Chapter III: Cases of Pathological Lying and Swindling (2)

At the age of 18 Inez met with what, according to her family, was a decisive event in her life. She was in a trolley car accident; after being knocked down she was unconscious for some time. No definite injury was recorded. Her family marked an entire change of character from that time. They say she then began lying in the minutest detail about people and seemed to believe in her own falsifications. Besides this she started the roving tendency which she has shown ever since.

The extensive information which we have received concerning the later history of this remarkable case we can only take space to give in summary. We know definitely that Inez has received attention, during periods varying from a few days to six months, in no less than 18 different hospitals. Besides this she has been under the care of physicians at least a score of times. Her swindling in this matter was so flagrant in one eastern city to which she had journeyed that she was handled through the police court and was sentenced to a state hospital for the insane for a term of 6 months. The charge was that she was an idle person and a beggar, and she was regarded as perhaps being unbalanced. The report from this town is that she would be taken with ``spells of apparent violent illness on the street, in the trolley cars, at railroad stations, and so be carried to various hospitals and doctors' homes.'' She has visited numerous cities, getting her sustenance largely through hospitals and physicians.

After being admitted into one famous hospital and showing some of her curious manifestations she was transferred to a state institution in the vicinity to be studied for insanity. Correspondence with one physician tells the story of how five years ago he was called from a medical meeting to attend this ``girl'' who had been taken from a trolley car into his home. She was apparently suffering great pain in the region of the old appendicitis scar and she was conveyed in an ambulance to a hospital. After investigation for a few days, it was decided she was hysterical or a simulator.

On numerous occasions her feigned illness has been so apparently overcoming that she has had to be transferred in an ambulance to a hospital. One of her usual performances has been to get into some home or institution and then keep others awake all night with her signs of distress. It is interesting that she has used the same methods over and over again, but has been adroit enough to vary the illnesses which she has simulated. At one time investigation in a hospital seemed to show that she was neurasthenic. She has been given chances in homes for convalescents, but has never maintained herself in such a place for long. We note she was sent back from one of these to the main hospital on account of having vomited the medicine she had been given. In fact, she has repeatedly been found resisting the treatment which had been prescribed.

The record of admission and treatment given in one hospital is of peculiar interest. She was received there four years ago and evidently had been unable just previously to take care of herself properly on account of roaming. Her clothing was dirty and her head unclean. She was found to have the old appendicitis scar, which contained a small sinus. She remained in bed after admission, complaining of much pain in her abdomen, not well localized however, and would lie moaning, crying, and rolling across the bed. She was then running a slight temperature. After a time an operation was decided upon and a hairpin was found in the abdominal wall, undoubtedly inserted through the scar by the patient herself. (The findings of the surgeon in Chicago, then, revealed a repeated performance.)

At another place the patient maintained she was unable to urinate, but at the same time strongly resisted catheterization. From the variability of her complaint it was found it could not be caused by a local condition, and examination showed no reason for the difficulty. Analysis of her symptoms undertaken at this time led to several stories, one about urethritis, which Inez claimed to have contracted from her brother at 3 years; an episode when she had received a great fright during micturition; an incident when she had seen a man exposed when she went to the toilet. (Of course, our experience with this type of case leads us to appreciate the difficulties of psychological analysis with extreme liars.)

On one occasion she entered a hospital, claiming to have been recently injured; she had been taken in a supposed fainting condition from a car. Then it was she maintained that she had been struck by an iron bar and that a spike had entered her back. She also claimed at this time to have had her toes frozen. Study of the case here, too, showed no signs of injury or frost bite. On another occasion she told of having been dropped by a nurse while being lifted from a bed. Altogether her stories and her simulations have been convincing enough to get for her on many occasions good attention during at least a few days.

We can get no account of true hysterical signs being discovered by any one. There has been no showing of anything but that she is a liar and a simulator. In the hospital records the portions devoted to previous history are thoroughly vitiated by her untruthfulness, and they contain statements which offer great contradictions, one to the other.

Inez has been observed, then, for two long periods by psychiatrists. While at the end of neither period were the observers willing to state that the young woman was compos mentis, still their verdict in this matter had to be made up from considerations of her social behavior rather than from what they were able to discern by direct observation of her mental processes. From one case-record we read that ``The patient was quiet, pleasant, and agreeable, replied promptly and intelligently to questions, and talked spontaneously of her affairs. She was quite clear as to the environment, had apparently a satisfactory memory, with the exception of a recent period preceding admission. Her statements, too, were probably not altogether truthful, but frequently a reason for the untruthfulness was made out. She thought that her mind was all right, but complained of having occasional difficulty in thinking.''

