DEMENTED MAN WRECKS CELL.
John E. Stroud, the K. U. Man, Dis-
plays Superhuman Strength.
John E. Stroud, the Kansas university man who has been detained at police headquarters since 4:30 o'clock Thursday afternoon because of his demented condition, was yesterday transferred to the general hospital. Stroud is laboring under the hallucination that he is under the spell of a hypnotist, and he came here with the idea that Mayor Thomas T. Crittenden, Jr., could remove it.
Stroud has grown gradually worse since his incarceration and early yesterday morning almost demolished the cell in the matron's room in which he was confined. It was bolted to the floor and with the superhuman strength of the insane college student, although a slender man, actually tore the cage from its moorings on the floor. He smashed up two chairs in his cell and began on the iron bed, when that was removed. Stroud reached through the bars of the cage, grabbed a trunk standing near and, with the small purchase that he had, hurled the trunk across the room and upset it against a door.
He was determined to get out, and swore that he would wreck the city hall, but that he would gain his freedom. One of the things which is worrying the police matron is how Stroud reached an iron bed which stood entirely out of his reach across the room. When Mrs. Lizzie Burns went in the cell room at 6 a. m. Stroud had, in some manner, reached the bed, tore off its coverings and dragged the mattress to the side of his cell.
When the young man was removed to the general hospital later in the morning he had to be handcuffed, and on arrival at the hospital was strapped to a bed as he was still violent.
Chief of Police Daniel Ahern received a letter yesterday morning from R. J. Stroud, father of the demented man, at Howard, Kas. In it the father asks the advice of Chief Ahern about what disposition to make of his son.
