<h2> CHAPTER XIII.<br/> <i>In the Mad-House.</i> </h2>
<p>On the road to Sing Sing again! The
public may say I was surely an incorrigible
and ought to have been shut up anyway for safe
keeping, but are they right if they say so? During
my confinement I often heard the prison
chaplain preach from the text "Though thou
sinnest ninety and nine times thy sin shall be
forgiven thee."</p>
<p>Probably Christ knew what He meant: His
words do not apply to the police courts of
Manhattan. These do not forgive, but send
you up for the third term, which, if it is a
long one, no man can pass through without
impairment in body or in brain. It is better
to make the convict's life as hard as hell for a
short term, than to wear out his mind and
body. People need not wonder why a man,
knowing what is before him, steals and steals
again. The painful experiences of his prison
life, too often renewed, leave him as water
leaves a rubber coat. Few men are really
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_301' name='Page_301'>[301]</SPAN></span>
impressionable after going through the deadening
life in stir.</p>
<p>Five months of my third term I spent at
Sing Sing, and then, as on my first bit, I was
drafted to Auburn. At Sing Sing I was classified
as a second term man. I have already
explained that during my first term I earned
over a year's commutation time; and that that
time would have been legally forfeited when
I was sent up again within nine months for
my second bit if any one, except a few convicts,
had remembered I had served before.</p>
<p>When, on my third sentence, I now returned
to Sing Sing, I found that the authorities
were "next," and knew that I had "done"
them on the second bit. They were sore,
because it had been their own carelessness,
and they were afraid of getting into trouble.
To protect themselves they classified me as a
second term man, but waited for a chance to
do me. I suppose it was some d—— Dickey
Bird (stool-pigeon) who got them next that I
had done them; but I never heard who it was,
though I tried to find out long and earnestly.</p>
<p>When I got back to my cell in Sing Sing this
third time I was gloomy and desperate to an
unusual degree, still eaten up with my desire for
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_302' name='Page_302'>[302]</SPAN></span>
vengeance on those who had sent me to stir for
a crime I had not committed. My health was
so bad that my friends told me I would never
live my bit out, and advised me to get to
Clinton prison, if possible, away from the
damp cells at Sing Sing. But I took no
interest in what they said, for I did not care
whether I lived or died. I expected to die
very soon, and in the meantime thought I
was well enough where I was. I did not fear
death, and I had my hop every day. All I
wanted from the keepers was to be let alone
in my cell and not annoyed with work. The
authorities had an inkling that I was in a desperate
state of mind, and probably believed it
was healthier for them to let me alone a good
deal of the time.</p>
<p>Before long schemes began to form in my
head to make my gets (escape). I knew I
wouldn't stop at murder, if necessary in order
to spring; for, as I have said, I cared not
whether I lived or died. On the whole, however,
I rather preferred to become an angel at
the beginning of my bit than at the end. I
kept my schemes for escape to myself, for I
was afraid of a leak, but the authorities must
somehow have suspected something, for they
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_303' name='Page_303'>[303]</SPAN></span>
kept me in my cell twenty-three hours out of
the twenty-four. Perhaps it was just because
they had it in for me for beating them on my
second bit. As before, I consoled myself,
while waiting a chance to escape, with some
of my favorite authors; but my eye-sight was
getting bad and I could not read as much as I
used to.</p>
<p>It was during these five months at Sing Sing
that I first met Dr. Myers, of whom I saw
much a year or two later in the mad-house.
At Sing Sing he had some privileges, and
used to work in the hall, where it was easy for
me to talk to him through my cell door.
This remarkable man, had been a splendid
physician in Chicago. He had beaten some
insurance companies out of one hundred and
sixty-five thousand dollars, but was in Sing
Sing because he had been wrongfully convicted
on a charge of murder. He liked me,
especially when later we were in the insane
asylum together, because I would not stand
for the abuse given to the poor lunatics, and
would do no stool-pigeon or other dirty work
for the keepers. He used to tell me that I
was too bright a man to do any work with my
hands. "Jim," he said once, "I would rather
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_304' name='Page_304'>[304]</SPAN></span>
see you marry my daughter than give her to
an ignorant business man. I know you would
treat her kindly and that she would learn
something of the world. As my wife often
said, I would rather die at thirty-eight after
seeing the world and enjoying life than live in
a humdrum way till ninety."</p>
<p>He explained the insurance graft to me,
and I still think it the surest and most lucrative
of all grafts. For a man with intelligence
it is the very best kind of crooked work.
