Pathology of Lying, accusation, and swindling Part 4

About her own lying tendencies she confessed that sometimes she hardly knew whether things were really so or not. Asked about her knowledge of other cities; ''I read a whole lot and learn things in that way. I used to have to write compositions and imagine we were going places. I was pretty good at that.'' One felt very uncertain about Hazel's mental condition when in almost the same breath she denied having said anything about the seals on the rocks at San Francisco, or about obstetrical cases, but, of course, the denial may have been itself another falsification.

Her knowledge of army affairs was gained through her acquaintance with young soldiers. An unusual amount of what she heard or read was photographed with the greatest clearness in her mind and was recalled most vividly.

A peculiarity of Hazel's case which was quite obvious was her lack of apperception concerning her own interests. Her lies all along, after her ident.i.ty was discovered, were so easy to trace, and they so quickly rebounded upon her, that there seemed every reason for her to desist. Nothing so clearly proved the absence of self-realization as her feeling under detention that other girls with whom she was in forced a.s.sociation were much beneath her in quality, although many of them were not nearly so untidy and had not been nearly so immoral. During all this period of several months, beginning with her running away and her writing the housewifely letters about her imaginary married life, and ending with her appeal for aid at the social center, Hazel was indulging in veritable orgies of lying. When away from home she several times picked up men on the street and stayed at hotels with them.

At the time of our first studies of this case we hardly dared to offer either a mental or moral prognosis.

In the inst.i.tution for delinquent young women to which she was sent Hazel's traits were long maintained. She proved very troublesome on account of lies to her family, to the officers, and to the other girls. The latter soon discovered, however, the peculiar lack of foundation for her stories. In the inst.i.tution was also noted the tendency to untidiness of which her mother spoke. The authorities steadily persevered with Hazel. They secured another operation on her eye, which successfully straightened it, and she became fully ''cured'' of her pelvic disease. She received instruction in a form of handicraft in which she quickly showed special dexterity and skill. Her tendencies to falsify gradually became less. About two years later the mother again a.s.sumed control with great success.

This is the remarkable interest of Hazel's case, to wit, that with proper discipline and the development of new interests her fabricating tendencies have been reduced to a minimum. She has made a wonderful improvement and has long been a self-supporting and self-respecting young woman with her own relation to the world realized in a way that before seemed entirely lacking.

------------------------------------------------------------- Mental conflict: About early secret Case 1.

experiences. Girl, age 16 yrs.

Mental conditions: Either mild psychosis or extreme adolescent instability.

Bad companions: Early.

Delinquencies: Mentality: Extreme lying. Normal ability.

Running away. Psychosis (?).

s.e.x.

CASE 2

Summary: A girl of 19, under partial observation for three years, was during all this time a great mystery. Brought at first to us by her family as being insane because she was such a great liar and unreliable in other ways, we never could find the slightest evidence of aberration. No satisfactory explanation was forthcoming until the remarkable denouement when we learned that the mother, whom we had come to know herself as an extreme falsifier, was not the mother at all. It seems clear that the girl's behavior was largely the result of mental conflict about certain suspected facts, and psychic contagion arising from the world of lies in which she had lived.

Beula D. has been known in several cities and in more than one court as the ''mystery girl.'' She has appeared on the scene in various places, giving a fict.i.tious name and telling elaborate stories of herself which always proved to be without foundation.

She ran away from home on several occasions, but except in one instance which we know about, has never been seriously delinquent. We saw her on many occasions and tried to get at the truth of her stories of ill treatment and the like.

Investigators found there was unquestionably some truth in her statements, but never from first to last in the many interviews which we had with her was there ever any possibility of separating truth from falsehood. The girl simply did not seem to know the difference between the two. What was more, we found that the mother presented the same characteristics. She also, by her most curious and complicated fabrications, led even her most rational sympathizers into a bewildering maze. A woman of magnificent presence, tremendous will, and good intelligence, she nevertheless was soon found to be absolutely unreliable in her statements. This woman's numerous inventions, so far as we have been able to ascertain, have been quite beside the mark of any possible advantage to be gained by her or her family. Naturally we here thought heredity played an important role, until our final discovery that the two were not related. The details which we know about this case would cover scores of pages. In summary it stands as follows:

On the physical side Beula at 17 was a striking looking young woman, but of very poor development. She was only 4 ft. 7 in. in height and weighed 102 lbs. Expression was quiet, pleasant, and responsive. Unusually clear and pleasant voice. Typical Hutchinsonian teeth. All other examination negative.

