Library Collections: Document: Full Text

The mistress seemed a kind person. Her tones and manner to the lunatic were kind; but how difficult to unite all the cares of her household, and neglect none! Here was not willful abuse, but great, very great suffering through undesigned negligence. We need an asylum for this class, the incurable, where conflicting duties shall not admit of such examples of privations and misery.

One is continually amazed at the tenacity of life in these persons. In conditions that wring the heart to behold, it is hard to comprehend that days rather than years should not conclude the measure of their griefs and miseries. Picture her condition! Place yourselves in that dreary cage, remote from the inhabited dwelling, alone by day and by night, without fire, without clothes, except when remembered; without object or employment; weeks and months passing on in drear succession, not a blank, but with keen life to suffering; with kindred, but deserted by them; and you shall not lose the memory of that time when they loved you, and you in turn loved them, but now no act or voice of kindness makes sunshine in the heart. Has fancy realized this to you? It may be the state of some of those you cherish! Who shall be sure his own hearthstone shall not be so desolate? Nay, who shall say his own mountain stands strong, his lamp of reason shall not go out in darkness! To how many has this become a heart-rending reality. If for selfish ends only, should not effectual legislation here interpose?

Shelburne. November last. I found no poorhouse, and but few paupers. These were distributed in private families. I had heard, before visiting this place, of the bad condition of a lunatic pauper. The case seemed to be pretty well known throughout the county. Receiving a direction by which I might find him, I reached a house of most respectable appearance, everything without and within indicating abundance and prosperity. Concluding I must have mistaken my way, I prudently inquired where the insane person might be found. I was readily answered, "Here." I desired to see him; and, after some difficulties raised and set aside, I was conducted into the yard, where was a small building of rough boards imperfectly joined. Through these crevices was admitted what portion of heaven's light and air was allowed by man to his fellow-man. This shanty or shell enclosing a cage might have been eight or ten feet square. I think it did not exceed. A narrow passage within allowed to pass in front of the cage. It was very cold. The air within was burdened with the most noisome vapors, and desolation with misery seemed here to have settled their abode. All was still, save now and then a low groan. The person who conducted me tried, with a stick, to rouse the inmate. I entreated her to desist, the twilight of the place making it difficult to discern anything within the cage. There at last I saw a human being, partially extended, cast upon his back, amidst a mass of filth, the sole furnishing, whether for comfort or necessity, which the place afforded. There he lay, ghastly, with upturned, glazed eyes and fixed gaze, heavy breathings, interrupted only by faint groans, which seemed symptomatic of an approaching termination of his sufferings. Not so thought the mistress. "He has all sorts of ways. He'll soon rouse up and be noisy enough. He'll scream and beat about the place like any wild beast half the time," "And cannot you make him more comfortable? Can he not have some clean, dry place and a fire?" "As for clean, it will do no good. He's cleaned out now and then; but what's the use for such a creature? His own brother tried him once, but got sick enough of the bargain." "But a fire: there is space even here for a small box stove." "If he had a fire, he'd only pull off his clothes, so it's no use." "But you say your husband takes care of him, and he is shut in here in almost total darkness, so that seems a less evil than that he should lie there to perish in that horrible condition." I made no impression. It was plain that to keep him securely confined from escape was the chief object. "How do you give him his food? I see no means for introducing anything here." "Oh," pointing to the floor, "one of the bars is cut shorter there: we push it through there." "There? Impossible! You cannot do that. You would not treat your lowest dumb animals with that disregard to decency!" "As for what he eats or where he eats, it makes no difference to him. He'd as soon swallow one thing as another."

Newton. It was a cold morning in October last that I visited the almshouse. The building itself is ill-adapted for the purposes to which it is appropriated. The town, I understand, have in consideration a more advantageous location, and propose to erect more commodious dwellings. The mistress of the house informed me that they had several insane inmates, some of them very bad. In reply to my request to see them she objected "that they were not fit; they were not cleaned; that they were very crazy," etc. Urging my request more decidedly, she said they should be got ready if I would wait. Still no order was given which would hasten my object. I resumed the subject, when, with manifest unwillingness, she called to a colored man, a cripple, who, with several others of the poor, was employed in the yard, to go and get a woman up, naming her. I waited some time at the kitchen door to see what all this was to produce. The man slowly proceeded to the remote part of the wood-shed where, part being divided from the open space, were two small rooms, in the outer of which he slept and lived, as I understood. There was his furniture, and there his charge. Opening into this room only was the second, which was occupied by a woman, not old, and furiously mad. It contained a wooden bunk filled with filthy straw, the room itself a counterpart to the lodging-place. Inexpressibly disgusting and loathsome was all; but the inmate herself was even more horribly repelling. She rushed out, as far as the chains would allow, almost in a state of nudity, exposed to a dozen persons, and vociferating at the top of her voice, pouring forth such a flood of indecent language as might corrupt even Newgate. I entreated the man, who was still there, to go out and close the door. He refused. That was his place! Sick, horror-struck, and almost incapable of retreating, I gained the outer air, and hastened to see the other subject, to remove from a scene so outraging all decency and humanity. In the apartment over that last described was a crazy man, I was told. I ascended the stairs in the woodshed, and, passing through a small room, stood at the entrance of the one occupied, -- occupied with what? The furniture was a wooden box or bunk containing straw, and something I was told was a man,- I could not tell, as likely it might have been a wild animal, -- half-buried in the offensive mass that made his bed, his countenance concealed by long, tangled hair and unshorn beard. He lay sleeping. Filth, neglect, and misery reigned there. I begged he might not be roused. If sleep could visit a wretch so forlorn, how merciless to break the slumber! Protruding from the foot of the box was -- nay, it could not be the feet; yet from these stumps, these maimed members, were swinging chains, fastened to the side of the building. I descended. The master of the house briefly stated the history of these two victims of wretchedness. The old man had been crazy about twenty years. As, till within a late period, the town had owned no farm for the poor, this man, with others, had been annually put up at auction. I hope there is nothing offensive in the idea of these annual sales of old men and women, -- the sick, the infirm, and the helpless, the middle-aged, and children. Why should we not sell people as well as otherwise blot out human rights: it is only being consistent, surely not worse than chaining and caging naked lunatics upon public roads or burying them in closets and cellars! But, as I was saying, the crazy man was annually sold to some new master; and a few winters since, being kept in an out-house, the people within, being warmed and clothed, "did not reckon how cold it was"; and so his feet froze. Were chains now the more necessary? He cannot run. But he might crawl forth, and in his transports of frenzy "do some damage."