About the only way the insurance companies
can get back at the thieves is through a squeal.
Here are a few of the schemes he told me for
this graft:</p>
<p>A man and his female pal take a small
house in town or on the outskirts of a large
city. The man insures his life for five thousand
dollars. After they have lived there a
while, and passed perhaps as music teachers,
they take the next step, which is to get a dead
body. Nothing is easier. The man goes to
any large hospital, represents himself as a
doctor and for twenty-five dollars can generally
get a stiff, which he takes away in a barrel
or trunk. He goes to a furnished room,
already secured, and there dresses the cadaver
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_305' name='Page_305'>[305]</SPAN></span>
in his own clothes, putting his watch, letters
and money in the cadavers pockets. In the
evening he takes the body to some river or
stream and throws it in. He knows from the
newspapers when the body has been found,
and notifies his woman pal, who identifies it
as her husband's body. There are only two
snags that one must guard against in this plot.
The cadaver must not differ much in height
from the person that has been insured; and its
lungs must not show that they were those of
anybody dead before thrown into the water.
The way to prepare against this danger is to
inject some water with a small medical pump
into the lungs of the stiff before it is thrown
overboard. Then it is easy for the "widow"
to get the money, and meet the alleged dead
man in another country.</p>
<p>A more complicated method, in which more
money is involved, is as follows. The grafter
hires an office and represents himself as an
artist, a bric-à-brac dealer, a promoter or an
architect. Then he jumps to another city and
takes out a policy under the tontien or endowment
plan. When the game is for a very
large amount three or four pals are necessary.
If no one of the grafters is a doctor, a physician
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_306' name='Page_306'>[306]</SPAN></span>
must be impersonated, but this is easy.
If there are, say, ten thousand physicians in
Manhattan, not many of whom have an income
of ten thousand a year, it is perhaps
not difficult to get a diploma. After a sheepskin
is secured, the grafter goes to another
State, avoiding, unless he is a genuine physician,
New York and Illinois, for they have
boards of regents. The acting quack registers
so that he can practice medicine and hangs
out his shingle. The acting business man
takes out a policy, and pays the first premium.
Before the first premium is paid he is dead,
for all the insurance company knows. Often
a live substitute, instead of a dead one, is
secured. The grafter goes to the charity
hospital and looks over the wrecks waiting to
die. Some of these poor dying devils jump
at the chance to go West. It is necessary, of
course, to make sure that the patient will soon
become an angel, or everything will fall
through. Then the grafter takes the sick
man to his house and keeps him out of sight.
When he is about to die he calls in the grafter
who is posing as a physician. After the death
of the substitute the doctor signs the death
certificate, the undertaker prepares the body,
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_307' name='Page_307'>[307]</SPAN></span>
which is buried. The woman grafter is at the
funeral, and afterwards she sends in her claim
to the companies. On one occasion in Dr.
Myers's experience, he told me, the alleged
insured man was found later with his head
blown off, but when the wife identified the
body, the claim had been paid.</p>
<p class="p2">
One afternoon, after I had been at Sing
Sing five months, I was taken from my cell,
shackled hand and foot, and sent, with fifty
other convicts, to Auburn. When I had been
at Auburn prison about six months I grew
again exceedingly desperate, and made several
wild and ill-thought-out attempts to escape. I
would take no back talk from the keepers, and
began to be feared by them. One day I had
a fight with another convict. He struck me
with an iron weapon, and I sent him to the
hospital with knife thrusts through several
parts of his body. Although I had been a
thief all my life, and had done some strong
arm work, by nature I was not quarrelsome,
and I have never been so quick to fight as on
my third term. I was locked up in the dungeon
for a week and fed on bread and water in
small quantities. After my release I was confined
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_308' name='Page_308'>[308]</SPAN></span>
to my cell for several days, and used to
quarrel with whoever came near me. The
keepers began to regard me as a desperate
character, who would cause them a great deal
of trouble; and feared that I might escape or
commit murder at any time. One day, I remember,
a keeper threatened to club me with
a heavy stick he had. I laughed at him and
told him to make a good job of it, for I had
some years still to serve, and if he did not kill
me outright, I would have plenty of time to
get back at him. The cur pigged it (weakened).
