said that on last Good Friday he doled out sweetmeats, coppers, gin-and-water (large quantities of which he always kept on hand) to two hundred children. For some years he gave a poor old woman four shillings a week. His diet was simple, though not scant. He ate bread, cheese, and red herrings, and drank both milk and gin. Once, however, he gave up milk—and this, of course, is an important feature of his case—because he suspected that poison had been put into it. At one time he charged a farmer who supplied him with eggs with putting poison into them. When the farmer replied that it would be rather a difficult thing to do, he said that some poison must have been given to the old hen. He did not habitually drink to excess, but was occasionally drunk. It is supposed that he drank largely of gin the evening before his death, while feeling depressed. Fear of poison frequently led him to change his baker, and he carefully selected a loaf. In his room was found nearly a cart-load of loaves which he probably suspected of containing poison.
He died of apoplexy at sixty-one, on the 19th of April last. A week before his death he appeared as well as usual; he was, in fact, lively and communicative, and seemingly without any unfriendly spirit or delusion regarding his friends. He spoke with an asthmatic visitor very intelligently of the symptoms and causes of that disease. He remembered the number of years (seven) since he had seen him, and the subject discussed, which the visitor had forgotten. Sometimes, however, he complained of losing his memory, and it was noticed latterly that in using a Greek word—he partially remembered both Greek and Latin—he could not recall the whole of it, and, contrary to his custom, would be at a loss for a word. One who frequently visited him says that he was sometimes low-spirited, crying like a child, bemoaning his condition, and attributing it to the unkindness of his brother, which I know to be entirely false. At other times, if contradicted, he would fly into a passion, swear, and act so violently that his guest would be glad to get out of the house. Because, while this visitor was present once, a medical man happened to call, he quarreled with him, and suspected the two of a conspiracy.
That there was no imbecility of mind may at once be granted. His conversation was coherent and sensible; he was shrewd and wide awake in the ordinary transactions of his limited life, and he fully understood the value of money; his memory was remarkably retentive.[1] Most of his visitors failed to detect any signs of madness, and it is doubtful whether any jury would have found him insane. The commissioners considered his case in 1853, and took the testimony of his brother and a neighbor, but concluded that there was not sufficient
- ↑ One of his visitors, a traveled man, was surprised to find that Lucas had so much acquaintance with the various localities which turned up in conversation. His knowledge of Shakespeare and of the literature of the Restoration was very considerable. A medical man informs me that, in conversing with him about the classics, he displayed much intelligence.
