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A true account of the barbarous, inhuman and cruel treatment of Isaac R. Hunt, in the Maine Insane Hospital, in the years 1844, '45, '46, and '47, by Drs. Isaac Ray, James Bates, and their Assistants and Attendant. Also, a correct account of the abusive treatment of a multitude of other patients, some of which are tantamount to murder. Also, containing a short account of the burning of the Hospital, Dec. 4th, 1850.

This little work is most respectfully dedicated to the SOVEREIGN PEOPLE of the United States.

CHAPTER I.

For us and our tragedy,
Here's stooping to your elemeney --
We beg your hearing patiently. --Shakspeare.-sic-

The title of this little book is destined either to appeal the eye or deeply interest the heart, for all who shall read these pages attentively, a good moral will come; yea, I fervently hope that much incalculable good may come of it, or else wherefore breathe we in a Christian land? With any other motive than that of benefiting men, and most of all, for the scourging and scathing of a most iniquitous, villainous system of inhumanity, that would more than match the bloodiest, darkest days of the Inquisition or the tragedies of the Bastille, I pen, publish, and scatter these lines.

Every branch of science, art or mechanism -- every sect, religious and political, social and moral, seem to have their organs, oral or literary, through which each peculiar tenet or institution is advocated, and guarded against the powerful arms of wrong, oppression and fallacy, -- but who ever read or heard a disquisition on, or against Mad Houses, Insane Asylums. Such an apostle -- such a book, I have never seen or heard of. But you, gentle reader, shall not say the same, for the author of this is about to startle the world, and 'the rest of mankind,' with a disclosure that shall make the learned Doctors of mad men, and rotten rogues tremble, and gladden the hearts of many a poor, man forsaken, kindred deserted, suffering, perishing being, shut within the walls of the innumerable Bastiles -sic- of our land, ycleped Insane Asylums.

Start not! think not that a mad man raves. I shall utter nought but truth -- truth so strong, and reason so palpable, that nothing short of sheer innate madness or stupidity of your own, shall close your eye or ear to the cogent force and ends I have in view.

"Truth crushed to earth, shall rise again!
The eternal years of God are hers;
But error wounded, writhes in pain,
And dies amid her worshipers!"

And let me at the start have a fair understanding; think not that this is a catch-penny clap-trap of the day, or an imbecile compilation of guess work, fiction or foolery. Far from it. The deeply seared heart, the tortured mind and body of the author, are too sure and evident proofs of the sincerity of his portraitures, and determination of his purpose to lay open, expose, anatomize, and exhibit, in their hideous deformity and atrocious monstrosities, the doings, the practices of one Asylum, with a corresponding exhibt -sic- of many -- ay, all others around us.

There is hardly any question that will startle, confound, amaze and horrify you, until you read the end of this work. But I hope the hearts of all may be touched -- the compassion of many, the spirit of inquiry be aroused; and those who have not thought of these things may be set to their wits, and those that have thought, think the more, and act in the matter, as becomes men of an enlightend -sic- age, an honorable and intelligent community. There shall not be, in this work, aught that will not pay well for a thorough investigation. There shall not be an allusion, word or line, calculated to offend the most fastidious disciplinarian of moral principle. But I intend to use the scalpel of reason freely -- dismember and dissect clearly and keenly each fibre of this horrid inquisition and inquisitors -- Insane Asylums and learned Doctors. Though my narratives may horrify they shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; and in such guise, shall this book be fit for any man, woman or child to read, reflect and ponder over; peruse it carfully-sic-, and when you arrive at any one point wherein madness or folly "sticks out," drop it, but not until then I beseech you.

CHAPTER II.

The author of this little work, was, on the 21st of September, 1844, taken to the Maine Insane Hospital, in the city of Augusta, State of Maine, a wild maniac. The Hospital at that time was under the superintendance of Dr. Isaac Ray, now of the Butler Insane Asylum, of Providence, R.I. In this institution I remained nearly three years, and I shall endeavor to give a vivid description of each and every circumstance connected with my confinement, treatment, torture of body and mind, and the malpractice performed on me. These facts will enable the reader to judge of the extent of my madness. It is of no use for me to deny, (for of that fact there is abundant proof,) that when I was taken to the Hospital I was a perfectly deranged man, laboring under a strong fever of the brain, or great and uncontrollable mental excitement, of which, under humane treatment, I should have recovered, and no doubt returned to my business in full possession of my mental and physical faculties. But the moment I entered the Hospital a fear came over me -- a deep state of mental depression was followed by that of horror and fear, and of course what little consciousness I had at the time was put to flight, for I knew not, but dreaded what was to follow. I entered the Hospital on Saturday evening; the first assay they made was to have me swallow some Pills. I refused, but was forced to submit, and took them. This operation was under the direction and personal assistance of Dr. Ray, and the attendant, Alvin S. Babcock. The next day I felt the necessity of a shower bath, and expressed my feelings to Dr. Ray. But, in language, you will doubtless think very cold and vulgar in so learned a gentleman, he thus addressed me: --"We're very short on't for water, and I can't let you have it; there has'nt been no rain lately, and I can't let you have it." I then said: "Sir, if you will tell me where you get your water, I will go and get some myself, as a gallon will be sufficient." He then said that he could not let me have it; to which I replied: -- "Sir, I think that I need it, and if you cannot let me have it here, will you permit me to go to my own house, or some other place, where I can have such remedies as my case requires." To this he replied: -- "You can't go; you have been brought here by your friends, and you must stay until you get well." I was hereupon plied with medicine, the effect of which was to cause me to travel the gallery for hours and hours, perfectly wild and uncontrolable, as patients often are in almost any Insane Hospital. But I trust to God that in no other case have those walks been caused in mad men, as was mine, by horrid draughts of, to me, a nameless medicine. This state of my mind and physical prostration, through the effect of that medicine, was continued for several days without intermission, until about the close of the next week, or sometime in the week following, when I was given medicine which threw me upon my bed, followed by the most horrid chills, that shook me, body and soul and made my very bones rattle, -- my teeth chattered and my bones rattled like the dry bones of a skeleton; I gave up all hope of life with such composure as I could muster; but my hour had not come, for at this juncture, Babcock, the attendant, came and gave me a bowl of hot ginger tea, saying in a jocular manner: -- "Die! oh, no, not you -- you'll not die yet -- you're worth a dozen dead men." The tea and the application of a pyramid of blankets and comforters, warmed the system -- the chills retreated, and I kept my bed for some days. About the ninth day after I went there, I was again subjected to the horrid wild-fire medicine, which was followed by the same terrible and strange sensations and wanderings over the gallery. I refused peremtorily to suffer this treatment; I refused to take the medicine. The attendant insisted that I should, and harsh words followed. I told him the medicine was destroying me and I would not take it. He then commanded me in a tone of authority, to take the medicine. I did take it. I took it from his hand and dashed it out of the window! In a moment this stalwart, muscular man struck me a violent blow upon my head which either knocked me down, or he instantly seized me and crushed me to the floor. I struggled, when he siezed me by the throat and choked me. I began to have fear that he had my death in view, and would murder me upon the spot. I begged for my life, when he harshly exclaimed. "I will learn you not to throw away your medicine when I give it to you!" I begged for mercy, and promised if my life was spared to take anything he might give me. Upon this he released me, and I continued my usual dull routine of the previous days. The next morning, Babcock entered my room, as usual, with medicine. From the treatment I had already received, of course I dared not refuse to swallow the terrible draught, though it should instantly cause death. I took the pills, and some liquid contained in a mug. These compounds had the effect to destroy my bodily health for the residue of my earthly existence. There is a penalty for such malpractice, and if I had it in my power to bring Dr. Isaac Ray and Dr. Horatio S. Smith before the legal tribunals of my country, I should not possibly find any difficulty in sending them to the State Penitentiary for the full term of twenty years for malpractice, and three years additional for conspiracy.

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Once a month the Trustees visited the Institution. I took occasion upon their first visit, while I was there, to speak to one of them, with whom I was acquainted. I requested him, with tears in my eyes, which I really could not suppress, to allow me to go home. I felt sensible that the treatment there, was destined to destroy my mental and physical faculties. He replied that he would consult Dr. Ray and see if he thought it expedient or proper for me to leave the institution. All I obtained for that appeal, was a continuation of the same horrid draughts, in larger quantities. The interim I filled up by drudgery. Babcock would order me to assist in cleaning floors, scouring knives &c. This of course was done to humiliate me, but I objected strongly to such palpable cruelty. He would say : "you had better do it; you'll be sorry if you don't; you shall not sleep at night if you don't, so do it at once." Babcock, in these essays, introduced some strange philosophy or reasoning. For instance, he would say that they did not compel any one to work, but if I refused I should not sleep at night! I frequently appealed to Dr. Ray to allow me to go home. I was aware that I could not pay my expenses in such an institution, being idle and earning nothing. He always replied, that if I was not able to pay my expenses, the town would pay it. But I told him that I did not wish the town to pay my bills. I did not consider my case one for public charity, for I was both able and willing, if allowed my liberty, to provide for myself and family, and avoid the un-called for stigma of being a charge to community. Again I was plied with medicine, such as few mortals dream of. At one time, I found the vile compounds had the effect to paralyze my jaws; at another to effect the drums of my ears, apparently to make me deaf. The bones of the jaws would snap and crack, which caused much distress and pain when I attempted to eat or talk. These sensations were horrid beyond recital. Then again, I took from Dr. Ray medicine that caused me to weep like a child -- tears of anguish that I could not restrain. Then the reverse would occur; I could not weep -- not a tear would flow -- I felt as stoic and indifferent as a pirate, believing that I could stand unmoved by any sympathy, though every, friend cherished or loved were slaughtered before my eyes. Some nights I could not sleep; tortures and dreams of the most horrid kind agitated me; fiery thoughts and wild fancies hovered over my brain; thus in this horrible mood would I pray for the return of day. The next night, medicine would put me in the most deadly stupor -- a sleep of unconscious heaviness. Nothing could wake me. In the morning I again would be subjected to the maniac's draught and the mad man's walk! At length I appealed to Dr. Ray, as a matter of human sympathy, to administer some deadly draught to end my woe, or send me home. -- He replied: "Nothing is given you but what is for your good; you shall go home when you get well."

One Sunday morning I met him, and again appealed to the old subject, liberty or death, and insisted stronger than ever for a conclusion, stating that the practices there were atrocious and inhuman. He then replied: "If you are abused here, when you get well and go home, the law will give you redress." I then distinctly remembered, that upon a former occasion, Dr. Ray had informed me that no secret transactions of that Institution were ever revealed out of its portals. This enforced me to say: "Dr. Ray, if you should murder me here, no one would reveal it." Thereupon, Dr. Ray called out in a loud and commanding tone: "Bring in the Saws and Axes!" -- I was alarmed. It was Sunday, and no visitors were allowed in the Hospital. I was in the power of a man whose heart was adamant, whose occupation was bloody, and whose intention, I then believed, was my annihilation. I shuddered, was horrified and powerless. I gave myself up as a lost man, supposing that I should become a subject for the anatomical butchers; employment for these miscreants, these fiends, these ghouls. This state of mental convulsion was not long, to be sure, for Dr. Ray did retire without butchering my body, being contented, doubtless, with the scathing and deep torture he had given me. It would be almost a matter of supererogation in me to ask the reader if he can, under any conclusions, impressions or inferences draw the slightest idea of the good that would come of such treatment, upon a man whose faculties were really suffering with nervous affections, body reduced and mind unsettled? Is it unreasonable to ask if this very act, which I have so faintly drawn, is not sufficient to set a sound man on a wire edge, and start any one mad, furiously mad? This whole statement, I most solemnly declare to be true. If, under such a horrid regime, men are to suffer in order to regain reason's tottering throne, it is a system, a course of philosophy not yet written in the books of wise men; far from any generally diffused information that humane and disinterested individuals have ever had access to.

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CHAPTER III.

As I closed the last chapter, so was affairs with me; torture by day and night. About this time my son called on me. I saw him, but did not see him go away. Strange, wild, fearful fancies racked my mind, in regard to him and his fate. I heard a scream and supposed it to be his voice; I supposed he had been put into the shower box and showered. In my bewildered state of mind, I was sure that it was his voice which uttered a terrible scream. I supposed that, a day or two after this, they put him into the furnace, and cooked his flesh, and put it upon the table for me to eat. These things gave me great anguish, and I mentioned them to Babcock. He made this atrocious reply: "Well, let the devil kill his own meat, then he can't find fault with his butcher." It was then winter; snow and cold sleets were upon the earth. I was ordered out into the snowy yard to split and saw wood, and into the attic to pump water, and attend to the various menial occupations best calculated to worry and annoy me. I refused on several occasions, when Babcock carried or dragged me into the yard or attic, and forced me to work as he directed. It was terrible, but there was no appeal, it was inhuman, but who could object? They were my masters, and I their easy slave -- their crushed victim.

One night an awful noise arose to my ear. It was the loud cracking and snapping so peculiarly described and attributed to the rack of the Inquisition. Instantly, it occurred to me, that they were breaking my brother upon the wheel, after the manner of the bloody fiends of the Bastile -sic- and Inquisition. I heard the crack and crash -- the very dogs howled and barked --and thus I was wrought up into a state of horror that no pen can describe, no tongue give utterance to. All of these delusions, as they termed them, were actually got up in some form or other, for the express purpose of working upon my imagination, and make me think they were realities, by these inhuman monsters, into whose hands I had fallen. After having instilled into my mind that my son had been destroyed, they again contrived to make me think that he was still alive, and was destined for another fate, equally horrid. One day I saw some one pass a box into the middle gallery which was the first floor below me; the box was perforated with innumerable holes, and was as I supposed, for some purpose of torture. It was very apparent to my distracted mind, that it was to enclose the body of my son. The box was carried into the gallery upon the shoulder of a man. Again, I was set wild. I heard a loud, angry voice, say: "Get into the box; come, get in quick!" and then followed a stifled scream of horror, and the terrible sound of the hammer in nailing on the lid of the box. Was not the suspense and anguish horrifying and terrible to bear? believing, as I did, that my son was about to be or already was a victim to the inquisitors of this den of crime and inhumanity. Can a man endure such scenes and not become a maniac, however sound his mind may have once been. With these delusions, for they were all delusions did the wretches, officiating in the Hospital, torture me, as realities, -- and hence they are more than entitled to the scourge of justice and the utter condemnation of the people at large. Parson Tappan came one Sabbath evening to preach at the Institution. I saw him, but did not see him leave. And then again, they instilled it into my mind, that they had murdered him, and served up his flesh as food for me for, by their acts they led me to believe that the Hospital was a Roman Catholic inquisition for the destruction of all Protestants, and hence the fate of Parson Tappan. The thought shot a thrill of awe to my very soul. I for-swore meat, and ate none for nearly three months, but the horrid idea haunted me day and night. There were two nights during these scenes, when the gallery was filled with smoke almost to suffocation, and they induced me to believe that they were burning the bodies of my family connections. At that time I actually thought it was really so. I know not what produced the smoke, but have no doubt but what it was some animal substance, -- such as grease, with, perhaps, some other substances, which was put into the furnace with the design to induce me to think that it proceeded from those causes which were instilled into my mind. Because I raised my window in the night to obtain fresh air, during the smoke, they put a screw over the top of the sash, so that I could not raise it but about two inches, and thus it remained four or five months, until the weather became quite warm, before they took it out. Can any one conceive of anything more horrible or distressing to the bewildered imagination of a man than such scenes as these? I feel no hesitation in saying -- yea, I have proved, that they did all they could, and left not a stone unturned to keep me in terror, drive me mad, torture and, rack my shattered brain and body! -- There is another case in point, a proof on piles of proof, that their purpose was as bold as dire, as heartless as cunning, and cruel beyond all recorded atrocities. Parson Judd visited the Hospital and preached to the inmates. I supposed he had heard my case, knew my fears and thoughts; yes, he selected, of all other subjects or texts for a sermon, the very one best calculated to convince me of the truth of my fears, the death and destruction of my son. Here is the text:

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SECOND SAMUEL 12th Chap., 22d and 23d verses: --"And he said, while the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, who can tell whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live?"

"But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me."

I took as directly applicable to my worst thoughts, either to goad me on to fury and insanity, by false reports and dire inuendoes, tricks and schemes, or it may be that the Parson was sincere, and applied the text to my case in sheer necessity and christian sympathy. Either way led me still nearer to wreck and misery.

One day my wife and her brother visited me. I was permitted to see them in the parlor for a few minutes, and then they retired. After their departure it was my strong conviction that both of them had fallen into the hands of the Inquisitors, and were ground and cut up. In fact this delusion was kept up very perfectly by a noise of the steam used to heat the water in the attic, which caused a bubbling and boiling, as though bodies were being really broken and ground up by machinery for that purpose. In the midst of this, some miscreant called out the name of my wife, and said she was gone; all of which was done to torture, annoy, confuse and bewilder me. The whole winter of my confinement was made up of such issues. My days were full of horrors, my nights terrible, beyond all human comprehension. I cannot conceive how it was possible for me to endure all of this, and live any longer. No death could be more terrible than my (then) mode of life, and I should have fallen had not Providence otherwise ordained it. And now, at the time of this writing, nearly six years have passed away, and I have been out into the world about four years, yet these scenes are as fresh to my mind as though they occurred but yesterday. I wish all, who may read these pages, to distinctly understand that it is a fair statement of facts as they occurred; that those officers and men did actually intend to instill them into my mind. -- This is neither the insane delusion of my bewildered imagination, or a tale of fiction, but is a stern reality -- the solemn truth -- and directly or indirectly have three of the hired men who were at the Hospital at that time, and who knew it all, admitted it, in most of its essential points, to be true. It is the truth; truth that will sustain me in the solemn hour of death, and when I meet those that I accuse of having done it, before that tribunal from whence there will be no appeal; it is the truth, so help and sustain me, God! Written with my own hand.

CHAPTER IV.

The first of April Dr. Bates took charge of the Hospital. The whole course of medicine was changed. Morphine was freely given me to allay the excitement produced by the horrid medicine given me by Dr. Ray. Dr. Bates, I must say, treated me very kindly for a while -- the medicine with which I had been plied by Dr. Ray, however, was so incorporated into my system, that it took time to get it worked out. About three weeks after Dr. Bates took charge, I was by him permitted to visit my family, accompanied by Mr. Hall, the supervisor. I remained with them about one hour, and then returned to the Hospital. Again separated from my family I was revisited by all, and more than all, of those horrid phrenzies. Dr. Smith still being in the Institution, I could not conquor my repugnance and dread of him, from the bad treatment I had received at his hands. He made up the prescriptions of the Institution, and I felt fearful of all the preparations he made for me; in fact, I never encountered this man without a sensation of dread and terror. There was something in his manner, features, and very tread, that caused me to shudder as though I was in the presence of a rapacious beast of prey.

About this time I was taken very ill. I could not get a particle of quiet repose. My mind was tortured with a thousand wild fancies, and I must say this was about the severest of all my anguish during my incarceration in this modern Inquisition. I am not now prepared to assert it as positive, but I thought and do now think, and I know that Dr. Smith was not the man to hesitate to do as evil, and even worse -- drug me with medical preparations to destroy my mental and physical faculties -- for during this sickness of several weeks duration, I was really so low and despairing that I entertained not the slightest doubt but what I should fall a victim to these malpractices and inhuman atrocities. However, after all storms comes a calm -- the darkest night turns out the brightest morning. I got better, walked about, and even induced Dr. Bates to grant me a parole to walk out about the grounds. This was refreshing, and I enjoyed it much after having been shut up in such a prison for so long a period. But still this was not liberty, so dear to the heart of every man. No; it was not the liberty I sighed, begged and wept for -- the liberty which, by preaching or praying to stones, I might have gained. But my appeals were to hearts of lead, flint, or steel, and produced nothing to alleviate the suffering of my tortured body and mind. Dr. Bates, after much persuasion, finally almost by force, induced me to engage in the amusements of some of the other patients, such as playing cards, &c., which seemed to worry and distress my mind instead of relieving it.

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Sometime in the summer, when the Trustees made their visit to inspect the Hospital, I appealed to Reuel Williams, as one of the Trustees, to discharge me from the Institution. I revealed to him, at that time, the particulars of the abuse I had received from Dr. Ray, to all of which he replied -- "You can't make me believe that you have been abused here, Hunt." To this I replied -- "Whether you will believe it or not it is nevertheless true." Thus he closed his ear and heart to my plaintive story -- my appeals for release. On the first official visit of Dr. Hubbard, as Trustee of the Institution, Dr. Bates told him, in my presence, what I had said about the atrocious manner in which Dr. Ray had abused me with the deleterious drugs, which had the effect to destroy my physical and mental faculties. To all of which he turned a deaf ear, wheeling upon his heel, he started off with all the inflated pomposity of a King of the Cannibal Islands. Dr. Bates always professed friendship and sincerity to me, and it pains me to say that his assertions in regard to my ultimate recovery from the malpractice of Dr. Ray, were in toto, basely false representations to me, in my then bewildered state of mind. About this period, say in the month of August, I was permitted to go to the library of the Institution and select such reading matter as I chose. I selected romances, as I could not for an entire year from this time read anything else, except the newspapers of the day. During this entire year I was kept in a perfect state of excitement and alarm by a variety of aggressions. Persons were in the habit of visiting the Institution daily, and I frequently would hear them inquire for some one, and I would often on such occasions see myself pointed out as the person inquired for. This was a very serious annoyance to me -- added to others it kept me tossing and beating about on the sea of a stormy mind, like a dismantled ship driven to and fro by each adverse wave or the blast of the hurricane. Thus the year passed heavily along -- being imprisoned with such objects of humanity, whose very looks, and every act or motion, would be enough to drive a sane man mad.

I should here mention that about the period I began to read from the library, my brother from the State of Massachusetts visited me. -- He came expressly to take me home with him to my relatives in the old Bay State, my native land. Dr. Bates said to my brother -- "Sir, it is impossible for you to see him; I can't permit it. He is not in a fit state to see any of his acquaintances." Says my brother -- "Dr. Bates, I have come a long distance, expressly to see my brother, and I cannot return without the interview." Thereupon Dr. Bates told him I did not wish to see any of my friends or relatives. My brother then desired Dr. Bates to inform me of his presence, and then if I did not wish to see him, he would return without the interview he so much sought for. Mr. Hall, the Supervisor, came to me and asked me if I wished to see my brother? I then asked him if it was possible that my brother was yet alive? having in my delusive moments supposed him to be murdered. He replied -- "There is a man here who says he is your brother, and you can see the person if you so desire to do." Thereupon he took me to the presence of my brother. I walked out with him about the grounds, but I did not dare to tell him the horrid treatment I had received at the hands of those hideous monsters, thinking that my brother might also fall a victim to their cruel atrocities before he left the State of Maine! The reasons for Dr. Bates refusing me an interview with my brother, was a fear that I should unfold the atrocious operations and horrid sufferings I had endured within the walls of this most iniquitous modern Bastile, or Algerine prison.

One Sabbath morning, sometime in the month of July, after twenty-one or two months of my incarceration, my customary portion of Morphine was not given me, which, whenever omitted always created a violent state of agitation. That day, at dinner, my appetite was out of order, hence I did not eat my customary portion of food, and this fact induced me to apply, as usual, to be let out on the grounds to walk. Hereupon one of the patients told the attendant that I was a very crazy man, and they had better watch me. I started on my walk, and on returning from the river observed two men standing in the garden. One started off to meeting, and with the other I quietly walked to the house, and he let me in. I then learned that these two men had been watching my movements, lest I should make way with myself. That evening, Dr. Bates said to me that whenever I went out again I must go with the other patients, under keepers, alledging that if I was permitted to go out alone that he should expect to find me hung upon one of his apple trees, or drowned in the river! I replied: "Sir, you can do as you please, as I am in your power, but your trees will never bear such fruit, nor the river produce such a fish!" But if I went out only with the menagerie or caravan of wild animals, as I called it when the patients went out to walk, I should never have gone out again alive, for I was determined that I would not again be driven about like a wild beast. After this little incident I became a close prisoner, and only went out as the Supervisor and attendant took me out with them. This experiment continued for two or three months. After this I was again permitted, on my parole, to walk around the grounds as I had formerly done.

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On the first of October, 1846, after being imprisoned more than two years, I went to work at my occupation of boot and shoe making, in the attic of the Institution. I continued my labor up to about the first of December, as steadily as my health and the weather, not being allowed fire, permitted. About this time two friends visited me on one Saturday afternoon. We had a conversation upon the general matters of the day, my health, &c. One of them made the remark to me -- Mr. Hunt, I don't see but you are as rational as you ever was, and I shall tell our Selectmen that you have been kept here long enough, and they had better take you away." -- To this I replied, you may tell every person you speak with about me, that I am in the full possession of all my natural mental faculties. Next day (Sunday) I gave offence to Dr. Bates, and on Monday following a friend, who came expressly to see me, was told by Dr. Bates that, owing to his having allowed two friends to visit me on Saturday previous, I had become so crazy that he did not know what to do with me; and he then said that he would not permit him, or any person whatever who was acquainted with me, to see me again on any pretence. Now the motive at the bottom of this was a desire on the part of Dr. Bates to conceal the fact that I was then a sane man, and he was afraid that if I was permitted to see this friend I should reveal to him the full story of my wrongs, thus giving the lie to his assertions in regard to the true state of my mind. Can you, reader, for a single moment realize the fiery torrents I had endured -- was enduring -- under these more than doubly damnable ordeals? If you think of them as my plain, sound, unvarnished tale upholds them to you, then must you reason as I do, and arrive at the same decision, viz: these things are pernicious and infamous, and ought not to be permitted in a Christian land.

About the last Wednesday of December, at the annual meeting of the Trustees, while I was engaged at my occupation in the attic, I was summoned into the gallery. I would here state that it is the custom, enforced by the regulations of the Institution, for the Trustees to visit it once a month -- each patient being separately reviewed. The Trustees have in their hands a memorandum of the patients names. They see the patients, and make a check mark against each name. They came to my room, and I said to the Chairman, Mr. Jarvis, of Surry, Sir what motive have you in coming here and putting marks against each man's name? The reply was -- We wish to know if you have any complaints to make -- if you are well treated by the officers?" To this I replied -- "Sir, if I had any complaints to make you will not hear them!" -- He then answered -- Yes, we will; that is our duty; that is what we come here for." -- "Then, sir," I replied, I have complaints to make. I have been most shamefully and barbarously abused by Dr. Isaac Ray, and I am kept here for no earthly purpose but because Dr. Bates is afraid if he discharges me, that I shall reveal the terrible secrets of this institution to the world!" To this the Trustees responded that they had nothing to do with Dr. Ray, he having left the Institution; they wished to know if I was well used by the present officers?" "Then, gentlemen," I replied, "knowing that Dr. Ray has abused me in this barbarous, inhuman and cruel manner, you will permit him to go to Rhode Island, to take charge of another Institution of this kind, where he may continue his demoniacal practices upon the poor, ill-starred creatures who will, like me, be thrown upon his mercy? when a word from you, gentlemen, would deprive him of his power so to do. The Trustees again repeated that they had nothing to do with Dr. Ray; their business was with the present officers. I then replied -- "Gentlemen, I now have serious charges to prefer against Dr. Bates. He has shut me from the world, and refuses to let me see any person or friend with whom I have ever been acquainted, for no earthly purpose but because be is afraid that I will reveal the horrid secrets of this Insiitution! -sic- And now I appeal to you to give me my liberty, for I am in the full possession of all the mental faculties that God ever gave me, and I am as capable of attending to my business as I ever was at any former period of my life. -- They then asked me if I had any other complaints to prefer; are you well provided for do you get enough to eat, &c. To this I responded -- "Oh, yes; we have enough to eat, such as it is!" They thereupon left me and went below, and I returned to my employment in the attic.

