A VICTIM TO THE IDEAL.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 151, 27 November 1874, Page 3

A VICTIM TO THE IDEAL.

A man ban just died in the Bic&tre Asylum whose lunacy bad a very singular origin. His name was Justin, and he exhibited waxwork figures at Montrogue, his gallery consisting of contemporary celebrities and great criminals. On a pedestal in the centre was the figure of a young girl remarkable for her graceful figure and perfect features, her hair falling in long curls over her naked shoulders, Justin had named her Eliza, and was so struck by her beauty that he passed hours in contemplating her. She seemed to him to speak, and h'*r blue eyes, with their long eyelashes, seemed to respond to his passion. Under the influence of this illusion he neglected his business, and for want of a showman to puff it people no longer visited the gallery. Poverty succeeded to easy circumstances; the modern Pygmalion could not separate himself from Eliza. His wife was obliged to sleep on a bare mattress, and when she remonstrated be ill-treated her. Irritated at the unjust harshness, she one day destroyed the wax figure. Justin was furious on seeing the fragment, and seizing a broomstick he struck his wife and would have killed her had not her cries drawn the neighbors to her assistance. Justin, who had lost the reason, had to be secured, and was an inmate of Bicfitre for five years, living up to the last under the charm of Eliza, whose image seemed always before him.