MELANCHOLY INSANITY.--We are informed that A. B. WYNCOOP, once a prominent citizen of Waukegan, and the pioneer editor in that young city, is now an inmate of an insane asylum in California. He had become a believer in "Spiritualism," so called, and the spirits had invited him to knock down every person whom he heard doubting the truth of the spiritual theory. He attempted to obey the command so often and persistently that no resource was left but to lock him up in a mad-house, there he now is, a hopeless lunatic.
[Chicago Tribune.

Source:

Unknown, "Melancholy Insanity," New York Daily Times, Tuesday, 12 December 1854, p. 2.