The next that I heard from them, after this, in regard to my appeal to them to give me my liberty was, Dr. Harlow, the assistant physician, and James P. Weeks, the supervisor, said to me -- "Well, Mr. Hunt, what decision do you think the Trustees have arrived at, in regard to your case?" I merely replied I could not tell. They then said to me -- "They have advised Dr. Bates never to allow you to see any person whatever with whom you have ever been acquainted." I wish to present these six men to the world in their real character. -- That no mistake shall be made I shall quote nothing but facts in my own case, and therefore I give to the public the names as well as actions of these individuals. Edward S. Jarvis, John Hubbard (now Governor of the State of Maine,) Charles Millett, Cornelius Holland, Edward Swan, Isaac Reed -- who, together with Reuel Williams, a former Trustee, I charge with conspiracy against my liberty, if not my life and property. If this was not bold and high handed conspiracy, then I do not know what it would take to constitute conspiracy against a human being. Now here I was at the entire mercy of these men; at their control and disposition. Men shall I call them -- no, monsters! They, knowing that I was a sane man, a man burdened with grief, and physical embarrassment heaped upon me by the cruel indignities, drudgeries and malpractices, arts of deception, tortured by medicine and mendacity, that were enough to drive any man mad, furious, distracted; yes, they shut their ears, closed their eyes and barricaded their hearts, sympathy and human feeling against my plaintive story -- a truthful recital of my wrongs, sufferings, deprivations. Stories of wrongs told to savages, would not have elicited such a cruel, cutting and stoical disregard.

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Why was this inhuman manifestation on the part of these arbitrary men? Why did these boasted Republicans -- Democrats -- men standing at the head of the boasted ranks, whose watch word is supposed to be liberty or death; who pretend that all men are born free and equal; aid and abet the inquisitors of my dungeon, more atrocious than any part of the French Bastile in the bloodiest days of the Revolution or the Algerine prisons, in retaining me there for torture and death? I'll tell you, reader. I was a victim. To be sure it was not for fear of my safety that those men refused to allow me to depart -- far from it. It was the strong levers of reason, right and justice, my tongue and my pen, the great engines which can hurl tyrants from their rotten thrones, and give the famishing victim Liberty! Liberty!! 0, thou art a jewel, a jewel of inestimable value, scarcely known to any but him who has been deprived of thee!

Through the month of January, 1847, I continued my labor in the attic, in the full possession of all my mental faculties, and a command over my emotions. During this time I reasoned with myself, calmly, am I a dog? Must I submit, and die here like a dog, or shall I arise and strike a blow for God and liberty! Yes, I determined that I would die worthy of being a descendant of a man who, upon the 19th of April, '75, was a minute man, and met the British army at Concord Bridge, and assisted in driving them into Boston. Yes, I determined that I would die like a man; that henceforth my motto should be "liberty or death," surrounded as I was by human devils, in their own den. Accordingly, on the 3lst day of January, which was the Sabbath, I wrote a letter to Dr. Bates, and that letter I dated Feb. 1,1847, as I designed to present it to him Monday forenoon, when he made his usual visit to his patients. As he was leaving the gallery that forenoon I put the letter into his hand, he observing at the time -- "O, this is for me." "Yes, Dr. Bates, that is for you;" I replied. Here follows the contents of that letter. I alluded to the treatment I had received from Dr. Ray; I stated that I then considered myself to be of sane mind, and accountable for my acts; I requested him to take such measures as were in his power to send me away from the Hospital during the month of April; and further stated that if he did not send me away at the expiration of that time, I should consider myself justified in resorting to any measures which might be within my power to obtain my liberty. I said, now, sir, treat me with humanity, Christianity, and mercy, or with cruelty and barbarity, whichever you deem most expedient. I closed my letter by saying -- Sir, I will have my liberty or perish in my efforts to obtain it." What impression my letter made upon Dr. Bates I did not know exactly, but the next morning, as I was in the gallery when he made his usual morning call on his patients, he came to me and shook me by the hand as usual, cavalierly observing "Well, Mr. Hunt, you are here yet." To this I replied -- "Yes, Dr. Bates, I am here at present." We then parted, and this closed my conversation on the subject of leaving the Institution.

After that I used to talk with Mr. Webb, the supervisor. I told him I was sane a man as I ever was, and that they had no more right to keep me there than they would have to go into the village of Augusta and take any man there away from his business, and shut him up in the Hospital, and call him crazy, and keep him there. I told him that if they undertook to keep me after the time that I had set to go away in order to do so they should take the crime of actual murder upon their heads, and they might do it in any manner they might choose. They might set a crazy man to dash out my brains, or poison my medicine, or confine me in the maniac harness or cells; either of which would be murder -- as close confinement would undoubtedly kill me in a very short time; and that, furthermore, I would give them such a specimen of insanity as they had never had in that or any other Hospital in this country; that I would butcher every officer in the Hospital, and as many others as I could who should attempt to confine me; that their cage was not strong enough, and that they had not men enough there to keep a sane man who was determined to be free or die, as I then had reason to know that if I were to do all that I said I would, I should only be called a crazy man, and my doom would only be close confinement until death should release me. One day when I was conversing with him about it, he said, -- I don't know about your going -- you are trumping up too strong to get away. I replied that I intended to trump strong, and that shillalahs should be the trumps or I would die in my efforts to make it so. By my saying that shillalahs should be the trumps he understood my meaning; for, when we were playing cards, if clubs were the trump I used to say that shillalahs was the trump. I requested him, as he had never in any manner abused me, not to meddle with me if I should start to go without permission, as under such circumstances I should not know any friends, and did not wish to harm him, and that I should take the life of any one who should attempt to stop me, if it was in my power so to do. I only allude to these things for the purpose of showing the terrible strait to which I was driven; for, with mild and nonresistant means I could never have obtained my liberty. I had tried that course for more than two years, and all of no avail whatever.

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On or about the 18th of February I put a package of papers into the hands of Dr. Bates, which were addressed to the President of the United States, requesting him to forward them as they were directed. He took them, and said that he would look at them and see if they were such as were proper to send him. I demanded of him to send them without looking at them, as they were sealed, and told him that he had no right to break them open; that it was none of his business what the purport of them might be; that the President was the Chief Magistrate of the nation, and I was a citizen deprived of my liberty without the sanction of any law whatever, human or divine, and I demanded my right to have them sent, and let the President be judge whether their contents were of such a nature that he ought to take any notice of them or not. He replied that he should not send any papers away from that institution without knowing their contents. I replied that it was none of his business what the purport of them was, and again demanded of him to send them as they were. He said he should not do it, but offered to let me submit them to D. Bronson, Esq., and if he said they were proper papers to be sent to the President, he would send them. I replied that I would not give one cent for the council of any lawyer in the State of Maine, for they were all leagued or conspired against me, for my destruction. Well, said he, then I shall not send them.

In the letter which I addressed to the President I asked if I were any the less entitled to the protection of my country because I had been abused by my own neighbors, and those who had falsely professed to be my friends, that their perfidy might be more sure, than I should be were I incarcerated in a Mexican or Algerine prison, a French Bastile or the Spanish Inquisition; where, if I were thug confined and abused, and could make my situation known to him, he would employ all the military and naval force of the country for my release, and to obtain redress for my abuse, were it necessary so to do.

I will ask now the humane and philanthropic citizens of the United States, whether they are in places of honor and power or private citizens, whether there are any among them professing to have the souls of brave and patriotic men, who dare and will advocate and espouse my cause against those who have so inhumanly maltreated and abused me, and against the Government of the State which sanctions and upholds such monstrous cruelty. If there are any such, and they will address me to that effect, I will give them the details of the abuse which it is not proper to put in this little book.

After having the before mentioned conversation with Dr. Bates, he said that if I thought I was unjustly deprived of my liberty I might have a trial before two Justices of the Peace and Quorum, and they might judge whether I was a sane man or not. I replied by saying if I were to appeal to them I supposed he would go forward and swear that I was a crazy man. He said of course he should. I then asked of what use it would be to me when I was already condemned, sentenced and executed. He replied it would be of no use whatever. I then said to him that if my life or liberty were at stake, upon any accusations whatever, whether it might be for the crime of insanity, if that were a crime, or for any other crime which I might commit, I would not put myself upon trial by pleading guilty or not guilty, or I should be sure to be condemned whether I were guilty or innocent, for a jury would be packed, and judge and attorney bribed, and I should submit to any sentence they might pass without any efforts to clear myself.

The next day I asked him if he was willing that I should send the papers to the Hon. Samuel Hoar, of Concord, Mass., with a letter to him which he, Dr. Bates, might read, and leave it to the decision of Mr. Hoar whether they were such papers as were proper to send to the President. He asked me if I were acquainted with Mr. Hoar. I told him that when I was about twenty years old I had a little business at his office, and he being an eminent lawyer, a citizen of my native town, and a gentleman that I had known from my youth, that this was all the acquaintance I could claim with him. Well, replied Dr. Bates, I know Mr. Hoar and shall not send it to him. I then asked him if he was willing that I should send it to Hon. Thomas H. Benton, for his decision upon it. He replied that he knew Mr. Benton, and had a reputation at stake with him and the President, and they would think him a most egregious fool if he should send papers to them from that institution, without knowing what their contents might be. I told him I thought be was drawing his lines rather tight to deprive me of every right and chance to obtain my liberty; that the Constitutions of the United States and the State of Maine say that no person shall be deprived of his liberty and property except for crime; and trial by a jury of his peers; and that no cruel or unusual punishments should be inflicted upon a condemned criminal; that I had been abused with the most inhuman and barbarons -sic- cruelty, and deprived of my liberty and property without being accused of any crime but that of insanity, if that was a crime, and had not been condemned by any jury, or sentenced by any judge of any Court whatever. He afterwards told me that if I would give him my word of honor that I would so amend them as to strike out his name wherever I had used it, and if I wished to allude to him, to speak of him as the present Superintendant of that Hospital, then I might send them to the President, Tom Benton, Mr. Hoar, or Madame W-e, or wherever I pleased for ought that he cared. I accordingly so amended them in that respect, and then directed them to Hon. James K. Polk, President of the United States, with the request that he, Dr. Bates, would forward them according to his engagement, but I presume that they were never sent from Augusta, as Dr. Bates is not the man to keep his word with any one who may stand in his light; and especially a crazy man, whom he has in his clutches, and is poor and without friends.

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On or about the 23d of February I gave a letter to Dr. Bates, which I had written to Gov. Anderson, as an appeal to him for protection from such unjust imprisonment, and cruel treatment, as I had received from the officers of that institution. I asked him if the laws had been framed for the government of that Hospital expressly for my case, and whether the people of the State of Maine knew that it was a tomb from which, if a person once entered, he could never return to the world, unless the officers should choose to send him away? I asked if the people knew that the government of that institution was that of an absolute monarchy, with a tyrant at its head ; where all manner of iniquity was and could be perpetrated with perfect impunity upon its victims. I did not know as Dr. Bates would send any of my letters, and I presume that he did not; but I intended by writing them to let him know that I know my rights when I had my reason, and by my conduct that I dared to assert and maintain them, even there, in that prison house of woe and despair, friendless and alone as I then was.

In my interview with Dr. Bates, in the attic, he told me, for the first time, that one reason why he could not send me away was that my wife would not consent to have me leave, because she was afraid of me on account of the horrid stories that had been told her, and that there were other people who were afraid of me; and that the reason I was not sent to Mr. White's, at Winthrop, the spring before, when I wanted to go there, was because there were people in Augusta who were afraid that I should get up in the night, and take a horse and come down and burn up the village, and murder some of the inhabitants before I could be secured, as I had used such language concerning them. I asked him what business any one had to inform her or others what I might have said about them, when I was deprived of reason and had no command over myself, and was not accountable for my language or my acts; and he himself called me crazy, and had reported me incurable in his first report. He replied that he did not know any thing about that, for stories of that kind would get out.

The truth of the matter was that all of the horrid representations concerning the situation which I had been in, had been told for the purpose of keeping me there, by creating a fear of me, and the causes of my madness had been carefully concealed from them. One or two of the Selectmen have told me, since I came out of the Hospital, that the only reason they did not let me go to Mr. White's the spring previous was, that Dr. Bates told them that it would never do to let me go there, alledging as reasons those same things which he told me they used to tell him, and he, Dr. Bates, told me about that time that he would give ten dollars out of his own pocket to get rid of me, as I caused him more trouble than all the rest of the patients he had in the Hospital. So here is a falsehood between Dr. Bates and the Selectmen, and I have no doubt but the Selectmen told the truth in regard to the matter.

About the 20th of March, after Dr. Coney had been elected one of the Selectmen of Augusta, I sent a request for him to visit me, as he had formerly been my intimate friend, and he came and saw me at work in the attic. I told him that I intended to leave there in the spring; that I had been abused enough, and had suffered enough, and I wished to go by the consent of all, without making any trouble; that I wanted the Selectmen to take me away, as I was kept there by their authority and I was determined to leave at every hazard, either dead or alive: that if the officers of that inquisition should abuse me any more I would as soon take a knife and cut them into mince meat as I would a knife from my bench to cut a side of leather into suitable dimensions for my work. He left me with the promise that he would do all in his power to have me removed, and would see me again in a few days. He, according to his promise, came again the first day of April, and gave me his word as one of the Selectmen that I should be removed in a reasonable time that spring, regardless of any thing Dr. Bates might say concerning my sanity or insanity, and at his request I remained until the last day of May, since which time my residence has been in the village of Augusta, and it is for the citizens to say whether I have been a sane or insane man since I left the Hospital, which is nearly four years ago, during which time I have been able to provide for my own wants.

Dr. Cony has since told me that Dr. Bates disputed his authority to remove me, asserting that I was an insane man, and he had no right to take me from his custody. Dr. Cony told him, right or no right, I was a sane man, and he would take the responsibility so to do. Dr. Bates was afraid that I should expose his villainy and that the people would believe my assertions, and then his salary would vanish out of his reach; that then he would not be able to swell and parade upon his portico, like Nebuchadnezzar upon his palace walls, (as one of the patients used to say of him,) but would have to return home and only be Dr. Bates, chief of the Norridgewocks. Dr. Coney has told me that if he had not removed me I should have remained there until death released me from their chains; and of that fact I have no doubt in my mind, and a few weeks or months would have closed the scene; for I had been prepared for several months with concealed deadly weapons, which I had determined to use upon Dr.Bates the first opportunity, and to have set the building on fire from one end to the other, (which I could have easily done,) and then I should have stamped myself with incurable insanity, beyond a doubt, in the minds of all the people.

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A day or two after I left the Hospital I went to the State House, in order to see if I could obtain an interview with the Hon. Governor and Council. I was not acquainted with Court etiquette, and in order to obtain my object I wrote a note, and put it in the hand of the Secretary of State, asking him if he would do me the favor to introduce me to the Hon. Governor and Council, giving as a reason for wishing the interview my having been confined in the Insane Hospital. After he had read the note he put it in his pocket, and told me, with all the sang froid of an honest man, that the Governor had not come in yet, and if I wanted to see him had better call at his room. I replied that the Governor had come in as I saw him enter a few minutes before; whereupon be turned and asked one of his clerks if the Governor had come in yet and he replied, 'no he has not come;' therefore if they told the truth I was either a crazy man, and did not know the Governor, or I was a liar. Mr. Joseph H. Smith, was with me, and he knows who told the truth.

As I had not succeeded in obtaining an interview through the Secretary of State, a few days afterwards I addressed a note to Gov. Dana, appealing directly to him to know whether the Hon. Governor and Council would give me an interview of a few minutes, giving him the same reasons as above for asking it, to which I never received any reply. Here is a short extract from Gov. Dana's message, which he had delivered a few days before, and which led me to think that my request would be granted.

"A few years of such experience must convince even the most skeptical, that that government is best adapted to our wants, whose chief aim and tendency are, to protect with perfect equality each citizen in his person, his property, and his individual rights, leaving him free to select and pursue his own avocation, without legislative inducement -- giving to every man and every interest universal protection, but exclusive privileges to none; and 'showering its favors, as Heaven does its rains, alike on the high and low, the rich and the poor.'"

No man would hesitate for a moment, after reading the above, to say that the Democratic Governor of the Democratic State of Maine, and the great-grandson of Gen. Putnam, could refuse an audience to a poor and friendless man, whether he were sane or insane, if he had not been told by Dr. Bates, or others of my friends, that I was a crazy man and did not know what I was about. Here is another extract from the same message, which I give so that all who read this may see, how it agrees with what I state as facts in regard to the Hospital.

"One of the striking characteristics of the present age, is an active, comprehensive benevolence -- a deep feeling of man's common brotherhood, exhibiting, itself in untiring, systematic efforts for the relief of the unfortunate and afflicted. Our hospital for the insane is an offspring of this spirit, and should be favorably regarded by the State. I would cordially recommend any regulation or appropriation which may be deemed necessary, for its economical, yet efficient administration."

What a benevolent brotherhood! For the unfortunate and afflicted how kind is the State to build a human slaughter house, for physicians to torture and murder human beings in! What benevolent hospitality! How does it correspond with the precepts of him who eighteen centuries ago went about doing good, healing the sick of all their diseases, causing the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, and the blind to see, and preaching to the poor without money and without price, the Gospel of good news and glad tidings, and even casting out devils from those possessed of them, or, in other words, restoring maniacs to reason and sending them away, clothed and in their right mind.

I had resolved in my own mind that I would appeal to every branch of the Civil Government of the State for redress; and, accordingly, in April, 1848, I sent a note to the then acting County Attorney and the Grand Jury, requesting the privilege which I had thought every man who had been criminally abused had a right to do, of appearing before them to prefer charges of a criminal nature against some of the former officers of the Insane Hospital, for malpractice, barbarous cruelty, and false imprisonment; stating that I should be able to prove, by incontrovertible testimony to substantiate my own, one of the most barbarous acts of cruelty ever perpetrated upon a human being in this or any other country. I requested them to send the court messenger to inform me at what time to present myself, as I did not wish to be staying about the Court House. As I did not receive any notice to appear I suppose that some of my Hospital friends told them that I was crazy, and did not know whether I was abused or not. Having failed of obtaining a hearing at the Executive and Judicial branches of the Government, on the 22d of May, 1848, I sent the following petition and Certificates to the Legislature by Senator Flint.

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To the Honorable, the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Maine, in Legislature assembled.

The undersigned respectfully represents to your honorable body that he has been unjustly and unlawfully confined in the Maine Insane Hospital for two years, eight months, and ten days, and that for six months of that time the treatment which he received from Dr. Isaac Ray and his assistants, was barbarous, inhuman, and cruel; by which his natural health has been greatly impaired, and as it is a State institution he respectfully asks you for an adequate compensation for the injury which he has sustained in consequence of such mal-practice and cruel treatment, -- and as in duty bound will ever pray.

Certificate No. 1 -- The undersigned hereby certify that the bearer, Mr. Isaac H. Hunt, was discharged from the Insane Hospital at our request, and we believe him to be a sane man, and capable of doing or transacting business for himself.

EPH. BALLARD,
JOHN A. PETTINGILL,
Selectmen of Augusta.
July 5th, 1847.

Certificate No. 2 -- To whom it may concern. This may certify that the undersigned, citizens of Augusta, and State of Maine, have been personally and intimately acquainted with the bearer, Isaac H. Hunt, for several years previous to his being sent to the Insane Hospital, and we have seen and conversed with him freely and frequently for the past month, since be has been away from the Hospital, and it is our opinion that he is now a sane man, and is capable of transacting business for himself as at any former period of our acquaintance with him. Augusta, June 29th, 1847.

(Signed)-- Joseph H. Smith, Samuel Gill, Martin Carroll, Moses Noble, Thomas C. Noble, J. S. Lamson, Thomas Wadsworth, E. G. Doe, C. B. Morton, Wm. H. Chisam, J. P Dillingham, W. S. Haskell, Abiel L. Getchell, John F. Childs, Charles Brown, James Saffard, Darius Place, A. R. Nichols, George Darby, Wm. Garrison, J. S. Berry, H. Sewall, John H. Hartford, Alex'r Kincaid, Stephen Winslow, Daniel Woodward Jr., James Dealy, L. M. Leland, W. Lyman Clark.

The foregoing Petition and certificates were referred to the Committee on Claims, of which Hon. James H. Farnum was chairman. I will now state what was said in regard to them by different individuals, and what was said by me to the committee. The next morning Dr. Bates presented himself at the State House, and called upon Mr. Farnum and wished to see the papers, which were shown him. Mr. Flint told me that he met him and said, "Well, Doctor, I suppose you have seen by the papers this morning that we are looking after you." "Yes," he replied, "I perceive it, and I think you are setting a dangerous precedent; for if our people know that they can come to the Legislature for damages there will be no end to their petitions," and he further said, "perhaps Mr. Hunt is not a sane man." Mr. Flint said that he thought the certificates were very strong testimony in my favor, and Dr. Bates replied that he did not know as he should be able to dispute or refute such evidence.

On Thursday afternoon I went to the State House in order to give my testimony before the committee, and while in the room waiting for them to assemble, Col. Dumont and one other member of the committee were waiting for the others. The Col. took up the petition and read it, and said to the other person that it was a false representation; that he knew Dr. Ray well, and he knew that he would not abuse a man like that; it could not be true. He either did not know that I was the petitioner, or he pretended not to know me. After eight or ten of the committee had assembled they told me to proceed with a statement of what I had to complain of. I told them that I wanted the privilege of telling them what I had to say in my own plain and simple manner, without interruption, and after that I would answer them as many questions as they saw fit to put to me.

Col. Dumont told them that he knew something about the case -- that he could make some statements in regard to it -- that he thought it would not amount to much, and I was told I might proceed with what I had to say. I accordingly went on to tell them the treatment I had received from Dr. Ray, and others, at the Hospital. I was frequently interrupted, principally by Col. Dumont, and I requested them not to interrupt me; but they were determined that I should answer their questions, with the apparent design of browbeating me so that I could not say what I wished to. Col. Dumont seemed to take the part of an advocate for those I was accusing of abusing me, rather than an impartial committee-man of the Legislature. What, said he, have those whom he is accusing of such things been notified to be here to meet these charges? Where are Dr. Ray, and the others, that they are not here, if charges of this nature are being preferred against them? The chairman replied that no notice had been given them. -- Well, Col. D. would not consent to go on with the investigation with-out they were present. He wished me to answer a few questions. I replied that my petition had been referred to them, and that they might give me an impartial hearing or not; that it was in their power to do as they pleased with it. If they did not wish to bear me any further I was ready to go my way, and would not trouble them again if that was their decision. He said that Mr. Williams was a member of the House from Augusta, and Dr. Hubbard, of his town of Hallowell, were trustees of the Hospital, and he wished me to tell him whether they knew of these charges which I was preferring against Dr. Ray and others. I answered his question with these three words -- they knew them! Well, they did know them, for I had told Mr. Williams of it myself, soon after Dr. Ray left the inquisition, and all the satisfaction he gave me was, "you can't make me believe that you have been abused!" I replied that whether he would believe it or not, it was true. The way that Dr. Hubbard knew it was -- Dr. Bates told him of it in my presence, soon after he was appointed one of the trustees, therefore they both knew it. I should like to ask the citizens of the State of Maine whether it was their duty as trustees of that institution to investigate and ascertain whether such charges are true or false. Well, the committee dismissed me after promising me that I should have a fair and impartial investigation upon my petition. They had evidently expected to hear only a few idle, whimsical stories of a crazy man, which would vanish into mere nothing by one breath of the gallant Col. Dumont, but they learned from me that my grievances were too horrid, and all that my petition represented them to be, and were tantamount to and much worse than actual murder.

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The next afternoon Mr. Farnum met me in the street, and told me that he had seen Mr. Williams, and he had told him what I had stated to the committee, and said that Mr. Williams had said that he did not know that any one had ever been abused there; that he was only there occasionally, and had not much opportunity to know whether the patients were abused or not. Mr. Farnum said that if there were abuses there, he, for one, wished to know it, and seemed to speak in a very feeling manner in respect to it, and made an appointment for me to go to his room at his boarding house that evening, to make some preliminary arrangements for the investigation, which I accordingly did. I told him that I was poor and thought the State, under the circumstances, ought to summon my witnesses for me. I told him that I wished Dr. Bates for a witness, and if he would agree to come forward and testify to the truth in regard to the situation in which he found me, and to the situation which I was in during the time I was under his charge, and to some conversation that had passed between us, that I would never prefer any charges against him farther than I was obliged to allude to him to make out my case. I had previously told the same to one of the attendants of the Hospital, who had told Dr. Bates what I had said about it, and he said that the Doctor seemed to think it was very fair in me to make such an offer; but I suppose that upon reflection he knew that he was invulnerable, as he had told me before I left the Hospital that any charges I could make against him would be of no avail. I suppose that he was somewhat like Potiphar's wife in some respects, not only pure but above suspicion, as no one immoral act could be brought against him -- he was well known and established in the community. But with his private character I have nothing to do.

Soon after my petition was presented to the Legislature I received a paper from Mr. Samuel L. Hovey, a patient at the hospital, which he sent to me by his private express, with the request that if I thought it was correct I would forward it to the chairman of the committee on the Insane Hospital, and I complied with his request, believing and knowing it to be correct. He requested the committee to investigate the affairs of the Hospital, in regard to its maladministration by the present officers, and requested them to examine the laws for its regulation, passed by the previous Legislature, and see if they ought to be amended, as they were arbitrary and unjust.

The next week after this Mr. Furlong, the chairman of the committee on the Hospital on the part of the House, came to see me, and said that he was instructed by the committee to give me an invitation to meet them one week from that afternoon and explain every thing that I knew about the mismanagement of the institution, saying that if there was any thing wrong the committee wanted to know it. I replied to him that there was much that was wrong, and but a very little that was right. I asked him if they had received a paper from Mr. Hovey. He replied that he had, and that they had had it under consideration that afternoon, and that it was a very well written document. I parted with him with the understanding that I would meet at the appointed time, unless notified to the contrary. I accordingly went to the State House at the time agreed upon, and when I saw the two chairmen of the committees they told me that there would not be any session of the committee that afternoon, and that it they wanted me at any other time they would notify me. I was then satisfied that my friend Hovey or myself could not he heard. All was crushed under foot by some unseen power behind the throne.

