Aged thirty-seven, admitted 24th January 1822. This man is, in stature,
a minor giant, for he is six feet and four inches in height. He is a
well-digger by profession, and so much attached to this art of sinking
by his labours, that, on the first overt attack of his malady, he
jumped down into a well, ninety feet deep, with a view to destroy
himself; but was got up without much injury. Disappointed in his
first attempt, he contrived again to get to the well, and repeated
his experiment by another ninety-feet plunge, and again escaped
alive, and without any great injury sustained. It was then thought
high time to confine him, and since he was brought here he has acted
very suspiciously; but a strict watch is constantly kept over him,
to prevent suicide. He has once or twice taken a sly opportunity of
getting at a pail, which he filled with water at the pump, and plunged
his head into it, for the purpose of suffocation, which was prevented.
When he cannot get at the pail, he takes the night-bowl in his room,
fills it with water, or any liquid he can procure, and plunges his
head into it, for the like fatal purpose; but it is too shallow to
answer his intentions.
It appears this man has two wives, both living, and four children by
the second. Whether the double dose of matrimony, or fanaticism, had
the effect of producing his disorder, is not certain: but, he says,
his first spouse was troubled with fits, and, when one of those came
on, she had the devil in her: she had them so frequently, that at last
she became crazed, and was a wife fit for no man, according to his
estimation, and therefore he got another.
He says he was a staunch Church of Englandman all his life, until
within these few years; but he dissented from the high church, and
became a methodist, and from that time he has been made sensible of the
enormity of his sins--sins of such magnitude, as can never be pardoned.
He is usually sunk in mournful melancholy; and seldom, if ever,
speaks, except to answer a question. He will remain for hours fixed
like a statue in one position, with a long-drawn visage, the emblem
of despair. When he sits down it is often difficult to raise him. He
hates locomotion; refuses to go to his dinner, and says he would rather
be cut into ten thousand pieces than go. The keepers are then obliged
to carry him to dinner by force, and sometimes up stairs from the
airing-ground, or wherever this fancy takes him. He is deeply read in
the Bible, and quotes promptly, from every part of the Scripture, texts
which he thinks corroborate his desponding notions, but he says he
cannot follow up what the Scriptures prescribe.
This poor fellow is a native of Somersetshire, where he married his
first wife. He came here from Wrotham, in Kent, where he lived a long
time, with an excellent character for honesty, sobriety, and industry:
but from the time his mind received the first taint of fanaticism his
delusion increased. So deeply has his melancholy struck root in his
mind, that he has never been once seen to smile since his admission;
and although he seems at times to get somewhat better, his case, on the
whole, is rather hopeless.