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Rhode Island has nearly or quite four hundred insane, idiots, and epileptics. About 90 recently are receiving the benefit of hospital care, under the enlightened administration of Dr. Ray. In no State, however, have I found more terrible examples of neglect and suffering, from abuse or ignorance, than existed there in the year 1843, and some cases in 1845-'47. In the jails were many pining in narrow, damp, unventilated dungeons. In the poor-houses were many examples of misery and protracted distress. In private families these conditions were less frequent; but the suffering, through ill-directed aims at securing the patients from escape, was, in many instances, equally revolting and shocking. Here, as in the five States first referred to, hundreds of special cases might be cited, did time permit. I offer but a single well-known example.

In the yard of a poorhouse in the southern part of the State, I was conducted by the mistress of the establishment to a small building constructed of plank; the entrance into a small cell was through a narrow passage, bare and unlighted. The cell was destitute of every description of furniture, unless a block of wood could be called such; and on this was seated a woman -- clothed, silent and sad. A small aperture, opening upon a dreary view, and this but a few inches square, alone admitted fight and air. The inmate was quiet, and evidently not dangerous in her propensities. In reply to my remonstrances in her behalf; the mistress said that she was directed to keep her always close; that otherwise she would run away, or pull up the flowers! "How is she warmed in winter?" I inquired. "Oh, we just heat a stone and give her," was the laconic reply. "Your other patient -- where is he!" "You shall see; but stay outside till I get a lantern." Accustomed to exploring cells and dungeons in the basements and cellars of poorhouses and prisons, I concluded that the insane man spoken of was confined in some such dark, damp retreat. Weary and oppressed, I leaned against an iron door which closed the sole entrance to a singular stone structure, much resembling a tomb; yet its use in the court-yard of the poorhouse was not apparent. Soon, low, smothered groans and moans reached me, as if from the buried alive. At this moment, the mistress advanced, with keys and a lantern. "He's here," said she, unlocking the strong, solid iron door. A step down, and short turn through a narrow passage to the right, brought us, after a few steps, to a second iron door, parallel to the first, and equally solid. In like manner, this was unlocked and opened; but so terribly noxious was the poisonous air that immediately pervaded the passage, that a considerable time elapsed before I was able to return and remain long enough to investigate this horrible den. Language is too weak to convey an idea of the scene presented. The candle was removed from the screen, and the flickering rays partly illuminated a spectacle never to be forgotten. The place, when closed, had no source of light or of ventilation. It was about seven feet by seven, and six and a half high. All, even the roof, was of stone. An iron frame, interlaced with rope, was the sole furniture. The place was filthy, damp, and noisome; and the inmate, the crazy man, the helpless and dependent creature cast by the will of Providence on the cares and sympathies of his fellow-man -- there he stood, near the door, motionless and silent; his tangled hair fell about his shoulders; his bare feet pressed the filthy, wet, stone floor; he was emaciated to a shadow, etiolated, and more resembled a disinterred corpse than any living creature. Never have I looked upon an object so pitiable, so wo-struck, so imaging despair. I took his hands, and endeavored to warm them by gentle friction. I spoke to him of release, of liberty, of care and notwithstanding the assertions of the mistress that he would kill me, I persevered. A tear stole over the hollow cheek, but no words answered to my importunities; no other movement indicated conscious-ness of perception or of sensibility. In moving a little forward, I struck against something which returned a sharp metalic sound; it was a length of ox-chain, connected to an iron ring, which encircled a leg of the insane man. At one extremity, it was joined to what is termed a solid chain -- namely, bars of iron 18 inches or 2 feet long, linked together, and at one end connected by a staple to the rock overhead. "My husband," said the mistress, "in winter, rakes out sometimes, of a morning, half a bushel of frost, and yet he never freezes" -- referring to the oppressed and life-stricken maniac before us. "Sometimes he screams dreadfully," she added; "and that is the reason we had the double wall, and two doors in place of one: his cries disturbed us in the house!" "How long has he been here?" "Oh, above three years; but then he was kept a long while in a cage first: but once he broke his chains and the bars, and escaped; so we had this built, where he can't get off." Get off! No, indeed; as well might the buried dead break through the sealed gates of the tomb, or upheave the mass of binding earth from the trodden soil of the deep grave. I forbear comment. Many persons, after my investigations here, visited this monument of the utter insensibility and ignorance of the community at whose expense it was raised. Brutal, wilfully cruel, I will not call them, black as is the case, and fatal as were the results of their care! But God forbid that such another example of suffering should ever exist to be recorded.