From Kent Road, aged about forty-five, and transferred hither from
Old Bethlem. When this poor woman was brought from her previous place
of confinement, it was reported that she had been in irons for the
preceding seven years; but, thanks to the better management of this
institution, no such thing has taken place here.
The leading traits of this patient’s mind are the desire of increasing,
and the constant suspicion of being robbed of her treasure. The
depository of this is a box, which she carries about under her arm,
and in which she hoards every penny she can collect. This coffer
she values above all things, and it is her inseparable companion
wherever she goes: but, like most misers, she is under the perpetual
apprehension of being robbed. She imagines that the fellows come into
her room at nights, break open this box, and take her money out of
it. Her whole soul seems wrapt in this box and its contents. It is
sewed up in a wrapper of coarse linen, as if meant for exportation.
She is allowed to wash her own clothes once a fortnight, and her
coffer always accompanies her to the laundry, and in like manner
when she goes to the airing-ground, or elsewhere. She says this box
cost her six shillings and sixpence, which is a great deal of money;
but the fellows have so broken it, in their attempts to get out the
money, that she is always patching and mending it to keep it together.
All her cares and her constant complaints are about this box, its
fractures, and the robberies committed on it by the fellows, which is
all purely imaginary, for there are no visible marks of any injury on
her favourite depository. But she still insists that the fellows break
into her room by night, when she is asleep, lick the white-wash off
her walls, break open her box, steal out her ribbons and her money, and
do her much other mischief. They break in sometimes through the window,
sometimes down the chimney, and sometimes through the key-hole. Every
night produces some new misfortune, and every day some fresh complaint.
She has sometimes a turn for finery, and adorns herself, as she thinks,
in a very gay and tasteful style. Her hair is long and carrotty, which
she terms auburn; and she crops as much from the length as supplies her
with materials for fashionable front curls, whenever she chooses to
dress in full pomp.
She is in general remarkably cleanly and regular in her habits. She
sometimes gets into a passion, but when that fit subsides she is kind
and obliging. She is allowed the peculiar privilege of remaining in the
gallery all the year, if she chooses, while other patients are obliged
to go into the airing-ground; and she is never locked up in her room
by night or day, while all the other patients are locked up at eight
o’clock in the evening. She enjoys the pleasure of walking about the
gallery, amusing herself and protecting her property, until she chooses
to retire to rest.
She is perfectly harmless, honest, and, with very few exceptions,
well-behaved.