SKETCHES IN BEDLAM. (continued 2)

He is a native of Wales; his father is a military officer, and his brother is in the Royal Navy.

He appears to conduct himself rationally, and never displays any symptoms of frenzy. He seldom converses with any of the other patients, but maintains towards all the most haughty reserve. He frequently bursts out in laughter without any obvious cause; but is regular, cleanly, and harmless. He receives his half-pay, about seventy pounds a year, which he spends chiefly in trifles, apple-pies, and various kinds of pastry.

WILLIAM GAMMAGE,

Aged forty, admitted July 18th 1818. This patient had been a seaman, and comes from the workhouse at Ipswich, where he was confined as insane; and where, in his frenzy, he murdered two persons. He came here loaded with irons. His intellects are lost beyond all hopes of restoration; and though freed from personal restraint, he is under strict vigilance, to prevent mischief from any sudden paroxysm of that dreadful mania, to which two unfortunate persons have already fallen victims in his former place of confinement.

FRANCIS WILKES,

A Welchman, aged twenty-seven, admitted about five years since. He was before a patient in Old Bethlem when a boy, and was discharged cured: but at more advanced years he became again deranged; and having in a paroxysm of frenzy murdered his mother, was sent here, where he is constantly confined in the criminal wing.

He is extremely vicious and dangerous while the paroxysms of his disorder continue (which do not very frequently occur), and then he would murder indiscriminately all he met, friends or strangers; but in his tranquil intervals he is generally quiet and well-conducted. He is handy and industrious, and can make and mend the clothes of the other patients, for which he is regularly paid.

JOHN WILLIAMS,

Aged forty-four, admitted about four years since. This is another Welchman. He was found guilty of murder, by killing a young woman with a mattoc. But this shocking act was considered to be the result of insanity, and he was sent to this hospital.

This Cambro-Briton stands very high in the list of his own admirers; and brags much of his ancient and illustrious descent from the Ap-Shenkins, Ap-Morgans, Ap-Maddocs, Ap-Jones’s, Ap-Gwillins, and all the other Aps up to the first trunk, the aboriginal tree of Welch genealogy. He speaks very bad English: a sort of piebald mixture, half Welch and half Lancashire. But this he will not believe, and insists that he speaks as well as any man in London; to prove which, his tongue is everlastingly on the move, with due rapidity, and the true Shiboleth of Glamorganshire. He is, however, generally quiet and harmless; and, with his flat face, high cheek-bones, and dingy complexion, bears a strong resemblance to a North-American Squaux.

His high blood, however, does not raise his notions above the humble avocations of commerce; for he is the principal tobacco-merchant here, and drives a brisk traffic in that article amongst his fellow-patients. Although the sale of tobacco is discountenanced and forbidden by the Board, yet, even with the utmost vigilance, it cannot be wholly prevented, for there are constantly so many schemes on foot, so much artifice used, and so many plans and contrivances in operation to obtain it, as to baffle all exertions to put a stop to the trade.

There can be no question that the forbidding this article is founded upon the best intentions; but there are many of the patients here who, from habits of ten, twenty, thirty, and even forty years’ use of tobacco, in some shape or other, have contracted such an insuperable attachment to it, that they would much rather go without dinners than their beloved quid. Others prefer snuff, and those patients who have been long used to it are always discontented, fretful, and peevish, if debarred this comfort, either through the want of money to purchase, or the neglect of their friends to supply them with it. There seems to exist in the use of tobacco, as well as in madness, a pleasure which none but the infatuated know: and, trifling as the privation of those little enjoyments seems, it revives in the memory of the patients a sense of former grievances, gives them an idea that they are quite forsaken, renders them irritable, and has sometimes very injurious effects.

A trifling neglect will sometimes prey upon the weak sensibilities even of convalescents; and when this original distraction is rapidly subsiding, the privation of these little enjoyments will obviously renew it; when perhaps a timely recourse to the tobacco or snuff-box would divert the mind, and obviate such reflexions all together.

But it is not in the minds of the insane only that these habits take root, and become secondary wants of nature. All habits, long indulged, become inveterate, and are extremely difficult effectually to conquer, even in the best-bred classes of life, as all must have felt: and such particularly is the fascination of that nauseous and narcotic herb, tobacco, on persons in the constant habit of using it in any given form, that they become uneasy and fretful in the want of it. This is a fact more intimately known to every observant person conversant in the military and naval service, and who must have frequently seen that both soldiers and seamen, on the hardest service, would sell the shirts from their backs, or, what they value much more, their allowances of grog or wine, to obtain a little tobacco or snuff, whichever their habits led them to prefer. If such be the influence of those habits on men in robust health and of sane mind, what must be the case with those wretched maniacs, who have nothing to occupy or amuse them; and with whom a quid of tobacco, a pinch of snuff, or the smoaking of a pipe will do more to tranquilize and assuage irritation, than twenty-four hours of the most judicious reasoning or soothing advice?