Another prolonged study of her mental status was made four years ago. From the record we learn that there were no apparent reactions to hallucinations. Consciousness was clear and the patient was completely oriented for time, place, and persons. The train of thought was coherent and relevant. Questions were readily answered and attention easily held. Memory was fair for most events. School knowledge was reasonably well retained. Judgment, to this observer, seemed impaired, although no definite delusions could be elicited. Emotionally she was found more or less irritable, fault finding, and at times a trifle despondent. (Certainly the latter would be a natural reaction under the circumstances.) Often, however, she was found cheerful and contented. No special volitional disturbances were noted. Was found to act in an hysterical manner when she felt ill. She was neat, tidy, and cleanly in her habits. Appetite was good and she slept well. Such was the report from the institution where she was held for six months. There was no material change in her condition during this time; she showed herself very proficient with the needle; she was discharged when her sentence expired.

We note a statement from one hospital that this ``girl'' gave no evidence of having had any direct sexual experience, or that she had ruminated much over these matters. Her story about frequent fainting attacks given at this time was not corroborated by observation. The diagnosis from one hospital was neurasthenia, but investigation of her case in most places seems to have led merely to the conclusion that she was a tremendous liar.

Notwithstanding our long record of this case and the accounts which have been handed in to us of experiences with her in other localities, we do not presume to know a tithe of the places Inez has been to or lived in during the last eight years. It is more than likely that she herself would find it difficult to give any accurate account of her rovings. At the time we first saw Inez her parents had not heard from her for about three years. Shortly after this we found that she had renewed correspondence with them and had sent them money as if she were now prosperous. Her family have all along, in spite of her stories, been poor. At one period she visited several cities in the southeastern states and was at a hospital in one of them. In Charleston there is a family by the name of B. (spelled the same as the name of the people she was with in Tennessee). These were the people Inez asked us to write to in an appeal, because they had long known her and were wealthy, for a chance to get an education. She stated they were immediate relatives of the B.'s in Tennessee, and that she had visited them once at their fine home in Charleston for three or four months. These people replied to us that they had been receiving letters for years from associations and organizations in regard to this girl whom they had never seen. They were convinced she had assumed their name because she had understood they were well-to-do and liberal. ``We know nothing about her education, but judge she has enough to dupe people with; posing as poor at one time, sick at another, and anxious for an education at another, as you inform us.''

From another correspondent with whom Inez had lived in Alabama for a few weeks we had a marvelous tale which they heard from her. She had told them she formerly lived in the most beautiful part of New Orleans and when 5 years old was placed in a convent, and then taken to a boarding-school, from which she was kidnapped and taken to a small town in Georgia. She was later placed in another boarding-school and there met the wealthy B.'s of Charleston who took her home with them. While there she had to go to a hospital on account of some infection. One day she was thrust into a taxicab, taken on a boat, landed at another city, etc. The B.'s of Charleston have thus figured long in her story, and we learned from several correspondents that this kidnapping has figured over and over as a big event in her life.

Once, years ago, Inez was taken into a private home accompanied by a trunk, we hear, which was found to contain a considerable amount of jewelry. This was pawned in the name of the people with whom she then lived and was redeemed later by some one else. Inez laid claim to the jewelry after a time, but apparently was unable to produce anybody who could vouch that it was really hers. Its ownership has remained unknown.

When she went to St. Louis at one time she had stated she was to meet a relative there, but the person, we have come to know, was a certain very decent young man who had become acquainted with her through a correspondence bureau. He had thought well of her and warned her not to come to that city, but when she did so he met her and took her at once to his own home where the womenfolk looked after her until she was found a place elsewhere. The deliberate attempt to throw herself upon his protection was thus frustrated by his relatives. Many other reports of the misrepresentations of Inez have been given us. She has discovered that borrowing money on the strength of invented statements is sometimes possible, particularly for her with her good presence and convincing manner. The B.'s complained that when she left Tennessee there were in her trunk many dollars' worth of articles that belonged to them.

Throughout our long experience with Inez we have never been able to make up our mind whether or not she remembered all of her past. Her lying always stood in the way of getting at anything like the real facts. On no occasion has she truthfully dealt with her career as we know it. She has professed absolute lack of knowledge of her accident, and of the time and place of its occurrence. It is interesting that none of her acquaintances mention this. Although Inez has told long stories of her past to many people, and with some inclusion of truth, she never seems to have mentioned this important event of which we learned from her family. We cannot, then, decide about possible amnesia for this occurrence.

On occasion Inez has expressed the same desire for religious experience as for education, and has written to friends that she had become imbued with the Spirit. Her story of her religious upbringing is altogether unreliable and contradictory, but while in one hospital she professed belief, took communion, and was baptized in a certain faith. Her behavior was not, however, in the least modified by this.