They really wanted to get rid of me,
however, and one morning the opportunity
came.</p>
<p>I was feeling especially bad that morning
and went to see the doctor, who told me I had
consumption, and transferred me to the consumptive
ward in the prison. There the doctor
and four screws came to my bedside, and
the doctor inserted a hyperdermic needle into
my arm. When I awoke I found myself in
the isolated dungeon, nicknamed the Keeley
Cure by the convicts, where I was confined
again for several weeks, and had a hyperdermic
injection every day. At the end of that time
I was taken before the doctors, who pronounced
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_309' name='Page_309'>[309]</SPAN></span>
me insane. With three other convicts
who were said to be "pipes" (insane) I
was shackled hand and foot, put on a train
and taken to the asylum for the criminal insane
at Matteawan. I had been in bad places
before, but at Matteawan I first learned what
it is to be in Hell.</p>
<p>Why was I put in the Pipe House? Was
I insane?</p>
<p>In one way I have been insane all my life,
until recently. There is a disease called astigmatism
of the conscience, and I have been
sorely afflicted with that. I have always had
the delusion, until the last few months, that it
is well to "do" others. In that way I certainly
was "pipes." And in another way, too, I was
insane. After a man has served many years
in stir and has contracted all the vices, he is
not normal, even if he is not violently insane.
His brain loses its equilibrium, no matter how
strong-minded he may be, and he acquires
astigmatism of the mind, as well as of the conscience.
The more astigmatic he becomes,
the more frequently he returns to stir, where
his disease grows worse, until he is prison-mad.</p>
<p>To the best of my knowledge and belief I
was not insane in any definite way—no more
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_310' name='Page_310'>[310]</SPAN></span>
so than are nine out of ten of the men who had
served as much time in prison as I. I suppose
I was not sent to the criminal insane asylum
because of a perverted conscience. The stir,
I believe, is supposed to cure that. Why did
they send me to the mad-house? I don't
know, any more than my reader, unless it was
because I caused the keepers and doctors too
much trouble, or because for some reason or
other they wanted to do me.</p>
<p>But whether I had a delusion or not—and I
am convinced myself that I have always been
right above the ears—there certainly are many
perfectly sane men confined in our state
asylums for the criminal insane. Indeed, if all
the fake lunatics were sent back to prison, it
would save the state the expense of building
so many hospitals. But I suppose the politicians
who want patronage to distribute would
object.</p>
<p>Many men in prison fake insanity, as I have
already explained. Many of them desire to
be sent to Matteawan or Dannemora insane
asylums, thinking they will not need to work
there, will have better food and can more
easily escape. They imagine that there are
no stool-pigeons in the pipe-house, and that
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_311' name='Page_311'>[311]</SPAN></span>
they can therefore easily make their elegant
(escape). When they get to the mad-house
they find themselves sadly mistaken. They
find many sane stool-pigeons there, and their
plans for escape are piped off as well there as
in stir. And in other ways, as I shall explain,
they are disappointed. The reason the "cons"
don't get on to the situation in the mad-house
through friends who have been there is that
they think those who have been in the insane
asylum are really pipes. When I got out of
the mad-house and told my friends about it,
they were apt to remark, laconically, "He's in
a terrible state." When they get there themselves,
God help them. I will narrate what happened
to me, and some of the horrible things
I saw there.</p>
<p>After my pedigree was taken I was given
the regulation clothes, which, in the mad-house,
consist of a blue coat, a pair of grey trousers,
a calico shirt, socks and a pair of slippers. I
was then taken to the worst violent ward in
the institution, where I had a good chance to
observe the real and the fake lunatics. No
man or woman, not even an habitual criminal,
can conceive, unless he has been there himself,
what our state asylums are. My very
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_312' name='Page_312'>[312]</SPAN></span>
first experience was a jar. A big lunatic, six
feet high and a giant in physique, came up to
me in the ward, and said: "I'll kick your
head off, you ijit (idiot). What the —— did
you come here for? Why didn't you stop off
at Buffalo?" I thought that if all the loons
were the size of this one I wasn't going to have
much show in that violent ward; for I weighed
only one hundred and fifteen pounds at the
time. But the big lunatic changed his note,
smiled and said: "Say, Charley, have you
got any marbles?" I said, "No," and then,
quick as a flash, he exclaimed: "Be Japes,
you don't look as if you had enough brains to
play them."</p>
<p>I had been in this ward, which was under
the Head Attendant, nick-named "King"
Kelly, for two days, when I was taken away to
a dark room in which a demented, scrofulous
negro had been kept. For me not even a
change of bed-clothing was made. In rooms
on each side of me were epileptics and I could
hear, especially when I was in the ward, raving
maniacs shouting all about me. I was taken
back to the first ward, where I stayed for some
time. I began to think that prison was heaven
in comparison with the pipe house. The food
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_313' name='Page_313'>[313]</SPAN></span>
was poor, we were not supposed to do any
work, and we were allowed only an hour in the
yard. We stayed in our ward from half past
five in the morning until six o'clock at night,
when we went to bed. It was then I suffered
most, for there was no light and I could not
read. In stir I could lie on my cot and read,
and soothe my nerves. But in the mad-house
I was not allowed to read, and lay awake
continually at night listening to the idiots
bleating and the maniacs raving about me.
