Word: madnesses
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Mad Anesthetist began his nocturnal visitations two weeks ago, mainly concentrating his fiendish attacks on women. One said a smell like gardenias "made her legs tingle." Another said a fat man had squirted perfume into her bedroom. Mrs. Carl Cordes discovered a damp pink cloth on her back porch. She sniffed it and immediately "felt as though a charge of electricity had gone through me." She was taken to a hospital with burns and temporary paralysis...
...victims increased. Mattoon's ten policemen, who had been ignoring the archcriminal, now sallied forth at night, seeking they knew not what and not finding it. Chicago newsmen swept joyfully down upon Mattoon and wired leering accounts of The Gas Fiend, The Thin Man of Mattoon, The Mad Phantom and The Screwball Chemist...
...week's end Mattoon was gripped by semi-hysteria. Authorities were poring over records of patients released from Illinois insane asylums, seeking a clue to the Mad Anesthetist's identity; five state police cars arrived to help. Private automobiles full of vigilantes armed with shotguns rolled slowly along the streets at night. Other citizens were taking pistols and shotguns to bed, and sleeping behind closed windows. Mattoon's police commissioner, as alarmed by this display of armament as by the depredations of the Anesthetist, pleaded with the vigilantes to disband...
Snorted "Howlin' Mad" Smith: "I knew someone would ask that question. One of the many prerogatives and responsibilities of a commanding officer ... is the assignment and transfer of officers commanding subordinate elements. . . . Unfortunately, circumstances forced me to exercise one of these prerogatives. I did relieve General Ralph Smith...
...further details Howlin' Mad Smith referred reporters to the War Department (because Ralph Smith is an Army general). The War Department referred them back to Holland Smith (because he had made the change in command). But a long hushed-up fact had been officially admitted. The story-still unofficial...