everything of course depends upon the chief. When you have got the
right man at the head, you have got everything; and until you have got
the right man there, you have got nothing. Albert Day, the
superintendent for nine years of the Washingtonian Home at Boston, and
during the last year and a half the superintendent of the Asylum at
Binghamton, has originated nearly all that is known of the art of
curing the mania for alcohol. He struck into the right path at once,
guided by instinct and sympathy, rather than by science or reflection.
He was not a professional person; he was simply a business man of good
New England education, who had two special qualifications for his new
position,--first, a singular pity for drunkards; and, secondly, a firm
belief that, with timely and right assistance, a majority of them could
be restored to self-control. This pity and this faith he had possessed
for many years, and they had both grown strong by exercise. When he was
a child upon his father's farm in Maine, he saw in his own home and all
around him the evils resulting from the general use of alcoholic
liquors, so that when the orators of teetotalism came along he was
ready to receive their message. He is one of the very few persons now
living in the world who never partook of an alcoholic beverage,--so
early was he convinced of their preposterous inutility. Losing his
father at thirteen, he at once took hold of life in the true Yankee
way. He tied up his few worldly effects into a bundle, and, slinging it
over his shoulder, walked to a farmer's house not many miles away, and
addressed to him a plain question, "Do you want to hire a boy?" to
which the farmer with equal directness replied, "Yes." From hoeing corn
and chopping wood the lad advanced to an apprenticeship, and learned a
mechanical trade; and so made his way to early marriage, decent
prosperity, and a seat in the Legislature of Massachusetts. From the
age of sixteen he was known, wherever he lived, as a stanch teetotaler,
and also as one who would befriend a drunkard after others had
abandoned him to his fate.
I once heard Dr. Day relate the occurrence which produced in his mind
the conviction that drunkards could be rescued from the domination of
their morbid appetite. One evening, when he came home from his work, he
heard that a certain Jack Watts, the sot of the neighborhood, was
starving with his wife and three young children. After tea he went to
see him. In treating this first patient, Albert Day hit upon the very
method he has ever since pursued, and so I beg the reader will note the
manner in which he proceeded. On entering his cottage he was as polite
to him, as considerate of his dignity as head of a household, as he
could have been to the first man of the village. "Mr. Watts," said he,
after the usual salutations, "I hear you are in straitened
circumstances." The man, who was then quite sober, replied: "I am; my
two youngest children went to bed crying for food, and I had none to
give them. I spent my last three cents over there," pointing to a
grog-shop opposite, "and the bar-keeper said to me, as he took the
money, says he, 'Jack Watts, you're a fool'; and so I am." Here was a
chance for a fine moral lecture. Albert Day indulged in nothing of the
kind. He said, "Mr. Watts, excuse me for a few minutes"; and he went
out, returning soon with a basket containing some flour, pork, and
other materials for a supper. "Now, Mrs. Watts, cook something, and
wake your children up, and give them something to eat. I'll call again
early in the morning. Good night."
Perfect civility, no reproaches, no lecture, practical help of the kind
needed and at the time needed. Observe, too, that the man was in the
condition of mind in which patients usually are when they make the
_confession_ implied in entering an asylum. He was at the end of his
tether. He was--to use the language of the bar-room--"dead beat."
When Mr. Day called the next morning, the family had had their
breakfast, and Jack Watts smiled benedictions on the man whom he had
been wont to regard as his enemy, because he was the declared enemy of
Jack Watts's enemy. Now the time had come for a little talk. Jack Watts
explained his circumstances; he had been out of work for a long time,
and he had consumed all his substance in drink. Mr. Day listened with
respectful attention, spoke to him of various plans for the future, and
said that for that day he could give him a dollar's worth of
wood-chopping to do. Then they got upon the liquor question. In the
softened, receptive mind of Jack Watts, Albert Day deposited the
substance of a rational temperance lecture. He spoke to him kindly,
respectfully, hopefully, strongly. Jack Watts's mind was convinced; he
said he had done with drink forever. He meant it too; and thus he was
brought to the second stage on the road to deliverance. In this
particular case, resting from labor was out of the question and
unnecessary, for the man had been resting too long already, and must
needs go to work. The wood was chopped. The dollar to be paid for the
work at the close of the day was a fearful ordeal for poor Jack, living
fifteen yards from a bar-room. Mr. Day called round in the evening,
paid him the dollar without remark, fell into ordinary conversation
with the family, and took leave. John stood the test; not a cent of the
money found its way into the till of the bar-keeper. Next morning Mr.