The din was horrible, and I am convinced that
in the course of time even a sane man kept in
an insane asylum will be mad; those who are
a little delusional will go violently insane. My
three years in an insane asylum convinced me
that, beyond doubt, a man contracts a mental
ailment just as he contracts a physical disease
on the outside. I believe in mental as well as
physical contagion, for I have seen man after
man, a short time after arriving at the hospital,
become a raving maniac.</p>
<p>For weeks and months I had a terrible fight
with myself to keep my sanity. As I had no
books to take up my thoughts I got into the
habit of solving an arithmetical problem every
day. If it had not been for my persistence in
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_314' name='Page_314'>[314]</SPAN></span>
this mental occupation I have no doubt I should
have gone violently insane.</p>
<p>It is only the sensitive and intelligent man
who, when placed in such a predicament, really
knows what torture is. The cries of the poor
demented wretches about me were a terrible
lesson. They showed me more than any other
experience I ever passed through the error of
a crooked life.</p>
<p>I met many a man in the violent ward who
had been a friend of mine and good fellow on
the outside. Now the brains of all of them were
gone, they had the most horrible and the most
grotesque delusions. But horrible or grotesque
they were always piteous. If I were to point
out the greatest achievement that man has
accomplished to distinguish him from the
brute, it would be the taking care of the insane.
A child is so helpless that when alms is asked
for his maintenance it is given willingly, for
every man and woman pities and loves a child.
A lunatic is as helpless as a child, and often
not any more dangerous. The maniac is misrepresented,
for in Matteawan and Dannemora
taken together there are very few who
are really violent.</p>
<p>And now I come to the most terrible part of
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_315' name='Page_315'>[315]</SPAN></span>
my narrative, which many people will not believe—and
that is the cruelty of the doctors
and attendants, cruelty practiced upon these
poor, deluded wretches.</p>
<p>With my own eyes I saw scores of instances
of abuse while I was at Matteawan and later
at Dannemora. It is, I believe, against the
law to strike an insane man, but any man who
has ever been in these asylums knows how
habitual the practice is. I have often seen
idiots in the same ward with myself violently
attacked and beaten by several keepers at
once. Indeed, some of us used to regard a
beating as our daily medicine. Patients are
not supposed to do any work; but those who
refused to clean up the wards and do other
work for the attendants were the ones most
likely to receive little mercy.</p>
<p>I know how difficult it is for the public to
believe that some of their institutions are as
rotten as those of the Middle Ages; and when
a man who has been both in prison and in the
pipe house is the one who makes the accusation,
who will believe him? Of course, his
testimony on the witness stand is worthless.
I will merely call attention, however, to the
fact that the great majority of the insane are
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_316' name='Page_316'>[316]</SPAN></span>
so only in one way. They have some delusion,
but are otherwise capable of observation
and of telling the truth. I will also add that
the editor of this book collected an immense
number of instances of brutality from several
men, besides myself, who had spent years
there, and that those instances also pointed to
the situation that I describe. Moreover, I can
quote the opinion of the writer on criminology—Josiah
Flynt—as corroborative of my statements.