One serious minded woman took Inez at her word when she said she wanted to study algebra and offered her a good opportunity which was never accepted. This demonstrated clearly that the desire was a matter of words only. Inez' constant assertion of independence has been one of her main sources of temporary success. Kindly people have speedily taken up with her. Sympathy is undoubtedly, in spite of her statements to the contrary, one of the strongest needs of her nature. In one of her letters we note her expression of satisfaction in a certain situation where she found herself much ``mothered'' by kind nurses. All her chances, however, have been spoiled by her indulgence in lies.

Inez has remained adamant to every plea and suggestion made by many well-wishing friends that she reform and begin again. After her parents and other relatives were found and communicated with, her career partly known, and her mother's need of sympathy shown to her, she still refused to change her story in many particulars--even when she knew that we had discovered about her writing home within recent months. She steadily refused to acknowledge her true age. When the evidence was complete, showing that she could not be held as a runaway girl, but must be treated under the law as a woman, she went forth to begin, as we heard from many other sources, her old misrepresentations of herself, which speedily got her into further trouble.

We were not astonished, even after we had accumulated almost the entire knowledge of the career which we have outlined above, and Inez knew that we had done so, to be visited by two fine philanthropic women who wanted to consult with us about an unfortunate girl who had won their sympathy, and who had been placed by them in a leading hospital after having shown some signs of acute bronchitis. In fact, she was in such a bad condition that she had to be transferred in an ambulance. But her illness had rapidly cleared up and now after ten days of observation an eminent diagnostician had thoroughly scolded her for simulation, and the girl was once more on their hands. Indirectly they learned that we knew of the case of this ``girl of 16.'' They realized that they had been taken in, but it had been done so cleverly, and, as they expressed it, Inez showed herself such a splendid actress, that they wondered if she had not extraordinary histrionic abilities which could be utilized. (It remains to be seen whether anything constructive can be done by following this lead. We feel that previous psychiatrists who gave earlier an unfavorable prognosis in this case were perhaps quite right. But perhaps we should not let our opinions in this be swayed by the fact that my associate, Dr. Bronner, who went to this last hospital was met by an absolute denial on the part of Inez of the essentials of the above career, by her insistence that she was not the same person as the daughter of the Smiths, and that she was only 17--all this in spite of her knowledge of our correspondence with her family and others, and her own previous acknowledgments of lying.)

Summary: In summarizing the characteristics of this woman we may first insist that she has ambition, push, and energy in high degree. Her personality as expressed in general bearing, features, and facial action is remarkably strong and convincing. Her ambition was shown in her work on our tests as well as in her social behavior. (We have wondered if it was not her desire to shine which prevented the typical performance of the pathological liar on the ``Aussage'' test.) Her self-confidence as expressed on numerous occasions is no less striking. ``I tell you, doctor, that I have told lies, but you will see that I will come out on top.''

Inez has been free from the overt problems of sex life. We have repeatedly been informed that she has been a girl of good character in this respect. ``I ran away from home for a good cause. I'm not one of those girls who is crazy about the boys.'' Usually Inez shows a very even temper. It is only when her own personality is trod upon that she grows angry, and obstinacy is then her leading reaction. Some pathological liars may be weak in character, but not Inez. She is the firmest of persons. On occasions her attitude is entirely that of the grand lady. Her type of lying is clearly pathological. It would often be very hard to discern a purpose in it, and over and over again she has defeated her own ends by further indulgence in prevarications. To her the utterance of lies comes just as quickly and naturally as speaking the truth comes to other people. Even in interviews with us when she was voluntarily acknowledging her shortcomings in this direction she went on in the same breath to further falsifications.

The medical aspects of the case come under the same category as the lying. The dysuria, the spitting of blood, the sugar in the urine, the hairpins found twice in the abdomen, the simulated pains, neurasthenia, and bronchial attacks, together with her stories of accidents and fainting spells illustrate her general tendency. This behavior, like her lying, serves to feed her egocentrism, her craving for sympathy and for being the center of action. As with the lying, repetition of this type of conduct probably is largely a matter of habit.

The bearing of this case on the problems of testimony is interesting. As shown in our account of tests done, when objective concrete material was considered by this woman she reported it well. It is only when her egocentrism is brought into play that she becomes so definitely unreliable. This is a line of demarcation that students of this subject would do well to recognize.

