Library Collections: Document: Full Text

Saying this, he arose and walked to another part of the hall. After the Doctor left the hall, we resumed our conversation.

"Mr. Wells, have you suffered from Dr. McFarland's tyranny, personally?"

"Indeed I have; I could now show the deep ridges upon my limbs here," placing his hands upon his lower limbs, just above his knees," marks of the rope with which I have been bound to the bed-rack in the lowest ward!"

"What! you bound with ropes! what did they bind you for?"

"Because I insisted upon having my little poodle dog in my room for my amusement, and his safety. I had just paid three dollars for it, intending to carry it as a present to my little son at Chicago. But being denied this solace, I contrived to evade the command to take it from me; and finding it in the coal-bin, when I was out one day, I managed to get it back, un-noticed, to my room.

But alas! this happiness soon terminated; for orders soon came from headquarters, that Mr. Wells be put into the lowest ward, and confined to the bed-rack, as his penalty for this act of disobedience.' I made every appeal possible to Dr. McFarland to induce him to mitigate my sentence; but all in vain. I said, 'Doctor, you are a father, can you not sympathize with me in my desire to receive a welcome from my darling boy, and in return bestow upon him a gift which I know will delight him?' He made no reply, whatever, but turned away as if he heard not a word I said!"

"That is just as he has treated me, although physical abuse I have not suffered; yet, what is worse, I feel his iron grip upon my every inalienable right -- all, all are at his bidding, subject wholly to his will alone. Mr. Wells, this is a State Institution; can you tell me how such a despotism could have taken root on Illinois soil?"

"Mrs. Packard, the people of Illinois know nothing about this Institution, except through the Doctor's one-sided reports. He, himself, has run the Institution into a despotism, and now it is hard to convince a blinded public of it, as he has made them feel that he is almost infallible. He is of Scotch descent, and he has stamped the monarchical feeling of his nature upon this nominally republican Institution.

"But can it not be known? Can't we tell of it, when we get out?"

"Yes, Mrs. Packard, I am determined upon that. I command a printing press at Chicago, and I will print all you will write, and will write myself; and this shall be the first great work I shall do, after I get out of this place. I am determined in this matter. But don't let the Doctor know of this fact, for he never will let us out alive if we do."

"But I have already told him of my determination, and that is what he is keeping me for."

"Oh, Mrs. Packard, you will never get out then! But I will tell of your case when I get out, and help you, if I can."

Here the party broke up, and taking his offered arm, he escor-ted me to the door of my room, where we parted forever, with these words; while bending over me, he whispered in my ear:

"Mrs. Packard, my press shall be used for your benefit; but, Keep dark! Keep dark!"

In one week from this time Mr. Wells was a corpse.

His desire to see or hear from his wife and children in Chicago, reached such a pitch of intensity, that nature could bear no more. His large, capacious brain became convulsed under the mental agony of too long suspense -- of hope of hear-ing from his wife too long deferred -- and these fits continued, with but few short lucid intervals, until he died.

The day he died, Mary, the Doctor's youngest daughter, came to my room, and remarked, with tears in her eyes:

"It is too bad! it is too bad! Father ought to have sent Mr. Wells' letter."

"What do you mean, Mary?"

"About one week ago Mr. Wells gave father a letter, to be mailed to his wife. In this letter he wrote how terribly home-sick he was -- how he could not stand it much longer without hearing from her -- that if she disappointed him this time, it would kill him. He knew it would kill him. The hope of getting a reply to this letter would keep him up until there had been time to get a reply, and then if I don't get one I shall die. I can't bear another disappointment and live through it.' He then asked his wife's forgiveness for all the hard things he had spoken or written about her putting him into such a place, saying, as his only excuse, 'You cannot imagine how much I am suffering. But I can, and will, forgive all, if you will now take me out, or even write and tell me you will do so. But if you do not promptly respond to this letter, in some way, farewell forever! It will be my last! I shall die of anguish!'"

"Now," she added, "Mr. Wells is dead, and father has that letter yet!"

The very day he expected a reply, and received none, he went into convulsions, which continued until he died.

As Mr. Wells was so well known in Chicago, I will here add Mrs. Olsen's notice of him, as found in her "Prison Life."

Mrs. Olsen was for one year an associate with me in my Asylum life and experience. For a few months we were allow-ed to occupy the same ward and eat at the same table. The companionship and sympathy of this devoted and most intelligent Christian sister in bonds, was the brightest oasis of my prison life.