While I was waiting to see Mr. Furlong, Mr. Farnum, the chairman of the committee on claims, came up and spoke to me, saying, -- "well, Mr. Hunt, have you ascertained whether you can get any more evidence in regard to your case?" I replied that I had evidence enough that was strong as Holy Writ, to substantiate all of the charges that I should prefer against those that I accused of abusing me, and if the committee would give me a hearing I was ready to meet them, and if the committee would not summon my witnesses for me at the expense of the State, I had a few dollars, and could summon the principal part of them at my own expense. He then told me that he had seen Mr. Williams and Dr. Bates, and that they were both against me, and he did not think any thing could be done about it. I replied that I expected they would be against me, and was prepared to meet them and all others, if I could have the privilege of so doing. So there was an end of the investigation that they had promised me -- crushed by the influence and money of Mr. Williams and Dr. Bates. He told me that he went to the Hospital to see Dr. Bates, and related to him what I had stated to the committee, and that Dr. Bates said he did not think Dr. Ray would abuse any one: that his reputation stood very high in the community, and he did not think he was such a man, and took down the records of the Hospital and showed him what medicine was given to me by Dr. Ray, and there was none of a deleterious nature.

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The first time that I met Dr. Bates after this, he said: -- "I understand that you are mad with me, Mr. Hunt." "Well," I replied, "suppose I am, you have not got me shut up under your power, and I don't think you will have me very soon." "Ah," says he, "I understand that, but I am told that you think that I had some influence against you in regard to your petition." I then told him what Mr. Farnum had said to me, all of which he acknowledged to be correct, but said that the interview did not take place until after the committee had made up their report, which was made up to the afternoon that I went before them, and said he did not even know Mr. Farnum until he introduced himself. I told Dr. Bates that he knew Dr. Ray would not make a record upon the Hospital books which would be proof enough against him to send him to the State Prison for twenty years, and I should ascertain in the course of twelve months whether the citizens of the State of Maine and the United States would suffer a human being to be abused with impunity, as I had been at that Hospital. He then took up his boots and left me.

Dr. Bates knows that when he took charge of the Hospital, he found me a wild and uncontrollable maniac, no more an accountable being to God, or man, or myself, than an infant child, with the most horrid profanity in every sentence which I uttered, with my head filled, with what he said were the greatest delusions; he knows that it was not in my power to refrain from speaking of them, and that they had been instilled into my mind after I went to the Hospital, as I never had one of them before, and so firmly did I believe them, that I would tell him that what was truth was not a delusion, and he knows that he, on one or two occasions did try to make me think they were true. He knows that my whole system had been completely saturated with the deleterious drugs, which Dr. Ray had given me, and he knows that for two years he gave me large portions of morphine, or opium, to counteract the influence of the other; and he knows that when he did not give it to me regularly, every day, that I was a wild maniac, a perfect mad man, in the strongest sense of the term; as he used to tell me, that I could not sleep at night, or keep quiet by day; that I would do no work, or read, or play at any of the games, of cards or draughts, and that he had to force me, almost, to do so. This is the truth, and the truth will bear its weight.

Some two or three weeks after my petition had been crushed I met Mr. Furlong, and he told me that when it was called up in the House Mr. Williams said that I had no cause to complain of any abusive treatment at the Hospital -- that I was under a great state of excitement when I was carried there, and did not know whether I was abused or not, and besides that I was a crazy man now, and, of course, no notice should be taken of any complaints that I had to make, and he said as to Mr. Hovey, he was a raving maniac. So here we were both chalked out of the pale of civilized society by one sweep of the Representative of Augusta -- the founder of the Inquisition, and the donor of $10,000 to establish it to torture a human being in, who had never knowingly or designedly injured or abused him or any other human being whatever, in person, property or reputation. Yes, he had seen me when I was suffering it all, and then he got up in his seat and made such a statement as that. Well it was worthy of such a public officer as Reuel Williams.

As to Mr. Hovey's being a raving maniac it is false, and Mr. Williams, as a Trustee of that Institution, knew it to be so, for if I had had the power to do so, I would go to the Hospital when Mr. Hovey would be in his highest mood or on his "highest Horse," as Dr. Bates calls it, and take him away from there, and in twenty-four hours we would travel through the length and breadth of the United States, and no person who did not know us, would ever mistrust that he was a raving maniac, or; that I had ever been reported as incurably insane; so there was no man in the Legislature who dared to, or would call for, and demand an investigation of the affairs of that Hospital, against the assertions of Reuel Williams. This testimony would, and did, in the eyes of the Legislature, outweigh all of those whose names were upon my certificates, in regard to my sanity. -- Well, he and Dr. Bates, both knew if they suffered an investigation of its affairs to proceed, that Mr. Hovey and myself, would prove, and substantiate every charge which we should prefer against them, by the testimony of sane men and women, which they could not impeach or repute; by testimony which would be sufficient to hang them, were that the penalty for their mal-administration, mal-practice, hypocrisy, deception and humbuggery upon the public in regard to that institution, so we were both trampled under their feet.

"Man's inhumanity to man,
Makes countless millions mourn."

CHAPTER V.

THE INVESTIGATION.

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Since leaving the Hospital, I have frequently been asked, "what kind of treatment do the patients receive? are they properly cared for when sick? were you fed properly? had you enough to eat? &c." To these several inquiries I had always replied: they have enough to eat, such as it is; for in fact, the provisions bought for the Hospital were ample and good enough, but more or less villainously barbecued in the kitchen, while undergoing the process called cooking.

One winter, since leaving the Hospital, Dr. Bates delivered a lecture on insanity, before the Lyceum of Augusta. I attended. The theories advanced by the learned Doctor were beautiful, sublime! to all whose good fortune enabled them to be happily ignorant of Dr. Bates' practical parts of administration! Among other cases of suffering deduced by persons not having it in their power to avail themselves of the great benefits of such an Institution, was the case of a poor maniac who was shut up in a cage at home -- who, contriving by some means to set his cage on fire, was literally roasted alive. Wherefore, argued this learned Theban, had that poor victim been sent to our care in the blessed Institution yclept Maine Insane Hospital, he would have been properly and safely cared for. But, alas! Dr. Bates did not inform his auditors or the number of persons -- unhappy wretches -- who had been burnt even within the walls of this precious Institution! He did not inform them that Capt. Shaw, of Winthrop had been burnt in one of the out buildings of the Hospital, and would carry the frightful scars of his burns to his grave. He did not see fit to tell them that Mr. Eastman, of Charleston, was so roasted and burned in this same out-building, called the Lodge; that when he was taken from the room, the burnt flesh of his body cleaved to the stone floor.

Last summer, 1850, at the session of the Legislature, I again petitioned that body for redress in my own behalf, for the abuse I had suffered. My petition was the same as that presented in 1848, but I added on this occasion another petition, for the full and impartial investigation of the affairs of the Maine Insane Hospital, from its earliest career, down to the present time, requesting them to give the committee power, to send for persons and papers, to insure a fair and thorough investigation of both cases, so that where the great error or guilt was found, the heavy and mighty sword of Justice might fall with quick and unerring certainty. These petitions were presented, and referred to the committee on the Insane Hospital, and nine more members, making nineteen in all, were added to that committee, for the purpose of carrying clearly out this investigation.

I here present to the public, the material points elicited upon this investigation, and freely request the partial reader to judge, whether any abuses have been proved, or not.

SIMON S. BARTLETT sworn. I commenced at hospital in August, 1845. -- Mr. Hunt was there. I was not much acquainted with him at that time. I was an attendant. Hunt was allowed to go out unattended. Some part of the time he was allowed to go out, and worked at his trade, say eight months. He worked for me and did well -- he had his tools -- Dangerous men not allowed to have tools. I see no difference between the time he worked and since as to sanity. Since he has been out he has attended to business as a sane man: conducted as a sane man eight months before he left the hospital. I do not know that Mr. Hunt ever misstated any thing. Eastman was in the lodge. I had charge of the lodge, the attendant having gone home. I took his place. Attendant was Gilman. As I passed into the lodge Eastman did not speak when I spoke to the patients. I went to the ventilator and spoke to him -- he answered faintly. I opened the door and went in and spoke to him -- did not understand his answer -- the room was too hot -- he laid with his shoulders on the floor. I got help and took him up. The skin was off his shoulders and hips. After I took him up I regulated the fire in the furnace. While I was gone he laid on hay or straw. As we brought him out I noticed he was burnt -- that was our conclusion. Dr. Harlow dressed his wounds on shoulder and hips. There was blood, straw, and dirt where he had rubbed in his room. The lodge was heated by coal in a furnace, and a stone floor was over the fire. The room was hotter than it should be. Don't know whose fault it was. Fire always hottest when wind from north-west -- wind north-west that night. It was a pretty cold night in winter. Eastman did not live but a short time after he was taken from the lodge. Skin was off. Burns do not commonly bleed. I cleaned the lodge next day -- no flesh on the floor. For days before he was not quiet for half an hour. Do not recollect seeing any blisters -- thought the rubbing caused the injury. It was not a fit place to put a man in. No better place provided.

There was a man, don't know his name, with a stiff leg. I saw him on his bed -- asked him how he was. He said "well." He died next day. When he was in my gallery he walked round. When he came he was not so bad. Think he had a disease of the body which reduced him. I have neglected to give medicine when Dr. Bates had ordered it. There was one case where Dr. Bates prescribed medicine, and said the patient could not live but a short time. I did not give them medicine but pursued a showering treatment, and the man got well and went home. Two years ago, or so, I set out to leave the hospital, on account of food. The food was not what it should be. Called Mr. Turner. He was satisfied it was not right, and rectified it. Fault of cook. Understood Dr. Bates interfered, and since has been good. Matron's fault. Attendants food not so good in quality as the officers.

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Some time in August, 1848, Stewart died in the lodge. Do not know circumstances. Died at night. I was sick at the time. Was told Stewart was dead. Went out and helped bring him in. I left him at 5 P.M., as usual, with care of himself. Well, except insanity. Died next night after admitted. Do not know cause of death or disease. Patients sometimes put in bed straps. -- Never knew a person to die strapped down. I have been in hospital five years. Libby was partially under my care. I did not know that he was injured. He could not have been injured seriously without my knowing it. He did not complain to my knowledge.

Boardman has been thrown down more or less for three years. I have thrown him down and put on wristers. This in self defence. Never knew it except in such cases. John Rogers there two years ago. Tasks not imposed on patients in doors or out. I have said a great many things I do not see fit to say here. I did not use water from a lead cistern. Patients did. For the five years I knew of no unjustifiable violence used. I have generally had assistants with me. I have worst class male patients. This day Weeks and I measured the old lodge. Two furnaces situated in basement of lodge. One furnace heated two rooms. Hard coal used. Three and half feet from fire to floor above. Floor from five to eight inches thick. Fire under partition wall. A man's head would not come nearer than two feet from the wall where the fire was. I have been vexed and out of humor, and complained, but under oath I would not say any thing was not right.

JOHN C. PERLEY called and sworn. I was in the Hospital fourteen months. I left a week or two after Dr. Bates came, in 1845. I have faint recollection of Mr. Hunt. I was in the lower gallery -- Mr. Hunt in upper gallery. Do not know about Hunt's medicine, or his being forced to take medicine. I live in Vassalboro'. Did not tell Percival that Hunt was abused. Never said I would not stay to see patients abused. Never knew any patients abused by attendants.

JAMES P. WEEKS called and sworn. I have been in hospital nearly seven years. I was acquainted with Hunt. Never was told, except by him, that deleterious medicine was given him. Hunt complained while there. Do not know of having been showered as a punishment. In course of a year he improved. -- Was considered an insane man when he left. I considered him so. Do now on his treatment at hospital, and other things. Dr. Bates did not change medicine to my knowledge. Hunt said he did. Do not know of his friends being refused the privilege of seeing him. Hunt worked on his bench when he chose to. Food prepared by the matron. Same for all the patients. Patients never showered for punishment. Forced to take medicine when so ordered by Dr. Never knew patients to die strapped down. Don't know of Eastman being hurt. No blisters.

LEWIS KNOX called and sworn. I reside in Augusta, half a mile from the hospital. Have seen patients occasionally. I had occasion to milk my cows near the hospital milking place one season, within two rods. Keeper ordered patient to milk. He did not instantly obey. Keeper went to patient and struck and patient fell to the ground. After he was on the ground he kicked a number of times. Ordered him to got up. Patient very much frightened and his cries might be heard a long distance. Keeper helped him up. -- Patient fell in consequence of the blow. This might have been three years ago. At another time Parsons, a keeper, slapped a patient by the name of Umberhind on the head several times as he sat on a milking stool.

JAMES LIBBEY called and sworn. I was a patient in the Hospital ten weeks in 1847, July and August. The night after I went there, I was jammed and choked, and my hands confined. Bartlett afterwards found my hand out of the straps, and after securing it again, choked me. The first night I was there, he put his knee on my sides, and injured my side so much that I have suffered from it ever since: cannot mow, or do such kinds of work. Dr. Bates saw my side and sent Liniment. At one time, some patients, myself with them, were walking out, and we had gone as far as we were to go. Bartlett said "let us go back" -- a patient refused. Bartlett seized him, pulled him and kicked him --, took him by the handkerchief, and twitched him down, and choked him. Bartlett said "get up !" -- patient answered "I can't;" Bartlett jammed him with his knees.

MRS. MELVINA TOBEY called and sworn. I live on the arsenal lot in Augusta, near Hospital. About a year ago, as I was passing from the Hospital to the arsenal; passed patients at work raking oats. Attendant was Gay. A patient was sitting down and appeared to be tying his shoe. Attendant told him to rake; he commenced raking, and Attendant told him to rake faster. Attendant kicked him so that he fell down -- kicked him after be was down -- choked him -- struck him a number of times, and kicked him, and raised him up by his hair, and thrashed him down several times. I was within four or five feet of them at the time.

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MARY JANE WHITNEY called and sworn. I have been employed in Hospital four years -- absent about a year. I have seen Hannah Dow pinch patients ears -- patients told Dr. Bates: Hannah denied it. Dr. Bates sometimes loses his temper. Tainted meat quite frequently served up. Poorest food to lower gallery. Attendants did not eat it.

MRS. JANETTE HUSSEY called and sworn. I have baked in Hospital two years, 1846 and 1847. Dr Bates told Adams if I told any thing I should be discharged. Capt. Coggins' wife was choked by Betsy Parsons, then attendant, now supervisoress. She choked her until she turned purple, she showed temper. I have known tainted meat to be given to the patients.

MISS CHARITY TIBBETTS called and sworn. I assisted Betsy Parsons to take Mrs. Herbert down on the floor. Mrs. Parsons choked her, took her by the hair, and pounded her head on the floor severely. In the summer time about one third of the meat not fit to eat. Poorest sent to the cottage and lower gallery. Springer, a patient, was kicked by Gay because he did not work. Springer said he was sick. Choking done oftener than necessary.

MISS MEHITABLE TIBBETTS called and sworn. In 1847 I worked in the kitchen ten months, afterwards an attendant four or five months. First season I worked there, an attendant, Mary Ann Fowler, wanted me to assist in removing a patient, -- said she could not get her out of the room. After I got there she choked her. I told her if she choked her she must handle her alone. She choked her and pushed her in. She choked her out of revenge. No need of it. Poorest food sent to lower gallery and cottage. Tainted meat served to patients. Pudding made of mouldy bread.

WILMOT J. HUSSEY called and sworn. I have worked in Hospital nearly two years and a half. Went there in l846. I was carpenter. Last fall when we were repairing a drain, Gay and McGaffy were with the patients. Crowley was digging and refused to work. Gay twitched him, and shook him. Gay left Crowley -- Crowley drew the spade on McGaffy who turned round, caught him by the collar, twitched him down on his side and jumped on him, his knee coming under his ear so that I heard his neck snap. Kicked him ten or a dozen times. Crowley was quiet and offered no resistance. I think there was no necessity of striking him. Crowley had a seaton in his neck and was not able to work. McGaffy was a good deal excited and angry. A year ago last July Mr. Turner sent Potter out with Springer, a patient, to work haying. There were several others. Potter gave Springer tobacco, no doubt -- said he did. Went to field, -- when beyond the pump he would not work. Potter took him to the pump and pumped on him sometime -- say half a barrel. Dragged him off, bound him hand and foot. In a few minutes I went off and left them. I saw Hersey, an attendant, hold Frank Hart down and get on to him five or ten minutes, and choke him for singing. I was employed as repairer. I have known floors of Lodge and Cottage so hot I could not stand on them with my boots on. Might be kept comfortable with care. I have heard Bartlet say he would "stump them to turn him out." After Mr. Hunt began to work, and since, I have considered him a sane man.

AMBROSE WHITNEY called and sworn. I am baker in Hospital. Came one year ago last February. Standing guard at window, I saw Hersey and George Dennet at the other end of the gallery. Hersey seized him and threw him down, and kicked him two or three times after he was down. The patient was a demented man, and laid quiet after he was down. He could not get out if he had passed the door.

CYRUS GILMAN called and sworn. I was an attendant in lower gallery, in December and January, three years ago last winter. I was there when Eastman died. I saw his body after death. I do not know whether he was burnt or not. I did not see him roasting. He was naked. The lodge might have been made hot enough to roast a man. With care it could be properly heated. I think Eastman did not live 48 hours after he was taken out. He had wristers on, and could not get up. Bartlett said he got cast as Capt. Shaw did, and got burnt. I told Weeks, the superior that he ought to have clothes on, and not lay on hay or straw, and have muffs on. He might have been kept from tearing his clothes as well as others. Eastman might have been kept more comfortable. A human being ought not to have been kept as he was. Capt. Shaw was very much as Eastman was. I went to Weeks and interfered, and had Capt. Shaw taken into the house and clothes put on him, and muffs, and when I left he had very much improved. Bartlett told me I was not to tell anything out of the institution what transpired in it.

ESTHER GILPATRICK called and sworn. I have been a patient under Dr Bates. Last time 14 months, left 10 weeks ago tomorrow. Two or three patients irritated me, and Dr. Bates took hold of my hands. He was in a passion. He hurt my wrists so that they turned black and blue. I begged him to let me go. He sent me to the cottage and I took cold, and did not get over it for six weeks. I was sick when I was carried to cottage. I was not insane, I was angry. I have seen Mary Bean pull Mrs. Herbert's hair and ears, and pound her on the back. I have seen Mary Bean more crazy from anger, than any of the patients. I do not know of any instances, where showering has been used as a punishment.

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MRS. MARY McKINNEY called and sworn. I reside in Augusta. -- Have been an inmate of the Hospital. Went there when I had a nursing child. Breasts badly swollen and painful. I went out to dinner and saw such a painful sight I could not eat any thing. I called for drink, and a girl brought me water. No supper offered me. I did not know who to call upon. Showed Dr. Bates my breasts, and after he left a girl brought me some porridge and crackers. I soaked the crackers in the porridge, and made a poultice and tore up some of my under clothes and put on the poultice. I had no help from any one. All the treatment I had was done by myself, with nothing to do with. I had to drink coffee, -- which is not good for me, making me nervous and wakeful nights. Do not drink it at home. Told them so. Could get nothing else. One night I was taken from my bed and carried to the cottage -- no shoes on -- long dress. Did not know where I was to be put. Thought it was to be the stable, and asked if it was the stable. When Dr. Harlow pushed me in he said it was where they kept such cattle as me, or where they kept cattle. It was dark, and I felt around, and got hold of the grates, and stood there until morning. I have heard patients threatened they should be showered if they did not do so and so.

CHARLES SAVAGE Jr. called and sworn. I have been an attendant six or seven months. While there saw circumstances of abuse. Have seen a patient, named Howard, taken down and used roughly. Have seen him choked. Have seen Bartlett on his breast with his knees. Have seen him slat him about. Have seen Bartlett take them by the hair and pull them to the floor, and up again. Have seen this done several times. This was done on new patients. Potter used patients rough. He would throw them down, but I do not know of his wounding them. Have remonstrated, and he said it was none of my business. Had heard patients tell Dr. Bates of abuses, when I knew the complaints were true. Dr. Bates would turn it off, and say he 'guessed Bartlett used them well' -- 'guess all right.' Dr. Bates asked no questions. Suppose I have taken patients down when unnecessary. Believe I have told Dr. Bates so. Have seen more instances of abuse than I can state in number. Have heard patients repeatedly complain to Dr. Bates truly, and he "guessed all right," and did not investigate the grounds of complaint. Patients are understood to be showered for punishment. Have known Weeks to keep them in shower box 15 or 20 minutes. John Wheeler was ordered to be showered for breaking crockery. Weeks ordered Wheeler to be showered. Have known patients to be taken out and over worked so as to produce a delirious state of mind, and then showered. Have known patients to die in the night when no one with them. Had four sick in my gallery and three died. Sick patients are not furnished with watchers, as they are at home. There was a difference in the food furnished the galleries. I have known tainted meat furnished lower gallery patients. Have put it on the tables. It was considered that lower gallery patients would not know the difference. It was considered that the Dr.'s table was furnished better than any other in the house. Mr. Bartlett said the officers would not dare to turn him off without giving a reason. If they did he would start their boots. We had rules, and a general understanding that there were to be no tales told out of school. I told Dr. Bates I did not like the food and the way things were managed. Know of no charge made against me. Many patients might have better care taken of them at home than there. Have heard Bartlett say he would not permit a friend to be brought there.

Three years ago in October, Mr. Hunt commenced work. He worked and would go where he chose. I considered him capable of taking care of himself and attending to business. I so stated to Mr. Ballard. Have seen Bartlett take Richards, a patient, and twitch him round and choke him and pull his hair. Think he used more force than necessary.

MRS. HANNAH DENNEN called and sworn. I am employed in the Hospital at present time, as washer and ironer. I hired with Mr. Turner. His treatment to me has always been kind. I was there from Sept. 1847 to 1848. Commenced July 1849, and been there ever since. Think in October when the ground was frozen I went to cottage and saw Mrs. Graves standing at grate, window was up; she had no shoes on -- floor was cold. She had left a child eleven days old. She was brought from cottage the night she died. I saw her. Betsy Parsons requested me not to visit the cottage any more; said Dr. Bates wished it. Mrs. Shaw was pulled from the grate by her neck and hair, and thrown on the floor. She was lame. Her feet were swollen. She dragged her into her room and hit her head against the door. I assisted in undressing the lady and putting her in bed. I mentioned this out of gallery and Miss Weeks said I must not go into the smaller any more I was so nervous. Hersey was an attendant and said Merrill was overworked and made crazy and sick again haying - also, Phillips of Gardiner. I saw Savage thrash a lame man named Everet Howard. Think he choked him. My husband is insane and has been for seven years. I would not consent that he should be put into the Hospital. Bartlett said before he testified that all the lawyers in Augusta did not know how to put questions to witnesses so as to get at the truth. Bartlett said if Dr. Bates would not let him go and do his haying he would go and start his (Bates) boots. Bartlett said he could under oath tell a story that would make Dr. Bates appear one of the best men in the world, or he could tell a story that would make him appear one of the worst, and tell the truth in both cases.

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DR. ROBERT A. CONY called and sworn. Testified that soon after he was elected one of the board of Selectmen, in the spring of 1847, Mr. Hunt sent for him to call and see him at the hospital. He did so, and saw him at work upon his bench, a perfectly sane and rational man as he ever saw. That he had known him for some eight or ten years before going there, but that he was exasperated by being, as he said, wrongfully imprisoned there, and that he said he should leave at every hazard, but wished to go peaceably, and told him there was no way to imprison him or bring him to trial if he were to destroy the officers; that he would then only be a crazy man -- that he, as one of the Selectmen, took the entire responsibility of removing him against the strongest representations of Dr. Bates, who said he was an insane man; and that his reasons for so doing were that he not only knew him to be of sane mind, but that his right as an officer of the town enabled Mr. Hunt to call upon him, and having been for many years his personal and intimate friend, be had a right to demand it of him as such; and that he had for more than three years attended to his regular business, and in all respects conducted himself like a man.

DEFENCE.

BENJAMIN T. GAY called and sworn. I have been an attendant. -- Went with Littlehale as stated by Libbey. Littlehale refused to go back. Bartlett took him and Libbey interfered. Considerable of a scuffle. He leaned on Bartlett and be let him down. Said he would let him down hard. I could not say there was unnecessary abuse offered to the man. I have known patients to escape through carelessness or negligence of attendants or keepers. Recollect the instance as related by Mrs. Tobey. Do not remember much about it. Have thrown patients down and held them down. As for taking him up by the hair I did not take that man up so. Patients complain of treatment -- sometimes correctly, sometimes not. Did not see Mrs. Tobey until she had passed. Did shake Crowley, as stated by Hussey. -- (Cross Examination.) Patients sometimes seized by throat. I have seized patients so. I do not know an instance when one attendant has informed officers of another. Patients relate incidents correctly often.

S. S. BARTLETT recalled. I have been in lodge and lower gallery almost five years. Attendants are promoted occasionally. I have been kept there until short time ago. I had higher wages because best. Gilman never had care of Lodge except two days. Capt. Shaw was not burnt. Capt. Shaw -- filthy and destructive. Less trouble to take care of patients naked. Never told Gilman that Shaw was burnt. I told Gilman the officers were going to discharge him. I went and got his discharge for him. I do not admit that I ever misused a patient. I do not say that Eastman was not burnt. What Mrs. Dennen said about the Lawyers is true. The other part I do not recollect.

JOHN M. POND called and sworn. I have worked in hospital a year and 9 or 10 months. I have been careful to notice treatment of patients. I have seen officers treat patients very kindly. Five of us were called to assist in handling a patient. Bartlett cautioned to handle with care. (Cross Examined.) I have given the attendants to understand that I should watch them. I have a brother a patient. I saw Parsons kick a patient unnecessarily.

THEODORE C. ALLEN called and sworn. I have lived near the hospital seven years. I repaired in '44, '45, '46, and '47. I never saw a patient abused except the case spoken of by Pond. The day before Hussey was called he said he did not know any thing against the institution. I saw Parsons kick a patient.

JAMES M. BATES called and sworn. I heard Hussey say as stated by Allen in office. I am son of Dr. Bates. I think the hospital conducted in the best possible manner, and on the best possible plan. I think the abuses spoken of are greatly exaggerated.

DANFORTH recalled. I heard Hussey say same as spoken of by Allen.

DR. HARLOW called and sworn. An assistant physician 6 or 7 years. Eastman was not burnt. Never heard of it until this summer. Know of no abuses. Might exist and I not know it. Bartlett a good attendant. Dr. Bates stands well among superintendants. Think him a first rate man for the place. -NOTE. -- Speaks well of hospital and endeavors to explain abuses.-

ROBERT JONES called and sworn. Been at hospital little short of two years, an attendant. Never saw Bartlett use any unnecessary force. Always considered it my duty to assist Bartlett. Never saw what I call abuse. Saw Gay take Crowley down and shake him. Put him into the drain. Did not kick him. I should do as Gay did. I have heard Bartlett say the officers would not turn him away. I am a relative of Dr. Bates. Attendants have been discharged, and Bartlett said they would not discharge him for such things as that.