Causative Factors: Our study of causation in this case, as we intimated at first, is necessarily incomplete. But some things, probably explanatory, stand out very clearly. Heredity is moderately defective. Inez was the outcome of an unfortunate pregnancy and was a poorly developed infant. She suffered early from a number of illnesses, which, however, left no perceptible physical defects. Her unusual relationship to the other children, based on the difference in age, was perhaps a starting point for the development of her inventional theories of her own origin. She has given us many hints of this in speaking of her earliest remembrances of hearing the Smiths whispering something about adoption, and of her feeling that the other children were too old for her to belong to their family.

Then we insist on the positive bearing which this woman's native traits have had in the production of her career. Her facility with language marks her as possessing one of the chief characteristics of the pathological liar. Added to this she showed the other personal traits which we have described in detail, leading to her success in misrepresenting herself. Her strongly developed physiognomy has caused many people to believe her older than she stated, but still one has seen such lineaments belonging to girls of 17.

The bearing which the accident at 18 had upon the case it is impossible for us to estimate. Her family are very clear on this point; they maintain that all her bad conduct has developed since then. Through unwillingness, or barely possibly real amnesia for the injury, Inez has not helped us to know the facts. Dr. Augusta Bronner, who has studied this case with me, cleverly suggests that just as anyone becomes confused in distinguishing really remembered experiences from what has been told by others was one's experience, so Inez gets confused between what has really happened and what she herself has told as having happened. This finally involves a pathological liar in a network which is difficult to untangle. Part of the causation of the present lying, then, is the extensive lying which has been done previously.

Psychological analysis in such a case is most difficult because of the unreliability of the individual's own statements about her life, inner and outer. Psychoanalysts will be delighted, in the light of what we long afterward found out, at the pregnant opening sentence of an interview, recorded above, when Inez blurted out that she was once in a State hospital. However, from what we ascertained, we may see clearly that here is an individual with a past that she desires to cover up. Much more delinquency may be involved of which we know nothing. As the result of circumstances and traits she finds herself, despite her very good ability, inadequately meeting the world. Her forceful personality carries her into situations which she is incompetent to live up to. The immediate way out is by creating a new complication, and this may be through lies or the simulation of illness, at which she has become an adept. Altogether, Inez must be thought of as one who is trying to satisfy certain wishes and ambitions which are too much for her resources. Towards the goal to which her nature urges her she follows the path of least resistance. Being the personality that she is, the social world offers her stimulation which does not come to others.

To discuss the problem of her responsibility would be to introduce metaphysics--it is sure that in the ordinary sense she is not insane. The cause of her career is not a psychosis, although we readily grant that out of the materials of her mental experience she may ultimately build up definite delusions.

CASE 4

Summary: A girl of 16 had been engaged in an extraordinary amount of clever shoplifting under the influence of her ``mother.'' In the courts where the cases against her were heard there was much sympathy with the girl, but it was difficult to carry out any measures for her benefit because of the excessive prevarications which had characterized her for a long period. Under oath she falsely accused her ``father'' of sex immorality with her. She was removed from her home, and with knowledge of the mental conflicts which beset her, splendid efforts to ``cure'' this girl met with success. It is another case where supposed inherited traits turn out to be the result of environmental influences.

Through frequent communication with the highly intelligent woman with whom Edna F. was placed in a small western city after she was taken from her previous miserable environment, we have been able to keep close check on the progress of the case for several years. It was also very fortunate for our understanding that a nurse who knew the girl's real mother in New York, where Edna was born, appeared on the scene and gave us data upon which we could base some opinions of the outcome. The case in its entirety had proved very baffling to detectives because of the mass of contradictory lies told by both the girl and her ``mother.''

Our attention was first called to this girl when a number of court people were trying to solve the mystery. She had been arrested for shoplifting and her curious attitude and statements had made some believe she was not quite right mentally. Once before she had been detected stealing things in a shop. One of her remarkable statements this last time was that her parents were implicated in the thieving and she named certain stolen articles which might be found at their home. She went with the detectives and accused her ``mother'' of wearing a dress which she, Edna, had stolen. The woman was forced to give up the dress and other articles, but it was found later that these goods had been actually bought and paid for by the parents. Later it was found that the woman was a party to the girl's stealing and this made the girl's story seem all the more strange, for if she were going to involve the people at all why did she not pick out the actually stolen articles? However, long study of the case brought out the fact that this type of statement was a characteristic of Edna's. Her word on even important points was absolutely unreliable and her own interests were frequently thwarted by her prevarications.

The case in its different aspects came up in court again and again until finally most of the truth was ascertained, enough to justify radical measures being undertaken. During this period the mother was discovered to be an atrocious liar; even with her last bitter confession that all she had said about her motherhood had been untrue, she manufactured more quite unnecessary falsehoods. In the meantime the family physician and the family lawyer had both informed me of the peculiar mysteries of the case and of the perfect mass of lies into which the statements of both mother and daughter led. This sort of thing had been going on for years. It is of no small interest to note that the woman was greatly over-dressed and made up. On numerous occasions she appealed to us to study the girl and find out why she lied so much and why she had such an inclination to steal, in the meantime attempting to fill us up with many inventions about the girl's antecedents.

