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New York, according to the census of 1840, had 2,340 idiots and insane. I am convinced that this estimate was below the certain number by many hundreds. In 1841, the Secretary of State reported 803 supported at public charge. In 1842, the trustees of poorhouses estimated the number of insane poor then confined in the jail, and poorhouses at 1,430. In 1843, I traversed every county in the State, visiting every poorhouse and prison, and the insane in many private families. The hospital for the insane at Utica was opened in January, 1843, and during the year received 276 patients -- all, with the exception of six, being residents of the State of New-York. On Blackwell's island were above 300; at Bloomingdale, more than 100; 26 were at Bellevue. Besides these, I found, chiefly in the poorhouses, more than 1,500 insane and idiots, 500 of whom were west of Cayuga bridge. In the poorhouse at Flatbush were 26 insane, not counting idiots; in that of Whiteplains were 30 insane; at Albany, between 30 and 40; at Ghent, 18; in Greene county, 46; in Washington county poorhouse, besides "simple, silly, and idiotic," 20 insane. Nearly every poorhouse in the State had, and still has, its "crazy house," "crazy cells," "crazy dungeons," or "crazy hail;" and in these, with rare exceptions, the inevitable troubles and miseries of the insane are sorely aggravated.

At A--, in the cell first opened, was a madman. The fierce command of his keeper brought him to the door -- a hideous object: matted locks; an unshorn beard; a wild, wan countenance, disfigured by vilest uncleanness; in a state of nudity, save the irritating incrustations derived from that dungeon, reeking with loathsome filth. There, without light, without pure air, without warmth, without cleansing, absolutely destitute of everything securing comfort or decency, was a human being -- forlorn, abject, and disgusting, it is true, but not the less a human being -- nay, more, an immortal being, though the mind was fallen in ruins, and the soul was clothed in darkness. And who was he -- this neglected, brutalized wretch? A burglar, a murderer, a miscreant, who, for base, foul crimes, had been condemned, by the justice of outraged laws and the righteous indignation of his fellow-men, to expiate offences by exclusion from his race, by privations and sufferings extreme, yet not exceeding the measure and enormity of his misdeeds? No; this was no doomed criminal, festering in filth, wearing wearily out the warp of life in dreariest solitude and darkness. No, this was no criminal -- "only a crazy man." How, in the touching language of Scripture, could he have said: "My brethren are far from me, and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me: my kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me: my bone cleaveth unto my skin and my flesh. Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, for the hand of God hath touched me."

I turned from this sickening scene only to witness another yet more pitiable. In the far corner of a damp, dark dungeon on the right was a human creature -- "a woman, dreadful bad," said the attendant, who summoned her in harsh tones to "come out:" but she only moved feebly amidst time decaying mass of straw, uttering low moans and cries, expressive both of physical pain and mental anguish. There she lay, seemingly powerless to rise. She, too, was unclothed; and in this dungeon, alone, in want, and pain, and misery; no pure air, no pleasant light, no friendly hand to chafe the aching limbs, no kind voice to raise and cheer, she dragged out a troubled existence. I know nothing of her history; whether forsaken by able kindred, or reluctantly given over to public charity by indigent parents, or taken in, a wandering, demented creature. I only know that I found and left her reduced to a condition upon which not one who reads this page could look but with unmitigated horror. Do you turn with inexpressible disgust from these details? It is worse to witness the reality. Is your refinement shocked by these statements? There is but one remedy: the multiplication of well organized hospitals; and to this end, creating increased means for their support. In the same poorhouse, in the "crazy cellar," were men chained to their beds, or prostrate on the ground, fettered, and painfully confined in every movement. There were women, too, in wretched unventilated, crowded rooms, exhibiting every horrible scene their various degrees of insanity could create.

In B--, the cells in the crazy cellar admitted neither light nor pure air.

In T--, the cells for the insane men were in a shocking condition.

In A--, were above twenty insane men and women in the poorhouse, mostly confined with chains and balls attached to fetters. "By adopting this plan," said the master of the poorhouse, "I give them light and air, preventing their escape; otherwise I should have to keep them always in the cells." A considerable number of women, mostly incurables, were "behind the pickets," in an out-building: there was a passage sufficiently lighted and warmed, and of width for exercise. There was no classification; the noisy and the quiet mutually vexed each other. One woman was restrained by a barbarous apparatus to prevent rending her clothes: it consisted of an iron collar investing the throat, through which, at the point of closing in front, passed a small bolt or bar, from which depended an iron triangle, the sides of which might measure sixteen or eighteen inches. To the corners of the horizontal side were attached iron wristlets; thus holding the hands confined and as far apart as the length of the base line of the triangle. When the hands and arms were suddenly elevated, pressure upon the apex of the triangle, near the point of connexion at the throat, produced a sense of suffocation; and why not certain strangulation, it was not easy to show.