JOHN HAM called and sworn. Been an attendant ten months. Never saw abuses.

COL. HENRY SAWYER called and sworn. Lived near Hospital ever since it has been occupied. Have seen patients out of the house but not in. Never saw abuse but once. Bartlett or Bragg took a patient from lodge to house in nothing but shirt, in Dec. '46 or Jan. '47, distance about 90 feet, in cold weather. Parsons told me he went into the lodge with some one and took Eastman out and his back was burnt on the hot stones. Told me before December 1848.

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JOSHUA L. TURNER called and sworn. In favor of hospital.

MRS. JOHNSON, Matron, sworn.

COMPLAINTS RESUMED.

JAMES TIBETTS called and sworn. In 1847 I saw Morse whip a patient with a strap of leather. Morse, an attendant, said he had the strap to cast them up with. Struck three hard blows.

CHARITY TIBBETTS recalled. I have known attendants to refuse to give the food furnished to their patients. Butterfield told me that some eight barrels of meat had green around the bone, and marrow black. I never saw such food on any other persons table. I have seen mouldy bread put into puddings for patients.

JOSEPHINE TAYLOR called and sworn. Now employed in hospital in kitchen. Food not same in all galleries. Poorest in lower gallery and cottage.

CATHERINE DAY called and sworn. Worked in kitchen. Went year ago last January. Left last May, same as Josephine Taylor.

KEZIAH SANBORN called and sworn. Washer and ironer in hospital at present time. Cooked 13 months in south wing. Have served up tainted meat for lower gallery. Sent it to patients and attendants. Attendants would not eat it. Never saw such puddings.

Now, I would like to ask the reader -- the public generally, have I made out a case against the Maine Insane Hospital? Have I supported my petition by evidence sufficiently strong to justify its presentation to the Legislative body of a sovereign state? As Dr. Simonton's report has gone before the public, I do hereby desire to review that document, in order to show the public its thin places, fallacies, false-hoods and deceptions. I readily admit that a small portion of it is true, but the color of the whole is black, deceptive, falsehearted, prepared and designed to bolster up and cover the rotten iniquities of that vile and horrid Institution!

Report: That they have given the subject a careful and searching examination, of many weeks duration, during which they have examined numerous witnesses on their oath, and have sought truth from every available source of information. The various charges may be grouped into two general classes:

I. As they relate to Mr. Hunt's personal case.

II. As they relate to other cases.

I deny the assertion that there was full and competent witnesses, inasmuch there were not less than twenty reliable persons, not mad men, or mad women, but good and substantial persons, who could testify to very important circumstances of abuses in the case.

In this lodge, it was charged that a patient by the name of Eastman "was burnt to death." The testimony on this case was much, and very conflicting; the substance of it is this: His attendant found Mr. Eastman one evening with his leg in the close stool, and thrashing his body, mostly naked, upon the stone floor. He removed the patient to other apartments, where inspection of the body showed recent wounds on those parts -- the hips and shoulders -- most exposed to chafing on the floor. The patient lived a few days after this occurrence. Was the lodge on this occasion too hot? All the testimony concurred that it was, and such was the unanimous opinion of the committee.

Cyrus Gilman, the attendant, who usually had charae of this lodge, but was not in charge of it at that time, has since repeatedly said that he has no doubt at all, but he scraped the burnt flesh of Eastman from that stone floor, but, he did not wish to swear positively that such was the case.

Under this group of charges was another, quite similar, viz; that a portion of the female patients have suffered wrong, though less in degree, from causes which rendered the lodge unsuitable. It appears that a small brick building called "the cottage," similar in structure, and having precisely the same mode of warming as the lodge, has been used for some years, and still is used, for the more furious class of female patients. And it appeared in evidence that this cottage had been sometimes too warm , and again too cold, for the comfort at least of patients.

Now I have an item on the "Cottage." This building is upon the same plan of heating as the "Lodge." A Miss Wilshire, of Canaan, says that she has walked for hours and hours during the night, to keep from being burnt! I would like to ask: is there a man who would suffer a relative of his to be incarcerated in such a hideous oven-furnace ! Calcutta black hole?

Another charge which properly belongs to this group, was, that the shower bath had been used upon the patients as a punishment. The sense of the committee was negatively, nine to three. The charge was, that a patient had been showered because he broke some crockery, -- evidence was, that the showering was used as a medical means, to relieve the paroxysm of insanity which led to the commission of the act.

For the above facts I will refer you to what will follow:

By far the largest group of charges, and in the judgment of the committee, the best sustained, was found in the treatment of patients by their attendants. Upon the general, naked proposition -- "Have there been abuses by attendants?" the vote was unanimous in the affirmative. The proposition was then propounded -- "Have there been abuses by any person now employed at the Hospital?" The answer was "yes" -- that Simon S. Bartlett was that person, that he ought to have discharged from all connection with the hospital, -- all as the unanimous sense of the committee. "Have the officers of the hospital sufficiently watched after, and investigated the conduct of said Bartlett?" Six yeas, seven nays.

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Bartlett has repeatedly told me, that if he was put upon his oath, be could testify to facts that would astonish the public! But unless he was put upon his oath, he would not reveal them. He has told a great many people that they dare not turn him away, for if they did, he could start all of their boots! He has said, further, that he could put them where the Dogs would not bark at them! Thus intimating that he knew enough to send them to the State Penitentiary! He has further stated that he would make money out of this scrape before it was ended -- meaning the investigation. And he told me after I had been before the committee to prefer my charges, that he had been taken into the confidence of the officers of the Hospital, and had been taken into their private room where the whole matter had been talked over between them. He gave me then to understand that he should sustain my charges by his testimony. But instead of doing so he has sold himself, his honor, his reputation, for being an honest man, for a mess of pottage. Now I believe that he told me and others the truth, when he said that he could start their boots, or put them where the dogs would not bark at them; but, instead of so doing, has had his own boots started, and left Dr. Bates secure in his office, and not caring the snap of his finger for all that he can now say.

"Have there been abuses by improper food?" Yeas five, nays nine.

"Has tainted meat been sent to patients?" Yeas six, nays five.

Just give the testimony a careful glance, and judge of this.

One complaint was that "the puddings were so improper that neither the officers nor attendants would partake of them." Puddings, it seems, were made for the patients from the broken bread which came from their own tables.

No decent man would compel his family of swine to eat after such filthy brutes as some of these patients.

In concluding this report, the committee would say that they have given the most ample opportunity to the complainants to be heard. It was managed on their side by able counsel, and the resources of the State were placed at their disposal for acquiring proof. And to insure the freest and fullest investigation, witnesses were allowed to testify, who would have been excluded from courts of justice, both as to the witnesses and the matters testified to. And none, it is believed, who have witnessed the patient sittings of the committee, will accuse them of unfairness and partiality. The Insane Hospital is an institution in which the whole people have a deep interest -- their means erected it -- their means sustain it. To them it was due to know whether those means have been well or otherwise bestowed. Is, then, the Maine Insane Hospital worthy the continued care and confidence of the people? Has this long and arduous investigation revealed it as a safe and suitable retreat for those unfortunates? Such is the belief of the committee.

I had engaged Mr. Lot M. Morrill as my council, he having full knowledge of my pecuniary circumstances, and being a man in whom I had the utmost confidence as an advocate. He did attend the two afternoons on which I preferred my charges before the committee. On the morning of the investigation he assured me that he would attend. Instead of so doing he did not attend, nor did be send me the slightest word for his not coming, but left me alone in the hour of my greatest need. The following afternnoon -sic-Mr. Morrill came, but in the interim I had engaged B. F. Chandler, esq., who attended faithfully to me and my cause. Mr. Morrill's desertion was disastrous to me in more than one sense, as his non-attendance had the effect to prejudice a portion of the committee and the Legislature, against me and my cause. The reasons for Mr. Morrill's desertion are best known to himself. It is my opinion, however, that Mr. Morrill was a little fearful that if he was to espouse the cause of a poor and friendless man, one contending single handed against wealth and power, he might suffer in certain political aspirations, fearful that the unterrified Democracy of Maine would not sanction the doctrine, that "all men are born free and equal."

HOSPITAL REPORT, 1850.

The Trustees have made their monthly and quarterly visitations to the Hospital, with one exception, as provided by law, in all of which they have seen and conversed with the patients, and made such examinations and inquiries as were deemed necessary for a more intimate knowledge of their situation, necessities, &c.; and are satisfied that they have been treated with all the care that humanity or kindness could suggest, or science dictate. The Superintendant and other officers and attendants have appeared very gentlemanly in their deportment; kind and affable in their intercourse with the patients, and untiring in their efforts to improve the condition of all under their care.

Eight males and seven females have died during the year, apparently from the following causes, viz: Palsy, (general) three; palsy, (partial) one: marasmus, or gradual wasting of the physical system, four; exhaustion from violence of disordered physical and mental action, two; old age, pulmonary consumption, and inflamation of the brain one, each.

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Now I would ask the public, after reading these reports, to compare them with the following cases, which I charge against the officers of the institution. Cases of horrid, barbarous and inhuman cruelty, have been practiced at the Maine Insane Hospital. In my charges before the committee, I contended that sick patients were allowed to suffer alone, -- die, without a friend or human being present to hear their last sad sigh, and close their glazed eyes.

CHARLES SAVAGE, Jr., testified that Mr. Myers died alone in his gallery. MR. MILES was left alone at night, as usual, when sick: was heard to groan through the night, and was found dead in the morning. CHARLES VARNUM was left alone and died very suddenly. Mrs. Eastman died alone. MR. HUNTER, of Topsham, was sick with the dysentery and died alone. Mr. STEWART, of Farmington, also died alone. MR. GOULD, of Belgrade, died alone.

ABUSES OF THE SHOWER BOX.

I, myself, saw Mr. Andrews, of Lovell, inhumanly showered by Mr. Hall, the Supervisor, simply to punish him for shutting himself up in his room. It was done in the coldest winter weather, and when he was taken out of the Shower Box his skin puffed up in large white blotches in spots all over his body; the effects of the cold water.

I have frequently heard the Shower Bath given in the dead hours of night, when it would seem to me as though they would drown their victims. They would scream until they were so completely exhausted that they could make no more noise, and then they would cease their midnight tortures. Dr. Bates ordered Wm. Hanscom showered, to punish him for some saucy words given to him.

JAMES P. WEEKS, supervisor, took a patient, because he refused to eat, and showered him in a terrible manner, and shivering and shaking conveyed him to the "lodge," and kept him thereabout two weeks, and then brought him into the gallery sick, in consequence of this cruel treatment.

ANNA O'CONNER, an orphan Irish girl, was showered for punishment, for refusing to go into the kitchen to work until she finished washing her dress, and the matron boxed her ears because she did not come at the first call.

EVERETT HOWARD, of Guilford, was inhumanly showered by Weeks and Bartlett, for letting water run: they asking him if he would let the water run again if they would let him out alive? to which be replied he would not.

CAPT. FREEMAN showered a man, a weak and feeble patient, by the orders and under the eye of the first Superintendant, and when he opened the door he fell like a dead man upon the floor, and they thought he was dead, but by great exertion this victim was finally restored. By the same as the above, another patient -- and he is the same one alluded to as having burnt himself in his cage -- a stout and powerful man, was at the hospital, imagining himself to be God, and said he could make it rain whenever he pleased. They persuaded him that he could make it rain, and to keep himself dry when the shower came on he had better strip off his garments and get in the closet out of the rain. He did so, and they then told him, after fastening the door, to command it to rain. He did; and thereupon they let down not less than two full barrels of water on him. They then told him they were satisfied that he could make it rain. He replied that he was aware of that, but did not think there was going to be a flood.

DEACON TURNER once told me that he went down from the attic of the female wing to stop the abusive showering of a female patient.

MR. WEEKS, the supervisor, threatened to shower Mr. Reed because he found fault with the abusive treatment of Mr. Eaton.

JOHN WHEELER, a perfectly unaccountable being, has frequently been showered to punish him for breaking his crockery.

JOHN CARTER, a boy from Portland, was also showered to punish him for breaking a small bowl!

EBEN BLAKE, of Portland, a demented patient, was so inhumanly showered by Babcock, the attendant, that he fell upon the floor like a dead man, when the door of the Shower Box was opened!

MR. WEEKS, the Supervisor, testified before the committee that he had let down a barrel of water at a time, to allay excitement, but never kept them in the box over two or three minutes, and never to punish them.

CHARLES SAVAGE, Jr., testified that he had known Weeks to keep the patients in the shower box fifteen or twenty minutes, and that it was done to punish them.

Now there need not be any doubts at all that the shower box is, in nineteen cases out of twenty, used as an instrument of torture, applied for punishment for the most trivial offences. Thus, victims or patients are sent there by their kind friends, under the impression that they will receive that attention and kind care, they could not receive at home. But how far this fallacy is fallacy, read the foregoing cases and judge yourself whether you could find it in your heart to send a friend or relative to such a place of cruelty and heartlessness? I feel sure that if this book is properly read, and the force of its trumpet-tongued arguments be fairly laid before the people, the mad-house will become a sepulchre of terror and dread for all who have hearts to feel, and eyes to see; and instead of forwarding your poor, distracted, or tottering brother to such a den, it would be just and merciful to build their funeral pyre, and place them on it to die.

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GEORGE REED ran away from the Hospital, and was captured and brought back by one of the neighbors; was showered to allay his excitement, or, in other words, to punish him for trying to make his escape from that prison.

I will invite the reader's attention to the following article, that they may see and judge what the difference is between the shower bath as a medical application at the Hospital, and an acknowledged use of it as a torture in the Sing Sing Prison.

STATE PRISON DISCIPLINE. By an account in the New York Tribune, it appears that the officers of the Sing Sing Prison have been dealing rigorously with Niles, the Attorney, recently sent there for conspiracy. It appears that the officers of the Prison received an intimation that Niles, and two other convicts, Ashley and Benjamin, had been carrying on a clandestine correspondence by the assistance of a colored waiter, whom they bribed to aid them. An application of the shower bath being resorted to, the colored man, together with Ashley and Benjamin, confessed the whole affair, and gave up a quantity of letters written by Niles and Ashley to Benjamin. Niles denied all knowledge of it, and on being threatened with the showerbath, pleaded ill health. The physicians examined him and reported him well. Still persisting in his denial, the officers undertook to force a confession from him. His head was accordingly shaved, an iron collar placed around his neck, his legs, arms, and head firmly fastened with iron clasps , and thus prepared he was thrust under the shower bath, three severe applications of which were made before an acknowledgement of his offence could be drawn from him.

If the above statements are correct, the officers of the prison transcended their powers, and are liable to the charge of inflicting unnecessary cruel punishment upon Niles. The fact of his guilt was clear to their minds, and their resorting to the torture to merely force a confession from the culprit, was entirely unnecessary. The matter should be investigated by the proper authorities, whose duty it is to protect the prisoner from cruel and severe punishment, as well as to see that discipline administered which the law prescribes for his reformation.

If this will not satisfy the public that the shower both is used as a punishment, it will be of no use for me to attempt to convince them ; and I wish the citizens of Maine to remember that after all the charges of abuse in relation to the shower bath, three witnesses testified that the night the hospital was burnt they were up between one and two o'clock, administering the shower bath to Duroc Boardman, a perfectly unaccountable being, and yet he is held responsible for his acts, by showering him, to punish him for making a noise. Will you recollect this when you are sending your friends to the Hospital?

CHAPTER VI.

ABUSES UNDER DR. RAY.

I will now ask the reader to cast his eye over another schedule of abuses. Some of these cases were not brought up before the committee, but these cases took place under the dynasty of the renowned Dr. Ray.

An imbecile patient was thrust into an unfinished room, or, properly speaking, the entry; when he fell upon the floor and was left there for the night, and was found a corpse in the morning.

MRS. THOMPSON, of Camden, was sent to the hospital, believing that she could be better treated, and supposing, that having friends at Augusta, they could attend on her occasionally, and see that she was well cared for. But Dr. Ray refused admission to these friends, asserting it was improper for them to see her. It was finally ascertained that the woman was dying - the friends insisted on seeing her -- and when they did so, being permitted for fifteen minutes, they found Mrs. Thompson a frightful object. Her nails had grown like bird's claws, and her feet were rough and coarse, like the hide of a rhinoceros! She died in about two weeks afterwards.

Another imbecile patient was allowed to suffer the most intense agony for water. He could be heard many rods from the building, shouting for water.

SILAS ALDEN, of East Readfield, was kept in a state of starvation, until released; and on getting home he ate with the voracity of a starved shark. No quantities of food seemed sufficient to appease his overwrought appetite.

JOB SPRINER, of Augusta, was carried to the hospital, sick and deranged. When his brother went there after him, he found him strapped down to a bed, and so famished that he called for some gruel for him, and he clutched the bowl and swallowed it with the eager fierceness of a ravenous wolf. Mr. Springer lived but a few days after he reached home, and in all the lucid intervals of his misery he sighed and moaned most bitterly over the cruel treatment of that hospital.

ELIJAH GILBERT, of Chesterville, was found dead one morning in the "Lodge," in 1843, under the care of Dr. Ray. Gilbert, when found, was naked and rigid, -- horrible to look upon; and strong efforts were made through heating sand, or some other substance, to relax the nerves, &c. in order to close the victims eyes, inasmuch as his frightful appearance indicated shameful neglect. They said the evening previous he had eat his supper as usual, and no particular reason could be given for his sudden death.

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Mr. Townsend, of --------, was taken sick with the dysentery, and they put him into the cold bath. I may as well state here that it was a standing rule, when a patient soiled his person or clothes, that he was to be put in the cold bath or shower bath, to cleanse him. The attendant believing Townsend to be in a state not fit for the cold bath asked for advice of Dr. Ray. He told him that he knew his duty, and to do it. The victim was put into the cold bath, and in five minutes after he was removed therefrom, the blood settled under his nails, and he shivered and shook in a most frightful manner. Dr. Ray was called, and then ordered boiled, hot potatoes, to be placed around the victim, in order to restore animal heat. This procedure, the hot potatoes, caused him to screech and scream in the most frightful manner! His person was set in a freezing position first, and then the horrid tragedy of burning him with hot potatoes terminated in the death of the victim, in the course of two or three days. The attendant says he has no doubt but the torture caused the death of Townsend, and it so shocked him that he left the institution, disgusted and horror stricken at such inhuman treatment.

I now call upon you, Dr Isaac Ray, the Author of a work known to the scientific World as "Medical Jurisprudence of Insanity" -- a man whose reputation stands in the very front ranks of philanthropy and science, in America and Europe. You whose reputation for morality, benevolence and humanity has no superior, and which you have obtained wholly by writing that book, and your other scientific writings. You who have said to me that no secrets of that Institution were ever revealed to the world; you that left me as an incurable maniac, and would have murdered me outright, had you even supposed that I could ever come forth to the world again, clothed as I now am in the armor of reason and sanity. To you and to the public, I now say, here are a few more disclosures of your deeds of darkness: disclosures which, it I could arraign you before the proper tribunals of my country, would assign you to a longer residence than would be agreeable to so eminent a man, in a certain State institution, located at Thomaston.

I now appeal to the people of Rhode Island, and the people of this great and mighty Government, generally; a Government whose laws convey the idea that each and every one of its Citizens, however Humble and obscure in life or circumstances, is and shall be guarded and protected in all the civil and religious liberties to which the heart of a freeman proudly aspires. To you I appeal, whether you will sanction or countenance a monster, whose deeds I have so faintly set forth -- deeds that pens and tongues cannot portray in all their horrid, savage, ferocious cruelty, and terrific fierceness. Will you consign your suffering, weak and wretched friends, to the care, control, cruelty and disposition of such a cannibal? Will you when you have read these pages forget their import? -- cease to remember their notes of truth and sad warning? Will you set me down as a false deceiver? -- idle agitator? -- a mad-man? Or will you rise in your might, armed and equipped for the abrogation and annihilation of all such monsters as this -- all such dens of cruelty and oppression, whose walls but seldom give out a note of the fearful deeds working within? Aye! there are deeds doing -- deeds have been done within many of those Institutions, that would be too full of horror for the public eye or ear!

CHAPTER VII.

ABUSES UNDER DR. BATES.

I am not done yet with my sad recitals of the madhouse. Here follow a few more cases that took place under the reign of the next cannibal king, Dr. Bates.

MR. YORK, of Bangor, was kept in the lodge -- was kept there in the dead of winter, and frequently removed therefrom, in a perfect state of nudity, through the deep snow, to the main building, a distance of about ninety feet, and sometimes when it was intensely cold. What head, gentle reader, will you class this kind, humane treatment under? Answer it your-self. And again, female patients have been seen, barefooted and very thinly clad, snow six inches deep, passing between the main building and the cottage, distance the same as the lodge. Is not this very humane and kind ?

DANIEL COLLINS, of Starks, tells his sad grievances, and says he has been shamefully abused. In what respect I have not been able to learn. I have been told that a female patient, in the cottage, was so badly burnt that her wounds required medical attention for about three months. It can be proved.

MRS. HERBERT, an Irish woman, refused to give up her dipper when in the cottage. She was pinioned with the straps and put into the bathing tub, and three pails of cold water turned upon her. I suppose this was done merely to allay excitement, and not to punish her; of course not!

RODNEY JENKINS, of Wales, was shamefully abused at the hospital, and requested his friends that they would cage him at home, rather than send him there, should he again be deprived of reason.

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MR. HART was fiercely abused by the hired man, who threw him down and then jumped upon him with his knees.

MR. HINCKLEY was similarly used by the same person. I rely upon the correctness of these two cases from the statements of a person who was a patient at that time. I have no other proof, but I firmly believe it to be true.

An attendant was ordered to tie up a patient by the thumb to the grates, for spitting upon the floor! Dr. Bates came in and said -- "Well, my lad, how do you like that?" -- thus sanctioning that course of medical treatment.

MR. FLINT, of Bridgeton, has been to the Hospital and complains of being abused in a shameful manner, and begs of his friends to chain him any where, rather than send him there again, should he ever be deprived of reason.

A lady who was visiting the Hospital last winter or spring, to see her husband, saw as she was passing, some of the patients out sawing wood, and she also saw one of them whipped or beat with some kind of a stick, about the size of a broomstick; and probably that incident might have had some influence with her to induce her to steal away her husband in the manner she did, thinking the same medicine might be administered to him as well as other patients.

A crazy negro was placed in charge of some crazy white men, at work in the garden, and was kicked and otherways shamefully abused and maltreated by them: another bit of the precious evidence of the philosophy of the humane and kind treatment of those controlling this Institution.

A young Irishman was brutally abused by the attendant in the galleries, and so poor Pat had to take the kicks and cuffs of oppressive barbarity, in this sweet land of liberty.

MRS. EMERY, of Augusta, an insane patient, was put in a strong chair, confined, in a state of complete nudity! The argument may have been for this shameful treatment, that Mrs. Emery would tear her clothes if they were left upon her, but confined in that chair, the act would be impossible! Ladies, what think you of such kindness in Dr. Bates.

SARAH ALEXANDER, another female patient, was confined in the Cottage. She was severely afflicted with a complaint to which debilitated females are more or less subjected. She also was kept in an entire state of nudity, and was shamefully and brutally neglected by Dr. Bates. Her situation, it is said, was awful in the extreme.

A female has told at Gen. Redington's, that she had seen Dr. Bates choke a female patient until she was black in the face. Was not that very humane? Dr. Bates, some two or more years since, discharged a female attendant, because she choked a patient. This attendant replied to Dr. Bates, "I have only followed your example, in so doing!" whereupon Dr. Bates gave her a first rate certificate of good moral character.

MISS PHILOMELA HALL, of Hallowell, was shamefully abused by Dr. Bates, who ordered her into the "Cottage" for some trivial offence, and there, divested of all her garments, was kept in a state of nudity for some days! Miss Hall was a delicate women, tenderly brought up, and lady like in her deportment. With Capt. Smith, her brother-in-law, and her sister, the Captain's wife, she had been a voyage at sea, which was the cause of her insanity! He heard of her situation, and applied for her discharge, which was peremptorily refused by Dr. Bates. Smith then said that if his demands were not compiled with, he would take her out if he had to level the Institution to the earth, to obtain her! He appealed to the Trustees, and after much trouble finally affected her release.

MRS. BAKER, of Orrington, had her arm dislocated, and has since lost its entire use. When before the committee of investigation the matron was asked how this occurred; her response was, she did not know. But I have since learned that it was done by the attendants forcing her into the bathing tub; of course only to allay excitement, and leave her maimed for life. Oh! humanity where hast thou fled; hast thou departed from this abode of sin, suffering, and woe.

CAPT. LUCKLY, an insane man, confined in the hospital, by neglect in leaving the washroom door open to him, entered and turned the hot water facet, until the bathing tub was partially full, then jumping into this boiling bath, he was so scalded about the feet that he died in course of two or three days. The report was, Capt. Luckly died of congestion -- I suppose of scalded feet.

About a month after Dr. Bates took charge of the Hospital a female patient refused to swallow her medicine; whereupon Dr. Bates took a hard wood wedge, and bending her head across his knees, so forced it into her mouth as to cause the blood to run down upon the floor, and told her he would learn her to take her medicine. That was undoubtedly a very kind way to show her that he was her benevolent and humane friend.

I saw Mr. Coan of Dexter, one Sunday morning shamefully abused by Dr. Harlow, so that he was made a cripple for life. Well, to speak seriously, is a man to blame if the God of nature has not endowed him with reason, judgment and understanding, so that he does not know what treatment an insane man should receive? If a man is to be held accountable for what he does not know, then he is and should be held responsible for that abuse. And, also, if he did know better, then he is accountable for maiming him as he did. I say that Mr. Coan was shamefully and inhumanly neglected, before he was injured, and afterwards, by Dr. Bates.

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Mrs. Church, of Farmington, was at the hospital, a patient, several years ago. She was most shamefully and inhumanly abused. I have been told that when her husband visited her, she threw herself into his arms, and told him he should never leave her again. He took her away and it is said that he entered complaints to Reuel Williams, one of the Trustees, and by his persuasions he did not make a public exposure as he talked of, because Mr. Williams said it would injure the reputation of the Institution.

Wm. Stevens, a patient, was a young man who had a fall which somewhat impaired his reasoning; but I think had never ought to have been at the Hospital. He was sick some two months or more, and when he had no appetite to eat I have seen his gruel forced into his mouth by pulling out his tongue and filling his mouth, and then compelling him to swallow it. He had an impediment in his speech so that it was difficult for him to converse with any one. But several times when I would be sitting by his side, he would say to me, "Oh what a dreadful place is this." He was very much frightened by being compelled to stay in that dreadful abode of the most frightful mortals that can be conceived of, and when he was sick, he was afraid that he should die, and be in the hands of the devil the other side of the curtain.

MR. KYLE, who was a patient, showed me a sear upon his head, which he said he received by being knocked down by an attendant. Jonathan Knowles, a laborer on the new wing, saw the print of a man's hand upon the throat of a patient, and heard the hired man boast that he had him down by the throat, and made the marks upon it. Is not that the milk of human kindness, distilled down in the best of cream or oil?