He has said in my presence and in
that of the editor of this book, Mr. Hapgood,
that his researches have led him to believe
that the situation in our state asylums for the
criminal insane is horrible in the extreme.</p>
<p>Indeed, why shouldn't these attendants be
brutal? In the first place, there is very little
chance of a come-back, for who will believe
men who have ever been shut up in an insane
asylum? And very often these attendants
themselves are unhinged mentally. To begin
with, they are men of low intelligence, as is
shown by the fact that they will work for
eighteen dollars a month, and after they have
associated with insane men for years they are
apt to become delusional themselves. Taking
care of idiots and maniacs is a strain on the
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_317' name='Page_317'>[317]</SPAN></span>
intelligence of the best men. Is it any wonder
that the ordinary attendant often becomes
nervous and irascible, and will fly at a poor
idiot who won't do dirty work or whose silly
noises get on his nerves? I have noticed
attendants who, after they had been in the
asylum a few months, acquired certain insane
characteristics, such as a jerking of the head
from one side to the other, looking up at the
sky, cursing some imaginary person, and walking
with the body bent almost double.</p>
<p>Early in my stay at Matteawan I saw something
that made me realize I was up against a
hard joint. An attendant in the isolation
ward had an incurable patient under him,
whom he was in the habit of compelling to
do his work for him, such as caning chairs
and cleaning cuspidors. The attendants had
two birds in his room, and he used to make
Mickey, the incurable idiot, clean out the cage
for him. One day Mickey put the cages
under the boiling water, to clean them as
usual. The attendant had forgot to remove
the birds, and they were killed by the hot
water. Another crank, who was in the bath
room with Mickey, spied the dead pets, and
he and Mickey began to eat them. They
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_318' name='Page_318'>[318]</SPAN></span>
were picking the bones when the attendant
and two others discovered them—and treated
them as a golfer treats his golf-balls.</p>
<p>Another time I saw an insane epileptic
patient try to prevent four attendants from
playing cards in the ward on Sunday. He
was delusional on religious subjects and
thought the attendants were doing wrong.
The reward he received for caring for the
religious welfare of his keepers was a kick in
the stomach by one of the attendants, while
another hit him in the solar plexus, knocking
him down, and a third jammed his head on the
floor until the blood flowed. After he was
unconscious a doctor gave him a hyperdermic
injection and he was put to bed. How often,
indeed, have I seen men knocked out by
strong arm work, or strung up to the ceiling
with a pair of suspenders! How often have
I seen them knocked unconscious for a time
or for eternity—yes—for eternity, for insane
men sometimes do die, if they are treated too
brutally. In that case, the doctor reports
the patient as having died of consumption, or
some other disease. I have seen insane men
turned into incurable idiots by the beatings
they have received from the attendants. I
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_319' name='Page_319'>[319]</SPAN></span>
saw an idiot boy knocked down with an iron
pot because he insisted on chirping out his
delusion. I heard a patient about to be
beaten by four attendants cry out: "My God,
you won't murder me?" and the answer was,
"Why not? The Coroner would say you
died of dysentery." The attendants tried
often to force fear into me by making me
look at the work they had done on some
harmless lunatic. I could multiply instances
of this kind. I could give scores of them,
with names of attendants and patients, and
sometimes even the dates on which these
horrors occurred. But I must cut short this
part of my narrative. Every word of it, as
sure as I have a poor old mother, is true, but
it is too terrible to dwell upon, and will
probably not be believed. It will be put
down as one of my delusions, or as a lie
inspired by the desire of vengeance.</p>
<p>Certainly I made myself obnoxious to the
authorities in the insane asylum, for I objected
vigorously to the treatment of men really
insane. It is as dangerous to object to the
curriculum of a mad-house in the State of New
York as it is to find fault with the running of
the government in Russia. In stir I never
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_320' name='Page_320'>[320]</SPAN></span>
saw such brutality as takes place almost every
day in the pipe house. I reported what I saw,
and though I was plainly told to mind my own
business, I continued to object every time I
saw a chance, until soon the petty spite of the
attendants was turned against me. I was reported
continually for things I had not done,
I had no privileges, not even opium or books,
and was so miserable that I repeatedly tried
to be transferred back to prison. A doctor
