A Mixed Relationship.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXV, Issue 241, 10 November 1903, Page 4

A Mixed Relationship.

A wild-eyed, dishevelled man applied for admission as an incurable patient at the door of a lunatic asylum. The head physician cast his eyes upon him and marked him for his own.

" But tell mo how It happened," said tho mild and affable doctor, gazing down benignly upon tho applicant. " I'll tell you how it is, doctor," said he, looking suspiciously round the room as if in search of oavesdroppers. " I was a respectable, sober religious man once ; but see what a wreck I have become. I met a young widow with a grown-up stepdaughter and married that widow. Then my father met our stepdaughter, and married her. That made my wife the mother-in-law of her father-in-law, and made my step daughter my mother, and my lather became nay stepson. See ?" The patient gazed at the doctor, who was looking at the ceiling as if absorbed in some calculation about a horsefly up there. The wild-eyed man went on :

"Then my stepmother, tho stepdaughter of my wife, had a son. That boy was of course, my brother, because ho wag my father's son ! But ho was also the son of my wife's stepdaughter, and therefore hor grandson. That made mo grandfather of my stepbrother. Then my 1 wife had a son. t " My mother-in-law, tho stepsister of my son, is also his grandmother, because he is her stepson's child. My father is tho brother-in-law of my child because his stepsister is his wife. So lam tho nephew of my own son, who is also the grandchild of my stepmother ! " Now, just listen to this, which nobody but I has been ablo to cipher out. lam my mother's, brother-in-law, my wife is my own child's aunt, my son is my father's nephew, and I am my own grandfather—and I can't stand It.

" I havo struggled against it till my brain has given way, and if I cannot get relief hero I will drown myself before I become my own grandchild and have to begin life all over again." The dottor sat mute and motionless, and when the shades of evening closed around them the attendants found two patients there instead of one.