Aged fifty, admitted here about four years since. This man is another
transmit from the Hulks. He was tried in Bedfordshire for robbing a
house of forty pounds in cash, found guilty, and sent to the Hulks,
where he became insane, and was thence transmitted here.
Whatever might have been this man’s original frame of mind, he has here
distinguished himself only as a capricious, ill-tempered, disagreeable
fellow. He changes his humours every ten minutes throughout the day,
is always sulky, peevish, haughty, insolent, and abusive. He is what
is called a _knacky_ man, and is employed in several little operations
about the hospital, particularly in repairing the patient’s clothes,
for which he is regularly paid: but although this privilege supplies
him with many little comforts in his confinement which do not fall
to the lot of others, he thanks no one for the indulgence, takes the
little jobs with reluctance, snatches them roughly from the hands
of those who bring them, and dashes them violently into a corner of
his room; insults all who approach him in some way, and scarcely any
one escapes the vulgar abuse of his bitter and virulent tongue. He
is always discontented, unsettled, and obstinate; and, what renders
this conduct the more unsufferable is, that he appears to know very
well what he says and does: that his brutal rudeness is not the mere
result of insanity, but of his abominable temper, which he will
not try to controul; and which is, at all times, so unsufferable,
that it frequently becomes necessary to lock him up in his room. He
is, however, remarkably clean and regular in his person and in his
apartment, which he always keeps in the nicest order.