MISS ZORADA REED, of Swan Island, was kept in the cottage for a period of nearly two years; much of the time in a state of nudity. -- Dr. Bates asserted that he could not afford her even a duck frock, as she would tear her clothes. Miss Reed was seen one day in the gallery with the muffs on, and her food was placed upon a seat, uncut and to eat it, not having, the use of her hands, she was obliged to stoop down on her knees, and thus get the food into her mouth. In doing this she thrust the plate upon the floor, for which act she had her head pounded against the bench by the attendant. This was another act, done, I suppose, to allay the poor girl's excitement. Miss Reed was finally taken home by her friends, and kept for a short time in a cage, but at the expiration of about one month; she so far recovered as to be able to go to teaching school, an occupation she has continued, I believe, ever since. She is perfectly sane now.

Soon after the hospital was burned, Reuel Williams was returning up the river, on board a steam boat, and the calamity was the topic of conversation. One gentleman said that he should like to hear that the whole building had sunk below the ground, so that not a stone could be seen. Mr. Williams said that perhaps he had heard some stories about it which he did not like. The gentleman said he had not heard of any thing, but knew by his own observation, for he had had a sister there, who had been teaching school, and was taken deranged, and by his advice she was taken to the hospital, thinking from what he had heard of it that she would be greatly benefitted by going there. After she went he used to visit her occasionally, and for a time she appeared very well, and said she had a kind nurse, who treated her well; and he sometimes gave the nurse money for her kind attention to his sister. After a while the nurse was changed, and his sister appeared very bad, and told him she was abused by the nurse. He visited her again, and she appeared worse than before, and told him the same story of her abuse. The next time he visited her he told Dr. Bates that he wished to be taken to see his sister as she then was, for the two last times he visited her she appeared as though she had just been washed and dressed for the purpose of seeing him, and that she had told him that she was abused, and he wished to see her as she then was, for the purpose of satisfying himself. Dr. Bates objected to his seeing her in her cell; but he persited -sic-in such strong terms, stating that he believed she was abused, that Dr. Bates was forced to take him to her cell, and there he found her a pitiable object enough; in dirt and filth, which was perfectly disgusting, and he told the Doctor that that sight was enough to satisfy him and that she had told him the truth in relation to her abuse, and he should remove her as soon as possible. He went home and told his father of her situation, and that she must be taken home immediately. And then the question was, to know what they could do with her there. He told him that while a house was building for her she must be kept in the corn-barn, and the corn-barn was accordingly prepared for her, and she was put into it and kept there until a small house with two rooms was ready for her. When she had been kept in her house about one day, she was taken into the house with the rest of the family, and in a few weeks she went to teaching her school again, and had continued to do so up to the present time, and he did not want any more evidence, than his own sister's treatment, to convince him of the abuse of that Institution, and if any person wishes to know who the lady was, I will inform them that she was Miss Zorada Reed, of Swan Island, mentioned above. I think any comment by me on this case, is unnecessary; but I have no doubt but that her case is a fair sample of eight cases in every ten, of all female patients.

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Mr. Friel, an Irishman, had his ribs broken by the attendant; but whose business was that? He was taken to the hospital to be cured of insanity, and that was the kind of medicine administered to him.

One time, when the patients were taken out to walk upon the banks of the river, one of the attendants threw one of them roughly down and jumped upon him violently with his knees. A bystander observing the transaction, asked the attendant if that was a crazy man. Yes, he is, said the attendant. Then, said the bystander, if you jump upon him again, I will jump into you !

One time, when the patients were out milking the cows, a person saw the hired man knock one of the patients down by throwing a milking-stool at him, and, farther, beat and pounded him with his fist. Was not this a soothing pill to give a poor and helpless maniac?

A patient by the name of Barrett, has been shamefully abused by being whipped with a strap.

Another patient was brutally whipped and beaten by the hand or fist of the attendant.

An old man, of four score years, was dragged from his bed at night, and dashed upon the floor for some trifling offence or noise; and seized by the throat and choked in the usual barbarous manner by the attendant. I think that all will probably acknowledge that it was very kind and soothing to such an old gentlemen in his declining years, to administer such a balm of Gilead as that to his troubled spirits. I have no proof of the above three cases, except what I learned of a patient who was assistant to the attendant, but I have no doubt of its correctness.

MR. BROWN, a patient, had a very bad boil or sore upon his neck. He besought Dr. Bates in the most deplorable manner, to put a poultice upon it, so as to draw it to a head and relieve him of his distressing pain, to all of which he would reply, with his usual sneer, "O you will do well enough; I will risk you!" Yes, citizens of Maine, I wish you to know that your friends are thus not only shamefully and inhumanely neglected, but they are barbarously abused and maltreated. They are bound in chains (not of iron) more terrible than those worn by Baron Trench in the Prussian Prison, or than any galley slave. The Government of that inquisition is a perfect reign of terror. Dr. Bates is literally the absolute Monarch and Tyrant of all he surveys, in that Institution.

JOHN PITTS, of Dover, was given deleterious medicine, such as had the effect to so destroy his sight, so he could not distinguish small objects, however near him. He asked Dr. Harlow for what purpose the medicine was given him. To which Dr. H. replied, it was to blunt the susceptibilities! At the end of six months the wife of Mr. Pitts applied for and obtained an order from the selectmen to Dr. Bates, for his discharge. Upon her presenting this order, after paying his charges, Dr. Bates said that he was an insane man, and he should not release him, and he had an order from one of those selectmen to detain him, and he should keep him! But Mrs. Pitts took him out to walk, with the apparent design of having a little private conversation with him, and when some rods from his prison, a young man drove up a horse and wagon; Mr. and Mrs. Pitt both jumped in, and drove Jehu like into the city of Augusta. Dr. Bates made great exertions to regain his victim, but all of no avail. He had fled to his friends, and was free again. There is no doubt but he kept that man for experimental purposes, and the result would have been that he would have been reduced to imbecility and death! Since his return home, Pitts has attended to his affairs like any other perfectly sane and rational man. Dr. Bates had also other motives for keeping him, which will be hereafter shown.

The following is a letter, or extracts therefrom, from Mrs. Dyke, of Raymond, to me:

"One thing I do know, and can testify to. I was taken by the attendant, and a strap buckled around my wrists, another around my ankles, and bound in such a manner that I could not help myself. She then cut off my hair, and put me by force into the cold bath, and kept me there until I was so cold and thoroughly chilled, that it seemed to me that I should perish. Furthermore, I can testify, that I was clinched by the attendant, and then by Dr. Bates, who gagged me with a hard wood wedge, so as to turn down medicine with a tunnel. He broke out one of my sound teeth in so doing. They strangled and choked me to that degree I verily thought I should never breathe again. At another time two attendants choked me to take medicine. Dr. Bates stood and looked on, saying if they could not succeed he would help them. A bystander said I was as black as her shoe. Suffice it to say, that many other things I could testify and say were it necessary."

I think this letter speaks for itself, and comment is quite unnecessary, by me. I would here merely notice, -- in fact my want of space compels me to be brief in all my statements, -- the case of MR. SARGEANT, of Patten, a man who went in person to the select-men of his town, for them to give him a permit to go to the hospital, as he was very much debilitated in mind and body, and thought the attention he should receive at the hospital would be beneficial to him. After a brief sojourn there, Dr. Bates began to administer doses of spirits of turpentine. Sargeant objected after having taken this stuff for a short time, saying it was killing him. Dr. Bates persisted; and it is said that he begged and prayed not to be compelled to take it, but all to no purpose; and it is said that he died a most horrible death. The mechanics, at work on the new wing, who had become acquainted with him, were astonished when they heard he was dead, and said they did not think much of the benefits of spirits of turpentine experiments.

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The following is an answer to a letter which I wrote to Mr. John Buswell, of Exeter Mills, and I read the letter before the committee of investigation.

AUGUST 20. 1850.

Dear Sir, -- Your letter of the 13th, is just received, and in answer to your request I would say, that my stay at the hospital was short; that I was in the upper gallery with the convalescent patients; that I had but little opportunity to see the abuses that are complained of there; but the impressions I imbibed while there, were, that the hospital was badly managed; that the patients were often ill treated; that they were sometimes kept long after they should have been discharged, and I will state to you the principal reasons I have for forming such an opinion.

Firstly. On entering the hospital, I very soon learned that the patients did not like Dr. Bates; that they had no confidence in him; that the impression among the patients was that they were treated often-times very bad, and sometimes thrown on the floor and jumped upon in such a manner as to cause the death of the patients.

Secondly. After I had been in the hospital perhaps four weeks, I had liberty to go out in company with two other patients to walk, and we sometimes called into the neighboring houses, and I found the people in the neighborhood were generally of the same opinion as the patients. And

Thirdly, -- What I saw and heard myself under this head. I will mention the case of Charles A. Stephens, of Castine, an unfortunate homicidal patient. Mr. Stephens appeared quite sane while I was there, and much of a gentleman. He was in the gallery with me in the day time. He had a sore ankle that pained him very bad, and made him very lame, and he asked the Doctors fifty times to do something for it, or give him something to put on, to relieve the pain, but he had never got anything. One evening I was sitting by Mr. Stephens and Dr. Bates came in. As he passed by us Stephens spoke to him, and said that he bad asked Dr. Harlow for an opium plaster to put on his ankle, that Dr. Harlow had promised him one, a day or two before, that he had not got it, and be did not know the reason, and said he thought he was neglected, to all of which Dr. Bates only answered with a laugh. At another time I heard a conversation between Dr. Bates and Mr. Stephens, in the course of which, Dr. Bates said that if a patient deceived him once, he set him down ever after as a dishonest man, that he had detected a letter that Stephens had written and not been sent, and if a patient undertook to circumvent him it would be worse for him.

I will here mention what took place between Dr. Bates and Mr. Buswell in regard to his leaving the institution. He thought the Dr. was keeping him longer than was beneficial for him to remain, and he procured the signatures of some of the neighbors to a certificate stating that they thought him to be a sane man, and well enough to go home. Mr. Buswell wrote out a true description of the character and management of the hospital by Dr. Bates, in its natural and true colors, and sealed and directed it to a friend. When a gentleman who visited the hospital was passing through, he asked him privately if he would do him the favor to put a letter into the post-office for him, and he promised that he would. Instead of so doing he gave it to Dr. Bates, as is usual, for it is next to impossible for a patient to send a letter out, except through the officers. It was but a short time before Dr. Bates came in and told him he had got his letter, and said -- "now I intend to punish you most severely for writing such a letter and trying to send it in that manner, and I will now tell you how I shall do it. I shall do it by sending you home in a few days, for you shall not have it to say that I have kept you too long." Now the reason of this very desirable punishment was, that Dr. Bates saw by the letter that he was detected; that Mr. Buswell had discernment enough to read his true character at a glance, and that he knew enough to write it out in true colors, and that the friend to whom he had directed it was a person of whose standing he was afraid, and so thought to make him his friend, so he might not expose him to the public. -- These statements Mr. Buswell made to me before he left Augusta, and I make them simply to show the perfect system of espionage and survillance -sic- constantly held over the patients; for the whole system of the government, and treatment of that institution is perfectly inquisitorial in all its details; from one end to the other a patient, with some few exceptions, is looked upon and treated as a Criminal or an outcast from society, and of no more importance than a brute or a stone. -- These things are facts, whether you will believe them or not.

Mrs. Graves, of Thomaston, Mrs. Witherell, of Norridgewock, and a Mrs. Bickford, three inmates of the cottage, were so inhumanly abused by the supervisoress, and so neglected by Dr's Bates and Harlow, though remonstrated with by the two attendants of the cottage patients, that they died most horribly! Some of these three cases are too horrible to relate, therefore I refrain from doing so. So strong were these female attendants impressed with the above horrid facts that they left the cottage, declaring that they were afraid if they remained they should see the ghosts of those murdered women. These three cases were cited before the committee of investigation but were crushed down by the testimony of the officers of the institution -- testifying in their own behalf -- who stuck to it that these poor, unhappy females were as well and kindly treated as the circumstances of their case permitted. But if I were allowed the privilege to summon the two attendants, mentioned above, I could have proved all this abuse.

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Mr. Sibly, of Brewer, was knocked down upon the floor by the attendant, last winter, (1850) and so bruised by being jumped upon that he died in a day or two after. That is the truth -- believe it or not, as you may choose.

Mr. Eaton, of Brooks, was also knocked down by the same attendant, and jumped upon with his feet or knees, so that he died in about thirty-six hours, and he purged blood while he lived. His crime was shutting himself up in his room. He had been there but four days, but so strong were the impressions of his sister that he had been murdered, that she removed the shroud from the neck of the corpse after it was carried home, and saw the prints of a man's fingers upon his throat. Notwithstanding these facts, Simon S. Bartlett testified before the committee that he laid out the corpses of both these men, and did not discover any signs or marks of violence upon their bodies. -- The facts were, the body of Mr. Eaton was very much jammed and crushed, so that it had swollen to an enormous size. I now say that Mr. Bartlett indirectly admitted to me, but a few days after Mr. Eaton's death, that he lost his life by violence, but did not give me any particulars, and he was perfectly astonished when I told him that he was murdered, and to use his own words when I told him of it, -- "How in the devil is it that you find out every thing that takes place at that hospital so soon?". To this question I replied that I did not reveal my sources of obtaining information from that place, but the real truth was that I had received a sort of telegraphic or clairvoyant despatch from some of my familiar "spirits" of that abode of darkness.

Now I wish the public to know that Mr. John Pitts, before alluded to, witnessed the cruelties upon Sibley and Eaton, which terminated their unhappy career. This fact was one of the important reasons for Dr. Bates refusing to let John Pitts out into the world, for he knew that his assertions would be believed by every body that knew him.

Dea. Turner, the steward, did testify before the investigating committee that he would take the word of John Pitts upon any ordinary occurrences that might have taken place under his observation. I wish further to state that two of the committee of investigation went to the lodging of Mr. Pitts, while he remained in Augusta, and took his testimony in full in reference to the above two quoted cases, as well as his own personal case. But the committee, though having possession of these statements, did not, so for as the public know, pay the slightest attention to them. Dr. Bates wrote to the sister of Mr. Eaton that he died with the acute or chronic rheumatism; I should think it must have been very cute, indeed. Well, that is as near truth as you can expect from the great Dr. Bates.

A few more brief relations will close my statements in regard to the abuses of this Institution. One evening I had a conversation with Dr. Bates in the gallery, (in March previous to my leaving,) in regard to the medical treatment I had received at the hands of Dr. Ray. Dr. Bates replied that I must acknowledge if Dr. Ray could produce such effects, as I stated he had, he was unquestionably a very scientific man, and understood his business well! To which I responded; "Sir, I acknowledge that not even the Spanish Inquisition ever produced the superior of Dr. Ray as a horrid, barbarous, cruel and vindictive Inquisitor!"

Next morning, when Dr. Bates visited the gallery, he said to me, that if I ever used any more of such language as I had used the evening previous, he should have to have a different classification of his patients, as he could not have such language used in that gallery ! thus intimating that I should be obliged to go below with a worse class of patients, to which I meekly replied -- "Sir, I am in your power, class me where you please, and as you please!"

In my charge before the committee of investigation I made a general statement of the poor and meagre food supplied the patients, and the sumptuous and princely fare that made the table of the officers groan. Now I should like to particularize, just a little. For instance; not even pure milk was allowed to bless the wishy washy tea and coffee slops; doled out to the poor patients. Before the milk reaches the patient, it is always skimmed of its creamy richness; that valuable part of it being consumed in making light bread and tea cakes, and giving a zest to the bowls of berries and rich preserves of the officers or Doctors table. These things are true, and if they are not enough to convince the public, I will add another chapter in the second edition of this work.

CHAPTER VIII

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

There is one thing connected with all the other modes of deceiving visitors, who go to the hospital to visit their friends, which ought to be understood by the public, viz.; they are frequently told that their friends are very crazy and excitable, and that it will do them a great injury to see their friends, and therefore they are pre-emptorily refused the privilege, and go away without the interview. Undoubtedly the real cause is, that they are frequently suffering the most horrid mental agony from being separated from those friends, or, perhaps from the more horrid torture of body and mind, caused by the fiendish drugs which are given to them for experimental purposes; or, from other abuses which they might reveal to their friends if they were permitted to see and converse with them. Such was the case with me, when my brother-in-law visited me for the purpose of taking me away the next week after I was carried to the hospital ; and I think that when people are refused seeing their friends under such pretences, it is time for them to demand an interview; and, if refused, to forthwith move their friends from the custody of such officers, as they may be pretty sure that there is iniquity at the bottom of such cases.

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Dr. Simonton says in his report that witnesses were allowed to testify who would have been excluded from Courts of Justice. I admit that fact, for who ever before heard of culprits, charged with crime, being allowed to take the stand and testify in their own behalf? Dr. Harlow went on the stand and swore that those charges were all false, or about all; and he was one of the parties accused; and Dr. Bates summoned his own son, which was about the same as taking the stand himself, and if the other things that he testified about had any resemblance to what he said in regard to me, it was astonishing testimony, for he had a very remarkable memory. He had a very distinct recollection of conversation with me that never took place, and of that which did actually occur he could not remember one word, and Dr. Simonton asked him some questions that none but a simpleton, or a man driven to the avail, would have ever asked him; which none but a man determined to conceal and varnish all of that horrid iniquity, would have allowed himself to ask; yes, none but a man who would violate his trust as a servant of the public, would ever descend to such meanness and perfidity to his constituents. Notwithstanding the assertions of Dr. Simonton, that the purse-strings of the State were at my disposal for summoning witnesses, and every facility and opportunity granted for doing so, I will inform the citizens that I had intended to have summoned the wife and daughters of Dea. Turner, the Steward, if I could have had the privilege ; and I will assure them that I should have been able to have proved some things that would not have been very palatable to Dr. Bates, but which, so far, he has been able to conceal, and would have convinced them that he was not what he appears to be.

COL. SAWYER testified that Bartlett told him that, on one occasion, when the trustees made their visit, in passing through the gallery, Dr. Bates called their attention to a very nice pudding that was on the patients table, and told them that was such fare as they gave their boarders, and then, instead of the poor patients having it to eat, it was removed to the officers' table for the trustees to eat themselves, thus not allowing the patients to have a taste of any thing so nice, but at the same time most essentially deceiving and humbugging the trustees. There are but few that could surpass Dr. Bates in that art and science.

I wish to state one fact in proof of all the assertions and testimony before the committee, that no tales were to be told or secrets revealed out of that Institution, was proved by Dr. Bates himself, by his immediately discharging Mrs. Denning, one of the witnesses from the hospital, as soon as he found out he himself was not discharged, and some of the investigating committee said that if it could be proved that no secrets were allowed to be revealed by the hired help, that one thing of itself could be a sufficient cause for the removal of the officers. She revealed the truth and had to leave, and the steward has said they never had a better woman in the service of the Institution than this same Mrs. Denning.

I have stated that they instilled into my mind the first winter I was at the Hospital, that it was a Roman Catholic Inquisition; but I now wish all to understand that it is a perfect inquisition, to rob people of their property, their liberty, and their lives; that it is a human slaughter house, where physicians experiment upon their victims, and that humanity with some few exceptions is not known; and that those modern Inquisitors are members of Protestant churches; that they are public praying hypocrites, wolves in sheeps' clothing. I wish it to be distinctly understood that I do not accuse the churches of which they are members of aiding or abetting such iniquity, any further than some few individuals of those churches have done all in their power to crush the investigation and conceal the truth. But in regard to its being a Roman Catholic Inquisition, I will say that of all the accounts I have ever read of the Spanish, or any other Inquisition, they never surpassed the Maine State Inquisition, called the Insane Hospital, and conducted by professed Protestants, for deeds of darkness and cruelty, and yet these public officers of the State are the first to raise a hue and cry against the bloody Roman Catholics, as they term them. There are within those bloody walls many members of the Roman Catholic Church, and I trust that I am not quite so bigoted but what my sympathy for suffering humanity, would allow me to raise my voice in behalf of all who are abused, whether Catholic or Protestant, to aid them if in my power; and I will say that if the Roman Catholic Priest attached to Kennebec Mission would visit their lonely Prison, I think he might be the means of mitigating their sufferings in some small measure, as I have good reason to believe that some of them have been barbarously abused, not because they are Catholics, but because they are deranged men and women, and humanity is not known at that citadel of oppression and despair.

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"In my last report I alluded to the circumstance that non-residents and foreigners were better provided for by law than our own citizens.

I wish again to call to your attention the fact, that in a few years, under our present law, these classes will form a majority of our inmates.

They are never removed but by death, or when recovered; consequently the number of incurables is constantly increasing.

The inquiry may be an important one, whether non-residents and foreigners found insane in our cities and towns, should not come under the same previsions for support as when they become chargable from any other cause.

Or, what might be better still, perhaps, whether our own poor should not be placed on a footing as favorable as that enjoyed by the nonresident and the foreigner.

All such provisions are liable to be abused, but if the legislature should authorize the admission of indigent, insane persons, within sixty days of the attack, at one dollar per week, for such time as the trustees and superintendent shall think proper, or until recovered, an amount of benefit would be realized from this institution hitherto unapproached. Such a provision would fill the house with recent cases, in the best condition to be benefitted by a residence in it."

Now, citizens, whether you are native or foreign, Catholic or Protestant, will you after the above appeal of Dr. Bates for the incarceration of your respective countrymen in his infernal pit of woe, and for the purpose of having a larger number to experiment upon with his terrible drugs, more fiendish and cruel than the assassin's stiletto or the hangman's knot, I ask you, will you suffer such tyranny to reign in your boasted land of liberty ? the home of the brave, the land of the free; or will you crush it at the ballot box and by legislative enactment ? I think that if I have not related enough cases of abuse to satisfy the public of the enormities committed at that hospital, that they would not believe should one arise from the dead, and come forth clothed in the pure garments of the Heavenly spirits and proclaim them with the trumpet of Gabriel. If they doubt my word, call me crazy, insane, or a fool, all I ask of them is to appoint a committee of disinterested men; men who are not physicians, for the truth in relation to that institution cannot be laid before the public if it has to pass through the doctor's hand, as they all know the objects of the hospital, and will conceal all abuses which are committed by physicians. These are true, and I wish the people so to understand it. One of the committee of investigation has said that he did not see how Dr. Simonton could make such a report as he did, with such testimony as he had before him. I can tell him that it was because he was a doctor, and was determined that the real facts should not be known to the public.

Many people, who are ignorant in regard to insanity and insane people imagine there must be something very peculiar in the qualifications of a physician to be competent to have the care of such persons at an Insane Hospital, and having been under the care of four of them I am ready to admit such to be the case, if those are a fair specimen of what all ought to be. For instance, Dr's Ray and Smith are perfectly cruel monsters, and Dr. Bates is a tyranical, overbearing, inhuman political demagogue, who cares for none but himself; and Dr. Harlow has received his medical diploma, and is a sap head, and any boy who has been one year in an apothecary store would answer every purpose that he is capable of filling as assistant physician, and any person who knew him would never allow him to prescribe for them. -- However, he makes a very good automaton for Dr. Bates.

As to the attendants or the nurses who have the immediate care of the patients, and upon whose attention greatly depends the restoration of the insane to their reason, almost any thing in human form will answer; if such as have generally been employed at the Maine Insane Hospital are competent, the most important qualification is to be able to throw or knock them down, and seize them by the throat and choke them until they subdue them, or put them into the shower box or cold bath, and drench them with cold water until they are so completely exhausted that they can make no more noise, when they are put to bed until they recover from such horrid attentions as they receive from those whom the public suppose to be wholly devoted to their service, in humane and charitable acts. Such is the real treatment they receive, and nothing is done, or permitted to be done, to relieve them of horrid mental or physical sufferings. They are led to believe themselves prisoners -- prisoners without hope or consolation.

There is one point to which I wish to call the attention of the public in relation to insane persons, and that is about their being conscious of what passes around them. If they have a brain fever or are imbecile, they will not be likely to know what occurs in their presence, but nearly all other classes of insane persons will have a perfect recollection of every occurrence, and will relate scenes and conversation with as much precision as they ever could; and be, in fact, as capable of testifying to whatever passes in their presence as they were before they were insane, in every thing, except what relates to their own particular delusions; and whenever a person who has been in any Insane Hospital complains of being abused, or makes any statements in relation to what they have seen or heard, if they were persons of truth and veracity before their insanity, they can invariably be relied upon for the correctness of their assertions after they return to the world. There is one more point to consider, which I wish the public to understand in relation to the course pursued by Reuel Williams in trying to crush me as he did, and the investigation of all the other charges seperate from my own case, which is, that if he had not been guilty of conniving at the abusive treatment which I received, he should and would have demanded a full and thorough investigation of every charge, whether I were a sane or an insane man, and by so doing he would have washed his own hands from any participation in such barbarous iniquity as I trust will now cleave to him forever.

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There are some other trifling abuses perpetrated by Dr. Bates besides those of the poor patients, viz: He has abused, insulted, and trampled upon the family of Dea. Turner, the Steward, and there was no communion or friendly salutation between the two families, any further than they ate at the same table without speaking to each other; and after the investigation was over, and no charges whatever had been preferred against the steward by myself, or any other witness, then Mr. Turner finding that Dr Bates was retained, gave in his resignation to the Trustees, because he would not submit to have his family insulted and domineered over any more, and the trustees rather than dispense with his services as steward, raised his salary from five to seven hundred dollars, and permitted him to remove his family to his own house.

I have been told, also, that the celebrated Dr. Ray used to insult and abuse Dea. Turner, and he was once heard to say to him, that he could not put any confidence in him; but what it was about is more than I know, but probably because he would not sanction his abuse of the poor patients.

