The Times from Shreveport, Louisiana • Page 32

STRAMGF am rai mkmm A wnKT af ffabs tt' As. A the Amazing From a of Mr. Kern Science Studies Liberatiou Psychic Prison II HE extraordinary release or ture I of victim of tgottphobit, dread ppychic "distance disease," who Bir-aiereJ the malady by elf-help and a sympathetic girJ'a encouragement, provided science with a faacinaU Kj new baaia for atudy.of the atranf-ei. of feara. V.

1 A. Ci" I lAA SAVED from the Fear Ex pressed In the Remarkable Camera Study at Left; Is John Kern, Foet and Journalist, Since He Found a Girl, Elsie Clark, Shown with Him at Rirht, Who Recalled to Him His Mother's Kindly Protection from Childhood Terrors. most satisfying fruit in serene domesticity. Take, for example, William Ellery Leonard, 60-year-old University of Wisconsin professor, whose plight was even more agonising than that of his fellow-sufferer, Kern. For Leonard, famed poet and scholar, was frightened In boyhood by a railway train.

The psychic "wound" thus inflicted made him a prisoner when he grew up, jailed by his own terrors. He never quit the area of a few city blocks in Madison, Wis. Twice Prof. Leonard tried to shake off the agoraphoblac shackles In matrimony. Twice he But eventually the "prison" grated on her serves.

There were arguments, quarrels. Grace got a divorce. Then, a month later, she relented, agreed to a reunion. At last reports the Leon-'ards were doing nicely and the Professor was leaving home for walks more and more. The most distinguished example of agoraphobia was Marcel Proust, famous French novelist He spent nine-tenths of his life lying In bed, in a cork-lined sound-proof room, working on his gigantic "Remembrance of Things Past" Mark Twain, too, preferred to spend most of bis time in bed and did most of his work there, but It has not been suggested that he was an acute sufferer from agoraphobia.

Agoraphobia and claustrophobia (fear of enclosed spaces) are only two of the strange phobias that affect humans. There is akrophobia, fear of high places, and its opposite complex, chasmophobia, fear of physical gulfs, from which the great philosopher, Pascal, suffered. He was always In dread that the sidewalk would open at' his feet and he might fall Into the earth's bowels. And there is felinophobia, or fear of cats. About a year ago, Rockwell Sayre, wealthy Chicago realtor, left most of his fortune for extermination of these animals, for which he had maintained a lifelong aversion.

Perhaps, next to agoraphobia, the worst psychic, complex of all is phobo-phobia, or fear of fear. Guy De Maupassant suffered from this strange malady. Phobophobia like its allied monomanias, can be cured, as science is now learning from the case of John Kern. Ever since J030, Julin Kern, poet and Journalist, of Broad Channel, Lonff Island, has been held In the taut coils of thla at range emotional cornpulaion. Science record many instances of agorophobiacs tormenta, but none more atartiinff and pitiable than J'sychologlsla define tgoriphobii in a horror of venturing far Into open paces.

Far more people suffer from It than one might imagine. For fix long yeaa Kern never went more than 200 feet from his home. He waa always afraid that if he did 'aoracthlns; terrible" might happen to him. It never did. Cut that failed to make Poet Kern any easier in bis anguished mind.

Every time ha over-stepped the Imagined boundary that shut hfm in from a supposedly menacing world, he shuddered. He couldn't help being controlled by fears impressed upon blm by childhood experiences. He paid a high price for those experiences constant suffering: from "distance dread," an inability to brush shoulders with other people living In other streets, cities, countries. Now, however, Kern Is definitely out of his traumatic blind alley. A couple of weeks ago he boldly took walk for himself, thought not by himself.

He's getting more venturaome every day since then. HU neighbors predict that If he keeps on this way he'll be crossing Fifth Ave. and 42nd busiest corner in the world, agalnat ft red light, regulations or no regulations. Kern, a retiring, almoot self-effacing young man, is modest about his achievement "Yes, made the if-tempt, tnd wn," he murmurs. "But," Australian" Force I 611 trill of in mi A TBAIV SCARED HIM And Frof.