Day was there again, and, seeing that the patient was going on well,
spoke to him further about the future, and glided again into the main
topic, dwelling much upon the absolute necessity of total and eternal
abstinence. He got the man a place, visited him, held him up, fortified
his mind, and so helped him to complete and lasting recovery. Jack
Watts never drank again. He died a year or two ago in Maine at a good
age, having brought up his family respectably.
This was an extreme case, for the man had been a drunkard many years;
it was a difficult case, for he was poor and ignorant; and it made upon
the mind of Albert Day an impression that nothing could efface. He was
living in Boston in 1857, exercising his trade, when the Washingtonian
Home was opened. He was indeed one of the originators of the movement,
and took the post of superintendent because no one else seemed capable
of conducting the experiment. Having now to deal with the diseased
bodies of men, he joined the medical department of Harvard University,
and went through the usual course, making a particular study of the
malady he was attempting to cure. After nine years' service he was
transferred to the Asylum at Binghamton, where he pursues the system
practised with success at Boston.
I visited the Binghamton Asylum in June of the present year. The
situation combines many advantages. Of the younger cities that have
sprung into importance along the line of leading railroads there is not
one of more vigorous growth or more inviting appearance than
Binghamton. Indications of spirit and civilization meet the eye at
every turn. There are long streets of elegant cottages and villas,
surrounded by nicely kept gardens and lawns, and containing churches in
the construction of which the established barbarisms have been avoided.
There is a general tidiness and attention to appearances that we notice
in the beautiful towns and villages of New England; such as picturesque
Northampton, romantic Brattleboro', and enchanting Stockbridge,
peerless among villages. The Chenango River unites here with the
Susquehanna; so that the people who have not a river within sight of
their front doors are likely to have one flowing peacefully along at
the back of their gardens. It is a town, the existence of which in a
State governed as New York is governed shows how powerless a government
is to corrupt a virtuous and intelligent people, and speaks of the time
when governments will be reduced to their natural and proper
insignificance. Such communities require little of the central power;
and it is a great pity that that little is indispensable, and that
Albany cannot be simply wiped out.
Two miles from Binghamton, on a high hill rising from the bank of the
Susquehanna, and commanding an extensive view of the beautiful valleys
of both rivers, stands the castellated palace which an adventurer had
the impudence to build with money intrusted to him for a better
purpose. The Erie Railroad coils itself about the base of this
eminence, from the summit of which the white puffs of the locomotive
can be descried in one direction nine miles, and in the other fifteen
miles. On reaching this summit about nine o'clock on a fine morning in
June, I found myself in front of a building of light-colored stone,
presenting a front of three hundred and sixty-five feet, in a style of
architecture that unites well the useful and the pleasing. Those
numerous towers which relieve the monotony of so extensive a front
serve an excellent purpose in providing small apartments for various
purposes, which, but for them, could not be contrived without wasting
space. At present the first view of the building is not inviting, for
the burnt wing remains roofless and void,--the insurance money not
having been applied to refitting it,--and the main edifice is still
unfinished. Not a tree has yet been planted, and the grounds about the
building are little more pleasing to the eye than fifty acres of
desert. On a level space in front of the edifice a number of young men
were playing a game of base-ball, and playing it badly. Their
intentions were excellent, but their skill was small. Sitting on the
steps and upon the blocks of stone scattered about were fifty or sixty
well-dressed, well-looking gentlemen of various ages, watching the
game. In general appearance and bearing these persons were so decidedly
superior to the average of mortals, that few visitors fail to remark
the fact. Living up there in that keen, pure air, and living in a
rational manner, amusing themselves with games of ball, rowing,
sailing, gardening, bowling, billiards, and gymnastic exercises, they
are as brown and robust as David Copperfield was when he came home from
the Continent and visited his friend Traddles. Take any hundred men
from the educated classes, and give them a few months of such a life as
this, and the improvement in their appearance will be striking. Among
these on-lookers of the game were a few men with gray hairs, but the
majority were under thirty, perhaps thirty-two or thirty-five was about
the average age.