Physical examination showed a perfectly normally developed girl. No sensory defects. Pleasant features. Well shaped head. Weight 101 lbs; height 5 ft. 1 in. We found no hysterical stigmata. Menstruation had first occurred at 14. No trouble or irregularity was reported. We learn the girl has never had any serious illness. She herself told of fainting spells after being whipped and so on, but these were undoubtedly falsifications. The family physician informed us he had operated on the girl for appendicitis about three months previous to the time we first saw her. He had found some evidences of an old appendiceal inflammation, but it is quite likely from the various accounts which we heard that her symptoms recounted to him were largely fabrication and that the signs which he found, at least in their excessive phases, were partly deceptions. The most important point for the court proceedings was his findings that the girl had never been sexually tampered with and had no local disease. At the time when we knew Edna she was being treated for a local infection which must have been recent and superficial, for it rapidly subsided.

We had ample opportunity to test Edna's ability and found it quite normal. She had been out of school much and had been careless in general about her education, but she had finally finished the grammar school. A long list of tests was done almost uniformly well. Where a prolonged task which required concentration was asked, Edna was inclined to work carelessly, but in general her capacities proved to be decidedly good. She was accustomed to read nothing but the lightest literature and fairy stories and her interests were of the superficial sort. Neither in powers of imagery or imagination, nor by anything else ascertained about her mental abilities did we come to know of any point of special bearing upon her behavior.

On the ``Aussage'' picture test, she gave only 12 details, all correct, on free recital. Upon questioning she gave 28 more items and almost the only variation from accuracy was in respect to the colors. Evidently she let her fancy run when she could not remember correctly; through this she got 6 items incorrect. She readily accepted 3 out of 4 suggestions.

Our earliest impressions of Edna state that she seemed much confused in her stories and in her manner of telling them, leaving sentences unfinished and trying to explain inconsistencies by other inconsistencies. At this time she was referring constantly to her doubts about her age, her family, and her origin. She then seemed highly suspicious of every one and talked of suicide. However, when she was showing these signs she could be diverted, for she worked with much pleasure at the tests, particularly certain memory tests on which she did well.

On account of the difficulties of the solution of this case under the law considerable time and effort were spent in looking up her record. It was found that some years ago Edna had run away from home and there was a newspaper article published about her. Even at that time an officer who went to the home was unable to ascertain the truth in the case. The family had frequently moved and the mother asserted it was because of the bad reputation which the girl's actions had given them. The neighbors complained of the cruelty of the parents to Edna, but this meant only the whippings which the mother had given her. By all accounts the father was a good man who insisted that affairs between his wife and Edna were not his own. (Edna always maintained that this man had been unusually good to her, although she so strangely made in court the false accusations of prolonged sex immorality on his part and reiterated these statements even to us. It was not until many months afterward that she acknowledged the falsity of her accusations, although we knew from her physician that they were not true.)

The first time Edna was in court was when she was about 14 years old. At that time she had been observed by a department store detective stealing hosiery and a bracelet. She perceived she was being shadowed and walked up to the counter and ordered some children's garments, having them charged and sent to a fictitious name and address. The detective thought this a masterpiece of slyness, this endeavor to throw them off the track. Since the family, who really kept an account at this store, appealed to the manager to have Edna let off as it was an ordinary trick of a growing girl, the charge was withdrawn. Detectives who had been employed from a private agency made a very poor showing on getting at the real facts. The husband was doing well in his business and there never seemed to be any reason to suspect his wife of being directly or indirectly connected with the shoplifting. Earlier there was some intimation that Edna was not the child of these people, but the persons who suggested this did not know the true facts and were found to have a grudge against the mother. In the meantime the latter had strongly maintained her relationship.

It was months after this and just before we saw the case when a detective, who had kept the case in mind, went to the house to get the goods which Edna maintained had been stolen. There he found the ``mother'' and another woman smoking and thought he detected signs of their being drug habitues. Later, I myself felt sure of this point, but we were never able to state to what drug they were addicted. Edna frequently stated she had been accustomed to buying morphine for these women, but her statements about its appearance and its cost were so at variance with the facts that though it is likely she had bought something of the kind, yet no amount of inquiry brought out the definite facts. The woman's appearance and her remarkable lack of veracity were both highly suggestive of a drug habit.

