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MODERN PERSECUTION, Or Insane Asylums Unveiled, As Demonstrated by the Report of the Investigating Committee of the Legislature of Illinois.

By Mrs. E. P. W. PACKARD.

"Ye Shall Know the Truth."

Published, by the Authoress.

Vol. I.

HARTFORD:
CASE, LOCKWOOD & BRAINARD, PRINTERS AND BINDERS.
1873.

TO MY BELOVED CHILDREN IS THIS BOOK MOST AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

To you, my first-born son, THEOPHILUS PACKARD, JR., born March 17, 1842: and you, my second child, ISAAC WARE PACKARD, born June 24, 1844; and you, my third child, SAMUEL WARE PACKARD, born November 29, 1847; and you, my only daughter, ELIZABETH WARE PACKARD, born May 10, 1850; and you, my fifth child, GEORGE HASTINGS PACKARD, born July 18, 1853; and you, my sixth child, ARTHUR DWIGHT PACKARD, born December 18, 1858; -- I dedicate this Book, or a record of your mother's persecuted life -- of that life of which you are the sun, moon and stars. Yes, it is for you, my jewels, I have lived -- it is for you I have suffered the agonies of Gethsemane's Garden -- it is for you I have hung on this cross of crucifixion; and been entombed three years in a living cemetery; and oh! it is for your sakes I hope to rise again, to find my maternal joys immortalized.

Children dear, when all the world forsook me and fled, you stood firm for right, firm for truth, firm for duty; you, and you alone, were true to the mother who bore you, for you knew she was true to man, and true to God. Yes, your tender, loving hearts have writhed in secret agony over your mother's sorrows -- but you have been denied the boon of human sympathy for yourselves; and, what is harder still, you have not been allowed to bestow it upon your persecuted mother, even, while her lacerated heart was panting to receive it from you.

Yes, you, my first-born son, Theophilus, have been threatened with disinheritance from our family and home, because you loved your kind-hearted mother so well, that you sought to visit her in her prison-home in defiance of your father's edict. Oh, my son! Thy Father, God, will not disinherit thee for loving thy mother, even when the world forsook her. Four times has thy hard-earned wages, my filial Theophilus, been cheerfully expended to visit your mother in her dreary cell.

And you, my Isaac, I have consented to lay upon the altar of my country -- a living sacrifice for its sin. God has accepted the sacrifice and spared my Isaac! In the army you toiled early and late to accumulate a treasure, with which you could visit your mother. God succeeded you -- you paid me one clandestine visit in my prison.

Your two clandestine letters are all the letters from my children I have been permitted to receive. But oh! I needed no such proofs of your true love to assure me it was not dead within you.

No, death and a living tomb cannot separate us. We are one in Christ. Oh, my children! Every earthly love has died within me -- but oh! the death agonies of the maternal love well nigh rent soul and body asunder. Yes, the mother has died! But she has risen again -- the mother of her country -- and her sons and daughters are -- The American Republic.

Children, it is for the service of your country your mother has dedicated you, one and all. May you, my sons, be fitted to adorn the garden of American freedom, "as plants," grown up in your youth, from the rocky but luxuriant soil of family persecution. And may you, my daughter, be as a "corner-stone," in our new temple of American freedom -- "polished after the similitude of a palace."

CONTENTS.

Introduction. 13
CHAPTER I. The Bible Class. 33
CHAPTER II. Evil Forebodings. 39
CHAPTER III. My Abduction. 51
CHAPTER IV. My Journey. 64
CHAPTER V. My Reception. 73
CHAPTER VI. My First Day of Prison Life. 75
CHAPTER VII. The Parting Scene. 84
CHAPTER VIII. Disappointed Hopes. 88
CHAPTER IX. Sunny Side of my Prison Life. 96
CHAPTER X. Letters to my Husband and Children. 104
CHAPTER XI. My Transition. 110
CHAPTER XII. My Removal from the Best Ward to the Worst. 114
CHAPTER XIII. My Reproof to Dr. McFarland for his Abuse of his Patients. 120
CHAPTER XIV. My Occupation. 138
CHAPTER XV. Evidences of My Insanity. 144
CHAPTER XVI. The Attendant who Abused Me. 152
CHAPTER XVII. "Let Dr. McFarland Bear his own Sins!" 156
CHAPTER XVIII. Attempted Reconciliation with Mr. Packard. 158
CHAPTER XIX. Letter to My Children sent to the Wash-tub. 164
CHAPTER XX. How I Obtained my first Writing Paper. 168
CHAPTER XXI. The Modem Mode of Subjugating Married Women. 171
CHAPTER XXII. My Life Imperilled. 176
CHAPTER XXII. Self-Defense -- Clandestine Letters. 181
CHAPTER XXIV. "You should Return to your Husband". 191
CHAPTER XXV. Miss Mary Tomlin -- A Model Attendant. 195
CHAPTER XXVI. Mrs. McFarland -- The Matron. 200
CHAPTER XXVII. The Sane kept for the Doctor's Benefit. 204
CHAPTER XXVIII. Record of a Day. 209
CHAPTER XXIX. How I Bought and Retained some Paper. 213
CHAPTER XXX. How Mr. Packard gave me Paper, and how Dr. McFarland Stole it. 219
CHAPTER XXXI. My Family Relatives. 222
CHAPTER XXXII. Old Mrs. Timmons Deserted by Her Children. 227
CHAPTER XXXIII. Mrs. Cheneworth's Suicide -- Medical Abuse. 231
CHAPTER XXXIV. Changes and how brought about. 240
CHAPTER XXXV. My Battle with Despotism -- No Surrender. 244
CHAPTER XXXVI. Reading Books and Papers. 250
CHAPTER XXXVII. Abusing Mrs. Stanley. 254
CHAPTER XXXVIII. Subduing a New Prisoner. 258
CHAPTER XXXIX. Treatment of the Sick. 263
CHAPTER XL. Mrs. Leonard's Visit to her Mother. 266
CHAPTER XLI. Mrs. Emeline Bridgman -- or Nature's Laws Broken. 271
CHAPTER XLII. Sick Patients Driven off from their Beds. 279
CHAPTER XLIII. Interview with Mr. Wells, of Chicago -- A Victim of Homesickness. 284
CHAPTER XLIV. An Asylum Sabbath. 291
CHAPTER XLV. An Attendant put under My Charge. 293
CHAPTER XLVI A Scene in the Fifth Ward. 296
CHAPTER XLVII. Mrs. Olsen's Fifth Ward Experiences. 300
CHAPTER XLVIII. Mrs. Olsen's Eighth Ward Experience. 317
CHAPTER XLIX. "Wives and Husbands There Must Part". 327
CHAPTER L. How to make Incurables. 330
CHAPTER LI. I was Punished for Telling the Truth. 338
CHAPTER LII. The Prisoner who called Himself "Jesus Christ!". 344
CHAPTER LIII. My First Opportunity for Self-Defense. 349
CHAPTER LIV. My Exposure of Calvinism and Defense of Christianity. 357
CHAPTER LV. The Dawning of a New Dispensation. 364
CHAPTER LVI. The Moral Barometer Indicates a Storm -- A Hurricane. 306
CHAPTER LVII. The Clouds Disperse. 377
CHAPTER LVIII. My Oldest Son Obtains My Discharge. 383
CHAPTER LIX. The Trustees force me into the Hands of Mr. Packard. 386
CHAPTER LX. An Appeal to the Government to Protect the Inmates of Insane Asylums by Law. 397