Menstruation first at 13 1/2, normal and regular.

Notwithstanding the mother's report of her being subnormal mentally, we found that she had fair ability. Her range of information was good. She was always desirous of writing compositions, she wanted to be a story writer, she said, but her diction was very immature and her spelling was poor, making altogether a very mild production. Never did we see any essential incoherency in her mental processes, or any other signs of aberration. A series of a.s.sociation tests given in an endeavor to discover some of the facts which her mother maintained she herself was desirous of knowing (but really could not have been), failed to elicit anything but the most normal reactions, even to ideas about which we considered there must be some feeling-tone.

On the ''Aussage'' Test only ten items were given from the picture upon free recital. On questioning twelve more details were reported correctly, but no less than seven of these alleged facts were incorrect. Only one out of the five suggestions offered was accepted.

No purpose would be served in recounting the details of falsehood which were told by this girl about family affairs, about the places she had worked, about the facts of home treatment, etc.

Her lying was not done cleverly, but it served to create much confusion and gave considerable trouble to a number of social agencies that came in contact with the family. Even when she was applying directly for help her lies stood greatly in the way of achieving anything for her. The confusion was vastly added to by the many vagaries of her alleged parent, but, even so, one of the chief accusations of the prevaricating mother was that the girl herself was a terrible liar. The whole situation was rendered completely absurd and needless by the behavior of both the woman and the girl.

After we had known this case for about three years and the truth about Beula's antecedents had come to light as the result of a new person stepping in on the scene, the girl's tendency to falsification seemed quite inexplicable. No one who came to know the circ.u.mstances, even as we previously had been acquainted with them, felt they could blame Beula much for her att.i.tude of dissatisfaction and her tendencies to run away. We felt, too, that the mystery which had always hovered about this girl was sufficient to have led her to be fanciful and imaginative and that the fabrications of the self-styled ''mother'' did not form an atmosphere in which the girl could well achieve respect for truth. But Beula's almost confusional state concerning the facts of her family life seemed quite explicable in the light of what we at last ascertained. Soon after we first saw the girl the woman had told us a most remarkable tale of how it was she happened to be the mother of the child, and the attempt was then made by several to straighten out the apparent doubt in the girl's mind. But it seems that the clever and tragic tale of the mother, although well calculated to do so, did not entirely cover the points remembered by this girl of her earliest childhood.

Evidently for a time Beula tried to correlate the two, but doubt grew apace. It seemed almost as if her doubt as to who she was led her to say first one thing and then another. It was particularly at a period of stress of this kind that she was figuring in other cities as the ''mystery girl.''

The earlier facts of the case probably never will be known. Of the many details known by us it is sufficient to say that the woman adopted Beula as a young child and proceeded by devious methods to weave a network of lies about the situation of their relationship. Who Beula's parents really were neither she nor any one else of whom we have heard, ever knew.

Beula showed such delinquent tendencies after a time that she had to be sent to a corrective inst.i.tution. After coming out she made off in the world for herself before we could give her the information soon afterwards obtained by us. At her last visit we felt that her report in a terribly tragic mood on the family conditions was totally unreliable. She went forth to weave, no doubt, new fabrications.

--------------------------------------------------------------- Early experiences: Peculiar treatment Case 2.

and excessive misrepresentations Girl, age 19 years.

in home circle.

Mental influences: Contagion from long continued untruthfulness at home.

Mystery of antecedents.

Mental conflict about the above.

Heredity and developmental conditions (?) Hutchinsonian teeth only clew.

Delinquencies: Mentality: Lying. Fair ability with Running away. poor educational s.e.x. advantages.

CASE 3

Summary: In its wonderfully clear presentation of characteristics this case cla.s.sically represents the type. A woman of 27 years (usually claiming to be 17), during a career of 7 or 8 years has engaged in an excessive amount of misrepresentation, often to the extent of swindling. Alleging herself to be merely a girl and without a family, she has repeatedly gained protection, sometimes for a year or more, in homes where her prevaricating tendencies, appearing with ever new details, have sooner or later thwarted her own interests. By extraordinary methods she has often simulated illnesses which have demanded hospital treatment. For long she was lost to her family, traveling about under different names, making her way by her remarkable abilities and unusual presence.