Hence it is that the Virginian commissary, John Ap-Williams, is a much more favourite resident in this lunatic republic, than would be an imperial ambassador without this favourite commodity.

JOSEPH PANTER,

From Wallingford, Berks, admitted 16th March 1820. This poor fellow gives a curious account of his origin and progress. According to him, he is a child of Apollo; for he was engendered by the sun shining upon a dunghill, near his father’s door. He received his first existence in the form of a flea; and in about two hours afterwards he was transformed to a fine boy, of nine years old. He grew up, and was apprenticed to a shoemaker; and after his time was served, he married a beautiful wife, by whom he had two children; but she proved unfaithful. Business became bad; distress followed; and it was necessary that both should seek employment in London. A place was supposed to be obtained for her: but alas! her infidelity to him soon appeared; for the very stage-coachman who drove her to town, to her supposed service, was now her lord and master, for she has been living with him ever since; and poor Joe has been deserted and deranged from that time. His poor dear infants, he says, are, with his father and himself, placed here at the parish expense. Since he came in here he has imagined himself to be the only true and real Son of God, both spiritually and bodily. He clearly remembers having suffered on the cross. He remembers the countenances of all present at the time, what was said to him, how he was treated in his sufferings, and every circumstance of his bodily pain. He has power to condemn all whom he pleases, and of saving and rendering happy such as he thinks fit; and, in virtue of his power, he will, for the most trivial offence, consign any offender to the bottomless pit of fire and brimstone. He assigns a name of his own to every individual around him. One is Judas, who betrayed him; another is one of the thieves, who suffered with him at his crucifixion; a third is Peter, who thrice denied him; a fourth is Thomas, who disbelieved him; a fifth the Virgin Mary: one he saw hanged at Newgate for horse-stealing, another at Exeter for some other crime; another is Bonaparte himself; another is a common swindler, whom he knew very well, and who cheated him of vast property; and so on in an hundred instances. He would affect to know every body; and to every one (except his brother) he assigns some new name or character: one is a shoeblack, another a stocking-weaver, a waiter, a butcher, &c. &c.

He is himself a Pythagorean philosopher; firmly believes in the Metempsychosis, and that the soul of man after his death descends into a brute, and afterwards reverts into a man. Some months ago he described the butcher’s horse that brings meat to the hospital as an old friend of his named Thomas Holloway, who being hanged for coining, was afterwards transformed into this horse. He knows the secrets of all hearts, and cannot be deceived by any one.

In the summer he is employed in white-washing the house, for which he is paid; generally conducts himself pretty quietly, and has committed no violence, except now and then breaking a window, and occasionally tearing his clothes, which he says he is obliged to do, “the time being now come.” But he is extremely passionate, easily excited, and in that state is terribly abusive: his tongue, however, is the only ill weapon he uses.

PHILIP PACE,

Aged about thirty-five, from Westminster, admitted about five years since. This man was tried and convicted of violently assaulting and cruelly beating a youth: but he was found to be insane at the time, and was sent to this hospital. He is very sullen, and seldom converses with any one; but whenever he feels occasion to speak, he is extremely insolent and abusive, uses the very vilest language imaginable, and is proud and haughty, although evidently of the lowest order of the canaille.

THOMAS JONES,

From London, admitted November 26th, 1818. This extraordinary maniac was formerly engaged in the silk trade; and though almost the wildest of the wild, in this or any similar institution, he thinks himself perfectly sound in mind as well as body, although the regions of fancy scarcely afford limits to his conceptions, and his frenzy is only equalled by his arguments to disprove it. From the airs of consequence he assumes, he would seem to soar above the ranks of nobility. The knowledge of his importance, he imagines, has rendered all the great his enemies, and that all personages of rank in England are leagued in a conspiracy for the sole purpose of keeping him in this “Bastile,” as he calls it; and which is to him the source of intolerable anguish. “Here,” he exclaims, “is a piece of complicated villainy, to detain me, a man of my rank and importance; and, what is still worse, contriving by galvanic and electrical machines to ruin my health, to waste my person, and to destroy my faculties; to feed me like a dog, to put me to bed like a pig, and, in fact, to make a laughing-stock of me, to gratify and amuse the authors of this case of villainy and cruelty.”

His head is bald, which he takes every opportunity of exhibiting to all visitors, by taking off his hat with an air of dignified politeness, and then addressing them with “How do you do, ladies, or gentlemen? My name is Thomas Jones, a liveryman of the City of London, and alderman and Lord Mayor Apparent. Pray have you any knowledge of the Effingham family? Do you know Lady Effingham? Have you any interest in getting me out of this place? You see what a state I am brought to (rubbing his bald head). You perceive, I suppose, that my confinement has deprived me of my hair? Do you not conceive it a shameful transaction, to deprive an Englishman of his liberty thus, in a land of boasted freedom, too? You will oblige me very much to try what you can do towards my removal. My dear Sir George Tuthill will not define the nature of insanity; and because it seems he cannot, I am to be the sufferer, and imprisoned here.”