once wrote a book called <i>Ten Years in a Mad-House</i>,
in which he says "God help the man
who has the attendants against him; for these
demented brutes will make his life a living
hell." Try as I might, however, I was not
transferred back to stir, partly because of the
sane stool-pigeons who, in order to curry
favor with the attendants, invented lies about
attempts on my part to escape. If I had not
had such a poor opinion of the powers that be
and had stopped finding fault I should no
doubt have been transferred back to what was
beginning to seem to me, by contrast, a
delightful place—state's prison.</p>
<p>The all absorbing topic to me in the pipe
house was paresis. I thought a great deal
about it, and observed the cranks about me
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_321' name='Page_321'>[321]</SPAN></span>
continually. I noticed that almost all insane
persons are musical, that they can hum a tune
after hearing it only once. I suppose the
meanest faculty in the human brain is that of
memory, and that idiots, lunatics and madmen
learn music so easily because that part of
the brain which is the seat of memory is the
only one that is active; the other intellectual
qualities being dead, so that the memory is untroubled
by thought.</p>
<p>I was often saddened at the sight of poor
George, who had been a good dip and an old
pal of mine. When he first saw me in the
pipe house he asked me about his girl. I
told him she was still waiting, and he said:
"Why doesn't she visit me then?" When
I replied: "Wait awhile," he smiled sadly,
and said: "I know." He then put his finger
to his head, and, hanging his head, his face
suddenly became a blank. I was helpless to
do anything for him. I was so sorry for him
sometimes that I wanted to kill him and myself
and end our misery.</p>
<p>Another friend of mine thought he had a
number of white blackbirds and used to talk
to them excitedly about gold. This man had
a finely shaped head. I have read in a book
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_322' name='Page_322'>[322]</SPAN></span>
of phrenology that a man's intelligence can be
estimated by the shape of his head. I don't
think this theory amounts to anything, for
most of the insane men I knew had good
heads. I have formed a little theory of my
own (I am as good a quack as anybody else)
about insanity. I used to compare a well
shaped lunatic's head to a lady's beautiful
jewel box from which my lady's maid had
stolen the precious stones. The crank's head
contained both quantity and quality of brains,
but the grey matter was lacking. The jewel
box and the lunatic's head were both beautiful
receptacles, but the value had flown.</p>
<p>Another lunatic, a man named Hogan,
thought that girls were continually bothering
him. "Now go away, Liz, and leave me
alone," he would say. One day a lady about
fifty years old visited the hospital with
Superintendent Allison, and came to the violent
ward where Hogan and I were. She was not
a bit afraid, and went right up to Hogan and
questioned him. He exclaimed, excitedly,
"Go away, Meg. You're disfigured enough
without my giving you another sockdolager."
She stayed in the ward a long while and asked
many questions. She had as much nerve as
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_323' name='Page_323'>[323]</SPAN></span>
any lady I ever saw. As she and Allison
were leaving the ward, Hogan said: "Allison,
chain her up. She is a bad egg." The next
day I learned that this refined, delicate and
courageous woman had once gone to war with
her husband, a German prince, who had been
with General Sherman on his memorable
march to the sea. She was born an American,
and belonged to the Jay family, but was now
the Princess Salm-Salm.</p>
<p>The most amusing crank (if the word
amusing can be used of an insane man) in the
ward was an Englishman named Alec. He
was incurably insane, but a good musician and
mathematician. One of his delusions was that
he was the sacred camel in the London Zoo.
His mortal enemy was a lunatic named Jimmy
White, who thought he was a mule. Jimmy
often came to me and said: "You didn't give
your mule any oats this morning." He would
not be satisfied until I pretended to shoe him.
Alec had great resentment for Jimmy because
when Alec was a camel in the London Zoo
Jimmy used to prevent the ladies and the kids
from giving him sweets. When Jimmy said:
"I never saw the man before," Alec replied
indignantly, "I'm no man. I'm a sacred camel,
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_324' name='Page_324'>[324]</SPAN></span>
and I won't be interfered with by an ordinary,
common mule, like you."</p>
<p>There are divers sorts of insanity. I had
an interview with a doctor, a high officer in
the institution, which convinced me, perhaps
without reason, that insanity was not limited
to the patients and attendants. One day an
insane man was struck by an attendant in the
solar plexus. He threw his hands up in the
air, and cried: "My God, I'm killed." I said
to another man in the ward: "There's murder."
