The Daily Picayune New Orleans - Sunday, April 21, 1895

AN ECCENTRIC ENGLISHMAN,
Who Was Stopping at the Grunewald, Lands in the Louisiana Retreat.

Several weeks ago an Englishman arrived in the city and registered at the Grunewald Hotel. He came on a British freight steamer to visit the United States and travel about the country on an observation tour for two or three months. The reporters interviewed him and learned that he was a lecturer on Greek and Latin literature in Cambridge College, England. He was apparently a very intelligent man, although he didn't understand interviewing. He had been a lecturer for some time after having graduated in this special branch. He remained about the hotel for two weeks, when the suspicions of the clerks and employes were excited as to the man's sound mental faculties. He would be subjected almost continually to mental abberations and discusssed religion all the time. When he could not find anyone to talk with him when he was in a state of mental agitation or mind wandering he would stalk about the corridor and mutter to himself and would stare at objects on the walls that could not possibly inspire the observation of a rational being. He would hold long conversations with bellboys and servants and discussed religion with them constantly. He continued to grow worse and imagined his name had been connected with that of Oscar Wilde at the time of the aesthetic ex-gentleman's trial in London. This took him completely off his balance and the hotel people were obliged to send him to the Louisiana Retreat, where he now resides. He wore flannel shirts, celluloid collars, an English walking suit, leggings and knee trousers, and his peculiar actions excited a great deal of attention during his stay in the hotel.