Library Collections: Document: Full Text


Modern Persecution, or Insane Asylums Unveiled

From: Modern Persecution
Creator: Elizabeth P. W. Packard (author)
Date: 1873
Source: Available at selected libraries
Figures From This Artifact: Figure 1  Figure 2  Figure 3  Figure 4  Figure 5  Figure 6  Figure 7  Figure 8  Figure 9  Figure 10  Figure 11  Figure 12  Figure 13  Figure 14  Figure 15  Figure 16

Previous Page   Next Page   All Pages 


Page 43:

867  

And of one thing you may rest assured, the time for downtrodden and oppressed women to have their rights, has come. Her voice and her pen are going to move the world; and if you wish to be popular, despise her not!

868  

Listen to your wife's instinctive teachings of humanity and kindness. Her character is being appreciated here, because her actions show, she pities us, and seems to think, how would I like to have my Hatty treated as other Hatties are?

869  

You cannot stop her. She has begun the Christ-like work of ameliorating the condition of your patients, and God is with her, and her work will prosper. If you oppose it, all the worse for you: for it is of God, and you cannot overthrow it. She is destined to rule this Hospital, and to rule it with kindness and sympathy. Her well begun work will end gloriously.

870  

I say again, gain woman's friendship if you want to be popular now. But if you will not, God will dispose of you. We will leave you, for some more hopeful field on which to bestow our labors of kindness and love. We have nothing to do to our enemies but to do them good, and God does our avenging for us.

871  

This message is a kind act from a kind friend and sister. She longs to have the act appreciated; for your manly nature cannot understand the effort it has cost my feelings, to write this message to you. For I know it must cost you mental agony, if you are not past hope. And Oh! it is hard for woman to see or know that another heart suffers. Her nature is sensitive to the highest degree to suffering, especially in others. I really believe some women had rather suffer themselves, than see others suffer.

872  

But I am forgetting my office -- the office of a Reprover -- my nature tempts me astray.

873  

Oh! Dr. McFarland, you are really losing the manifestation of your reason, if you are not losing it entirely. And, as for your humanity, I have no hope, since you propose sending me back to my tyrannical, brutal husband.

874  

Indeed, I tell my fellow captives, I will stay with them, and cast in my lot with them, and I will spare no pains, until I work their deliverance out of your hands. For you are incapacitated for your office, and I shall so make it appear to the world, unless I see some reason for changing my purpose.

875  

I will not suffer humanity to be so abused, as you do here, without lifting my voice against it -- and it will be heard! There are men of influence in the world who believe me to be a true woman, as well as a Christian, and all the transcendental powders you may choose to employ to make me out insane, will not be believed, in face of myself -- my own words and acts.

876  

And you are not always to be allowed to hold me as your prisoner. My days are numbered here, and you cannot add one to that number. I shall soon be free -- free to serve God according to the dictates of my own conscience, with none to make me afraid any more. The lions about me are all chained; they cannot go beyond their chains. The highway upon which I tread is beyond their reach longer to worry or deter me from duty.

877  

I came here a sane person -- I shall leave a sane person -- I shall make a sane report of my sane observations here, since it now seems my duty, from appearances, to present.

878  

Remember, Dr. McFarland, "The earth helped the woman."

879  

I shall be protected in exposing your character to the world, by publishing the volume of facts I have already collected from competent legal testimony.

880  

You just imprison me another three months, and I engage to transfer the records of the adamantine pen, with the steel pen, for the iron pen of the press of 1861.

881  

It shall be a volume prefaced by both this and my former document, and it shall contain a record of truths, such as I am willing to meet at the bar of final judgment, and such as will place you, where you deserve to be placed, on a level with the beasts.

882  

I express no opinions, especially on paper, but what I can support by sound argument. The opinions herein expressed, I stand ready to prove, if proof is called for, from facts -- stubborn facts.

883  

Dr. McFarland, you have employees here, in this building, who have given such testimony as the following. It is ready for use, viz: --

884  

" Dr. McFarland keeps persons here, that are not insane to my certain knowledge."

885  

"He keeps them after they are able to go home, for months and years, and in some cases, insanity is caused, by hope too long deferred for nature to endure."

886  

"I never was in a place so inhuman in all my life."

887  

"A person might work here until they drop down dead, and no one cares."

888  

"Dr. McFarland seems to require more of insane persons than he would expect from sane ones."

889  

"The patients are so badly treated here, that I could never think of having a friend of mine ever come here for treatment.''

890  

"I have seen patients choked nearly to death, so that their faces were black and their tongues hung out of their mouths."

891  

"If it were not for losing my place here, I would expose Dr. McFarland to the world, for the cruelty he practices upon his patients."

Previous Page   Next Page

Pages:  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25  26  27  28  29  30  31  32  33  34  35  36  37  38  39  40  41  42  43  44  45  46  47  48  49  50  51  52  53  54  55  56  57  58  59  60  61  62  63  64  65  66  67  68  69  70  71  72  73  74  75  76  77  78  79  80  81  82  83  84  85  86  87  88  89  90  91  92  93  94  95  96  97  98  99  100  101  102  103  104  105  106  107  108  109  110  111  112  113  114  115  116  117  118  119  120  121  122  123  124  125  126  127  128  129  130  131    All Pages