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The San Francisco Daily Morning Call, July 20, 1864

LUNATIC. - Simon Wiggins was examined by the Insane Commissioners yesterday, and ordered to Stockton by Judge Blake. Wiggins was confined in the city prison yesterday. He seems to be a mere youth, and jolly and serious by turns; his insanity was caused by religious excitement. He would stand and look curiously out through the bars of his cage on the officers of the prison, and inquire what he was put in there for, and without waiting for an answer, he would fall to singing "When I can read my title clear," etc.; finish the verse and change to something else of a livelier character, and finally wind up with a brief sermon, solemnly and impressively delivered, to wit: "In the great day of wrath, when the world is on fire and sinners of every generation are delivered over to torment, you will be among them -- beware!"

[transcribed from microfilm, p. 2.]

_____

THE POETIC RABIES. - An individual who signs himself "H_____ A _____, author of the Convict's Sigh," sends us the manuscript of some verses, with an earnest request that we publish them. "H.A.," we really cannot do it; and that the public may know why we cannot, a couple of verses are subjoined, as specimens of the composition:

You run about sweet dear
Your limbs they are alive
When you are in the Church yard laid
Beneath the Church-yard tree

* * * * *

And thus Miss Mary she passed from
This wicked sinful life
Borne by a band of living friends
To lone-mountain cemetery

Why a man (unless he be a lunatic) wastes his time on such stuff as the above, when bread and meat may be obtained by shoveling sand, passes our comprehension.

[transcribed from microfilm, p. 2.]

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POLICE COURT. - Stephen Storer, for assault and battery, was sentenced to imprisonment for ten days, or to pay a fine of twenty five dollars. Catherine Moran, whom we spoke of yesterday as having attempted to segregate Mrs. Markee with an axe, was sentenced to forty days' imprisonment, or to pay a fine of one hundred and fifty dollars -- and served her right. Mr. Swartz was arraigned on some charge or other -- petty larceny, perhaps -- in trying to steal a kiss from the widow Ellen Niemeyer, while she was locked up in the City Prison -- a delicate attention, which, considering the extremely mild stagger she makes at beauty, she ought to have regarded as a most reckless and desperate compliment, rather than as a crime. We did not remain to hear the result of the trial. Fourteen drunks, etc., were disposed of.

[transcribed from microfilm, p. 3.]

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