The holidays of 1863 came, and I saw that the attendants, and many
of the patients of the first floor, were busily engaged in dressing
up the hall, the billiard room and the chapel, with evergreens. The
chapel is in the fourth story of the center building, and is reached by
three long flights of stairs from the lower floors, rendering it very
hard for old and infirm people to reach it. At times I found it very
difficult, on account of lameness, to ascend these stairs.
Above the chapel, in the fifth story, is a theater; this was fitted
up the first year I was in the institution. This I suppose was done
for the amusement of the patients, and during my stay there quite a
number of scenes were acted, on the merits of which I am not able to
give any opinion, as I am not acquainted with theatrical performances,
having never attended one before I went to an insane asylum. I made
up my mind, however, from what I saw, that they were very appropriate
to a lunatic asylum, and that it is quite likely that in the first
instance they were got up for the sole purpose of cheering and amusing
disordered minds, and that by some unaccountable means they made their
escape from the lunatic asylum, and have ever since been running at
large through the world.
I think it would be one of the most humane and charitable acts that our
country could perform, to pass an act to place all the theaters back
into insane asylums, where they appropriately belong.
The first performance of the kind I ever saw, I think, was in January
of 1864. The supervisor, Mr. Butler, said to me I must prepare myself
to go down to Mechanics' Hall, in the city, as some performances were
to be acted there that afternoon and evening. I begged to be excused,
but there was no use in talking; so I got ready. I recollect that about
a score of us poor lunatics, were marched off to the city. I shall
never forget how I felt when I reached there. It seemed to me that all
eyes were turned upon us, as they knew we came from the asylum; perhaps
I was a little too sensitive on this point. I looked on, or pretended
to look on, but I did it mostly with my eyes shut. I took no interest
in the whole matter. I only went to obey orders; but I was a good deal
like the horse who would not drink after he was led to the water. If
there is any sanitive power in knowing we must obey, then I suppose I
was benefited; so I walked down the hill, and walked up again. So we
were a privileged people; we could go to the theatre, dance, play at
billiards, attend church, drink whiskey or porter, and all sanctioned
by law.
On this hall there is something of a library, containing, perhaps, five
or six hundred volumes, besides papers, both daily and weekly, that are
brought on to the hall; so that all who desire reading can have it.
Patients from other halls frequently come down and get books, read and
return them.
As to religious service, it is regular once a week, every Sabbath
evening, so that all who desire to attend church can have the privilege
in the chapel. Besides this, there are quite a number, such as the
doctor pleases to select, who have the privilege of going into the city
to church, accompanied by an attendant, who goes to see that they keep
orderly and return home at the close of service.
I observed that people of all creeds were in the
institution—Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Roman
Catholics, Quakers, Unitarians, Universalists and Swedenburghers, so
that no one denomination can boast that their members are never insane.
I judge, however, that there are more Roman Catholics, compared with
their numbers, than any others in the asylum.
Another inquiry arose in my mind while in the asylum, viz.: What class
of the inhabitants form the majority in that institution? This is
rather a hard question; yet, perhaps, we can arrive at something near
the truth on the subject. In doing this I will divide society into
four classes, as follows: first, professional men and men of study;
secondly, business men, who have much care on their minds; thirdly, the
common laboring class, which compose the great majority of mankind;
fourthly, that floating unsettled class of men, who live as they can
catch it, with no settled business, and indulge in drinking and in
other loose habits of life.
Some of each and all of these classes are found in the asylum—doctors,
lawyers and ministers of the gospel, with students from colleges, are
often found in the asylum; yet their number appears small compared to
the other classes, but it must be remembered that this is by far the
smallest of the four classes of community. I judge that this class is
as about one to fifty of the second and fourth class, and as about
one to two hundred of the third or laboring class, so that if ten
professional men are found in the asylum, with three hundred of the
other classes, it would show a large proportion of professional men
in the asylum. But I do not think that this class will average more
than six to three hundred of the other classes; this is giving a very
large proportion of professional men to the asylum compared to other
classes. I think, perhaps, I have the numbers too high. All I can say
of this class then is, that education and study is not a safe-guard to
insanity, but sometimes may produce it; yet it is thought very strange
by some, that a man of mind, study and education, should ever become
insane.
There are some men who need never fear of becoming insane—their minds
are not sufficiently active—they will never rack their minds with
study—in a word, they have not brains enough to become insane. As to
the second class, they are quite liable to overtax the mind with the
burthen of their business. I judge this from their numbers found in the
asylum. I cannot say, however, that I have seen as many of this class
in the asylum, according to their numbers, as I have of the first class.
Of the third, or laboring class of community, there are a great number
in the asylum. Many of these suffer in various ways, and from various
causes. Some, by overwork, undermine their constitutions; some, by
exposure to all weathers, become prostrated, and their nerves unstrung.
And many in this class, as well as in others, have greatly injured
their nervous system by the excessive use of coffee, tea and tobacco.
It is a remarkable fact that but few men are found in the asylum who
are not users of tobacco; and the universal cry of the patients through
all the asylum for tobacco, is proof of this fact. I think there are
five to one of this class in the asylum compared to the other classes;
yet, perhaps, they number ten to one of all the other classes.
The fourth class is that reckless and unsettled portion of community
that never look beyond present gratification, whatever it may cost.
Rum, tobacco and idleness, constitute their chief study; habits
unfixed; system in living never enters their thoughts; and though this
is not the larger class of community, I doubt not but two to one of
this class are found in the asylum to any other class of society.