William Ellery Leonard Didn't Dare Leave His Home for Many Years, Until the Love of Grace Golden Began to Banish His Agoraphobia. he adds, with a grateful look, could not ever hive done it without Elsie's sid." 1 "Elsie" is Miss Elsie Clark, who lives near the Kern cottage. An aspiring writer, she sought literary advice her neighbor, and formed an acquaintance with him and his wife. Later she discovered his strange phobia. Having had some experience psychology, she offered to help.

Maybe John wouldn't have reacted so quickly, so trustingly, if It hadn't been for one tiny, significant fact. Something vague about her manner, voice, eyes, general attitude reminded him of his mother. She led him out of his self-made prison like a Child, and his agoraphobia began to fall away from him. The psycho-analysts have had their say about the so-called "Oedipus complex," maternal "fixations," and other grim phenomena that are supposed to bind mother and son together for life with invisible cords. If you want to please Kern, who WW FOR SPl 1 PLENTY -OF mm Li ULO Ai) sfoo TkU fiwv Canada's Pride in Gelling i -T Jiff 1 rAr a 'A: failed.

Then he met Grace Golden, in her twenties. Subtly everything seemed changed. Miss Golden's approach to the problem of liberating the man Bhe had fallen In love with was masterly. After their wedding she Joined him in his "psychic prison," persuading him that now and then "Just one little walk" wouldn't do him any harm. Kimherly Warriors Dancing Into a Fury the Australian "Mounties" long, five inches wide and sharpened along three edges.

A womera can bring down a husky bullock with one blow. O'Neill and his men showed no fear, for to do so meant Instant death. Larry and Davey began to ask questions. They received no Information, but they talked the hunters out of countenance and the trio pushed on unhindered. One week later, after continual hard riding, O'Neill and his aids galloped into an aborigine village where their queries brought deep guttural replies that Coodogadogt had left the village the day before, "Charcoal" a week previously.

But all O'Neill could learn was that Coodogadogt had gone bunting for flying-foxes. He knew where these hunting grounds were In the hills, and realized that a warning messenger would speed to the wanted man and tell him to flee. When night came the patrol slipped away on foot, clambering down ravines and over hills thick with scrub, in inky blackness. In the faint light of dawn the dull coals of a fire betrayed the camp of the hunted killer. Inch by inch the three men crept toward the embers.

When they were about 13 feet from the fire O'Neill gave the signal and they closed In hurriedly to find the camp deserted. Coodogadogt had already left Guessing the killer's destination to bi a rocky gorge some distance ahead, Davey motioned to O'Neill to run on revealed the reason for his regular trips away from home with Mlsa Clark to save her and his wife from embarrassment, don't put him in that category. But one can't help recalling other cases of sgottphobis where a subtle hint of the maternal in a man's woman-friend or sweetheart or fiancee or even wife have borne the tance in the air and slowly faded Into the blue sky. Bushman scouts were signaling to distant tribes that a police patrol was coming. O'Neill pitched camp there for the night.

There was no use In taking stupid chances in the darkness. The next day he learned his decision had been extremely wise. The "Mountie" came upon a band of hunting tribesmen. The cunning bushmen had waited until Barry, Larry and Davey were passing along a small pathway in the midst of dense vegetation before appearing In a threatening mass around them. Each warrior carried his womera, a cruel, shovel-bladed spear.

