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Astounding Disclosures! Three Years In A Mad House

Creator: Isaac H. Hunt (author)
Date: 1851
Publisher: Isaac H. Hunt
Source: Patricia Deegan Collection
Figures From This Artifact: Figure 2  Figure 3

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In order to shew the perfect system of espionage upon the patients, I will here state that it is almost impossible for a patient to send a letter to their friends, except it is written to suit the fancy of the officers, and passes through their hands. I have known instances of their having been intercepted, and I will state what Dr. Bates told me about my trying to send mine by some outside friend, as he anticipated I might do, as he had refused to send them for me. He said that if I did not send them further than Augusta or Hallowell they would not reach their destination; thus admitting that the postmasters in those places would know my hand writing, and were spies upon me. He also told me that if I were to make my escape, and should succeed in reaching Boston, I should be immediately arrested by the police and sent to the madhouse at South Boston, as a fugitive maniac from them, and then they should be notified that they had one of their patients in custody and I should be taken back to them again, and so all my efforts to obtain my liberty would avail me nothing. I replied to him that if I could reach Boston I should have no fear of being returned to him and that if I were arrested by any police officer, I should demand protection of him, and I would deny my name and country, and talk Irish, until I should reach the Police Court, and then I would boldly declare myself to be a Yankee, and would tell a tale where I should be heard by the humane and philanthropic citizens of my native State, which would make him tremble in his shoes, and wish that he had never abused me as he had done.

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I think that the public can here see the cloven foot of Dr. Bates without the aid of an opera glass, as it appears to me to be very visible in all of its hideous deformity. It appears plainly enough to my mind that he was determined to keep me within his fangs, if it were possible for him to invent any schemes by which he could wind his chains about me in such a manner that I could not disengage myself from their evils. But I am free from his talons, free as air, to roam wheree'er I please, with none of those bloodhounds to drag me back to their dens of oppression and cruelty.

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I will name one little incident that took place last summer, about visitors wishing to see patients, and it is a fair sample of all. Mr. Drake, a member of the Legislature, was requested by one of his constituents to call and see his wife and let him know how she was. He called, and was refused the privilege of seeing her, as it was very injurious for crazy folks to see their friends, and he was not permitted to see her until the third time of calling, and then she was brought in from the Cottage; but she conversed as rationally as any person could who had been confined in that dismal abode among human devils, could be expected to converse. He reported her situation to her husband, and for so doing, Dr. Harlow insulted him, and called him a liar; but Mr. Drake was not a man to take an insult from such a puppy, and made him eat his own words upon the spot, and that is a fair specimen of the manner in which they treat those who call to see their friends.

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Many people who have been to visit their relatives who are patients, and have rode from one to three days, and arrive in the evening and expect to be able to stay for the night, are told in a very lordly manner that they don't keep tavern, and have no accommodations for strangers; and they are obliged to go to some of the neighbors, as there is no public house within a mile or more. But when any of the friends of Dr. Bates call upon him there is always a plenty of rooms, and the very best of fodder for man and beast; if they are as numerous as the frogs of Egypt, there is no lack of accommodations.

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Will not these atrocities be a grand theme for the Goverments of Europe to preach from, when taunted of their cruelties upon their subjects; will they not be hurled back in the teeth of Americans who have sent a spy to Austria to watch their movements upon Hungary, and who are at this moment preparing to bring the Hungarian exiles from Turkey in a war steamer, to show the world their Republican equality and horror of cruelty as practiced by Austria by their bloody Haynan who is yet in his A, B, C,'s of the arts of cruelty compared with officers of the Maine Insane Hospital and all of the government of the State who countenance, aid and abet those cruelties, practiced upon a citizen under the garb of humanity and Christianity in this boasted land of liberty and equality; this State of Maine; the boasted pattern of Democracy of the United States. Yes these political blood hounds have succeeded in crushing, and trampling into the dust one of their unoffending citizens who has been a cripple from infancy. Truly this is a victory that but few would covet, but few would boast of such an atrocious exploit; it is alone worthy of the State of Maine, for tyrannical Austria, Turkey, or Algeria would not be guilty of such an act of cruelty and oppression upon a human being. Citizens of Maine and the United States, I submit these things for your consideration, for if you will permit them to be perpetrated with immunity I cannot help it, for alone and without your assistance, I am unable to contend against such odds, against such wealth and power as Reuel Williams and the government of the State of Maine.

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