After a time, longer or shorter in individual cases, the paranoiac begins to recognise definitely who his persecutors are. As a rule, it is not some single individual, but a combination of individuals. Already there is the beginning of the third state of the disease--the grandiose stage of the disease, in which the patient feels an extreme sense of his own importance. It would be derogatory to his self conceit to consider himself the subject of persecution by an individual, and so it is usually some society, or the government, or its officials, or some secret organisation that is persecuting him, and perhaps also persecuting those who are near and dear to him. Sometimes it is the Odd Fellows, or perhaps the Masons, who are the persecutors. If the newspapers have recently had some account of the disappearance of Morgan years ago, and this subject crops up periodically in the papers, then the Masons become a favourite subject for paranoiacs' delusions of persecutions. Just after the Cronin murder in Chicago, the Clan-na-Gael became an extremely fearsome spectre for paranoiacs who thought themselves persecuted. It is of some {289} importance to know, as a rule, what the usual reading matter of a patient is, and what things are likely in his past history to have impressed him, in order to realise what the real source of his delusions of persecutions are. It is curious how rational these patients may be on all other subjects except the special topic of their delusion. During the past year a paranoiac has been under observation, who is considered a reasonably rational individual by those who know him well, who follows his daily occupation, that of clerk, without intermission and with business ability, who is a faithful attendant at church, and who is very kind to his family, but who is sure that he is the subject of persecution by the Clan-na-Gael. He never belonged to the organisation. He is not able to give any good reason why he should be persecuted, except perhaps the fact that, though an Irishman, he never did belong to them. He is perfectly sure, however, that they are planning to poison him and his family. He finds peculiar tastes in the tea and the coffee at times. He throws out these materials and insists on his wife getting others at another grocery store. He sometimes brings groceries home from a distance and yet finds that if he ever buys materials a second time in the same place, they are sure to have been tampered with in the meantime by emissaries of this secret organisation. He feels sure that he has seen these secret agents, but he is only able to give vague descriptions. Not a little of the prejudice against these organisations is really founded on such morbid suspicions.