When I looked upon this most unexpected scene, it did not for a moment
occur to me that these serene and healthy-looking men could be the
inmates of the Asylum. The insensate name of the institution prepares
the visitor to see the patients lying about in various stages of
intoxication. The question has sometimes been asked of the
superintendent by visitors looking about them and peering into remote
corners, "But, Doctor, where do you _keep_ your drunkards?" The
astonishment of such inquirers is great indeed when they are informed
that the polite and well-dressed gentlemen standing about, and in whose
hearing the question was uttered, are the inmates of the institution;
every individual of whom was till very recently, not merely a drunkard,
but a drunkard of the most advanced character, for whose deliverance
from that miserable bondage almost every one had ceased to hope. A
large majority of the present inmates are persons of education and
respectable position, who pay for their residence here at rates varying
from ten to twenty dollars a week, and who are co-operating ardently
with the superintendent for their recovery. More than half of them were
officers of the army or navy during the late war, and lost control of
themselves then. One in ten must be by law a free patient; and whenever
an inebriate really desires to break his chain, he is met half-way by
the trustees, and his board is fixed at a rate that accords with his
circumstances. A few patients have been taken as low as five dollars a
week. When once the building has been completed, the grounds laid out,
and the farms disposed of, the trustees hope never to turn from the
door of the institution any proper applicant who desires to avail
himself of its assistance. The present number of patients is something
less than one hundred, which is about fifty less than can be
accommodated. When the burnt wing is restored, there will be room for
four hundred.
Upon entering the building, we find ourselves in a spacious, handsome,
well-arranged, and well-furnished hotel. The musical click of
billiard-balls, and the distant thunder of the bowling-alley, salute
the ear; one of the inmates may be performing brilliantly on the piano,
or trying over a new piece for next Sunday on the cabinet organ in the
temporary chapel. The billiard-room, we soon discover, contains three
tables. There is a reading-room always open, in which the principal
periodicals of both continents, and plenty of newspapers, are
accessible to all the patients. A small library, which ought to be a
larger one, is open at a certain hour every day. A conservatory is near
completion, and there is a garden of ten acres near by in which a
number of the inmates may usually be seen at work. A croquet-ground is
not wanting, and the apparatus of cricket is visible in one of the
halls. The chapel is still far from being finished, but enough is done
to show that it will be elegant and inviting soon after the next
instalment of excise-money comes in. The dining-room is lofty and
large, as indeed are all the public rooms. The private rooms are equal,
both in size and furniture, to those of good city hotels. The
arrangements for warming, lighting, washing, bathing, cooking, are such
as we should expect to find in so stately an edifice. We have not yet
reached the point when housework will do itself; but in great
establishments like this, where one man, working ten minutes an hour,
warms two or three hundred rooms, menial labor is hopefully reduced. In
walking about the wide halls and airy public apartments, the visitor
sees nothing to destroy the impression that the building is a very
liberally arranged summer hotel. To complete the illusion, he will
perhaps see toddling about a lovely child with its beautiful mother,
and in the large parlor some ladies visiting inmates or officers of the
institution. The table also is good and well served. A stranger, not
knowing the nature of the institution, might, however, be puzzled to
decide whether it is a hotel or a college. No one, it is true, ever saw
a college so handsomely arranged and provided; but the tone of the
thing is college-like, especially when you get about among the rooms of
the inmates, and see them cramming for next Monday's debate, or writing
a lecture for the Asylum course.
This institution is in fact, as in appearance, a rationally conducted
hotel or Temporary Home and resting-place for men diseased by the
excessive use of alcoholic drinks. It is a place where they can pause
and reflect, and gather strength and knowledge for the final victorious
struggle with themselves. Temptation is not so remote that their
resolution is not in continual exercise, nor so near that it is tasked
beyond its strength. There lies Binghamton in its valley below them in
plain sight, among its rivers and its trees, with its thousand pretty
homes and its dozen nasty bar-rooms. They can go down there and drink,
if they can get any one to risk the fifty dollars' fine imposed by the
law of the State upon any one who sells liquor to an inmate of the
Asylum. Generally there is some poor mercenary wretch who will do it.