There was an old man brought to the hospital in a few months before I left, who had spun out his three score years and ten, and had some years previous been there for six months; and his case, I think was not a solitary one of that description in the United States, according to his own version of it; and I have since been told that it is the true one. He had several years previously given up all his property to his son, to the amount of some thousands, and for that consideration he was to support him during life, and assist his father to descend calmly and peacefully to his grave in his old age; thus relieving him of the burden and cares of life for the rest of his declining days upon the earth. He soon found that he was no more than a dog in his own former house, and he began to worry, and pick the flesh from his hands, and chew paper continually, and when he could not get that, he would chew his garments; walking from place to place. While he was at the hospital it was his unceasing theme to tell of his former happiness and prosperity, and contrast it with his then miserable fate, shut up in the abode of darkness and woe. He would say to every one "I was an old fool, wasn't I, to leave my son's house, where they had every thing nice and good to eat, and a good nice feather bed to sleep upon, and come here where they live like swine, with nothing good to eat, and a matress bed; oh dear!" After a year or two his son took him out and paid his board at one of his neighbors, and he worried so much that they did not want the trouble of him, and his son told him that he should send him to the hospital again, and there he would remain as long as he lived, and it so affected the old man that he said he would never go there again, he would die first; and he took a rope and hung himself to his bed post to escape the more horrible fate of living in that mad-house, where he knew there were none to smooth his rugged and thorny path to the grave; where there were none to moisten his parched and dried mouth in his last struggles with the grim messenger of death, with even a drop of cold water. Oh, the horrors of death in that prison of woe and despair none can tell. I now earnestly beseech all old men and women, who have property, never to give it to their heirs except by will at their death, as in too many instances have people suffered severely in their old and declining years for having done so; and when the public see men and women of property sent to an Insane Hospital they had better look and see if it is not for the purpose of gaining possession of their purse-strings before their time; and, when that is the case, then the public authorities ought to interfere to prevent such inhumanity and robbery, and all should be protected from such abuse by the strongest Legislative enactments. When old people relinquish their property fully into the hands of heirs or assigns, under the promise of support, such persons should be considered insane, and all such contracts null and void, and neither should any heir or relative be allowed to become the guardian of the superannuated, where there is any chance of their robbing them of their liberty or property; for in too many instances, in this degenerate age of the world, have people forgotten the golden rule, to "Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee." They forget that "the earth is the Lords, and the fullness thereof; and all the cattle upon a thousand hills." They do not consider that if they live a few more years they will soon be old like their parents, and in their turn be cast off by their children, as they have cast off theirs. They do not consider that they are accountable to God, and should return him thanks for all that they possess upon the earth.

I have before alluded to Mr. Samuel L. Hovey, over whom a perfect system of espionage was held, and a determined resolution of Dr. Bates, to detain him for life, if in his power to do so, and for no purpose but because he was afraid that he would expose their iniquity if he should return to the world, as he had kept a journal of every thing that transpired under his eye or ear. Mr. Hovey's friends wished to take him away in the spring of 1849, but Dr. Bates made such false representations to the authorities, by whom he was detained, that they, upon these representations, refused to release him upon such terms as he would consent to leave. About two weeks before the investigation commenced last summer, his friends again wished to remove him. He was no more of a sane mind than he had been for three years, but Dr. Bates knowing that he would be called before the committee if he remained, consented to let him go, thinking that he would be at such a distance that he could not be called, and thus would not be present to testify against him, which was really the case; and I will only add that Mr. Hovey has since conducted himself like a perfectly sane and rational man, and like a gentleman, which he really is; and by so doing has given Dr. Bates the lie in regard to his opinions of his sanity.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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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CHAPTER IX

In 1849 a difficulty arose in the prosecution of a liquor seller -- a Justice came from a neighboring town to try the case, because the local magistrates of Augusta would not paddle in such dirty puddles. The Justice was openly assaulted and cowhided, and this drew out the sense of the people. A meeting was held at the Court House to express their indignation of the affair. Dr. Bates was chosen chairman of the committee on resolutions, and he gave a grand flourish to show his patriotism. I will copy two of them.

"Resolved -- that the true object of Government is to promote the welfare of the citizen, and to secure to him the peaceful and uninterrupted enjoyment of those means of happiness to which he is naturally and legitimately entitled, and that its power and stability depend upon the sober and inflexible determination of the people to maintain the supremacy and dignity of popular enactment.

Resolved -- That the security of person and of property, and the unmolested discharge of individual and social duties, rest upon the protection which the law affords to the people, and upon the certainty of its rigid and impartial administration; and that it is the duty of every citizen to uphold those who are charged with its enforcement, and to frown upon and firmly resist every attempt to pervert the ends of justice, whether made by a secret, cowardly and deceitful connivance at deeds of lawlessness, or by more open exhibitions of degrading ruffianism."

Here is sentiment! Plato, Demosthenes, Cicero, -- none of the ancients as far as I have searched the records, have ever been enabled to embody a stronger contempt and abhorrence of all those who, by brutal force, attempt to divest glorious man of his inalienable rights! But unfortunately for rhyme and reason, justice and truth, Dr. Bates has not given the world, and myself in particular, the slightest cause to believe that, like the Romans or Thebans, he ever practices what he preaches ! If he can find a man, like old Diogenes at noon day, take his candle and go groping about for that purpose, sane or insane, personally acquainted with him, willing to believe on oath or otherwise, that he values at a pin's fee the sacred rights, feelings, sanity, peace spiritual, or temporal welfare of man or woman under his charge then will I be content to renounce my faith in a just God, and turn Pagan, and never again call myself an American citizen or a Christian ! for those resolutions beat the hypocrites of old, who refused to eat with publicans and sinners.

Before the committee of investigation the most strenuous exertions were persisted in by Reuel Williams one of the trustees, and Dr. Bates, to have them believe that I was still an insane man; still laboring under such fallacious hallucinations, as to make me more a subject for the cells of their Prison of woe (!) than serious consideration. But Reuel Williams got his gruel well sweetened from Mr Burnham, one of the committee. It came about thus:

During the investigation, while I was recapitulating my charges in which I stated that Dr. Bates himself was a mad man, an insane man, according to his own theories of madness, inasmuch as it was notorious that he possessed a most violent and ungovernable temper, was fretful and irritable, allowing his anger to so overcome him that he was indeed the last man in the world to superintend the madness of others, I was asked by Mr. Burnham to name a few cases in point. I cited one in my own case. Then Reuel Williams arose and said that as one of the trustees he had no idea of being arraigned there, at the instigation of an insane man, when he had devoted his time and his money to build and sustain that Institution, and when he, as one of the trustees, was perfectly satisfied that every thing was done that could be done by the officers, for the proper managment of that Institution.

Thereupon Mr. Burnham arose, and said that Mr. Willams had not only insulted him, but all the rest of that committee through him, in setting himself up above the authority of that Legislative body, and denying their right to investigate the management and affairs of their Institution, built at an expense to the State of $150,000. He said, "I wish that gentleman to understand that neither his immense wealth, station, influence or power, should deter him, as one of that committee, and of the Legislature, from the full exercise of his duty; and he for one should never submit to his dictation!" Mr. Williams did not expect such a reception as that, and offered many apologies for the insult to the committee.

Mr. Hussey, a man engaged at the Institution as a man of all work in repair, stated a case of abuse that he had witnessed, and was badgered and brow beat by Mr. Williams, whose whole object appeared to be to invalidate Mr. Hussey's testimony. Failing in this he came down a peg or two, by inquiring why he, as a humane man, had not reported the case to the officers? Mr. Hussey replied that he kept quiet to keep peace in the Institution, if possible. He knew that if he reported the facts to the officers it would create a fuss, a perfect jargon. Some would side with him, and some with the others, and the result would be that he should be called a tattler and tale bearer, and he never would submit to bear such a reputation as that; and that was the reason why he did not report it.

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Thereupon Mr. Williams arose, like a perfectly insane man, and said, "I beg and beseech of you in God's name, spare that institution! Yes, again I beseech of you to spare that institution! Do not destroy that institution! Do what you please with the officers, but spare that institution: turn them all out if you will but, in God's name, I beseech of you to spare the institution!" Yes, citizens, that was said by Reuel Williams. I will here allude to one of the votes of the committee in my case. The question before them was -- "Had Mr. Hunt been retained too long at the Hospital?" The vote stood 9 to 7 that I had been. Upon reflection one of them went over to 7, thus making a tie vote. His reason for so doing, was, that if it stood that I had been retained unjustly by that institution, the State could not avoid making me a compensation for such false imprisonment!

Dr. Simonton was entrusted by the committee -- he being Chairman on the part of the house -- to draw up the report. This fact gave me great uneasiness, knowing, as I did, that he was entirely prejudiced against me and my cause; for from the first to the very last, he had manifested a full and determined disposition to crush me and the truth, in relation to the real facts of the case. Seemingly he was fully bent upon concealing all abuses, and did all in his power to crush me in particular, disregarding his duty, and his oath as an impartial member of the Legislature. His report hung fire until the session was at its last gasp, then the report turned up, too late to be reviewed or discussed. This report, my death warrant, was signed, sealed and delivered!

The barbarous triumphed; carried their point, though convinced as I ever must be, that three fourths of the members of that Legislature were fully possessed of the truth of my statements, the justice of my cause, and the iniquity and rottenness of the Maine Insane Hospital and its presiding Deity! I have not the least doubt but if there had been one week to have acted upon that report, it would have been recommitted, with instruction to report that Dr. Bates be discharged from all connection with the institution, and I should have received something for damages, as the members of the Legislature all knew, and perfectly understood my case, and I have no reason to doubt but they were in favor, by a very large majority, to have impartial justice done me for the wrongs that I had suffered, for to do me full justice is not in human power to do. This Dr. Simonton well knew, and hence the reason for the delay of the report, until the close of the session.

One of the committee replied that he was ready to meet the question upon that ground; for if the State had placed officers in that institution, who would wilfully detain patients, wrongfully, and unjustly, he, for one, was ready and willing to make them ample pecuniary renumeration, and thus wipe out the stain of injustice from the State.

And, more-over, if the vote had not undergone that subtle change, the fact would have been admitted and established that I, of course, had been a perfectly sane man for eight months before leaving the institution, and up to that time; a fact that Williams and Dr. Bates had not only deprecated, but fought against with all the determination of better men in a better cause.

CHAPTER X.

Gov. John Hubbard, of Maine, in his message to the Legislature last May, thus plies up the sublime and beautiful.

"It is our distinguished prerogative, under Divine Providence, to shape our own destinies as individuals and as states. Here, for the first time in the history of the civilized world, is every man allowed to enjoy his natural rights."

"Our social progress is not obstructed by laws or usages which originating in cunning or cupidity, have entwined themselves with the very frame work of society, and have entangled the masses in the meshes of a system of servitude more oppressive than any positive institution of slavery. I say, more oppresive than positive institutions of slavery; I will add, more degrading, because, when it exisits, as in the old world, it is between men of the same race, and blood, and color."

"It should not however, be that morality which adapts itself to circumstances, nor that which deals only in abstractions, but it should be a morality broad as the relations of man to man, deep as are the foundations of human society, and comprehensive as are all our connections with the intellectual and physical world."

"We cannot too vigilantly watch the working of our constitution, nor too closely scrutinize the practical operation of our laws."

Here I have an editorial extract from the Augusta Age, about the time Dr. Hubbard was nominated.

"Wherever the name of John Hubbard is known, his name is the synonym of manhood, one of statesmanship. Wherever known, he is loved, honored, revered -- he is loved, for his many amiable, social qualities -- honored, for his high-souled integrity, his manly frankness, and straight-forwardness of purpose -- revered, for his unwavering devotion to principle, his high-toned American feeling."

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Now I wish to say a few words. Use a small, sharp pointed instrument, which will let all this vapor out of the sails of Gov. Hubbard, his beautiful and poetical theories, and reveal him in his true colors. With Gov. Hubbard's private character I have nothing to do or say. I shall only revert to him as an official, a servant of the sovereign people. Up to 1847 the hospital laws were insufficient to hold or detain any patient against their friends wishes; a discrepancy that caused Dr. John Hubbard, then a trustee, and Dr. Bates, some uneasiness, as they found I was at large against their wishes; and they must have laws by which, for the future, they might detain me or any other person for life, if they once got them into their clutches. Well, they set themselves to work to invent a code of laws, which were drawn up by Dr. Hubbard, and they were so barbarous and oppressive that they would have been a disgrace to a statute book of Algerine pirates. The Legislature of 1849, finding that no person could be taken away without the consent of the officer, rescinded them so far that they could not detain them after six months, without the consent of their friends or the public authorities.

This code of laws made it the imperative duty of all to send their insane friends to the Insane Hospital, whether they wished to or not. They must be sent there however will they might be provided for at home, and there they must remain during the pleasure of the officers; all that was necessary to obtain the incarceration of any person, was to get some person to enter a complaint of insanity before two Justices of the Peace and Quorum. and one or two witnesses to testify that they were insane, and then adieu to their liberty -- no matter how harmless or innocent, or inoffensive they might be. Any man or woman might be taken from their business or home, and incarcerated for life if they had enemies who would take such measures to arrest and detain them! From the decision of those officers there was no appeal.

If the people of the State wish to have such a man as Dr. John Hubbard for their Governor and Commander-in-Chief, a man who will forego such manuals, or laws as those, when they know that he has done it; why, then of course they will re-elect him to that post of power, and bow down and worship as great a tyrant as has ever disgraced the name of a man or a Christian. Yes, any person who would vote for any man, for any office, would vote to establish the Spanish Inquisition in our midst, when they know that he has drawn up such a code of laws.

Revised Statutes. -- CHAP. 1, Sec. 8. The words "insane person" shall be construed to include every idiot, non compos, lunatic or distracted person.

Constitution of Maine; Declaration of Rights. -- ARTICLE 1, SEC. 1. All men are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent and unalienable rights, among which are those enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and of pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness.

SEC. 19. Every person, for an injury done him in his person, reputation, property or immunities, shall have remedy by due course of law; and right and justice shall be administered freely and without denial, promptly and without delay.

I should like to ask the citizens, after they have read the above, by what authority they incarcerated one single human being within the walls of that Insane Hospital. It is a plain violation of the constitution which we live under, for there has never been, to my knowledge, one single human being sent there, who has had a trial by jury of his peers -- except such as have first been sent to the State Penitentiary for crime, and I say that no person has any moral or legal right to send their friends there under any circumstances whatever. If they commit crime, or are dangerous to be at large, send them to prison. The hospital is not called a prison, it is a medical institution, and what right has any person or any court to place me or any one else under the medical treatment of a man who may be my deadly enemy? and who may experiment upon me, and shut me out from my friends and the world for my life, and murder me with perfect impunity if he choose to do so. Yes, citizens, look to your hospitals and your laws, and say if you will be despoiled of liberties, and your lives, without ever having committed any crime, by such inhuman monsters as have the subject for your consideration, asking you if you can have any faith or confidence in the democracy of such men as will concoct, and draw up such laws as well imprison you for life, at the absolute will of one man. Yes, the Maine Insane Hospital is an absolute Monarchy, with a tyrant at its head, as I stated to the investigating committee.

So well satisfied was the Hon. Shepard Cary of the abuses of the institution, for he was in several times listening to the testimony, that upon the last night of the session, when there came in an order for an appropriation to purchase a few acres of land for the institution, that he spoke in very strong terms of condemnation of the whole management of affairs at the hospital, and I am told that he even went so far as to say, that the officers lived in a style superior to the President of the United States, and, doubtless owing to his remarks, the order was defeated, and I am fully persuaded that all who know Mr. Cary will admit that when he will openly oppose a democratic office holder he thinks there is something rotten at the heart.

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TREATMENT OF INSANE PERSONS.

Many people who are not familiar with the subject of insanity, and insane persons, imagine that they are all wild, furious, and uncontrollable, and hence none but giants can safely have the care of them; but those impressions are very erroneous in a large proportion of cases; and I will make a few more remarks in regard to their necessary treatment, which may be of great service in many cases. First of all, when any person is taken insane, from whatever cause, their friends should never show any signs of being afraid of them, and they should in all cases adopt a tone of command and authority over them; and when once you get the mastery or command, then always manage to retain it, but do it with kindness, and never with abuse or even apparent malice; and should they be wild and furious, or dangerous then confine them with as much ease as possible, and be careful to let them know that they must submit to your authority; but never obtain any submission from any promises which you never intend to fulfill, for in no case should deception be resorted to in order to bring them into subjection.

Should their minds become filled with delusions, or wild fancies upon any subject; in some cases no notice should be taken of them, at other times it may be best to humor them in their false notions, and at others they should be treated with sarcastic ridicule, or contempt, and the proper mode to ascertain which will be the most effectual can only be ascertained by experiment, but in all cases treat them in a friendly manner, and use no force, when persuasion will accomplish the object; let kindness be the universal motto.

If all cities and towns were furnished with the proper apparatus for confining those who must be confined, so that when persons are first attacked with insanity, their friends could have the proper means of confining them at their own houses for a short time, they would undoubtedly in nine cases in every ten be able to keep them at home until they would be entirely restored to reason, and they would be restored in half of the time that they would if they once become inmates of that prison of which they have a perfect dread.

The wristers and muffs are made of leather, and are sufficient to confine the hands, so that no injury can be done to themselves or others. The strong chair is made of stout hard wood, and is made to confine the arms and feet, and they can do no injury to themselves or others, and are confined to any location, so that they can be found where they are left.

There is the French invented Maniac Bedstead, to confine them at night, and is intended for suicidal or violent patients, and is made about two and a half feet square, and long enough for the tallest man. It is a box made of plank, and a cover which is a sort of rack, a little oval, with five strips running lengthwise and hooped across with five hoops of iron, at equal distances apart, and fits upon the top, or the top of the box is sawed off all round four or five inches deep to make the cover, and is fastened on by four hooks and staples near each corner, and when a person is put into it, they will be likely to be found in the morning if it is made strong enough! Any carpenter can make one of them, or the strong chair. Any person could obtain the wristers and muffs of Mr. Chandler Tuttle, of Augusta, for about five dollars. If cities and towns would furnish the above articles for their alms houses, where they have them, and keep them to lend to their citizens, in many instances they would save the trouble and expense of sending their insane to the Hospital, and frequently would save hundreds of dollars, and much anxiety of their friends.

It is supposed to be the duty of the trustees, in addition to their duty in relation to the financial affairs, to see that the patients are abused or unjustly detained, but in relation to the abuses or unjust detention, so far as complaints have been made, it is my opinion that they were never known to interfere against the officers in favor of the patients unless they were compelled to do so by some person from the outside; and knowing that to be the fact, I will make a suggestion for the consideration of the public which is, that there ought to be for all hospitals or prisons, whether public or private, a committee of visitors, to be drawn from the Jury box, of about five persons, and to be drawn from as many different towns, none of which should be in the town where the hospital is located, whose duty it should be to visit the hospital for the express purpose of looking after and investigating any charges, of every name and nature, of abuses or wrong detention or imprisonment, and for them to make a record of their doings, which should be subject to the inspection of their successors in office, and for none to serve in that capacity for a longer term than three or six months.

CHAPTER XI.

I am about to close for the present. In doing so I cannot forego making a few observations, illustrative of the damning effects, morally and physically speaking, my incarceration has had upon me as I stand related to the community in which I move. Now, for instance, suppose I was to go to a public house, drink, get intoxicated -- a very common occurrence in the community -- and what is quite as common, knock somebody down or destroy something, or go into a warm discussion of politics or religion. What would the community say of me? Crazy, of course; look out, he's mad ! and under such circumstances I have every reason to believe that I would be seized, carried off, and again be incarcerated in that atrocious Inquisition, more terrible to me than death at the stake or on the gibbet. Hence, I and all similarly situated, must be watchful, cautious and prudent, and evade all such dangerous grounds upon which my more fortunate fellow beings may roam and frolic on, with perfect impunity.

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There are few causes of insanity which ought to be better understood by the community in order for them to know what treatment to give their insane friends; for instance, where it is produced by religious excitement, it would be wrong treatment for their friends to exhort them upon that topic, or even to pray with them, for it is like putting dry fuel to a blazing fire; and in no case should it be permitted. If people could see, as I have seen, the wreck of human reason, produced entirely by the terrible whirlwind of Millerism which swept over our land a few years since, they would be careful never to allow themselves to go into an exciting mis-called religious meeting. I have been confined with an insane Millerite, who was quite an intelligent man, and had taught a country school for fourteen winters, and the mental sufferings of that man were past all description. He would groan and sigh in such a manner that it would pierce your very soul with anguish to hear him. He imagined that he had committed the unpardonable sin, and had lived a whole life of sin; that all of his acts had been sin of the deepest scarlet, and that hell was his inevitable doom forever.

Another Millerite was in a very different state of mind from the above, and was perfectly happy. He imagined that he was God, and that there were none above him. "Why," said he, "I am God, for I can jump through the side of the house and not make a hole in it, and none but God can do that;" and in order to convince his friends that he really was what he said he was, he took a leap through the window, and, of course broke it all out. But even that did not convince him of his error, for he still persisted that he was God for he could take up fire in his hands and not be burned; and none but God could do that; and to convince all his friends of the reality of his assertions, he took up a handful of coals of fire; and then his friends were convinced that he was not what be professed to be, and he was brought to the hospital with a sore hand. Preaching or praying to that man would only injure him.

Were it proper that I should do so, in this little work, I would allude to the cause of insanity in young people of both sexes, by their own vile habits, but there are little medical works devoted exclusively to the subject, which should be in the hand of all parents, that they may know what council to give their children when they arrive at a proper age to receive such instruction. But I would here advise people never to send them to an Insane Hospital for medical treatment, as imprisonment generally adds ten-fold to the disease which is consuming them. I once asked one of the old attendants to tell me candidly what proportion of all patients sent to the hospital were thus benefited. He thought one in ten was all, and no more, that derived tiny real benefit from being there.

The reading world will remember the case of Mr. Saunders, who made his almost miraculous escape from the Insane Hospital in New Hampshire, a few years since; a very plain case of false imprisonment, which called down the just indignation of the people upon the heads of the authors. They will also recollect the case of Mr. Hinchman, of Philadelphia, who was retained in the Insane Hospital by his malignant enemies, but who finally fought against most fearful odds, and gained a crowning victory by obtaining $10,000 damages for his false imprisonment. Another case quite as familiar to the public, was that of Mr. Oaks, of Cambridge, Mass., who was buried alive in the McLean Insane Asylum, by his own heirs, to rob him of his property. He remained a prisoner there for four years, but finally obtained his liberty and property, by appealing to the supreme court. I have no doubt, could I have the privilege to do so, were I to visit all of the Insane Hospitals in the country, and spend a week or two in each of them, that I could find a multitude of cases similar to the above and my own; cases that would astonish the people of the country beyond their comprehension. In closing my narrative of abuses, I trust that all who have read attentively these few pages, will feel themselves amply repaid for their money and time, which they have devoted to its perusal, and I trust they will all bestir themselves to look after all Insane Hospitals, and those who may be incarcerated within their walls.

Now I have come to the close, and I wish to make a few "summing" up remarks. In all calamnities befalling the progress of nature -- the elevating of man and christianity -- of course, somebody is to be offered up a sacrifice upon the altar of Right and Justice, before truth prevails. In this case I have been the victim, and I have no higher ambition to gratify during the rest of my natural life, than of feeling conscious at my death hour that I have done my duty as a man, suffered and borne meekly as a christian, and prefer the honor of benefiting my race, to all other worldly power and aggrandizement. I wish it to be distinctly understood by friends, and even those who prefer to be my enemies, that I feel perfectly conscious of my own entire sanity; and upon the strength of which, I do assert, that so strong is the prejudice against the poor unfortunate creatures, once having had the misfortune to become an inmate of a mad-house, that never after is he recognized as a fit and reliable witness in a court of law, or is he again looked upon as he once was, even in the community in which before he may have been esteemed a good and useful citizen. This stigma I have suffered from severely, knowing as I do that I have been wantonly deprived of my civil rights as a citizen of this great Republic, by those whose wealth and power enables them to crush me, in order to screen their iniquity. Therefore the admission once into an Insane Asylum, like the incarceration of a felon in a Penitentiary, ever after incapacitates him from mingling in society, and enjoying his former and mostly desirable privileges of life; his domestic and friendly relations with his fellow beings. This, of itself, is sufficient cause for all, and more than I have said or written, in condemnation of the Maine Insane Hospital, its rulers and vampire officers. I have stated my own grievances pretty succinctly; in relation to the other cases; such as I state I have witnessed myself, are true, and I firmly believe, that all the other cases that I have cited are true in their material points. There may possibly be some slight errors in the details, but I would further state, that it is my firm belief, that there are a multitude of cases of which no report is given, more atrocious, barbarous and bloody ! and I do therefore most urgently move that they, the friends, or those professing to be such, shall rather confine their poor forlorn and afflicted brother or sister, in the deepest cellar or remotest garret, chain, confine, neglect, spurn, burn, freeze or starve, do anything, however bitter or unfeeling, rather than send them to an Insane Hospital, to be tortured by such cannibals.

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I would here state, in view of the trouble and anxiety of real philanthropic people, whose misfortune it is to have friends whose minds become unbalanced, that it has been suggested, and in fact, in two cases, one at Gardiner, and the other at Winthrop, Maine, -- carried into execution -- additions or cottages, made to the local Alms Houses, where insane persons will in future be confined, and where their common friends can at all times visit and observe their real situations, and the treatment they receive. It will be no matter of supererogation in me to say, that the investigation of my case, as recited, has undoubtedly brought about the above result in Gardiner and Winthrop, and I trust to God, that the precedent will be followed by all counties, towns and cities throughout the United States. State Institutions, if they are all conducted upon the atrocious and brutal plan of the Maine Insane Hospital, should be abolished. And, if I could be sustained in my views and wishes, by the philanthropic people of my day, cheerfully would I devote the residue of my life to their abrogation, and the amelioration of my fellow beings; suffering from this, the worst of ills flesh is heir to -- Insanity!

INCIDENTS OF THE FIRE.

I have learned one case since the fire that I think deserves notice, as it adds one more item to the multitude of other case of abuse. Mrs. Bickford, of Bowdoin, was carried to the hospital in March, 1850, in a depressed and melancholy situation from the loss of her husband. She had a brother who came to work in Augusta and he very naturally wished to see his sister, and went over twice to see her, but was both times peremtorily refused, upon the invariable plea, that it would be very injurious for her to see her friends; and as her brother did not understand that game of gammon, of course he went away satisfied with being told that she was doing well, &c., &c.

Well, on the morning of December 4th, when he saw the hospital was in flames, he was there as soon as his feet would carry him to the scene. He inquired for his sister, and learned that the females were all safe, and returned home for breakfast, after which he again went over in search of his sister, and found her at a neighbor's house, apparently as sane and well as ever when he saw her. He procured a horse and carriage, and started with her for home, and upon the way he learned from her what she had seen and passed through herself. She related her experience of the shower bath, and many other things in relation to herself and others, embracing the whole catalogue of abuses so many times repeated in this little history of that abode of terror, that it is unnecessary that I should repeat it; but I will say that she was a tailoress, and was kept at work much of the time at that business, and confirms the so oft repeated tales of the females, as well as males, being compelled to be the waiters and servants of the sick and feeble patients, and made to perform the menial services, which is the duty of tyrants who are placed over them, who are called the nurses, or the female attendants.

The fire has broken the bonds of one other female patient who had been incarcerated for six or seven years. She has returned to her children, and they and her former neighbors are perfectly astonished at her appearance and conduct, for instead of receiving her as a wild maniac, as they expected to find her, she has proved herself to be perfectly sane and rational, and her deportment is perfectly lady-like, so much so that they are amazed to think that she has been so long a prisoner in that vile den of infamy, that harem, which being filled with such females as the two above named, enabled Dr. Bates and the trustees in their report of 1850 to urge in such strong terms the necessity for the legislature to make the small appropriation of $30,000 for an additional wing for his Seraglio. Yes, citizens, if you will wipe the mote from your vision you will soon see where you have incarcerated your wives, sisters and daughters. Yes, just remove the veil from your eyes, and then if you are satisfied, all that I have to say is, then send them there to become the slaves and menials of those under whose care and custody they are placed; in whose vile company you would not permit them to remain a moment at your own houses, any sooner than you would send them to the Five Points of New York. Yes, ask all that have ever been there as patients or attendants, and if eight out of every ten do not corroborate my statements, if they are men or women of any intelligence, then you may call me crazy, insane, a madman or a fool, and I will return a voluntary exile from civilized society for the remainder of my pilgrimage on earth, without a murmur or word of complaint. I humbly trust that the hospital will be purified from all, both male and females who have ever had direct care or authority over the patients under the administration of Dr. Bates.

