New Haven, Conn., June 29-- The theories of Lieutenant Totten, who is endeavoring to convince people that the world will end within the present decade, have already had one disastrous result. Rev. Frank L. Slavens, a bright young minister who had taken a post-graduate course at the Yale divinity school, was committed to the Hartford insane asylum Saturday as a hopeless maniac. He fell in with Lieutenant Totten, with whom he soon became very intimate. He shortly became the most sincere disciple of Totten's millenium theories. The proximity of the world's end was too much for his brain, and he has slowly but surely lost his mind.
Mr. Slavens' insane idea is that he is the redeemer who Lieutenant Totten prophesies will return to earth. He had been stationed at Southington, Conn., but last week was called to Brooklyn to supply a pulpit there. While on the way his wife discovered the first symptoms of the terrible calamity and at once took measures to discover what she feared but dreaded to know. It took but little investigation of the family physicians to show that the once fine mind was destroyed.
The Rock Island (Illinois) Argus, June 29, 1891.