Until it has been proved that the sight of Binghamton is too much for a
patient, the only restraint upon his liberty is, that he must not enter
the town without the consent of the superintendent. This consent is not
regarded in the light of a permission, but in that of a physician's
opinion. The patient is supposed to mean: "Dr. Day, would you, as my
medical adviser, recommend me to go to Binghamton this morning to be
measured for a pair of shoes? Do you think it would be salutary? Am I
far enough advanced in convalescence to trust myself to breathe the air
of the valley for an hour?" The doctor gives his opinion on the point,
and it is etiquette to accept that opinion without remark. Not one
patient has yet visited the town, with the consent of the
superintendent, who has proved unequal to the temptation. If an inmate
steals away and yields to his craving, he is placed in confinement for
a day or two, or longer if necessary. It occasionally happens that a
patient, conscious of the coming on of a paroxysm of desire, asks to
have the key of his room turned upon him till it is over. It is desired
that this turning of the key, and those few barred rooms in one of the
wards, shall be regarded as mere remedial appliances, as much so as the
bottles of medicine in the medicine-chest. It is, however, understood
that no one is to be released from confinement who does not manifest a
renewed purpose to refrain. Such a purpose is sometimes indicated by a
note addressed to the superintendent like the following, which I
happened to see placed in his hands:--
"DR. DAY:--
"DEAR SIR: I cannot let the circumstance which happened yesterday
pass by without assuring you that I am truly sorry for the disgrace
I have brought on the institution, as well as myself. I certainly
appreciate your efforts to guide us all in the right direction, and
more especially the interest that you have taken in my own welfare.
Let me assure you now, that hereafter, as long as I remain with
you, I shall use every endeavor to conduct myself as I should, and
cause you no further trouble."
Lapses of this kind are not frequent, and they are regarded by the
superintendent as part of the means of restoration which the
institution affords; since they aid him in destroying a fatal
self-confidence, and in inculcating the idea that a patient who lapses
must never think of giving up the struggle, but renew it the instant he
can gain the least foothold of self-control.
The system of treatment pursued here is founded on the expectation that
the patient and the institution will co-operate. If a man does not
desire to be reclaimed, and such a desire cannot be awakened within
him, the institution can do no more than keep him sober while he
remains an inmate of it. There will, perhaps, one day be in every State
an asylum for incurable drunkards, wherein they will be permanently
detained, and compelled to live temperately, and earn their subsistence
by suitable labor. But this is not such an institution. Here all is
voluntary. The co-operation of the patient is assumed; and when no
desire to be restored can be roused, the experiment is not continued
longer than a few months.
The two grand objects aimed at by the superintendent are, to raise
the tone of the bodily health, and to fortify the weakened will. The
means employed vary somewhat in each case. The superintendent designs
to make a particular study of each individual; he endeavors to win his
confidence, to adapt the treatment to his peculiar disposition, and to
give him just the aid he needs. As the number of patients increases,
this will become more difficult, if it does not become impossible. The
more general features of the system are all that can be communicated to
others, and these I will endeavor briefly to indicate.
It is interesting to observe the applicants for admission, when they
enter the office of the Asylum, accompanied generally by a relative or
friend. Some reach the building far gone in intoxication, having
indulged in one last farewell debauch; or having drunk a bottle of
whiskey for the purpose of screwing their courage to the sticking-point
of entering the Asylum. A clergyman whom this institution restored told
me that he reached Binghamton in the evening, and went to bed drunk;
and before going to the Asylum the next morning he had to fortify his
system and his resolve by twelve glasses of brandy. Sometimes the
accompanying friend, out of an absurd kind of pity for a poor fellow
about to be deprived of his solace, will rather encourage him to drink;
and often the relatives of an inebriate can only get him into the
institution by keeping him intoxicated until he is safe under its roof.