In our several interviews with this woman we were amazed by her strange self-contradictions. It was not only that she stated something different from what she had said a week before, but even at different times on the same day her statements would be changed. Concerning her relationship to Edna she gave us the facts of the girl's birth and laughed off the idea that she was not the girl's mother. ``Why, I can remember every moment of my pregnancy with her.'' It was anomalous that this woman had hired a righteous man as a lawyer to represent her and the girl. This attorney, consulting with me, soon came to the conclusion that the only interest he would serve in the case was that of the girl, and then only in the effort to save her from the miserable influences of her mother.

Edna's school record was most peculiar. She had been frequently changed on account of her dishonesty. In one sectarian school she was said to steal all sorts of useless things--bits of string, pieces of pencils, and articles no one else would want. She also stole a two dollar bill from a grocery store; the cashier followed her and recovered the money from her person right there in the school. Edna always denied that she took things. While in another school she had flowers sent to all the teachers and the florist's bill was presented to her there. In still another school she took a pair of shoes from a boy at recess, wore these and left her old ones in the locker room. Her word was everywhere recognized as being most unreliable.

After the case had long been in court and Edna still stoutly maintained that she was not the child of these parents, but had complicated her story by adding incidents which were known to be untrue, such as her ``father's'' immorality with her, that there had been another adopted child in the family, that even the dishes the family used were stolen by her, and so on, the woman came and suddenly blurted out that she herself had been lying all along and that this was not her child. She then alleged the parentage was so and so, but this matter was in turn looked up and found to be false. It was adjudged that these people had absolutely no parental rights, and then work was begun on constructive measures of redeeming the girl if possible. It was not long after this that the nurse came to us who had known the girl's real mother in New York and who had taken charge of Edna as an infant before her foster mother had taken her. It seems that the mother was an American, that this child was illegitimate. A few months after her birth the mother abandoned her, became dissolute and is said to have since died.

Edna had run away from home on several occasions and slept in hallways for a night or two at a time. She had not been sexually immoral until just previous to our seeing her. Then while away from home she had gone with a man to a hotel, and probably had also been with boys. These were her first and last experiences of the sort, but how much these affairs had been on her mind we obtained some intimation of from herself.

``My mother took me to S's when I was 8 years old and told me to take anything I could and I got into the habit of it. I can't stop myself. I take anything I want. Mother said she would kill me if I told the truth. I had to say lots of things that were not so. I had to lie and say mother did not beat me, but she had a horsewhip that was plaited, father burned it. Then they bought a little one, but she beat me with a rubber hose and everything. The first thing I think I stole was jewelry in a store down-town. The woman I call `auntie' said if I would give her the goods she would pay me for them.''

``My mother fixed it up that if she got the goods and got caught she would get a clerk to make out receipts and get them stamped paid. She has not done this yet, but I think she will in this case.'' (This was a statement at the very first interview with Edna and no doubt had reference to the fact that the mother could produce receipted bills for the dress and other articles which Edna had maintained to the detective she herself had stolen. Of course the girl's story of this was untrue; the receipts were genuine.)

``One of my sisters is adopted, but my father does not know it. She ain't real. It was this way. When my pa was out west for a year ma asked me to look in the papers for a baby and I looked and found an advertisement about one. Ma said she must not be redheaded because that ain't like the family. We went and got her and ma went to bed for nine days and pretended it was her baby. She took a shawl and gave the nurse $25 and made out adoption papers. She took me with her. It was a month old. She made me go and tell my aunt I had a little sister. My aunt said it looked kind of big for 3 days old, but ma said she had been keeping it in an incubator. She had padded herself out before, and pretended it was her own child. Pa came home when it was six months old and he loved the baby just like his own. I ain't jealous, but it makes me sick to hear such lies.''

This alleged fact, reiterated to us and testified to in the court, was in itself a source of the whole case being farther followed up. The nurse was found who took care of Edna's ``mother'' during her confinement and it was found that Edna's whole story was quite untrue. It was evidently an elaborate fabrication representing the facts as they might have been about Edna herself. The only part of it that was true was that one of the younger children had been for a time in an incubator.

``Since I was 10 years old I have known about that. I have known I was not her child. She said something that sounded queer to me once when I ran away. It made me think she was not my mother.

``Why do I tell lies? I got started at it when I was small. She used to make me tell lies to my father. I began to steal when I was about 8 years old. My little sister has started to take things already. She is only 4. I was trying to break her and mother said, `Let her alone.'

``She's had about nine different servants. She never can keep any. She used to make me forge letters. She made me sign a girl's name to a receipt for wages which the girl never received. The girl had no case against her because she had the receipts. The poor girl lost it.

