Aged near seventy. This poor old man has been confined at Sir Jonathan
Miles’s, in Old Bethlem, and here, altogether between thirty and forty
years; and was many of those years restrained in irons at Old Bethlem.
But his derangement is not abated. He has the strangest notions
imaginable: he believes himself to be a man of immense property; he
says he gave his son, in Somersetshire, a fortune of £400,000; but
they murdered him, and built monuments, churches, and canals with
the money. He has, by his own account, a hundred coaches running in
London at this day. As an amusement he has charge of the ducks, and
assists, as well as his age permits, the cutter of provisions. He is
particularly tender about the ducks and pigs; the ducks, he believes,
are of a very high breed, between a cock pheasant and a game hen; some
are double high, some treble high cross breed. When a duck is to be
killed it must be done without his knowledge: he soon, however, misses
it, and exclaims, “Ah! so they have been at their damnable work again,
have they? I’ll make them pay for it.” During the very cold weather in
January this year, when the pond was frozen over, all the ducks died
but four, and Goldney swore they had all been poisoned. He is equally
exasperated when a pig is killed: he believes ducks and pigs, Bethlem,
and all belonging to it, are his own property, and says they know it,
but they want to keep him out of it if they can, but it must come to
him after all, when the time comes. A pig was lately killed, which he
says he would not take any money for: he bought its mother in France
thirty-six years ago, and gave eighteen pounds twenty-eight shillings
and fourteen-pence, for her. He says he is but forty-six years old, and
has been confined forty-two years, but his present body is the third
he has had, the former two bodies were worn out many years ago: the
present one is forty-six years old. He chews a quantity of tobacco, and
when speaking to any one seriously, he turns his quid, winks his eyes
or shuts both, gives you a touch with his elbow, in a sort of knowing
way, and says, “all will be well with him very soon, he knows all about
it, but he keeps quiet and peaceable: he don’t let them know that he
knows anything about it, but they can’t deceive him.” In the last
summer he swore that air-pumps were employed to pump fleas into his
neck, with a view of devouring him alive: he believes that they (God
knows who) would give £500,000,000 of money if he was dead, but they
will be deceived, he assures them. He does some trifling jobs about
the house, which employ his mind; the exercise is conducive to his
health. His appetite is good, but age creeps on the poor fellow apace:
he is perfectly harmless, and may be trusted with safety any where; is
punctual and attentive in all his little works, and offensive to no one.