It is a given fact that a great number in the asylum were brought there
by their dissipation. It is not strange that many of all the classes
mentioned should be found in the asylum, but to see the imbecile and
driveling idiot thrown into a lunatic asylum, carries _prima facie_
evidence with it, that the object in placing them there was not to
prevent their doing injury to themselves or others, nor for their
recovery from their unfortunate state, for many of these were born so.
If the parents or guardians of these unfortunate cases are not able to
support and take care of them, let these turn them over to the county
where they belong, for it would be much better for such to be in the
county house, than to be shut up in a lunatic asylum.
There is a striking fact that will appear to any observer who will
take the trouble to read the printed statistics of the number of
patients in the asylum at Utica, and the counties to which they belong.
He will find that some of the remote counties send one, some two, and
some none, while those near by will send scores. I presume that the
large cities of the State, such as New York, Brooklyn, Albany, Troy,
Buffalo and Rochester, that all these cities do not send as many
patients to the asylum as is sent by the little city of Utica, which
does not contain over 25,000 inhabitants! This may seem a startling
assertion, but I have known at one time in the asylum sixty patients
from the city of Utica.
Can it be proved that the above named cities ever had sixty patients
in that asylum at any one time? It would take a hundred such asylums
to take all that the State of New York would furnish if each county
should send as many as the city of Utica, according to their number of
inhabitants.
Perhaps it will be said that this fact is all in favor of the
institution; that Utica knows better the worth of the institution
than places more remote, and this is the reason why so many more are
furnished from Utica. I am fully satisfied that the citizens of Utica
know no more about the private workings of that institution than the
inhabitants of Clinton and Essex counties; and living near by renders
them more liable to be deceived, and in the following manner: It is
known by all the inhabitants of that region of country round about
Utica, that the asylum is open every day at certain hours, for the
reception of visitors. It is also understood by the managers and
attendants at the asylum, that visitors are expected every day, more
or less; so that all things are put in order before visitors come;
every unsightly thing is put out of the way; all is still and clean
as a ladies' parlor on the first halls, on both sides of the house;
the time comes; the usher is at the door; the visitors are led through
the first halls, look at the pictures and leave. What do they know by
this running visit about the asylum? It is true, they have seen the
neatness and order of the two lower halls—the lovely flower garden—the
beautiful lawn spread out from the out-stretched and towering walls of
the asylum, to the archway that leads to the street below; the view is
lovely.
My daughter visited me in my prison-house after I had been there ten
months, and she is a lover of the beautiful—she exclaimed, after she
had feasted her eyes on all around in full bloom in the month of July,
“_O pa, it is a paradise; I should like to live here_.” Tears filled
my eyes, though I had not shed one tear for a year; my grief had been
too deep for tears. “Poor child,” thought I, “I hope you will never be
undeceived by being placed here as a patient.”
No, it is not because the people of Utica know better about the
institution than others that they send so many there. It is true they
know the managers of the institution, the steward, and Dr. Gray. But
Dr. Gray himself does not know one-half that is done in that place of
deception. If I thought he did, and tolerated it, I should have far
less respect for him than I now have.
I know a gentlemen living not far from Utica, of prominence and
standing in community—a man of wealth and large business—has held the
highest office in his town for years, and had often visited the asylum,
and walked through its halls, and had boasted of the value and utility
of such an institution, and was proud that he had taken an interest in
the erection of so magnificent a pile—who does not feel now as he then
felt—and why? Why? for the very plain reason, that since that time he
has been initiated into the secrets of the institution. This man is no
other than D. J. Millard, Esq., of Oneida County.
He was, like myself, unfortunately thrown into that institution as
a patient. I saw him the day he entered it. I saw he was a man of
more than ordinary ability; he was one of those business men I have
described in this chapter; I formed his acquaintance in the asylum; he
was not insane, his health became poor; his business lay heavily upon
his mind, and he partially sunk down under the burthen. Difficulties
magnified in his mind beyond what were the real facts. But an insane
asylum was not the place to cure him; it was the very worst place, in
my judgment, that could have been chosen for the relief of his mind.
Encouragement and cheerful greetings was what he needed, instead of
imprisonment and seclusion from his business and his family. But he
lived in spite of all these opposing influences, and came out of his
troubles a wiser, and no doubt, a better man, for his sufferings. Would
he recommend a friend to place one of his family in that institution?
He is not a man who is carried away by low and petty prejudices—he
sees things in a broad and philosophical light; he believes that such
an institution could be, and should be, a blessing to the State and
Nation, and that it would be, were it conducted as it should be; but as
it is, and as it has been managed for a few years past, he regards it
a curse to the land, and unless reformed, will one day fall by its own
weight.
The light is already breaking in through its dark and massive walls,
and when men can be placed over it who can feel for suffering humanity,
instead of glorying in a little power over helpless invalids, and
seeking how they can make the most profits at the expense of the
sufferings of their fellow beings, then, and not till then, will the
darkness and gloom, which has so long hung over that prison house of
death, roll off, causing the tongue of the dumb to sing, and many a
bleeding heart to rejoice.
As to the nationality of the inmates of that institution, it may almost
be said, that they are from all nations, tongues and languages. There
is the American of the Anglo-Saxon race, the Welshman, the Scotchman,
the Irishman, the German, the Swede, the Frenchman, the North American
Indian, the African and the Jew. I have thought it partook very largely
of the Irish race—I think so still; so that that institution may be
said to be the world in miniature.
There are the rich and the poor—the black and the white—the wise and
the ignorant—the learned and the unlearned—the Devil and the Saint—the
Christian and the infidel—the drunkard and the man of temperance—the
libertine and the man of chastity—the thief and murderer—the man of
honesty and kindness—the child and the man of gray hairs.