``I am going to tell the truth. There's going to be lots of things come out. I am going to tell the judge I lied when I told him I did not steal the things. Why did I lie? Well, she gave me just one look and I knew what she would do to me when I got home. Everything I told you about my father is the truth. Where else would I get that disease? I was never allowed to go out with boys.''

At another time when we inquired what bothered or worried her more than anything else we obtained an account of her sex repressions. Of course there would always be difficulty in knowing just how true the details were but probably she gave us the main factors in her mental life.

``I used to be out in the streets all the time. There were hardly any houses around there then. I used to hear mother talk about things. She would send me out of the room and say it was not for me to hear. Then boys lived near me and they asked me to do bad things. I first heard about those things from a boy on the porch. I was 7 or 8. I was always thinking about it--what my mother said at that time, I mean. She did not explain it enough. I am always fidgety, always nervous. My hands and feet are always going. Whenever I would see a boy it would always come up in front of my eyes. It was mostly when I saw boys. If she had explained it more it would not have come up that way. I know a girl who does that thing. She's bad. She does it with boys too. The people said so. When I was little I imagined there were some bad girls. You can't tell, but you can guess a little. That boy had lots of things. I don't know if he took anything. It was when I was about 4 until I was 8 that I played with him. These things never came up in my mind when I was taking things. It was only when I was not busy. I was always thinking about it when I haven't anything else to do. These few little words were not enough to explain. I remember I asked my aunt once. I tried to put things together what I heard, and what words about it meant.''

The above excerpts from many interviews with this girl represent points upon which there is the least contradiction. It is obviously useless to give any more of her story because of the variation from time to time. Even on the last occasion when we talked earnestly to her before she was taken to her new home, she lied to us about a number of points. Any attempt at an accurate analysis of her impulse to steal seemed quite beyond the mark in the light of her ever-ready fabrications.

The after-history of this case is of the utmost importance. A woman of strong character took Edna and surrounded her with new interests. Conference was had with us on the nature of the case. For the next few months reports came that the girl was a liar through and through and grave doubts were entertained of ultimate success. It was after she had been tried in her new environment for 3 months that, seeing us again, she confessed that her stories about her foster father were absolutely untrue. From about this time on there has been steady improvement. No more elaborate fabrications have been indulged in. On several occasions when Edna has been late from school she has lied about it, but even that tendency for the last year has been nearly obliterated. A good deal of interest in boys has been maintained, but not with any show of immorality. There has been nothing but normal flirting; accounting for the occasions when Edna has been late from school.

At two or three periods during her new life Edna has engaged in stealing. She has taken articles for which she had no particular use and has told lies about the matter. The thieving has not been a single event, but each time has seemed to represent a state of mind she has been in, and for a week or so numerous articles have been taken. We warned her good friend to make a study of her social and mental influences at such periods. It was found then that Edna was undergoing special stress on at least one such occasion. A young man had been making up to her, and later she confided that this given period was one of great turmoil because of the renewed arousal of many ideas about sex affairs. After this there was still more attempts to win Edna's confidence about her daily experiences, including such as the above. There has been the gradual development of character, and Edna is now, two years after she was taken from her bad environment, only very occasionally guilty of falsifying, and she is otherwise trustworthy.

Our study of the causative factors of this girl's delinquency and particularly of her extraordinary lying led us to see that perhaps all of the following have a part: (a) Heredity. Father unknown. Mother a free-living woman. (b) Home conditions. Mental and moral bad influences in the home life on account of the foster mother conniving at stealing and being herself an extreme liar. (c) Psychic contagion from the atmosphere of lies in which the girl has been brought up. (d) Mental conflict arising from the suspicion of her parentage, early acquaintance with sex knowledge, and the irregular morale of her home life. (e) Bad companions, including her foster mother's friends, and boys and girls.

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Mental Conflict. Case 4.
Girl, age 15 yrs.
Home influences: Extremely bad, including
excessive lying.
Bad companions.
Heredity (?).
Delinquencies: Mentality:
Much stealing. (Shop lifting, etc.) Fair ability.
Excessive lying.
False accusations.
Sex immorality.
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CASE 5

Summary: A young woman of 20, bright mentally, strong physically, ``confessed'' to a professor of a university where she was studying that she had shot and killed a man. The facts were known to only three or four people and she was terribly worried about it all. Upon her information the affair was taken up by a group of professional men, one of them a lawyer of large practical experience. She aided in an investigation which attempted to uncover the ``white slave'' feature of the case. The data of verification proved most elusive. Later, the young woman implicated herself in a burglary, and altogether an elaborate story of her life was evolved. It was found that from early years she had been a great fabricator.

While a first year student at a university Marie M. begged for an interview with one of her instructors at his home and there, with him and others, she told a detailed story of how some months previously she had escaped a difficult situation by killing a man.

