quite normal moral feeling. But so far, none of his perceptions or apperceptions has led him to see the astonishing futility of his own lying and other misrepresentations.

Already this young man's court experiences we know to be very numerous and possibly we are not acquainted with all of them. Early we knew of his forging letters and telegrams and engaging in minor misrepresentations which were really swindling operations. Later his transactions have been spread about in different cities, as we have already stated. The young man borrowed small sums frequently on false pretenses. He has found the outskirts of legal practice a fruitful field for misrepresentations galore. For instance, at one time he stood outside the door of a concern which deals with small legal business and represented to the prospective patrons that he as a student of the law could transact their business with more individual care and for a less sum. He really succeeded in getting hold of the beginnings of a number of legal actions in this way. In one city he posed as the officer of a certain protective agency and posted himself where he would be likely to meet people who knew of this organization, in order to obtain petty business from them. We have heard that he has been a witness in a number of legal cases and has earned fees thereby. In Cleveland Adolf succeeded in starting a secret service agency and obtained contracts, among them the detective work for a newly started store of considerable size. This was a great tribute to his push and energy, but his agency soon failed. In St. Louis, where he stayed long enough to become acquainted with not a few members of the legal fraternity, he forged a legal document. A great deal was made of the case by the papers because of its flagrancy and amusing details. It seems Adolf had become enamored of a certain woman who was not living with her husband. The account runs that he urged his suit, but she refused because she was not legally free. Adolf replied that he would make that all right and in a week or two produced papers of divorce. These were made out in legal form, but it seems that he over-stepped the mark. The alleged decree stated that the fair divorcee must be remarried inside of a week. This seems to have aroused her suspicion, as had also some violence which Adolf had prematurely displayed. The young man was duly sentenced for the fraud.

Concerning punishments we can say that in the five years since he left New York he has served at least four terms in penal institutions and has been held to trial on one other occasion. This latter event concerned itself with Adolf's impersonating a federal officer. He made his way into a home under these conditions, just why we do not know. The case was difficult to adjust and was dismissed because no statute exactly covered it.

Perhaps nothing in his remarkable history shows Adolf's aggressiveness and peculiar tendencies any more than his political career. He had been voting long before he was of age and had even succeeded in getting a nomination for a certain party position during his minority, polling a considerable vote at the primaries. Following his defeat at election, which was at the time when the new party showed marked weakness, Adolf told us that he, after all, was only in the Progressive Party to wreck it. He felt that the leaders belonged back in the Republican ranks, and he thought he could help to get them there.

-------------------------------- Mentality: Subnormal verbalist type. Case 12. Man, 21 years. Developmental: Early illness with involvement of nervous system. Delinquencies: Lying excessive. Swindling. Stealing. --------------------------------