T. C. This person had remained many years in the hospital on the incurable
establishment. He had been a schoolmaster at Warrington in Lancashire, and
was a man of acuteness and extensive mathematical learning. As he became
very furious on the attack of his maniacal disorder, he was placed in the
Lunatic Asylum at Manchester, where he killed the person who had the care
of him, by stabbing him in the back with a knife.
The following is the account he gave me of that transaction, and which I
immediately committed to paper; as it conveys a serious and important
lesson to those who are about the persons of the insane.
"He that would govern others, first should be
The master of himself, richly indu'd
With depth of understanding, height of courage."
_Massinger's Bondman, Act I. Scene 3._
It ought to be more generally understood that a madman seldom forgets the
coercion he has undergone, and that he never forgives an indignity.
"The man whom I stabbed richly deserved it. He behaved to me with great
violence and cruelty, he degraded my nature as a human being; he tied me
down, handcuffed me, and confined my hands much higher than my head, with
a leathern thong: he stretched me on a bed of torture. After some days he
released me. I gave him warning, for I told his wife I would have justice
of him. On her communicating this to him, he came to me in a furious
passion, threw me down, dragg'd me through the court-yard, thumped on my
breast, and confined me in a dark and damp cell. Not liking this
situation, I was induced to play the hypocrite. I pretended extreme sorrow
for having threatened him, and by an affectation of repentance, prevailed
on him to release me. For several days I paid him great attention, and
lent him every assistance. He seemed much pleased with the flattery, and
became very friendly in his behaviour towards me.--Going one day into the
kitchen, where his wife was busied, I saw a knife; (this was too great a
temptation to be resisted;) I concealed it, and carried it about me. For
some time afterwards the same friendly intercourse was maintained between
us; but, as he was one day unlocking his garden door, I seized the
opportunity, and plunged the knife up to the hilt in his back."--He
always mentioned this circumstance with peculiar triumph, and his
countenance (the most cunning and malignant I ever beheld) became highly
animated at the conclusion of the story.
During the time he was in Bethlem Hospital he most ingeniously formed a
stiletto out of a mop-nail; it was an elaborate contrivance, and had
probably been the work of several months. It was rendered extremely sharp
and polished, by whetting on a small pebble; it was fixed into a handle,
and had a wooden sheath made from the mop-stick. This instrument he
carried in his left breeches pocket, his right hand grasping the hilt. As
I always found him in that posture when I visited him, I suspected he had
some concealed implement of mischief, and therefore employed a
convalescent patient to watch him through the key-hole of his door. This
person saw him with the weapon, and also ascertaining the distance at
which he could use it.
The instrument was taken from him by surprise. When he found he was
prevented from executing his purpose, he roared out the most horrid
imprecations; he cursed the Almighty for creating him, and more especially
for having given him the form of a human being, and he wished to go to
Hell that he might not be disgraced by an association with the Deity.
He had an uniform and implacable aversion to the officers and servants of
the hospital; he said he courted their hatred for their curse was a
blessing. He seldom answered a question but some impiety was contained in
the reply. An indifferent person remarking that it was a bad day, he
immediately retorted, "Sir, did you ever know God make a good one?"
Although the whole of the day, and the greatest part of the night, were
consumed in pouring forth abuse and coining new blasphemies; yet there
were some few patients for whom he professed a friendship, and with whom
he conversed in a mild and civil way: this confidence had been obtained by
the compliments they had addressed to him on the score of his
understanding, of which he entertained a very high opinion. At one time he
conceived himself to be the Messiah, at another, that he was Mr. Adam, the
architect; and that he was shortly to go to America in order to build the
new Jerusalem in Philadelphia.
About six months before his death he complained of pain in his stomach,
and said he felt as if he had no intestines. His appetite diminished, and
he became melancholic.
The scene now began to alter; he had a presentiment that his time in this
world would be short, and he dreaded the change: no hope arose, no
consolation could cheer him; he became daily more emaciated and despairing
until he died, which took place August 27, 1801; he appeared to be about
seventy years of age.
On opening the head, the pericranium was scarcely adherent. This membrane
being removed, blood oozed freely from the parietal bones. There was a
large accumulation of water between the dura mater and tunica arachnoidea;
when this was let out the dura mater became flaccid, and seemed to hang
loose on the brain. On the left posterior lobe of the cerebrum there was a
large quantity of a milky fluid, between the tunica arachnoidea and pia
mater, giving the appearance of a vesication; and in that place there was
a depression or cavity formed in the convolutions of the brain. The
convolutions were so strongly and distinctly marked, that they resembled
the intestines of a child. The lateral ventricles were but little
distended, and did not contain much water. The head was not particularly
loaded with blood, nor were the bloody points, in the medullary substance,
very abundant. The brain was of a natural consistence. There was no
disease in the stomach, intestines, or liver. The body was opened about
six hours after his death.