Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 September 1875 — A Horrible Hallucination. [ARTICLE]

A Horrible Hallucination.

Speaking of ike punishment of crime reminds the Paris correspondent of the New York Times of a very curious case just brought before the tribunal of the Haute-Garonne. Near Toulouse a workman named Berges shot four persons in less than two hours. Berges committed these crimes in October last, but hits just been brought up for trial. About nine o’clock in the evening he went out with his gun and walked toward the village of Balma. A woman who lived next door saw him going out and asked him if he was going hunting. *' Yes,” he replied, “1 am going to get a hare.” A short distance from the village he met two men, who saluted hinj simply as he went into the village, and five minutes later they heard two shots. Berges soon passed them again, and one remarked; “ You found your hare very soon.” Berges made no reply, but stopped a few paces further on to reload his gun. Hearing cries, the two men went to the place whence they came and found two dead bodies, those of Lasbax and Xaudy. Berges went back to Toulouse and again met the woman who had spoken to him when going out, and asked her if M. Caussinur, the proprietor 6f her house, was at home. She replied that he probably was, as he was unwell. Berges then saw' Caussinus going up some outside stairs, an l shot him dead. The assassin calmly loaded his gun again and went a few yard- farther on. when he saw a grocer named Yergnes shaving himself at a window. He instantly tired, and Vergnes fell badly wounded. Berges then went back toward Balma, and was trying to kill himself when seized. He tore himself away, saying: “ I have killed four of them, no v let me kill myself. 1 ' Putting the muzzle of the gun under his chin he tried to fire it with his foot, but failed to discharge the gun, and then it was taken from him by a blacksmith named Cazac, who was followed home by Berges. The blacksmith refused to give up the gun, and the assassin seized a carr-ing-knife, ran to t:ie top of the hill, placed the handle against a tree and pushed the blade into his abdomen. Meanwhile the gendarmes had been sent for, and they traced Berges by the blood which dripped freely from his wound to the Bridge of Hers, where he was captured and taken to the hospital. In a few weeks’ time his wound had. completely healed. The preliminary examination was lees for the purpose 'of establishing the crime, since the assassin confessed his guilt, than for finding the real motives for it. None of the witnesses could think of any quarrels between •Bergen and his victims, nor did anyone know that there was ill-feeling on either side. ’ There had been somfe little gossip

about poaching, hut nothing serious, and Berges had never been heard to utter any particular threats against them. He himself furnished the explanation. He had gone one day to dig a well fqr M. Fort, and when working in the pit had been seized with a violent pain in his head. A cold sweat, he said, broke out from all his members. When going home he met two women, one tall and brilliant, like a Srincess. “ She looked at me a great eal,” said Berges, “and I shall jiever forget her look. On going home, up comes my son, only four years of age, who seized me by the leg an<l squeezed me as hard as if I were in a vise. All night long I heard frightful noises, and the next day my son and my wife fell sick.” Berges attributed these phenomena to the evil eye of the two women he had seen, who had thrown a spell upon him, and on inquiring who they were he found that they had relations with the men he afterward lulled. Firmly convinced that he was the victim of sorcery, Berges finally resolved to put ah end to it by killing all these persons and then himself, hoping thereby to save his wife and child from the fatal influence of their witchcraft. There was nothing in the story thus told which indicated that Berges was out of his mind, for His ideas were all clear, his language correct, and his bearing that of a man who was in possession of Tiis faculties. It was a pure case of ignorant superstitition. Now what could be done with a man of this kind ? A medical commission was appointed to examine him, and only one-half wanted to pronounce him a lunatic, but all agreed that ho was not in the possession of a right mind, that he was an ignorant fanatic, and that it would be monstrous to cut off his head. Let us repeat, one-half the doctors said that Berges was crazy, the other half that he was not in the full possession of his faculties, yet the Court condemned him to death.