Sherman Daily Register
Tuesday, July 26, 1887
pg 1

TWO SAD CASES

WHERE WOMEN PAST MIDDLE AGE
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Lose Their Mental Equilibrium - Strange Fancies

Another case was called before his honor this morning at 9 o'clock, and was that of MRS. M. M. COWAN, wife of C. Cowan, a very poor but respected citizen of Grayson county, who resides near Whitesboro. The poor woman was with some difficulty brought to the city this morning, and the evidence in the case as addressed was in substance that Mrs. Cowan, who is the mother of a large family of ten children, who has been in very bad health for the last few months. The
loss of strength has gradually unminded her mental abilities until now, she is demented to such an extent that it is almost absolutely necessary to take steps to prevent violence.
She is laboring under the impression that is A DUTY TO KILL her husband and her two smallest children that it is demanded of her by some power which she does not explain nor attempt to explain. She seems to have a peculiar hatred rankling in her breast for her husband, and on one or two occasions she would have killed him had not bystanders called his attention to her actions. Once she had a knife raised just ready to plunge it into his side, but she was seized and prevented from committing a murder, for which she could not be held responsible. She is said to have also tried to carry into effect the promptings of her strange hallucination in regard to the smaller children. She is at the present time at the Harrington House, and it is not known whether she will be able to undergo removal to the hospital department of the  Alms House. The case is a very pitiable one indeed.