During the past session of Congress, through the intercession of Miss Dix the philanthropist, a bill passed the Senate granting ten millions acres of government land for the benefit of the indigent insane, to be divided among the States, no part of which was to be appropriated for building Asylums, but to be exclusively devoted to defray their expenses, as I understand it, in Asylums of a public or private character. Now I do not doubt, and neither do I think there is a person in the country that doubts the real philanthropic motives of Miss Dix in what she has done, and is doing for the insane, to alleviate their deplorable condition, for they are really deserving the sympathy of the humane and true christian; but she is in reality bringing upon them the greatest misery, wretchedness, suffering and woe it is possible for them to endure. I trust that Congress will never pass that bill, for the result will be to feed and pamper a pack of political blood hounds, who will eat it all out, in having the care and custody of those for whom it is designed, -- and although Miss Dix has probably visited every hospital in the country, yet she is as ignorant of the insane as she can possibly be. Although I am poor and needy, and would not knowingly do aught to injure a fellow mortal, yet I would earnestly beseech Congress never to pass that bill, but if they have land to appropriate for that purpose, they had better give it to families of insane persons who will go and settle upon it, or give a hundred acres or a quarter section to any poor person who has not any land, that will settle upon it, and let it be a homestead forever, for their heirs, and not subject to sale or disposal for anything but taxes; and not let the lands go into the hands of speculators; and ten million acres of land disposed of in that way will do more than ten millions of times the good that it would to be appropriated in the manner proposed by Miss Dix. Pass that bill, and there will soon be ten insane persons where there is now but one, for if there are funds to support them, there will be no lack of victims for the hospitals. But abolish all insane hospitals, and in one year there will not be more than one insane person where now there are ten, and about one in every ten of those would probably be put into jails, and the other nine would be taken care of at home or in Alms Houses, and thus would be saved to the community a vast sum of money and an incalculable amount of suffering.

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This is the sentiment of my heart, it is as I should myself wish to be treated, or such as I would give my insane friend or relatative, and I think that I know the character of insane hospitals quite as well as Miss Dix, although I have never put my foot into but one of them, and probably she has been into about all in the country except the one in Maine where I was incarcerated. Yes, citizens, these are sober facts, and who of you would send your dearest friend to prison if they were insane if you could possibly keep them at home; and all hospitals are prisons, and nothing else, and of the most barbarous kind, whether they are public or private. I speak what I know is truth, whether you will believe it or not, and I would just us soon vote to establish and maintain the Spanish Inquisition as I would any Insane Hospital.

CHAPTER XII.

DESCRIPTIVE CHARACTER.

Reader, you have followed me through the scenes of cruelty and oppression of myself and others, and now I will change the subject and if you can go with me in your imagination to visit the hospital, I will introduce you to a few of the patients, and give you a short description of them, so far as I know their histories myself. I shall not give you their real names, but in some instances where it will not injure them or wound the feelings of their friends, I shall give you the soubriquet which was given them by some of the patients, as many of them have a nickname which will correspond with the character which they exhibit, or it will be directly the reverse of it.

In the first place we will go round to the south end of the old south wing, and go up three or four stone steps and look in through the guard grates, because visitors are not allowed to enter that gallery -- it is forbidden ground to all excepting, perhaps, the editor of some periodical, or to some clergyman who goes there for the purpose of puffing the officers and the institution, and thus deceiving the public, for they are themselves deceived, or else they are some of the old ones, and understand the gamut and play gammon themselves. Let us look in, but all you will see there will be about twenty human beings, with no reason or understanding; they know nothing more than swine, and are disgusting and loathsome objects; they are demented or imbecile. Many of them are young men, who have ignorantly brought themselves into their present deplorable state, which is worse than death, by their own disgusting habits; or perhaps there are a few who are wild and furious, and are confined in the strong chair, or by the muffs, to keep them from tearing their clothes, or from fighting with the other patients. There you see the perfect wreck of reason, and man in the most disgusting form.

But tarry a moment. Do you see that young man whose hands are confined in that muff of sole leather? You see he takes a circle round his room -- he sings or hums a tune. You ask him a question -- his response is as far as the antipodes from a correct answer. He is a maniac, but he is docile, and wears that muff because he tears his garments, and if he can obtain a good cake to eat his wants are all supplied -- he knows of no care -- all is well with him. But what has deprived him of reason -- he appears smart and active. Well, that young man is one of old Neptune's noble sons, a salt of the first water. Do you see yonder stately and majestic ship, sailing so beautifully upon the blue waves of the ocean. That young man is her chief mate, and every inch of him a sailor, with every prospect ahead that, in due time he will rise to be a captain. But "how mysterious are thy ways, and thy counsels past finding out, O God; and what is man that thou visits him" Although that young man was one of the bravest of the brave in the hurricane and the storm, yet the noble ship approaches and enters a tropical clime, old Sol pours down his rays intense heat upon the devoted head of that young man, who had withstood all dangers of the sea, but the intense heat has penetrated his brain -- he is sun struck -- his reason has deserted her throne -- his fond hopes are in a moment forever abated -- his is as you now see, a maniac. What a thought. Who can contemplate the wreck of reason in mortal man and not thank his Father and his God, that he is still permitted the natural use of those noble faculties, a sound and contemplative mind.

Let us turn from this sad scene. Go round to the front door, ascend to the upper gallery and walk in. The upper gallery is where I was confined for the whole term of my imprisonment, and, of course, those that I describe were my companions of woe and despair. The first to whom I will introduce you is the Captain. He is the man you see yonder walking the gallery, shaking his head and rolling and winking his large white eyes; with a green jacket, and his pants strapped tight to his skin and descending but half way from his knees to his ankles. He is a very loathsome looking object, and perfectly disgusting for an associate. You see that he has set down at the table and is drawing out the picture of a schooner, which is a representation of the craft he used to navigate; but you would not think by his present appearance that he ever knew enough to navigate a wheelbarrow across the door yard. Such is the fallen state of man when reason has departed from its natural channel, and man becomes like the lowest orders of the brute creation, demented or imbecile. Poor mortal, he is now no more, having been one of the victims of the devouring element.

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Do you see that other man, who is walking with such a powerful step, and who turns so quick, and twists his head so short that you would think he would snap his neck at every turn? He is naturally a very smart, active man, and his insanity is the result of disappointed affection. Stop. You see that he has set down and is tuning his violin -- but hark, what tune does he strike upon first? -- Why, he is playing Highland Mary, the Scottish air by Robert Burns. Yes, that is naturally his first and last to play or sing, but ask him and he will give you any tune that you can name. Well, he has struck into a lively dancing tune, and in a moment you see that five or six of the patients have gone to dancing to the tune that he is playing to help them for a brief moment wear away the time that hangs so heavily upon them. Such is the power of music. The Musician is, apparently, perfectly happy, and nothing gives him uneasiness. Unfortunate man, his violin and himself have gone down to the ashes of the dead, in that terrible conflagration.

But friend, stop a moment. Do you see that man who steps so quick. He even runs when he sees the doctor come in, and calls for medicine. He has been a celebrated physician, and he knows what medicine he needs. Look him in the face a moment. You see he is a perfect picture of a maniac; wild as a hurricane, and his name is legion. He is apparently possessed of as many devils as was his namesake who inhabited the tombs, eighteen centuries ago. But what is the cause of his present wild and furious appearance? His reason has been dethroned by allowing himself to be carried away by religious fanaticism, and when he talks upon that subject, he will tell you that he is lost forever, and an eternal hell is his sure portion: that there is no remedy; he has sinned away the day of grace and repentance. Poor deluded man -- is a religion the true religion of the Saviour of the world that will thus destroy the human intellect and leave man without hope, or the true spirit of the great Redeemer to carry him down through the dark valley and the region and shadow of death? Poor, disconsolate mortal -- thy spirit has long since gone to that bourne from whence no traveler returns to give us tidings.

Visitor, will you look a moment out of the window, into the back yard. -- There, do you see that elderly man at work with his shovel, rake and wheel-barrow? Do you see how neat, clean and tidy he has made the yard look? He came from the backwoods of Maine, where he had cleared himself a noble farm from the wild land. He had toiled hard and long, and had built him a farm that was almost a Paradise, beautiful to the eye to behold, and which produced fruit, grain and cattle, and every thing the heart of man could wish for, and a wife, and children who were the delight of his soul. He was a man respected and beloved by all who knew him -- a peace-maker in his neighborhood and town -- out of debt, and possessed of a competence. But, you will ask, how came he here in this dismal abode of such wild and furious spirits? Ah, that is a sad case of his. Sickness entered his bower, his Paradise, his abode of heavenly bliss! A raging and virulent fever went through his family, and the grim messenger of death snatched for one of its victims his oldest and beloved daughter, who was the delight of his eyes and heart; and weary and worn with months of ceaseless watching, his spirit and his body sunk under the weight of care, his reason became dethroned. In a moment of despair, in his hallucination he was a homicide. -- Ah, yes; in the twinkling of an eye as it were, his flowing cup of bliss was dashed to atoms. He was a maniac, and gone from his Eden, never more to inhabit it. Now you see him calm and rational, but doomed to end his days in this human pandemonium.

Do you see that tall, stout man? You see that he walks the length of the gallery and back again, and sits down a moment, then goes over the same again and again. You see that he has an idiotic laugh, as though something pleased him very much. You see that he has set down and takes the Bible. He is the Elder, the Infant, or the Giant. He thinks there is no passage in the Bible but what he can answer, and give the correct interpretation. But let us see. The Parson asks him if he will tell him who was the father of Zebedee's children -- Well, that was a poser. He thinks and thinks again, but no response is given. He is put to his trumps: no answer is made, and he feels that he has lost his reputation for a perfect knowledge of the scriptures. He is lost, and boasts no more. His insanity was produced by religious excitement. You see he is possessed of great muscular power, and if he knew his strength, when he asks the doctor to send him home and he refuses to do so unless he will go out doors and work three months, which he declares he will not do unless they will pay him for it: if he were disposed he has the strength to take a bedpost and clear himself from that institution in a very few minutes; yet he is docile as a lamb unless under great provocation. He again asks the doctor to send him home, and says that he is kept unjustly. The doctor tells him very distinctly that he shan't do it. He is angry with such treatment and goes to the shower box and takes out the scrub brush, which is very heavy and has a long handle. He makes for the doctor and aims a blow at his bead, but he sees and dodges it, thus saving himself from instant death. Then the "Giant" becomes like an infant. He does not know his strength, for if he did he would slay the whole of these keepers, and leave; but, instead of that he is instantly put into maniac harness and kept until he is taught that it is better to remain peaceable and quiet; when his harness is removed he is again as docile as a lamb. Well, restless mortal, thou art free from that prison and those bonds. Thy spirit has ascended to thy Father and thy God, through those lurid flames, which consumed thy prison and thy body at the same time. Peace, peace to thy ashes and thy troubled spirit. Thou wilt rest in Abraham's bosom.

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Visitor, do you see that man in the sailor's jacket ? Yes. Well, we will call him Shipmate, for his business has been upon the great waters. He has been in the hurricane and the storm, where man sees the majesty of God in its power. He was a shipwrecked mariner, taken from some fragments of the wreck of a ship, in a senseless state, brought into port, sent to the marine hospital, and was upon his recovery found partially insane, and sent to the Insane Hospital in order to receive the benefits of that "noble institution." Alas, what a place to restore reason to the wandering mind. He was doomed a prisoner for life -- no power could rescue him. He would say that they had got him under a ketch, and had no right to hem a marine. He would kick at the doors to break them open, and call upon the marine power to rescue him. But, poor fellow, had you been in a foreign prison, and your friends known it, you would very soon have had the whole of "Uncle Sam's" marine power to battered down the prison walls which held you as a victim, but your calls were only answered by closer confinement, or by the shower bath. But, Shipmate, your prison doors are now open ; you are now free ; those bloody and inhuman cells have been purified with fire, and your body and spirit has passed into that haven where the captive is set free, the weary are at rest, and the wicked cease from troubling.

Stop, visitor. Do you see that short, thick-set man in that chair? It is the month of August, and do you see those hungry flies digging out his eyes? He does not even wink to drive them away, but there sits from morning to night. You speak to him, and he will not answer you ; not a word can you get from him. He is meditating; but is he dumb, or what is the matter? Why, he is completely cast down, with no ambition to arise from his stupor. But stop: what call is that: the attendant sings out in a loud voice, "dinner! d-i-n-n-e-r! D-I-N-N-E-R!" He gets up, takes his chair and waddles along to the dining room , sits down to the table, and his tongue has become loose; and then look out. If there has been any discussion within a day or two by any of the patients, either upon politics or religion, or any other subject, then you will get his views upon it in full, and he is no fool, I can assure you, but a very intelligent man, and what he says shows a mind of no ordinary cast and sagacity. Well, he went from the chair onto his bed with a fractured leg, and laid there a year, until the doctor got tired of his trouble and sent him home a cripple for life. But his mind is now in possession of its sound and reasoning faculties. May God bless and shield him.

Do you see that man at the table, at work cutting out a garment from some cloth? Well, what of him? Why, he is a tailor by trade, and was born in the great city of London. From some cause not known to me, he became much depressed in spirits, distracted or bewildered, and made one or two unsuccessful attempts to put an end to the existence which God had given him. Unhappy man, to thus, in his hallucinations think he must take such a fearful leap in the dark gloomy future, which all mortals in their right mind so much dread.

But, observe him a few minutes. Do you see -- he leaves his work, and walks to and fro through the gallery. But, hark, do you hear him talking to himself. Yes. Well, if you will catch his words you will find that he is using very sublime and lofty language. His oratory will make you exclaim, "the immortal Shakspeare is among us," and such a personage he almost imagines himself to be. Well, he continues at his work for two or three months ; throws off his delusions; becomes calm and rational, and in due time is perfectly restored and returns to his family and friends, as I firmly trust to never again give himself away to such unholy desires, but patiently to wait for God's appointed time.

Visitor, do you see that tall old man, with his iron bound "specs" across his Roman nose? Yes, he has been hanging about me ever since I have been here, and begged some tobacco of me. Hanging about you, has he ? Well, then, you had better look after your handkerchief. Had I ? Well, it is gone. Ah, is it -- well he is crazy, and has a natural propensity to accumulate, as they call it here when a person appropriates the property of another to his own use, without giving an equivalent for it; and that is the old man's propensity, or, in other words his insanity, which principally develops itself in that manner. If any thing is lost you will be pretty sure to find it in his possession, and besides that he is the doctor's fool or puppet, for when visitors come in he is always in the way, and the doctor uses him to gammon his visitors, by asking him some question concerning his maledy, which he is always ready to answer, and in that manner the doctor obtains a notoriety for attending to the wants of his patients, and so the game of deception is played upon the public, perhaps 20 times a day. Besides that, the old man has another propensity which is as natural to him as the other. He is dirty, filthy, and is always squirting his tobacco juice in every place but the spittoon. For weeks he has squirted out of a patient's window, who never uses the filthy weed, and wishes his room to be kept clean. He has been threatened with violence if he does it. It is the Sabbath -- the attandant has gone to meeting -- the old man has besmeared the window, and is told to clean it. He refuses to do it, and is told if he repeats it he will rue it. He replies, "I ain't afraid of you" -- and in a few minutes he has repeated the operation and the deed is hardly done before his "specs" are minus a glass, the claret runs in a stream from his nose, and for weeks he wears the sores upon his proboscis, and thus, by legal suasion, is taught to cause no more trouble to that patient.

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Well, visitor, do you see that short, thick set man, about sixty years old, with a loose calico gown? Well, that is the Parson. He has been a preacher of the Gospel -- but hark, do you hear that? He beats Belzebub with his terrible profanity. But stop and look at him a moment. What does he say ? He has demanded of the doctor to send him home, which he will not do. He says -- well I will kill you. I have a knife and a Colt's pistol in my pocket, and will kill you on the spot." With horrid oaths and imprecations he takes out a pocket knife, which had not, according to the custom, been taken from him when first admitted. He deliberately opens it, and with all the venom and fierceness of a perfect maniac, he jumps at the doctor to strike a deadly blow. But, stop -- at that moment the attendant throws him-self between him and the doctor; strikes up his hand, and receives the point of the knife upon his own breast bone, which saves his own and the doctor's life. The attendant and a patient seize him, and Belzebub jumps and seizes his knife wrist. He is instantly thrown upon his back on the floor, and before the knife is wrested from him the attendant receives a terrible cut in the hand. But he is disarmed and put into maniac harness in a twinkling, as it were, and thus confined, like Lucifer in his chains, he is permitted to walk the gallery with other patients, until he becomes calm, and in about two months is permitted to go to his friends and family. He remains a few months and then comes to Augusta to visit his friends and the doctor, and one of the patients in particular, and give them some early sweet apples. Well, he comes into the gallery to see his crazy friend, and fills his pockets with sweet fruit, but is in so much haste that he can't possibly stop to tea, or even to play a game of draughts with him. He takes his leave and turns to go out of the door; but there are lions in the way. There stands the assistant doctor, the attendant of the gallery who has taken his cane, and two or three stout, muscular men from the "lower regions." The trap is sprung -- the victim caught. Those men tell him, "if you please we will take your knife now, parson." The doctor comes in, and in a friendly manner tells him he must remain the guest of the institution, at his own expense. He finally concludes to stop to tea with his crazy friend, whom he came expressly to visit, and sits down to the centre table, and with shaking and trembling hand and quivering lip, he concludes to play a game of draughts, just to drive dull care away. He stops a week, and walks out with the other patients. He sings, dances, and swears like a pirate; all at the same moment. He is ordered to stop his noise, but he makes the more. He is told to stop it or he must go below. He raves more than before, and the attendant goes out. He goes into the room of his friend, who has become suddenly dumb, and has not spoke for a week in order to stop his noise. He rolls up the sleeve of his gown and shows him a stone which he has in his hand, and with which he swears he will kill the attendant and supervisor. His friend takes him by the arm, and by his dumb signs tries to calm him, and arm in arm they walk the gallery together. Soon the supervisor comes in and goes into the same room. The parson's friend leaves him a moment; goes to the supervisor, and, although he has said that he would not speak for three months, he tells him that the parson is armed with a stone, and has sworn his death and destruction. "Got a stone, has he? He goes below immediately" and the dumb man returns and again is arm in arm with the maniac, walking as before. The door opens and four stout men enter. The parson knows their errand -- he stands to wait the onset. They advance, and he draws back his arm to give them a deadly blow with his weapon. His arm is again fast in the vice-like grasp of his friend Belzebub, who had seized it before with the knife. He is seized and carried below, and again put into the maniac harness, and, as before, remains a few weeks, then rises to the upper regions, remains a few months, recovers, and again returns to his family a rational man; calm, composed, and a Christian.

Visitor, will you look again through that window into the back yard? You see that small brick building at the right? That is called the lodge; but the patients call it the devil's howling hole, hell's kitchen, purgatory, the furnace of hell, the oven. Well, it was in there that Mr. Eastman was roasted alive. But look, do you see that large stout man coming out of the door? do you see how wild and fierce he looks? Stop, he sees a couple of strange faces; visitors who have come from the country, and have gone into the back yard instead of the front door. The old man seizes a club, and with lungs like a steam engine, and a voice like thunder, he gives a terrific yell, and starts for those two intruders upon his sacred territory. Do you see, they are young, and soon outstrip the maniac in the race. The attendant runs for the wild man, and brings him back to his tomb. The visitors have seen the "elephant," and old split foot himself would not have frightened them more; and when they come again, if they ever do, they will go round to the front door, walk in, ring the bell, and be waited upon by the officers like gentlemen if they wear fine cloth, and exhibit their cards or letters of introduction. Well, but what of the maniac? Oh he is "one of 'em, he is." His insanity is hereditary, in the family. His ancestors before him have been insane, and two of his sons have been at the hospital, and one of them, confined in an adjoining cell at the same time with his father. Their insanity is periodical; but the old man has occupied a room in that lodge the most of the time for two years. It is his home; his room has been sealed with hard pine plank to keep him from digging thro' the brick walls, which he will do by tearing his tin dipper to pieces, or with a nail or piece of iron hoop. But the father and his sons are well, and have returned to their homes, calm, sane and rational men.

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Do you see that man walking to and fro, puffing, wheezing, spitting and blowing? Why yes, to be sure I do; and what makes him do so? Well, the same that makes a great many people crazy. He has been to religious meetings until he has become so much bewildered that he hardly knows whether he is a man or a locomotive steam engine, which he so much resembles. He is warm or hot, and sleeps with his window up, in the coldest and most stormy nights of winter, and is in a state of perspiration all the time. The Doctor tries to persuade him to go out and assist in sawing and splitting wood, and tells him that he will send him home in the spring, if he works well during the winter. But no, he had done no work at home for about a year, and to work there he could not with those crazy men. He said that he believed that institution was the Spanish Inquisition, or just like it. He could not get a letter home to his family; oh no, he tried that. He did not write them to suit the Doctor, and he would not send them, and those he gave to outside barbarians, would be given to the officers instead of being put in the Post Office, and there he was securely caged. Well, after a while two of the patients persuaded him to take the outside medicine, as it was called, when they went out to labor. They asked him if he was in Europe, and a ship was coming home, and he could come if he would work his passage, but if he would not, he would have to remain for life. Well, he rather thought he should work his passage, and after about three months he concluded to take the outside medicine, and in two months more he worked his passage home, and when he feels his disease approaching, he takes some strong portions of outside medicine at home, which he prefers to taking it at the hospital.

Christian visitor, would you like to attend a maniac prayer meeting? Yes, there can be no harm in that. Well, it is the holy Sabbath. The attendant has gone to meeting; the patients are left alone. Four or five of them have gone into a room by themselves. But you must pardon me for introducing you to their little circle, which I would not do but for the purpose of showing you to what a deplorable state man is in when reason has vacated her throne, for the language you will hear will shock all your reverence for sacred themes. But pardon me, and we will enter their place of worship. They are upon their knees; one of them is humbly and devoutly offering a prayer to his Heavenly Parent in all sincerity. One or two others are talking and swearing at each other. The praying one stops a moment and curses them for their noise. They cease a moment, and he proceeds with his supplications. He is once more disturbed, and the scene is continued a few minutes, the devout man becomes enraged, and mad at the others, and with horrid oaths and blasphemies, curses and fearful imprecations, and calling upon Deity whom he had been imploring for mercy upon himself and his companions, he declares that he will pray no more, and thus the meeting is abruptly closed. Such is mortal man when he is not himself. Such is his hopeless state of mind when he has lost the balance wheel of his reason, which, in very many cases has been produced by over religious meditations, when the body becomes exhausted, and his natural intellect is over-taxed in his humble devotions, and his pure aspirations to render homage to his Creator. Mortal man, remember that thy Heavenly Parent is best served in the still calm voice of reason, and not in the hurricane and the stormy whirlwind of fanaticism.

Visitor, do you see that tall intelligent looking old man who stands there leaning upon two crutches? yes; well, he has been a successful merchant, and is now worth $30,000, but he has spun out his three score years and ten, and is perfectly deaf, and the only way that you can communicate with him is by signs or writing -- yet he is perfectly gentlemanly in his deportment; but superannuated, a second time a child. He imagines that he is extremely poor; that he has no house, no home and no property. He frets and worries; thinks that he has mortgaged his soul to the devil, and he is about to foreclose his claim and take his own; that his son and daughter are fools and don't know enough to get a living in the world. He sees the musician playing upon his violin, and the maniacs dancing to keep the time; and he imagines that it is all done for his amusement and at his expense; that they are all hired for that purpose; that he must pay for it all, and that that is the way his hard earned property is gone. Poor old gentleman; he is in his dotage, and is some trouble to his family who have shut him up here to get rid of his noise, instead of hiring some suitable person to take good care of him in one of his own houses. -- But such is the ingratitude of children to their parents in numberless instances where they are possessed of property which they wish to clutch before their time. But the old gentleman has gone to his rest: peace to his troubled spirit.

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I will here ask, would it not be a good idea to enact a universal law, that when any person possessing property should reach the advanced age of seventy years, that he should then be considered as dead, and himself ever shut up in a mad-house, and his property given to his heirs the same as if he were really dead? I merely make the suggestion for the consideration of those who are over anxious to possess their inheritance before their time.

Visitor, I will introduce you to one more, and then we will take our leave of this terrible abode of misery and despair. Do you see those two men walking the gallery? Yes, but hark; I don't understand their language, -- oh, you don't; well, that short man is Don Emanuel Expartiro a Spanish gentleman, who was educated at Salamanca, in Spain, for the Roman Catholic Priesthood, but not liking to enter into holy orders, and take the vows of celibacy upon him, he left Spain and went to South America, and instead of pointing out the road for sinners to enter the pearly gates of paradise, he entered the Brazilian Navy as a midshipman, and for his gallant exploits in the battles of the country whose cause he had espoused, he rose to a Lieutenant. He now carries a number of scars upon his person, as the mementos of the bloody scenes through which he has passed. -- But why is he here? Why? because, he is crazy -- or at least some people say that he is, and that is enough, you know. But what made him crazy? How inquisitive you are. Well, I might have expected it when I invited you to come in and see the 'animals;' but I will tell you all I know about it. He has been a merchant, and like many others of that unfortunate class of our citizens, he became involved in pecuniary embarassments, and his creditors said that he was crazy, and shut him up in a mad-house. The Doctor and the Trustees, to whom he has appealed a great many times for his liberty, have turned a deaf ear to his supplication, and are determined to keep him, because they are more afraid of him, if they let him go at large than they are to have him in their custody. But he appears to be a perfect gentleman and perfectly sane and rational, and a man of refinement. You say that he is a Spaniard, but he speaks good English as well as Spanish. He is a real live Yankee, but was educated in Spain, and reads and writes Spanish like a native. But why are they afraid of him if he goes away many miles from them, do they think that he will return and murder them? Oh, no: but they are afraid of those deadly weapons of his. But does he carry deadly weapons, and is he really dangerous? Why yes, he has deadly weapons, and if he should be disposed to make a use of them, they would be the sure destruction of those officers. But you astonish me, do explain. Well, then, his weapons are his pen and his tongue; and if he should be disposed to apply them for that purpose, they would be the sure annihilation of the hopes and expectations of those officers. But hark! what noise is that which sounds like the distant tolling of the funeral bell? Hark! what is it that gives such a solemn and mournful sound? It is the death knell of tyrants. But is there a bell upon the State House? The sound proceeds from that, and comes across the river. There is no bell upon it, but the sound proceeds from it sure enough; for there has a petition gone in, and the decree has gone forth that there shall be an investigation of the deeds of darkness to which allusion has been made, and the Doctor sends the Don away. Yes, he has gone, and sure enough the funeral pyre has been lighted; the victims burned; the death knell has rung in their ears, and they have sunk to rise no more.