This case ill.u.s.trates, again, two points we have often made, namely, that the difficulty of getting safe data concerning genetics increases rapidly with age, and that the chance of altering tendencies after years of character formation vastly diminishes. These features appear strongly here, yet our long knowledge of the person and of the many details of her career gives the history great interest.

A young woman, whom we will call Inez B., a name she once a.s.sumed for a time, arrived at a girls' boarding home in Chicago with merely a small traveling bag and money sufficient only for a few days. In appearance and conversation she gave distinct evidences of refinement. She showed indecision and confessed she knew no one in the city.

Just at this time a wealthy eastern girl, Agnes W., was missing from her home, and the police everywhere were on the lookout for her. A detective who was ordered to visit the boarding club showed a picture of Agnes W. to the matron, who instantly discerned a likeness to Inez and informed him of her recent arrival. Inez was questioned, but could or would give no satisfactory response concerning her own home. She maintained she was just 17 and had come to Chicago to make her own way in the world. After some account of herself, the details of which were somewhat contradictory, it was inferred that she might be Agnes W. She vehemently denied it, but being the same age and some likeness being discerned, the questioning was continued.

Various matters of Agnes W.'s antecedents were gone into and after a time Inez burst out with, ''Well, if you must have it so, I am Agnes W.'' The girl was thereupon taken in charge by the police authorities, and she herself registered several times as Agnes W. After the family of the latter had been communicated with, however, it was ascertained that Inez was not the lost heiress.

She now said that anyhow she really was a runaway girl. She had left her adopted parents because they were cruel and immoral. It was her unhappy brooding over her own affairs that led her to lie about being the other girl. She insisted she was sorry for the many lies she had told various officers, but felt, after all, they were to blame because their obvious desire to have her tell that she was Agnes W. led her on. They deceived her first because they misrepresented themselves and did not say they were police officials. Nevertheless, she makes much of how she hates her false position, being registered under a false name and figuring as a deceiver.

The significant points in the long story of Inez, as told to us in the days of our first acquaintance with her, are worth giving.

(At this period she was with us thoroughly consistent; at all times she has appeared self-possessed and coherent.) Inez states she is 17 and has just come from a town in Tennessee where she has been living for a couple of years with some people by the name of B. who adopted her. At first they were very good to her and she loved them dearly. She was quite unsophisticated when she went to them and did not realize then that they were not good people. She met them at an employment agency in St. Louis where she had gone after leaving the Smiths, the people who had brought her up. At that time the B.'s appeared fairly well-to-do, but Mr. B. had been running up debts that later carried him into bankruptcy. Inez was sick and exhausted now from having worked so hard for them. She finally ran away from that town because the B.'s wanted to go elsewhere, leaving her in a compromising position with a young man who rented their house. She first tried boarding in two places, however, before she ventured to go.

The Smiths were the people she lived with until she was 14. She remembers first living with them, but faintly recalls bearing the name of Mary Johnson before that. Who the Johnsons were she does not know, but she feels sure of the fact that she was born in New Orleans. However, Inez does not worry about her parentage even though it is unknown. Mrs. Smith was an elderly woman of wealth who was very good to her, and by the time she was 14 she had studied German and French, algebra and trigonometry. She had a French tutor and took lessons on the piano. Always did well in school and loved her work there. The Smith children, who were much older, were very angry with their mother for all the money she spent on Inez--they would have preferred its being expended on their children. The son grew quite abusive and Mrs. S. was made to suffer so much that the girl came to feel that she was largely the cause of the old lady's unhappiness. After one particularly deplorable scene she slipped away from their home in New Orleans, traveled to St. Louis and went to an employment agency where she found the B.'s. At the present time, above all things, she does not want the Smiths to know about her when she is temporarily a failure. She will never go back to them until she can help the old lady who was so good to her.

Inez tells us she is now suffering from a wound still open as the result of an operation for appendicitis performed two years previously. She also suffered from tuberculosis a few years ago.

(She was found to be running a slight temperature, and some slight hemorrhages in the sputum were observed.)

It may strengthen the portraiture so far sketched to give our impressions as stated after our first study covering a week or two; nor will it lessen the reader's interest to remark that it was not for lack of acquaintance with the pathological liar type that we failed to correctly size up this individual. Indeed, we had already studied nearly all the other cases cited in this monograph. Our statement ran as follows: ''This girl is very frank and talkative with us. With her strong, but refined features and cultivated voice she is a good deal of a personality. She is sanguine and independent. Very likely she does not exaggerate the hard times she has had in going from one home to another. One cannot but respect this unusual young woman for wanting to keep her early history secret. It would be fortunate if some one would care for the girl and get her ailments cured. With her very good ability she might easily then be self-supporting.''

