Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1876 — Somnambulism Extraordinary. [ARTICLE]

Somnambulism Extraordinary.

Ja Coarrier cU Nord of a recent date tell* a sensational story of a somnambulist. A Mme. D , residing at her country-house near St. Amend, France, bad for some lime been annoyed by numerous petty thefts of jewelry, luce and

other articles of a smaller character. Entrance to the chateau was so difficult as to be practically impo*nible; the fidelity of the servants of the family was beyond question, and the whole anair was one of the most Impenetrable of mysteries, when the lady’s son, an officer just back from Africa, arrrived at the house, and, being informed of tho mysterious disappearances, undertook to watch for the successful thief. Concealing himself at night in the corridor of the chateau, he watched till one o’clock, when a shadowy figure made its appearance, at which he presented his pistol and drew the trigger. The cap snapped, but the arm was not discharged, and by the flash of the cap the officer recognizod the thief. It was his mother. The lady was a somnambulist, and was in the habit of stealing nightly her own jewelry and laces, and hiding them in a cupboard in the corridor. There all the missing valuables were, on investigation, discovered. This story may be true, or it may be a French plagiarism from Barham’s tale of the officer’s trousers in the “ Ingoldsby Legends.”