He said: "How do you know?" I
replied: "I have seen death a few times."
In an hour, sure enough, the report came that
the insane man was dead. A few days later I
was talking with the doctor referred to and I
said:</p>
<p>"I was an eye-witness of the assault on
D——." And I described the affair.</p>
<p>"You have been reported to me repeatedly,"
he replied.</p>
<p>"By whom?" I asked, "attendants or
patients?"</p>
<p>"By patients," he replied.</p>
<p>"Surely," I remarked, "you don't believe
half what insane men tell you, do you? Doctor,
these same patients (in reality sane stool-pigeons)
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_325' name='Page_325'>[325]</SPAN></span>
that have been reporting me, have
accused you of every crime in the calendar."</p>
<p>"Oh, but," he said, "I am an old man and
the father of a family."</p>
<p>"Doctor," I continued, "do you believe
that a man can be a respectable physician and
still be insane?"</p>
<p>"What do you mean?" he said.</p>
<p>"In California lately," I replied, "A superintendent
of an insane asylum has been accused
of murder, arson, rape and peculation. This
man, too, was more than fifty, had a mother,
a wife and children, and belonged to a profession
which ought to be more sympathetic with
a patient than the church with its communicants.
When a man will stoop to such crimes,
is it not possible that there is a form of mental
disease called partial, periodical paralysis of
the faculty humane, and was not Robert Louis
Stevenson right when he wrote <i>Dr. Jekyl and
Mr. Hyde</i>?"</p>
<p>The doctor grabbed me by the wrist and
shouted: "Don't you dare to tell anybody
about this interview." I looked into his eyes
and smiled, for I am positive that at that
moment I looked into the eyes of a madman.</p>
<p>King Kelly, an attendant who had been on
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_326' name='Page_326'>[326]</SPAN></span>
duty in insane asylums for many years, was
very energetic in trying to get information
from the stool-pigeons. The patients used to
pass notes around among themselves, and the
attendants were always eager to get hold of
those notes, expecting to find news of beats
(escapes) about to be attempted. I knew
that King Kelly was eager to discover "beats"
and as I, not being a stool-pigeon, was in bad
odor with him, I determined to give him a jar.
So one day I wrote him the following note:</p>
<p>"Mr. Kelly; You have been in this hospital
for years. The socks and suspenders
which should go to the patients are divided
impartially between you and the other attendants.
Of the four razors, which lately arrived
for patients, two are in your trunk, one you
sent to your brother in Ireland, and the fourth
you keep in the ward for show, in case the
doctor should be coming around."</p>
<p>That night when I was going to bed I
slipped the note into the Kings hand and
whispered: "There's going to be a beat tonight."
The King turned pale, and hurriedly
ordered the men in the ward to bed, so that
he could read the note. Before reading it he
handed it to a doctor, to be sure to get the
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_327' name='Page_327'>[327]</SPAN></span>
credit of stopping the beat as soon as possible.
The doctor read it and gave the King the
laugh. In the morning, when the doctor made
his rounds, Mr. Kelly said to him: "We
have one or two funny men in the ward who,
instead of robbing decent people, could have
made their fortunes at Tony Pastor's." The
result was that the doctor put me down for
three or four new delusions. Knowing the
Celtic character thoroughly I used to crack
many a joke on the King. I would say to
another patient, as the King passed: "If it
hadn't been for Kelly we should have escaped
that time sure." That would make him wild.