A woman of strength and judgment undertook to look after Inez.

The girl's personality commanded interest. In a few days she complained more vigorously of her abdominal trouble; an operation seemed imperative and was performed. (An account of this will be given later.) Later the girl was taken to a convalescent home and then to a beautiful lake resort. While here she suddenly was stricken desperately ill. Her friend was telegraphed for, a special boat was commissioned, and the girl was taken to a neighboring sanitarium. The doctors readily agreed that the case was one of simulation or hysteria. She was brought back to Chicago and warned that this sort of performance would not pay.

After being given further opportunity to rest, although under less favorable circ.u.mstances, in a few weeks she was offered work in several homes, but in each instance the connection was soon severed. Then without letting her guardian-friend know, Inez suddenly left the city.

Inquiries had brought by this time responses telling something of the career of Inez in the past two years, but nothing earlier.

She was the ''mystery girl'' in the Tennessee town, as she was in Chicago. The B.'s kept a boarding-house and took Inez as a waitress, knowing her first by still another alias. She worked for them about a year and then went to Memphis, where she was sick in a hospital. She had now taken the B.'s name. They were regarded as her guardians (on the girl's authority) and they finally sent for her again out of pity, although they felt she had a questionable past, and they knew she had lied tremendously while with them. Then the B.'s moved away and turned Inez over to a respectable family. While with the B.'s Inez had been regarded as a partial invalid; their physician diagnosed the case as diabetes and found it incurable. In fact, the B.'s went into debt for her prolonged treatment. Another physician, who was called in after the B.'s left, said the trouble was Bright's disease. At any rate, all regarded her as suffering from some chronic disorder. Except for her extraordinary lying, of which she made exhibitions to many, and some little tendencies to dishonesty mixed with her lying, Inez was regarded as being quite normal. The two other families with whom she lived for a time found it impossible to tolerate the girl on account of her lying.

Finally, obtaining money by false representation, telling the story of a rich uncle in Chicago to whom she was going, Inez departed, taking with her a trunk containing valuables belonging to the B.'s.

Dropping our chronological account of this case we may from this time deal with it as a whole, putting together the facts as they developed by further study of Inez herself and by the receipt of information from many sources.

Since we have known her, Inez has been under the observation of several skilled medical specialists. She all along has been in good general physical condition. Having been treated previously for diabetes, special examinations were repeatedly made, but never a trace of this trouble was discernible. Her own story of having had tuberculosis, and the traces of blood in the sputum, which she presented on handkerchiefs, etc., led to repeated tests for tuberculosis. These also proved absolutely negative. Before all this, there was found on the left side of the abdomen a ma.s.s which, from the history the girl gave, was surmised to be a tubercular abscess. At this time she was running a little temperature. An operation was performed and an encysted hairpin was removed from the peritoneal cavity. This had undoubtedly found entrance through the old appendicitis wound; the hairpin had evidently been straightened for the purpose. Both wounds now speedily closed. Gynecological examination showed no disease and established the fact of virginity. Thorough neurological examination showed that the girl was not of nervous type and that there was no evidence whatever of organic disease. There was complaint of frequent headaches, but no signs of acute suffering from these were ever witnessed and by this time no reports of subjective symptoms could be credited. No sensory defects of any importance. It was always easy to get a little variation upon visual tests and the like, however. Weight 130; height 5 ft. 1 in. Color good. Head notably well shaped with broad high forehead. Strength good. Very normal development in all ways.

Most important to note as bearing on her social career was the fact that Inez was possessed of markedly strong, regular, pleasant features, including a good set of teeth well cared for, and an unusually firm chin. In att.i.tude and expression she seemed to give complete proof of great strength of will and character. Her face suggested both frankness and firmness. When with quiet force and dignity a.s.serting her desire for education and a place in the world, Inez presented a most convincing picture. Perhaps even more significant is the fact that Inez possesses a speaking voice of power and charm, well modulated and of general qualities which could belong apparently to no other than a highly cultivated person.

During a year there has been no variation in the general well-being of Inez, although she has been taken to hospitals in at least two more towns and has figured again as a sufferer from tuberculosis and appendicitis, and has written several times to friends that she was about to be operated on.