Frequently men arrive emaciated and worn out from weeks or months of
hard drinking; and occasionally a man will be brought in suffering from
delirium tremens, who will require restraint and watching for several
days. Some enter the office in terror, expecting to be immediately led
away by a turnkey and locked up. All come with bodies diseased and
minds demoralized; for the presence of alcohol in the system lowers the
tone of the whole man, body and soul, strengthening every evil
tendency, and weakening every good one. And this is the reason why men
who are brought here against their will are not to be despaired of.
Alcohol may only have suspended the activity of their better nature,
which a few weeks of total abstinence may rouse to new life. As the
health improves, ambition often revives, the native delicacy of the
soul reappears, and the man becomes polite, docile, interested,
agreeable, who on entering seemed coarse, stupid, obstinate, and
malign.
The new-comer subscribes to the rules, pays his board three months in
advance, and surrenders all the rest of his money. The paying in
advance is a good thing; it is like paying your passage on going on
board ship; the voyager has no care, and nothing to think of, but the
proposed object. It is also one more inducement to remain until other
motives gain strength.
Many hard drinkers live under the conviction that if they should cease
drinking alcoholic liquors suddenly, they would die in a few days. This
is a complete error. No "tapering off" is allowed here. Dr. Day
discovered years ago that a man who has been drinking a quart of
whiskey a day for a long time suffers more if his allowance is reduced
to a pint than if he is put at once upon the system of total
abstinence. He not only suffers less, but for a shorter time. The
clergyman before referred to informed me that, for two years and a half
before entering the Asylum, he drank a quart of brandy daily, and he
felt confident that he would die if he should suddenly cease. He
reached Binghamton drunk; he went to bed that evening drunk; he drank
twelve glasses of brandy the next morning before eleven o'clock; he
went up to the Asylum saturated with brandy, expecting to make the
preliminary arrangements for his admission, then return to the hotel,
and finish the day drinking. But precisely at that point Albert Day
laid his hand upon him, and marked him for his own. Dr. Day quietly
objected to his return to the town, sent for his trunk, caused the
tavern bill to be paid, and cut off his brandy at once and totally. For
forty-eight hours the patient craved the accustomed stimulant
intensely, and he was only enabled to sleep by the assistance of
bromide of potassium. On the third day the craving ceased, and he
assured me that he never felt it again. Other morbid experiences he
had, but not that; and now, after two years of abstinence, he enjoys
good health, has no desire for drink, and is capable of extraordinary
exertions. Other patients, however, informed me that they suffered a
morbid craving for two or three weeks. But all agreed that the sudden
discontinuance of the stimulant gave them less inconvenience than they
had anticipated, and was in no degree dangerous. It is, indeed, most
surprising to see how soon the system begins to rally when once it is
relieved of the inimical influence. Complete recovery, of course, is a
slow and long effort of nature; but the improvement in the health,
feelings, and appearance of patients, after only a month's residence
upon that breezy hill, is very remarkable.
There is an impression in the country that the inmates of such asylums
as this undergo some mysterious process, and take unknown medicines,
which have power to destroy the desire for strong drink. Among the
quack medicines of the day is a bottled humbug, pretending to have such
power. It is also supposed by some that the plan which Captain Marryat
mentions is efficacious,--that of confining a drunken sailor for
several days to a diet of beef and brandy. Accounts have gone the
rounds of the papers, of another system that consists in saturating
with brandy every article of food of which the inebriate partakes.
Patients occasionally arrive at the Asylum who expect to be treated in
some such way; and when a day or two passes without anything
extraordinary or disagreeable happening, they inquire, with visible
apprehension, "When the treatment is going to begin." In this sense of
the word, there is no treatment here. In all nature there is no
substance that destroys or lessens a drunkard's desire for intoxicating
liquors; and there is no such thing as permanently disgusting him with
brandy by giving him more brandy than he wants. A drunkard's drinking
is not a thing of mere appetite; his whole system craves stimulation;
and he would drink himself into perdition while loathing the taste of
the liquor. This Asylum simply gives its inmates rest, regimen,
amusement, society, information. It tries to restore the health and
renew the will, and both by rational means.