Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 82, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1906 — Insane Man Better and Taken Back To Chicago. [ARTICLE]

Insane Man Better and Taken Back To Chicago.

Late Friday night Sheriff O'Connor received a telephone communication from William Kalb, in Chicago, brother of Michael Kalb, the insane man captur ed near Fair Oaks, that morning. The brother asked that Michael be held and cared for until next morning when he promised to confe after him on the 11 A. M. train.

Michael had a very bad night aid the Sheriff, who watched him most of the night, thinks he never slept at all until after breakfast next morning, when he went to sleep, iand had a good rest. He gave’rhe new padded cell the first, hard test it has had and it stood every test. He tried in ever means to tear the walls but without effect. He continued to see- snakes and other unpleasant objects, and much of the t ; me imagined he was working to rescue his brother from under a wall which had fallen on him. He kept working and tug ging away all night, and at such a rate that it was a wonder that he did not exhaust himself sooner. This brother William did not come but two others Dan and Mathias arrived as expected. They stated that their brother came down from Chicago last Monday to visit an uncle, also

named Michael Kalb, who lives in Keener township. They had received no notice from the uncle of his having wandered away. They said he had never had any such an attack before, and they are disposed to believe that exposure to tie hot sun had a good deal to do with his deranged condition, as before he became an iron worker he used to work a great deal in the sun bare-headed and of late years he has been unable to stand exposure to the hot sun. He had probably’been drinking considerable, also though the brothers state that he is not in the habit of excessive drinking. He was much improved by his morning sleep and when his brothers arrived he knew them and talked quite rationally. They went back with him on the 3:30 P. M. train. They were asked about the story he told of his father being just out of a hospitals and losing his legs by disease and said it was not all his imagination and 'that their father died about a year ago but did have badly diseased legs. Of the brothers who came down one is a saloon keeper and the other is a foundry worker. They had still four more brothers in Chicago. When they left Michael seemed to have entirely regained his faculties. It seems that he left his Uncle’s place Thursday morning to walk to Rose Lawn and became lost and bewildered, ai d this and the beat probably mainly caused,his derangement. He was first noticed Thursday evening two miles west of Fair Oaks, or some 12 miles from his starting place. He spent Thursday night some place in the woods. His uncle near Kniman, no doubt supposed he had reached Rose Lawn all right, and had safely returned to Chicago.