My gift of ridicule was more than once valuable
to me in the mad-house.</p>
<p>But I must say that the King was pretty
kind when a patient was ill. When I was so
ill and weak that I didn't care whether I died
or not, the old King used to give me extras,—milk,
eggs and puddings. And in his heart
the old man hated stool-pigeons, for by nature
he was a dynamiter and believed in physical
force and not mental treachery.</p>
<p>The last few months I served in the insane
asylum was at Dannemora, where I was transferred
from Matteawan. The conditions at
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_328' name='Page_328'>[328]</SPAN></span>
the two asylums are much the same. While
at Dannemora I continued my efforts to be
sent back to stir to finish my sentence, and
used to talk to the doctors about it as often as
I had an opportunity. A few months before
I was released I had an interview with a Commissioner—the
first one in three years, although
I had repeatedly demanded to talk to one.</p>
<p>"How is it," I said, "that I am not sent
back to stir?"</p>
<p>He turned to the ward doctor and asked:
"What is this mans condition?"</p>
<p>"Imaginary wrongs," replied the doctor.</p>
<p>That made me angry, and I remarked,
sarcastically: "It is curious that when a man
tries to make a success at little things he is a
dead failure."</p>
<p>"What do you mean?" asked the Superintendent,
trying to feel me out for a new delusion.</p>
<p>I pointed to the doctor and said: "Only
a few years ago this man was interlocutor in
an amateur minstrel troupe. As a barn-stormer
he was a failure. Since he has risen to the
height of being a mad-house doctor he is a
success."</p>
<p>Then I turned to the Commissioner and
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_329' name='Page_329'>[329]</SPAN></span>
said: "Do you know what constitutes a cure
in this place and in Matteawan?"</p>
<p>"I'd like to know," he replied.</p>
<p>"Well," I said, "when a man stoops to
carrying tales on other patients and starts in
to work cleaning cuspidors, then, and not till
then, he is cured. Everybody knows that, in
the eyes of attendants and doctors, the worst
delusions in the asylum are wanting to go
home, demanding more food, and disliking to
do dirty work and bear tales."</p>
<p>I don't know whether my talk with the
Commissioner had any effect or not, but a
little while after that, when my term expired,
I was released. I had been afraid I should
not be, for very often a man is kept in the
asylum long after his term expires, even
though he is no more insane than I was. When
the stool-pigeons heard that I was to be released
they thought I must have been a rat under
cover, and applied every vile name to me.</p>
<p>I had been in hell for several years; but
even hell has its uses. When I was sent up
for my third term, I thought I should not live
my bit out, and that, as long as I did live, I
should remain a grafter at heart. But the
pipe house cured me, or helped to cure me, of
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_330' name='Page_330'>[330]</SPAN></span>
a vice which, if it had continued, would have
made me incapable of reform, even if I had
lived. I mean the opium habit. Before I
went to the mad-house there had been periods
when I had little opium, either because I could
not obtain it, or because I was trying to
knock it off. My sufferings in consequence
had been violent, but the worst moral and
physical torture that has ever fallen to my lot
came to me after I had entered the pipe
house; for I could practically get no opium.
That deprivation, added to the horrors I saw
every day, was enough to make any man
crazy. At least, I thought so at the time. I
must have had a good nervous system to have
passed through it all.</p>
<p>Insufficient hop is almost as bad as none at
all. During my first months in the madhouse,
the doctor occasionally took pity on
me and gave me a little of the drug, but taken
in such small quantities it was worse than useless.
He used to give me sedatives, however,
which calmed me for a time. Occasionally,
too, I would get a little hop from a trusty,
who was a friend of mine, and I had smuggled
in some tablets of morphine from stir; but the
supply was soon exhausted, and I saw that the
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_331' name='Page_331'>[331]</SPAN></span>
only thing to do was to knock it off entirely.
This I did, and made no more attempts to
obtain the drug. For the last two years in
the asylum I did not have a bit of it. I can
not describe the agonies I went through.
Every nerve and muscle in my body was in
pain most of the time, my stomach was constantly
deranged, my eyes and mouth exuded
water, and I could not sleep. Thoughts of
suicide were constant with me. Of course, I
could never have given up this baleful habit
through my own efforts alone. The pipe house
forced me to make the attempt, and after I
had held off for two years, I had enough
strength to continue in the right path, although
even now the longing for it returns to me. It
does not seem possible that I can ever go
back to it, for that terrible experience in the
mad-house made an indelible impression. I
shall never be able to wipe out those horrors
entirely from my mind. When under the influence
of opium I used frequently to imagine
I smelled the fragrance of white flowers. I
never smell certain sweet perfumes now without
the whole horrible experience rushing
before my mind. Life in a mad-house taught
me a lesson I shall never forget.
<span class='pagenum'><SPAN id='Page_332' name='Page_332'>[332]</SPAN></span></p>
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