"Come, sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea;
Jehovah has triumphed, his people are free."

Perhaps there may be some humane man, some philanthropist, and perhaps some real Christian who may ask themselves the question; How is it, if you have suffered as you say you have, and been reduced by the malignant malpractice of those officers, to what they supposed would be incurable insanity; why is it that you have been able to arise, as it were from the tomb, and come forth again to the world, a sane and rational man? Such; -- if any there are, I will ask, if they believe in a God, who over-rules the destinies of men and nations? Do you believe that God is the same now, that he was thousands of years ago? Do you believe that he ever revealed his will to Joseph, to Pharaoh, to Nebuchadnezer, or any of the ancients, in dreams? If you thus believe, I will tell you the cause of my resurrection, as it were, from the dead. It was a dream; yes, nothing but a dream, which came to me in my troubled slumbers of the night, about ten months before I left the hospital. To me it was, and still is a miraculous resurrection; call it what you will, call it insanity if you please, call it anything your fancy may choose; but I say that that dream which is constantly passing through my mind is the cause of my coming forth to the world, and you may be anxious to know what it was. I will relate it, as it is very short and comprehensive.

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In the month of July, 1846, while asleep, it appeared to me that a heavenly voice, the voice of God, or of some of his ministering angels, spoke to me and said: "Keep yourself calm; your troubles were unavoidable; you could not prevent them; be patient and 'bide your time." To me these few words were the voice of God. To me it was the voice which called the wild and furious maniac from the tomb, and sent him away clothed and in his right mind. Yes, citizens, I will say to you that it was that dream which has enabled me to come forth from that sepulchre, of worse than dead men; and which has, and which still enables me to walk the streets, and attend to in business, as a free and independent citizen, after suffering all that I did in that vile den of iniquity; and still suffering, and to suffer while I live, from the horrid treatments received in that Pandemonium. To the living God I return thanks for my restoration.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE CONFLAGRATION.

On the 4th of Dec., 1850, the author of this little work was in the city of Boston, to procure its publication, and that day several men were at work setting the type for that purpose, but the fates decreed that it should not then make its appearance before the public. Upon that day the astounding news reached that city by telegraph, that the Maine Insane Hospital, whose deeds of darkness this was intended to expose to the world, was in flames, and a large number of its inmates were victims to the devouring element. What must have been my reflections at that moment none can tell or imagine; none can conceive. Was it possible that God had decreed the destruction of that modern Babylon, whose iniquity had been so great as to cause his vengeance to rest upon it? was it possible that in His infinite wisdom should suffer such at human burnt sacrifice to be offered to the God of Moloch, in order to open the eyes of the people, that they might be able to see the abominations which had been practiced there, under the garb of humanity and religion, and which had been so unjustly concealed by the rulers of the people? Or was it permitted that the sufferings and woes of those victims of abuse and horrid atrocity might cease and be at an end? But the scenes of that dreadful night; who shall describe them? who can paint them in all their true colors?

Being myself absent at the time of the calamity, perhaps I may be pardoned if I give a description of the dread calamity in the language of another, who was an eye witness of the awful scene; therefore I select the following description of it from the Gospel Banner, whose editor was the writer.

"That was a dreadful night -- the 2d of December -- dreadful in its present terrors and melancholy in its results to the cause of humanity. The night was dark, the air heavy and damp dense clouds floated low in the heavens, and the winds from their ocean home wailed a mournful dirge over expiring Autumn. In its veriest darkness and desolation -- about 3 o'clock A.M. -- we were suddenly awakened by the hoarse cry of "Fire! Fire!" uttered under our window, and the ringing of our city church bells. Springing up and looking eastward -- just across the rolling tide of the Kennebec -- what a sight presented itself to the eye! -- not one red glare of burning flame embracing the whole building into the mid-heavens; but worse -- more awful -- than that!

Let the reader, if he will imagine himself standing with us, for a few moments of earnest inquiry, at this midnight hour of gloom, under the venerable white oak tree that spreads its long and generous arms over our humble domicil in front. See you those lurid flames -- whose flashes, at times visible but suppressed by the dense volumes of rolling smoke that encompass them, afford just gleams enough amidst surrounding darkness to enable us to see, occasionally at least, the outlines of that noble structure. It is a large and lofty edifice -- a magnificent structure -- built of Kennebec Granite, as handsome as marble, several hundred feet in length, with a rectangular wing, nearly as long, on the South end, and four tall stories high, including the basement, and a tier of Lutheran windows on the slated attic. It is the noblest building in the State.

But the morning light appears; and what are those black masses which the workmen have, by the aid of fire hooks, drawn forth from the ruins, and which are dragged and laid amongst the blackened cinders in rear of the walls? Many people are gathered around them; what are they? They are the bodies of the dead. The heads, the arms, the legs are burnt off, and nothing remains but the black, charred trunks that so lately contained the beating hearts of living men. The sight is loathsome; let us turn away and leave the Jury of Inquest to perform their sad duties over these fragments of humanity, and, in due time, as they will, tell the public the whole tale of causes which have produced this most melancholy calamity. It is a State affliction.

But whilst the flames have possession of the whole interior of the building -- all excepting the North wing, where the females are -- whilst the engines are at work and men are engaged in endeavoring to save what can be rescued from the burning Hospital and to protect the adjacent buildings and other property, let us take a view about the premises and see what has become of the hundred maniacs that have been brought forth from the flames. Some have come out most reluctantly; it has taken two or three men to force them from their perilous situation -- and behold! see that half naked man rush back again into the fated Asylum. He thinks the cold night air is worse for him than the heat and light of his old room; and with mad desperation he has gone back; but more friendly, because more rational, hands have seized upon him again and dragged him forth to a dark world; dark in all its prospects to him.

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Under the lea, and in the angle of that high, tight board fence, is a group to arrest our attention. It consists of some dozen maniacs; few dressed, more half clad, and some nearly naked, who are huddled together like frightened sheep in the corner of a yard, to acquire protection and warmth by close contact with each other. Some of them are crying, others are laughing -- some sitting on the frozen earth, others dancing in maniacal merriment.

By the time we have reached the yard in rear of the Hospital, where hundreds and thousands of others have also arrived, the black smoke with which the building was filled, and which was pouring from all the windows of the central gallery when we first saw it, has become quick flame; and the roar of that flame as it sweeps triumphantly through the halls, and galleries and avenues of the Asylum, is blended with the shrieks of the wild men yet within the walls of the burning edifice! Did ever sounds pierce the heart half so cuttingly? Look you there -- see the arms of a human being thrust through the iron sashes of that window, gesticulating for help in its moment of doom. The frantic body within reels -- it falls -- and the black smoke and red flame pouring through the same window, seem to exult in their merciless triumphs over the dead which they consume. Meanwhile the officers and attendants and citizens are contriving every possible method, and risking even their own lives to rescue the patients yet confined in their rooms.

Look there! See you that daring spirit who rushes into the very face of death in the discharge of duty? -- It is young Jones, one of the attendants of the Hospital, and a nephew of the Superintendant, Dr. Bates himself. He is resolved, in the discharge of his duty, that his own life shall share perils with the unfortunate patients whom he has hitherto so faithfully served. In the central gallery there are rooms yet unlocked, each with a patient confined there-in. He opens the gallery door. The smoke from the burning pitch-pine floor is as thick almost as tar itself -- but he knows there are human beings in those rooms committed to his care, and he must release them from their fiery prison. He enters -- he advances -- he chokes -- he struggles -- he reels -- he falls; the smoke-cloud is his winding sheet, and the flames have done their instant work of death. Alas! Poor Jones, thou diedst in the discharge of DUTY; -- for such there is mercy in Heaven.

Twenty-eight human beings -- with fond friends at home, anxious for their restoration and happiness -- have thus perished within the walls of that burning edifice; and it was not in your power nor mine -- in no human power -- to rescue or relieve them! Oh! May such a scene and such a lesson never be forgotten -- never, indeed, can it be!"

The question will very naturally be asked, "was all done that could be done to save these unfortunate beings from such a death? Could they or could they not have been rescued from that devouring element, if they had been attended to in season; had no delay been made in efforts to quench the fire?" It would naturally seem to have been the first care of the officers to look after the safety of the patients.

According to the testimony of Mr. Smalley, the upper gallery attendant, before the coroner's inquest, he was the first to discover the fire, or rather the smoke; and he went directly to the supervisor, Mr. Weeks, and awoke him, and then returned and immediately unlocked the doors of the patients rooms and induced them, in mild terms, to leave their rooms and the gallery, and go into the verandah. It appears that he was not able to induce but two or three of them to leave, and all the rest perished in the flames. He says that Mr. Weeks, after going below and seeing the fire, directed him to keep still and not excite the patients, and he immediately returned to his gallery, but was prevented from again entering on account of the dense smoke.

By the testimony of Mr. Weeks the fire had made considerable progress when he entered the hot air chamber, in the basement of the building; but he says that if he had given his attention immediately, on being alarmed, to removing the patients, he does not think he could have rescued any more of them than he did. I do not know as he could, but it appears to me that every one of them might have been saved, if he and others had not stopped to throw water, as they said they did. I suppose they continued that until the flames had got under such headway that they could not subdue them, and then the whole building was filled with smoke, so that it was impossible to remain any longer, and thus perished twenty-seven patients and one attendant.

The question will naturally arise, what was the cause of the fire? Was it from carelessness in constructing a wooden hot air-chamber, or was it the work of an incendiary? Almost every one says that it must have taken from the smoke-pipe which passed through the wooden hot-air chamber, and at one point according to the testimony of Simon S. Bartlett, at the distance of only about two inches, under the floor timbers. Would any person consider that to be safe, who know any thing about smoke-pipes? All would say that it was not, and then the next question would be, by whose orders was a wooden air-chamber constructed in such a building? Where there were from 150 to 175 human beings exposed and liable to be burnt in case the building was on fire. The answer is, that it was constructed by the orders of, and under the supervision of Dr. James Bates, the superintendant, and if the fire took from that cause he is alone responsible for the destruction of that building, and those human beings. Even the flues for conducting the hot air to the galleries were made of pine plank and they were immediately on fire, and conveyed the fire instantly into each of the galleries, and passing through those pitch pine floors, they were instantly in flames at about the same moment, and it was like setting fire to tar barrels. Hence the dense smoke and the reason that each story of the building was on fire at the same moment. Here follows the verdict of the Coroner's Jury.

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"VERDICT OF THE JURY.- An inquisition taken in Augusta within the county of Kennebec, commencing on the fifth day of December in the year 1850, and ending on the 17th day of the same month, before Orrin Rowe, Esq., one of the Coroners of said county, upon view of the body of Wm. G. Linscott, of Bangor, and the relics of 27 other bodies, supposed to be those of the following named persons: -- John Foster, of Machias Port; Joseph Armstrong, of Gardiner; James Wyman, of Readfield; Abram Richards, of Camden; Eben'r Willis, of Gorham; Ephraim McLellan, of Thomaston; William Pineo, of Jonesboro; Rufus Hodsdon, of Brewer; Charles Harlow, of Bangor; Albert Fuller, of Jay; James Barry, of Portland; Elisha Atkins, of Exeter; Nathaniel Wilson, of Cherryfield; Samuel Pierce, of Bath; James Hinsel, of Waldoboro; George Dennett, of Standish; Joshua Heath, of Augusta; Ebenezer Blake, or Portland; Jonathan Carriel, of Hope; Nathaniel Flint, of Portland; Bela Jacobs, of Camden; Jacob McKenzie, of Mt. Desert; James Greene, of Topsham; Henry Jones, of Fayette; -- there lying dead by the oaths of Robert A. Cony, of Augusta; John A. Hartwell, do.; James W. North, do.; James A. Thompson, do.; Sylvanus Caldwell, Jr. do.; William R. Smith, do.; Williams Emmons, Hallowell; Andrew Masters, do.; John D. Gardner, Gardiner; George W. Batchelder, do.; Oliver Bean, Readfield; Joab Harriman, Clinton -- good and lawful men -- who being charged and sworn to inquire for the State, when, how and by what means the said persons came to their death, upon their oaths say:

That all the said persons, except the said Linscott, came to their death on the morning of Dec. 4th, 1850, by suffocation by smoke from a fire in the Maine Insane Hospital; and that the said Linscott came to his death from the same cause, at the house of Joshua S. Turner, on the following day, having been taken from the Hospital during the fire, in an insensible condition.

The jurors further find that the death of the aforesaid persons was caused by accident.

They further find that the fire originated at about 3 o'clock in the morning of Dec. 4, 1850, in the air chamber of the old South wing, on a floor timber, near the elbow of the smoke-pipe of the furnace, where it changed from a perpendicular to a horizontal position, in passing towards the chimney; and do not find any other proximate cause of ignition than the said smoke-pipe.

They further find that the materials of which the air chamber was composed, and the mode of its construction, and that of the warming apparatus, were unsafe.

The jurors are of opinion that there was sufficient supply of water in the cisterns of the Hospital to have saved the main building and new South wing, in case suitable provision had been made to reach the water from the outside.

They are further of opinion that the officers and assistants of the Hospital are deserving of commendation for their exertions in relieving the patients from their perilous condition, and that no efforts on their part could have preserved a greater number than were rescued.

Now the question to be asked, is that verdict a correct and honest verdict of the Jury, did they honestly seek for and obtain all or the information within their reach, and give the Public all the information and circumstances connected with the fire that should be given. Was their verdict all that it should have been, in order to do justice to the people of the State?

STEPHEN HOLWAY, the fireman, testified that at half past 5 o'clock P.M., previous to the fire which was discovered at 3 o'clock A. M., he put into the furnace two middling sized sticks, and one small one, upon just coals enough to ignite it. At half past nine he again visited the furnace, and found no steam in the boiler, and did not replenish the fire. Now there was an interval of nine hours from the time the fire was replenished, and of five and a half hours from the time that there was no steam in the boiler, until the fire was discovered. -- Peter Barrows, an attendant, testified that at 2 o'clock he got up and assisted Mr. Ham and Mr. Robbins to administer a shower bath to Duroc Boardman, a patient, and remained up about fifteen minutes, and discovered no sign or indication of fire at that time! He was next awakened by Mr. Weeks, and told to jump up, as there was fire under his gallery! He did so, and Mr. Weeks was throwing water into the hot air flue, from which a blaze was issuing, and told him to throw water as fast as he could, but not to alarm the patient.

I will ask all intelligent and honest men, if they can allow their imagination or prejudice to stretch so far as to believe for one moment, that the fire took from the fire which remained in the soot of that smoke pipe after so long a period from the time the fire was replenished under the boiler; and at the distance of sixty feet from the fire in the furnace? If the people will believe that to have been the origin of the fire, they will believe what I cannot. It seems to me to be impossible. Then, if it did not take from the smoke pipe, the question will be, how did it take fire? There is only one other mode by which it could have originated, and that is by an incendiary. Could any person have entered from the outside and have set it on fire? Yes, for the basement doors were never fastened, and the windows were, some of them, always open; and there was no watch to the building and any person could have entered at any time if they wished to have done so. I will ask again; why was it that the Jury, after having summoned Henry Blake, the mason who laid the brick for the furnace, and set the boiler -- why was it that they did not put him upon the stand to testify in relation to what he knew about the construction of that wooden hot air chamber? The reason undoubtedly was that they knew his testimony would crush Dr. Bates to the earth, and he had been sustained by the committee of the Legislature, and he must be spared by the Coroner's Jury; because he was a great political demagogue, and he must be provided for at the public crib, at whatever sacrifice of human life. Besides, that it would not answer to inform the public of the real facts in the matter; because if they knew them the hospital would never be rebuilt, and then Augusta would "wilt," and in a short time, if there was no hospital there, the seat of government would be removed to Portland or Bangor, and the prophecy of Habakuk would be brought to pass in this age of the world: "Woe unto him, that buildeth a town with blood, and establisheth a city of iniquity."

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Henry Blake laid the brick for the furnace, and left the end of them toothing, supposing that the hot air chamber was to be continued along, and built of brick, and covered over the top with sheet iron and brick laid in mortar, as all hot air chambers are, or should be. He went and called Dr. Bates into the basement for instructions. Dr Bates told him that the hot air chamber was to be built of wood. Henry Blake knowing Dr. Bates, said to him; "Dr., do you think it will be safe to build it of wood?" The Doctor thought a moment, turned, and went to talking about something else. He is a man who, when he once takes his position, never recedes, and much more, he never allows a mechanic to make even a suggestion to him. He knows what is what, because he has read the English Authors, he knows he does.

Perhaps the public will ask the question -- "Was there any person who for malice or revenge of any wrong, real or imaginary, or any motive whatever, who was bad enough to set that building on fire? The question was asked me by one of the Jury, to whom it was that S. S. Bartlett had said that the officers dare not turn him away; thus intimating that there might be some grounds of suspicion that he had set it on fire, to be revenged on them for discharging him; but no one who knows him thinks that he was bad enough to put the lives of those patients in jeopardy; although they are well satisfied that he perjured himself, to screen Dr. Bates before the committee.

The next person who might be suspected, was the author of this little book, who said so much, and had tried to do so much to expose their iniquity, and whose feelings were so much prejudiced against the institution. Then, if such were his feelings; did he do it? I have been told that such was the report at the fire; that he had undoubtedly set it on fire to be revenged for the injury which he had sustained at the institution. But, says a friend who heard the remark, "that is a likely story to tell, when to my certain knowledge he has not been in the State for more than a week." Well, that was true, and I could prove an alibi, sure enough. But supposing I had been at home and asleep where I had slept for about three years? Could I have proved an alibi? Oh, no; it would have been impossible; and undoubtedly Dr. Bates would have had some one or more to have sworn the deed upon me, in spite of all that I could have done to clear myself, and then I should had to have gone back; and again become a tenant for life of that abode of dispair; for let me commit whatever crime I might, I should be called insane, crazy or mad, and should not be sent to the State Prison like other criminals. -- When I returned home, about a week after the fire, some said, "well it was lucky for you that you was not at home;" others said, "well I was thankful that you were gone," and all that I looked upon as friends expressed themselves as being highly pleased to think that I was out of the reach of any suspicion, and even one person who is clothed with a little brief authority, and whose duty it might have been to have arrested me, had any charges been preferred against me, said, "well, Mr. Hunt, I am glad that you were not here, for now they can't accuse you of setting the fire." Well, there are none more thankful than myself, that I was out of their reach, for I have no doubt but that I should have been arrested as the incendiary if I had been at home.

There being no suspicion against myself or Mr. Bartlett, the next question to be asked is, is there any other person upon whom the breath of suspicion has at time rested by any person or persons whatever? Yes, there is one other, and only one; but who has ever uttered a word or thought of the kind? -- Surely nothing is said publicly. Very true. But is there any proof against any one? No, none whatever. Well, who has said that they thought anybody, or any one person in particular, had set the building on fire? There are a number of people in Augusta who have no doubt in their own minds as to the origin of the fire, but there is not the least proof against the person whom they mistrust; no, none whatever. They only speak by inuendoes; no open declarations; yet it is perfectly understood who they mean by their hints. For instance, it is asked, who do people say that it was? Why, they don't say it was any body, for fear they would accuse the right one.

Then who did they mistrust, or say in their opinion had set the fire? I only dare to whisper the name in your ear. Well, who was it? It was no other than Dr. James Bates, the superintendant. But there is not the least proof against him, and so you must not tell of it. Is it possible that any people have said among themselves that they had no doubt but what he had set it on fire? Yes, they had so, and it is said that it could not have taken fire as it did, and at the spot where it did, unless it was set on fire; and they had no doubt but what he had set the fire, because there was no other person that was bad enough to do it, and no other that they know of had any motive for so doing. Why, you astonish me -- what motive could he have for setting it on fire? Well, then, you must know that he had motive enough for doing it. In the first place he had escaped being turned out by the investigating committee only by the skin of his teeth, and he very well knew that he could not stand the seige of another legislative investigation, which was sure to come on him like an avalanch; and, further, he knew that if there was no hospital, if it was destroyed, he could not be turned out, for there would be none to turn him out of. Beside that, he knew or had every reason to believe, that very soon that crazy man, who had put him to his strongest trumps, and his best played game, was about to publish an exposure of his deeds of darkness to the world which, if it made its appearance, would be sure to crush him in the estimation of all honest men; and again, if the building was set on fire it would be a very easy matter for him to raise a hue and cry against him, as the incendiary, and cast him into prison, and thus crush him and his book, all at one blow.

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Yes, Dr. Bates, there is no doubt in more minds than mine that that was your motive, and there is no doubt but what you are the man who set fire to that hospital. But there is not the least proof that you did it; no, not the least. -- But what is it that has so cast you down, and makes your hand tremble and shake as though you had the shaking palsy? You used to walk erect and could only see the stars, and now you stoop, and can only see your feet. You don't make so great a swell by much more than one half, as you used to do -- and what is the cause of it all ? Why, a guilty conscience needs no accuser -- for whether you set that fire or not you are the only person who is to blame for it. Yes, the blood of that burnt sacrifice is upon your head, and that, added to the other crimes which you have perpetrated there, is the cause of your dejection, and you will either become a maniac, or you will soon be carried down to your grave by the weight of your own iniquity.

Well, dear sir, if you set that fire, and your motives were the same that I have attributed to you, you have been most signally defeated, for I was away so that you could not fasten it upon me, and as God would have it, by the greatest possible exertions of the firemen and a favorable wind, one wing of the building was saved from the devouring element, and you were left the superintendant, and passed the ordeal of the Coroner's Jury by the want of proof against you, without censure. But the oppressor's rod was doomed to be broken, and you, like your illustrious prototype, 'Lucifer,' have fallen to rise no more. No, you have fought your last fight, you have finished your battles; no sound shall awake you to glory again.

Well, sir, you have received an appointment to visit other institutions, for the purpose of reporting the best mode of warming and ventilating insane hospitals, as you have given the world the practical part of your beautiful theories, which you delivered before the Augusta Lyceum about one year before your experiment in warming, on the fourth of Dec., and now it is beautifully ventilated. The winds and storms have nothing to obstruct their course, and their mournful sounds, added to the moanful cry of your victims, will be the solemn requiem for the dead. Surely

"God works in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm." -- Watts.

Now the question will naturally arise to know why Gov. Hubbard appointed Dr. Bates upon that mission of inspection of other hospitals. The reason is very obvious; for Dr. Bates has been a great Politician, and he must be sustained; for the fact had become very notorious that the public were about as hot against him as the fire which consumed the building and he would be sure to leave at the next session of the Legislature, if the trustees did not discharge him before. For that reason he received the appointment and then he made that a fit excuse for giving in his resignation, so as to set himself down as easy as possible, to save breaking his neck short off. The people so understood it. There is no doubt but what some one or more of the trustees told him that he must resign or he would be discharged, and I will give my reasons for this belief. A gentleman of the city of Augusta told me a short time after the Doctor had resigned, that he went to Mr. Williams, and told him that if Dr. Bates remained at the hospital, that he never need to expect that it would be rebuilt, and says he, "I will tell you now, Mr. Williams, if he is there when the next Legislature meets, I will oppose the rebuilding of the hospital with all the means in my power." Well, I think that that declaration was enough for Mr. Williams, for with all of his wealth, and influence, he would not be able to head off that gentleman before the Legislature, and he very well knew it; and I have no doubt but what Mr. Williams informed the Doctor that he must leave; that he could not carry such a load upon his shoulders any further, and if he did not get down himself, that he should be obliged to drop him, and the fall would be sure death, and annihilation to all of his future prospects for place and power.

Will the Hospital be rebuilt? is the question of the people, yes, undoubtedly, is the answer, for the government of the State of Maine is in the hands of a set of men who will do any thing to oppress the poor and needy, however vile the deed may be, for men that will sanction such deeds of darkness as have been perpetrated there, will bring their wealth and power to bear, to influence men against their own sense and judgement, and by caucus dictation and party influence, they will be compelled to vote for appropriations to rebuild that institution, which nine-tenths of the people will condemn, for so strong are those bonds in the State of Maine, that people dare not step over them, and by that tie alone is the Government of the State a perfectly absolute tyranny, which but few dare to oppose. It is sure political death to any who are so headstrong as to dare to be independent, and do as their conscience tells them is right, just and honest.

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On the 13th of Dec., the tenth day from the conflagration, I had returned from Boston, and taking a friend and a horse and sleigh, I went over to view the scene of desolation. Such a sight, such ruins, none can conceive without the actual observation. I went down and walked through the basement, over the then burning timbers, and fallen brick, mortar, iron and stone, and the bones of the victims, and selected a few relics of the burnt bones of the dead and fragments of the building, as mementos of my own sufferings. Yes, I passed through these ruins just as I had a few months previous dreamed of passing through them, for I trust I shall be pardoned if I tell you that it is quite a common thing with me, since my entrance into that abode of despair, to dream of, and see in my visions of the night, occurrences for days or months before they take place; and can you imagine what my meditations must have been at that moment, to be actually fulfilling that vision, by passing over the fire, and under those scorched and crumbling walls, which hung fifty feet over my head, and at the same time some dozen or more men at work, shoveling over the fallen mass, to find the remains of the dead, which, in the most of them, you might lay all that was left of them upon your hand. Yes, what think you must have been my thoughts in passing through those desolate ruins, with the fire and smoke under my feet, and the cold chilling blasts of a wintry wind whistling and howling through the standing walls, playing the last sad requiem to the manes of the dead, whose bones lay burning and consuming under the devouring element.

Well, to me, were it not for the human sacrifice, it was a sublime sight, for then and there I looked upon it as the visitation from a just and righteous God, who doeth all things well. Yes, I looked upon the scene as though the fire had been sent from heaven to open the blind eyes of the people; to show them the wilful atrocities of their rulers, whom they had chose to reign over them, and whose deeds were deeds of wickedness and blood, and whose ends and aims were wealth and power, and their own agrandizement.

As I have said, I suppose the institution will be rebuilt, and if it must be, I hope that for their strong cells, they will take as a model the new jail at Boston, and as an act of humanity let them be for the wild, noisy patients, at a distance from the peaceable and quiet ones sufficient not to disturb them, and under no circumstances should the shower bath or cold bath be permitted to be used, as it has been used, as an instrument of torture, under penalties which would consign those who thus abuse their power to the State prison. Let the people see to it that none are abused, for the insane, of all human beings, are the most to be pitied, and they should be protected from abuse, as much as the public should be protected from their violence. If the people knew that institution as I know it, they would abandon it forever, for all the good that it could accomplish in a thousand years of the very best treatment, could never repay the horrid atrocities that have been practiced there in the ten years that it has been in operation; and it should be abandoned forever, and its ground enclosed and planted with weeping willows, and its walls allowed to crumble with time, and remain as a monument to designate it as the field of blood, and the cursed of an avenging God.

ISAAC H. HUNT.

Augusta, State of Maine, April, 1851.