CRIMINAL LUNATICS.
IN one of the padded cells was a dangerous lunatic. For weeks and months
he had kept up an incessant conversation with himself, occasionally
diversified by shrieks and yells. At first it was believed the man was
shamming, and he was taken before the visiting justices and sentenced to
be flogged, but this usually infallible cure had not the desired effect.
Clothes were converted into rags in an incredibly short space of time.
He was handcuffed in front, and still they were destroyed. He was
handcuffed behind with the same result. On his door being opened he
would be found naked, the handcuffs on the floor, and his clothes in
shreds. Canvas sacks, with slits for the head and hands, were suggested,
and, first clothed, then handcuffed with his hands behind him, and
finally covered with the huge sack, he was again consigned to the cell.
The same result, however, invariably followed, and the kind-hearted
doctor, despairing of cure, and though inwardly convinced it was an
artfully contrived sham, yet loth to persist in the stringent remedies
that alone were effectual, gave him the benefit of the doubt, and
consigned him to the Criminal Lunatic Asylum at Hanwell. I have
frequently seen this maniac fed. His door was opened and he was brought
out, and, half-naked and handcuffed, bleared, filthy, and bleeding from
self-inflicted injuries, with dishevelled hair, and glaring like a
panther, this wild beast in human form would open his mouth, and gruel
and bread be shovelled in bounteously. Attempts would occasionally be
made to induce him to wash, but at best they were qualified successes,
and the assistance of four or five turnkeys had eventually to be resorted
to. It was impossible to believe this being was sane and capable of
keeping up the deception for such a time. Sleep was out of the question,
for night was made hideous by the muffled shouts and blasphemies that
forced themselves through the padded cell. But a reprieve at length
came, and it was with a sense of relief that I one morning saw him taken
off to Hanwell. The lull, however, was not of long duration; and he was
eventually sent back as “cured.” The cure showed itself in a curious
way. On finding himself again in his old quarters, and smarting under a
pretended sense of breach of faith, he raved that the doctor at Hanwell
had promised to release him if he withdrew his claim to the crown of
Ireland. And now a reign of terror began in earnest, and shouting for
Parnell, his secretary, the Empress Eugenie, and Old Ireland, he raved
and roared day and night. How human nature could bear such a strain
appeared marvellous. One night all was calm. “Thank goodness!” I
thought, “he’s collapsed.” Had he? The wish, alas! was father to the
thought, and the lull was only the precursor of the storm. Whilst we
were sleeping the maniac was maturing his plans, and a shout of “Fire!”
one night reminded us of his proximity. Smoke was now issuing from the
padded cell. To draw back the ponderous bolts was the work of a second.
To distinguish anything was absolutely impossible. Blinding smoke filled
the cell, and as it poured out a terrible sight presented itself. On the
floor was the charred mattress, the horse-hair alight, and the plank bed
smouldering, and peacefully lying beside it was the madman. The first
idea was that he was dead, but the smoke that would have killed a sane
man had but temporarily stupefied him. In an instant he was on his feet,
and, his arms being free, made a desperate attack with pieces of glass on
the two men who had humanely approached him. Further help was now sent
for, during which time he kicked, struck, and bit everything within
reach, and it required sixteen men to secure and remove this wild beast
in human form. The extent of his mischief now made itself apparent. How
he had removed the handcuffs remains a mystery, but with the cunning and
dexterity only to be found in maniacs, he had succeeded in reaching the
gas, which, situated ten feet from the ground, and protected by a strong
glass, must have taxed his ingenuity, not only to reach, but eventually
to open, and yet this had been done so quietly that forty men and a
watchful warder in the adjoining room heard nothing. With the fire now
at his disposal, he had burnt the straps that were lashed round his body
to secure the sack, but finding the effect not sufficiently expeditious,
had proceeded to pull out the bed-stuffing, and lying down naked,
bruised, and bleeding, beside the smouldering mass, calmly awaited the
conflagration that was to free him. The cell presented an extraordinary
appearance. On the floor were broken glass, burning wood, and his
clothes torn to shreds; here the handcuffs, there the charred straps: the
walls were smeared with filth and dabbed with porridge; the plank bed was
torn up, and plaster and brickwork removed: a terrible wreck, an
incredible performance, and all the work of two hands, handcuffed behind
and strapped, and surrounded by every precaution that official ingenuity
could suggest.
This final escapade materially assisted the magisterial finding as to the
extent of the maniac’s “cure,” and he was again consigned to Hanwell.
Another lunatic of a different type was an inmate of the convalescent
ward, a harmless, inoffensive creature, that had been flogged out of his
senses. His physique proclaimed him incapable of doing bodily harm to a
calf. He was not more than five feet high, with a fore-arm like a
robin’s thigh, and the receding forehead, sunken eye, and conical skull
associated with imbecility; but he had once “threatened” a warder, a
hulking, round-shouldered old woman, that might have squeezed the life
out of him without turning a hair, and discipline demanded he should be
reported, and the visiting justices sentenced him to be flogged. From
that day he never spoke, and would sit for hours without moving; suddenly
he would break out into an immoderate fit of laughter, to be immediately
followed by a paroxysm of grief, and, laying his head on the table, would
sob like a child. Nothing appeared likely to restore his naturally
limited intellect, and the country will be at the expense of keeping this
“dangerous criminal” for another twelvemonth, who would be infinitely
more at home at Earlswood Asylum for Idiots. A perfect child occupied
another of these hospital cells, an incorrigible young scamp of about
fourteen, that nothing seemed capable of taming. Everything within reach
he proceeded to destroy, and clothes supplied him in the morning were in
shreds at night. He, too, was constantly handcuffed; he refused to eat,
and for a week nothing passed his lips. One day, on his door being
opened, he was found suspended by a bed-strap from the bell-handle:
another second, and life would have been extinct. For this he was taken
before the visiting justices and birched. It had, however, no deterrent
effect, and up to the time of his release he remained the same
incorrigible young ruffian. There is no hope for such a lad; his future
is bound to be a repetition of many instances I saw amongst the adults,
who had commenced a career of crime with birchings, followed by three and
five years in a reformatory, and ending with imprisonment and eventually
penal servitude. Another companion that was the source of occasional
anxiety, had been an inmate of a lunatic asylum, and though usually
quiet, was subject to extraordinary fits. The first intimation of one
coming on was a demoniacal groan, and in an incredibly short time a space
was cleared round him. It had been found, indeed, that nothing could
arrest the first paroxysm, and on the “band beginning to play,” a
stampede invariably ensued: and not without cause, for everything within
reach became an instant wreck, and tables, chairs, books, and (when
procurable) arms and noses, were ruthlessly attacked by hands, feet, and
teeth. When comparatively restored it took six or eight men to remove
him into a cell, and the only thing that appeared to rouse him was the
presence of the priest. So efficacious was this remedy that when
everything else failed, the Roman Catholic chaplain was invariably sent
for, and in a moment oil appeared to be thrown on the troubled waters,
and the maniac arose subdued, and clothed in his right mind. Here was a
religion that appeared to appeal to the feelings, and to produce results
never attained by brow-beating and personality—a lesson to be laid to
heart, and worthy of imitation, though in the quarter it was most needed
it was, I fear, utterly thrown away. Personally this influence did not
surprise me, for though debarred, by being a Protestant, from coming into
actual contact with the priest, I was considerably struck, and almost
fascinated, by the kind smile and friendly salutation he had for all his
co-religionists. An Italian by nationality, with all the refinement of
manner habitual to his countrymen, this polished gentleman was a
pronounced contrast to the fire-and-brimstone snob occasionally met with
in the “Established” ranks.