Confession

The polemics, occasioned by the award in 1923 of the John Armstrong Chaloner Paris Art Prize to Miss Erna Lange (Elizabeth, N.J.), reEchoed last week when her belated confession of plagiarism was made public. A year ago Miss Lange's painting, Lament, was alleged to tie strikingly like one called The Lament, by James Williams, English artist, although at the time Miss Lange stoutly maintained that she had never even seen the alleged original. She seems meanwhile to have recalled that she did see it, and upon her admission Mr. Chaloner has magnanimously come forward with the announcement that he will give her a prize of $6,000 anyway, so that she may study in Paris along with this year's winner, Miss Martina Speere (Waterbury, Conn.). Said Miss Lange:

"Mr. Chaloner, who very kindly has acted as my counsel in this trying matter during the year 1924, has advised me to plead guilty. I therefore do so. I am very, very sorry, and I have suffered severely. I therefore ask the public to please try to forget the past and look at my work in Paris during the next five years as the proof of my sincere devotion to Art."

John Armstrong Chaloner, ne Chanler, modern Maecenas, coiner of the famed phrase "Who's looney now?"* has figured more or less steadily in the public press for the past six years. Adjudged insane some 20 years ago, he spent some time in enforced residence at Bloomingdale Asylum (New York State), whence he escaped finally to Virginia, his home. A piquant touch was added by the fact that while he was legally sane in the State of Virginia, he was legally insane in the State of New York, where, undaunted, he was carrying on libel suits against various Manhattan newspapers for calling him insane.

In 1919 he was finally declared sane in New York State, dedicated himself and his $112,000 a year income (he is descended from John Jacob Astor) to a crusade against what he calls the "lunacy trust."

In his spare moments, he announced himself to be a "scientific medium," has edified numerous Manhattan audiences with "spirit messages" from Lord Kitchener, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Shakespeare, and whomever else the audience might ask for.

On one occasion, "Colonel Roosevelt" announced he was glad his name had been mentioned, said anything he could do to help in reforming the lunacy laws he would be happy to do, did not mind being called by the audience if it helped. "Lord Kitchener" said he regretted that the lunacy situation was as bad in Great Britain as in the U. S. "P. T. Barnum" mournfully stated that "he had atoned in Paradise for all his little indiscretions and his formula 'The public likes to be fooled.'" The medium's great-aunt, "Julia Ward Howe," related haltingly the embarrassment of her first experience in the spirit world, when she found herself before the great "Judge of the Dead," clad only in "a very remarkable head of hair, my dear nephew, something like Lady Godiva's."

But the high point in Mr. Chaloner's contacts with the spirit world came when he respectfully called upon "Mister Shakespeare," who obligingly responded (via Mr. Chaloner's pencil), stated he wished to refute the prevailing deplorable impression that he had meant Hamlet to be mad, and just to prove it, he had written two new scenes. Mr. Chaloner then read them, announced sternly that "Mister Shakespeare's" spirit had promised they should some day be produced on Broadway. When that happens, no one will recognize Hamlet. Ophelia will no longer be mad. "Mister Shakespeare" said he only made Ophelia mad to show he could do it, and since the only result has been the deplorable one of apparently making insanity catching in the play, he has decided to let the poor girl alone.

Mr. Chaloner has delivered these "messages" on darkened church platforms and theatre stages of Manhattan, draped gracefully over a piano and dimly silhouetted by a yellow glow. He writes them out, admitting equably beforehand that "he has nothing really to do with them."

*Delivered by him at the time of the marriage of his gigantic brother, onetime Sheriff "Bob"; Chanler, to Lina Cavalieri.