The vicious weapons are made of flat Iron, a foot Now Outdoes Every day stalwart members of the Australian Northern Mounted Police' get danger-filled assignments in 20,000 miles of trackless wilds filled with savage aborigine killers, for ceaseless vendettas are part of the bushman code of life. Intrepid men like "Mountle" Barry O'Neill travel hundreds of miles to "get their man" and see that justice is administered. O'Neill's adventures are typical of those experienced by many of his fellow officers In their hazardous profession. Recently the tall and lithely built "Mountie" had to make a mll hunt thrnuoh lh hush rnlirttrv fop men Head rter, ftt Au8trftlla, had recelve(, a tip through the bushman grape' vine" that two killers, Coodogadogt and "Charcoal," were the cause of a series of murders among tribesmen, Unless they were quickly apprehended they might even kill some of the white settlers who lived In Isolated that ntaket the li(Trnc. No (cripinjc or nauraa.

Jimt-blrmM walrnm r-a-M-e-f. FEKN-A-MINT ta aubjactwl te laboratury tU. Uaed by l.VOHO.OdO paopla, a boon to young; end old' Not babit-forming. ConninL It's at your druggint's now, Their Men' SYDNEY, N. ST.

W. APPLICATIONS from Americans for enlistment in Canada's world famous Royal Northwest Mounted Tolice have been falling off since the word began going around that the "Mountles" now patrol what is left ot Ihe wilderness tn flivvers and pass the time away while waiting to get their faan with knitting and embroidery. French Foreign Legionnaires haven't bad much excitement for their 25c-a-day pay vlnce Moroccan and Syrian iflesert tribesmen began responding to the civilizing blandishments of ma- ehine-gun and airplane bomb. It may seem to venturesome American youths hat there Ira any piaoe 10 turn ior wild adventure any more. But there Is.

Australia a mount- ed police force that Is today every thing and more than what the Canadi- an R. N. M. P. of fiction and fact was In the old days.

Kwl This amy be Riffn that wanU bus backed up, and that th ayatam neeis eleartnf wit, In thin rata. Jtixt ehaw FEEN-A-MINT, tha laxative that eoniM in da-lioioua rhrvmg (rum, for mlnuUt Inngrr if you like. It's thia -chewing i'TOuJI 'in liA Jtu i The O'Neill Patrol and Two Men Who Accompanied Them Fart of the Way, Traveling Up a Dry Creek on the Search for Two Described In This Interesting Story of Courage In the Wilds of Australia. Before One of the Fights That Keep Constantly on the Alert In a semi-circle and beat Coodogadogt to the spot In a few moments the "Mountie" saw the wanted man. The bushman met his charge and fought like an enraged wildcat, but was soon overcome.

With the savage handcuffed, the patrol continued on in search of "Charcoal." It spotted him in a camp with other savages in the valley. Some hours later the patrol reached the outskirts of camp. O'Neill Instructed Larry and Davey to separate and to gallop into the camp from the East and West while he would ride in from the North. The took the wily bushmen by surprise. The aborigines, covered with ochre and ashes, stared in astonishment.

Hands twitched', at spears, hesitating that fatal second whether to throw them or run. And that moment was all that O'Neill needed. In commanding tones he ordered them te drop their weapons. Dismounting quickly the "Mountie" ran forward and placed the handcuus on the burly, six. footed "Charcoal." The hcavily-mus-cled killer, his body scarred by the clcltraces of warriorhood stood signed.

For his resourcefulness O'Neill received a commendation from the police commissioner. He wasn't cn hani to receive the honor. Another call from an outlying district bad sent O'Neill hurrying on to new that were "all In the day's work." fr 4.Jti 111 outposts or cause in outbreak of When O'Neill was given the job of tracking them down, he loaded two pack mules with supplies and, accompanied by his native trackers, Larry and Davey, started off on his mission as if it were a holiday. Traveling "light," they reached the scene of the crimes within three weeks. Then thev had to slow down.

Their horses eould barely keep their footing because of the treacherous ground beneath their hooves. O'Neill knew hard, loose rocks often caused landslides that carried both man and beast to Instant death, yet he pushed on. Then io the distance a lazy spiral of smoke rose a significant dis lMSJ A ''-V-' Oopyrlfht, IMS. King Features smdlrate. Ine..