The exceedingly long account which was given at intervals to several professional men and enlarged upon in response to inquiry, or as the occasion otherwise demanded, we are not justified in taking space to retell. This case figures, as a whole, in somewhat anecdotal fashion among our others, we freely confess; it is cited to show the extent to which apparently purposeless fabrication can go. It has been found impossible to gain a satisfactory idea of the genesis of this young woman's tendency, quite in contrast to the other cases we have cited. It forms the only instance where we have drawn from our experience with merely partially studied cases.

Marie's story involved many items of her life since she was about 12 years of age. A distant relative who had come to know her whereabouts (she was an orphan living with friends) figured extensively in her narrative. This relative had hounded her in an effort to get her to engage in an evil life. His attentions varied greatly; sometimes for months she was not bothered with him. Once when she was on her way to Milwaukee a gray haired man approached her on the train, said he knew her relatives, they were rather a bad lot of people, and he wanted to protect her from them. Then came a long account of being driven in a carriage, changing her clothes in a hotel, having her picture taken in an immodest costume, signing a paper at police headquarters, and, at last, safely returning home, all guided by the mysterious gray haired man. Another trip led to an encounter with a man who took her in an automobile under the promise of meeting a friend. Entering a building where men carried revolvers and girls were given hypodermic injections, just as she was about to receive the needle in her arm, she reached the man's revolver and shot him in the back. Events follow swiftly in her tale, but all is thoroughly coherent, and a number of facts are included which could be substantiated. The professional men could not help being impressed and spent much valuable time before they felt convinced that it was a fabrication. The exact locations could not be discovered, but then Marie was a stranger in the city.

When we saw her the whole story was reiterated with but few changes, which, however, from the standpoint of testimony were most important. We soon found we could get direct testimony on physical features which were provably untrue. For instance, the description of a certain hallway in a building where she had gone with one of the men interested in the events was totally unlike anything that existed there. Then, too, certain embellishments, which by this time included the payment of a large check to her as hush money, a check which she as easily gave away again, seemed altogether improbable. Marie by this time was implicating herself in a burglary with this relative, and some other curious incidents were given. In all of these, as we later found, there was a central event about which her statements MIGHT have been true. There was such a burglary; she had said in previous years that she was hounded by a man, and so on. We, too, were struck by the uselessness and lack of purpose in the lying--for we soon felt assured that it was such.

Physically we found Marie to be a decidedly good specimen. She weighed about 140 lbs. Strong and firm in carriage. Vivacious in expression. The physical examination at the university had shown her to be without notable defect of any kind. We can summarize Marie's characteristics by stating that from the earliest age of which we can get satisfactory record, when she was about 10 years old, she has been persistently addicted to falsehoods. Even then she made up, without any basis, stories which puzzled many people. It is much to the point that she has been a great loser on account of this tendency; it has injured her reputation on numerous occasions and destroyed many of her good chances. When she was about 15 it was noticed that she was a great day-dreamer. She thought she could write stories and once began a novel. Much more peculiar than this was the fact that she repeatedly wrote letters to her friends which were simply a mass of fabrications, describing such things as imaginary excursions.

Tests for mental ability were not given in this case, there was no need for it. Her marks in the preparatory course were just fair. It had been noted by her teachers, as well as by her foster parents, that she was prone to have periods when attention to her work seemed difficult. Aside from her peculiarities, which showed themselves entirely in her fabricating tendency and her assumed illnesses, nothing much out of the way in her mental life had ever been noted. On several occasions she had taken to her bed, but when a physician was called, a diagnosis was given of simulation, or hysteria. Nothing like major hysterical attacks at any time occurred,

From most excellent sources of information we have obtained an account of the family history. No instance of insanity is known, but it is said there is much evidence of ignorance and superstition. Marie's mother bore a good character, but was decidedly ignorant. At about the age of 50 she made a homicidal attack upon a second husband and then killed herself. The father was an industrious and sober laborer, but unable to support his large family. At his death in Marie's early childhood the family was broken up and the ten children were distributed about. None of the children is said to be abnormal mentally, but there has been a tendency to free living, even on the part of the older sisters. It seems very sure that no other member of the family was given to telling false stories. The brothers have been inclined to be shiftless and to roam, but then the environmental conditions often have been against them. However, some of them have done well. In general, as far as Marie is concerned, it may be said early home environment was not bad except on account of poverty. Marie bears no traces of having suffered from defective conditions before or after birth. Her early developmental history appears to be negative. She has lived about in several different homes, the longest stay being about seven years. In one place she was suspected of masturbation, but we were unable to get a perfectly definite statement that she was addicted to the habit.