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Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2298, 17 September 1870, Page 2

An extraordinary ease of atrocity has just been disclosed before the Court of Assizes of the Manche a man having been kept con* pealed, chained to a bed, for a period of forty years, by his own father first, and by a brother a f terwards. In the year 1830 a farmer named B. u Hand live 1 with his wife and four sons—Chari's, Jacques, Franco! and Julien in the commune of Romagny. Julisn, who was then 22 years of age, had showed some sign s of a deranged mind, the result of a fright while walking at night, and the father, to escape the trouble of guarding thp ypung inaip had him chained by tfie two wrists on a bed from which the son never moved. The result of the captivity was that Ju’icn’s limbs became at length completely paralysed .from Inaction, and he became a perfect idiot. The father died in 1852, having previously shared his fortune between the throe other sons, on condition that Charles and Francois should each pay a sura of 200f. annually for the wants of their brother, while Jacques was to board and lodge him. The unfortunate man continued chained to his bed until 1864, when, as he codd no longer make any movement, the shackles were taken off him, but it was not until the present year that the fact? came to the ears of the judicial authorities, A descent was made on the house, and Julien, now over sixty years of age, was found almost naked and in a miserable condition on a litter of straw, placed in a dark hole for concealment. Jacques Bouillaud being arrested, was now brought up for trial, and pleaded in his defence that ho had only oonfiiraed a state of things commenced: by his father. The jury returned a verdict of “tfot guilty.”