He is ambitious to prove himself, in his own way, a man of highly scientific character; and pretends to have discovered that all the royal palaces, Westminster Hall, Westminster Abbey, White Hall, the theatres, all the fire-insurance, and other public offices and great public buildings, have each established within them electrical, galvanic, and magnetic machines, erected expressly for the purpose of combining their influential powers to annoy him. That they are in continual operation for this purpose; and that their several pipes and conductors are united to form one grand power, by which their collective effects are propelled to a junction with all the gas and water pipes, along which they run from one iron conductor to another, until they arrive at Bethlem; when their forces ascend to the iron roof of the building, whence they run along the iron ceiling of his gallery, and then descend upon him by night in a combined focus, which produces effects highly injurious to his health.

In addressing himself to persons of rank who occasionally visit the hospital, he maintains a high dogmatical manner, styles himself Thomas Jones Dashwood Howard, of Effingham, Esq., and represents his confinement here as tyrannical, despotic, cruel, vindictive, and villainous; and he declaims, rants, abuses, and hectors over all. But when his physician appears, he assumes a consequential tone of remonstrance:—“Well, Sir George Tuthill, what have you done about getting me out of this place? You perceive I am losing time and wasting the best of my days.” Then, taking off his hat and displaying his baldness, he adds, “I believe here is a sufficient proof of the consequence of my imprisonment.”

Sir George, with great patience and humanity, attends to his speech, and to pacify him promises he will do all he can for him. But the Hon. Thomas Jones Dashwood Howard, of Effingham, must have more decisive proofs of his intentions: “he will be liberated.”—“If,” says he, “you have had an interest in detaining me here, after all that I have suffered, you might, I think, have been satisfied by this time, therefore let me go out.”

Sir George then promises to do for him every thing more in his power. But this will not do: and after a good deal of his usual logic, he goes on: “then I will not mince matters with you any longer, but tell you that you are a damned ——” (every abusive epithet he can think of); and the matter necessarily ends in his removal under the charge of his keeper.

He suspects every person of respectable appearance who visits the hospital as concerned in his detention. But if any nobleman, particular gentleman, merchant, or foreigner comes, he will say, “Oh! perhaps, I shall have something from him. I suspect he has some hand in my business: I don’t know positively, but I think it very likely.” And in this way he has gone on till very lately.

The first symptoms of his malady were discovered by a love fit. He formed a violent attachment to a young lady of Skinner-street, and, without consulting her inclinations, went to his brother, who is a goldsmith, and obtained a number of different sized wedding rings. Without further ceremony he waited on the lady, then a few miles from town, made a gallant tender of his heart and hand, presented the rings for her choice of one, and ardently pressed her to accompany him to the altar immediately. But his proposal was rejected, and the disconsolate Thomas Jones Dashwood Howard, of Effingham, was ultimately consigned to this mansion by his friends.

He has of late fallen again into the tender passion, with a young lady whom he never saw but at her own window in this neighbourhood, about two hundred yards distant from the hospital: and this new passion has supplanted his former flame. He has been in the habit of standing for hours together, at a window at the east end of the gallery where he is lodged, contemplating the distant charms of his new adorable Dulcinea, as she accidentally appears at her back chamber window, wholly insensible to the ardour of his devotions; and though he is separated from her by seven walls and a garden, still he considers his soft whispers as conveyed to her ear. He tells her his high quality and noble alliance; imagines she hears him, treats his tender tale with coyness, and he continues, “Now, my dearest love, you should not, you should not do so. You know your mother’s temper and mine: that I esteem you more than life, which I would sacrifice for a moment’s pleasure to your dear self. I have purchased a house and carriage, and every thing necessary for us to move in the first circles of fashion.” He then waits for the fair one’s imaginary answer: and no sooner does it reach his fancy’s ear, than all is immediately reconciled; and he resumes his tender tales of love with as much ardour as if he were really at the fair one’s feet: and notwithstanding this ideal courtship has lasted three months, he knows not the lady’s name or address, nor any thing about her, although the surrounding walls daily echo his ardent protestations, while his Dulcinea del Toboso is quite unconscious of his pain.

The following is one of his letters to the fair incognita, whom he addresses as his wife:

“Bethlem Hospital, July 16, 1822. “My Dear Wife:

“I am sorry I have not the pleasure of seeing or viewing your person, although prevented by my situation from your pleasant conversation.

“I wish you had furnished me with paper, India ink, pencils, &c., and during your enjoyments away from home I might have drawn something, though not of the best style, to have amused me, and met your view of judgment upon return. I should have been most happy to have been with you at the present, and hope you will not allow me to remain under restraint of liberty, but apply, or instruct some professional character, or some one, for my release. I hope your mother is well, and desire my duty to her. Upon return you will be able to give me particulars, or shall be most happy to hear from you enjoying good health, with pleasant society, and all the scenes of innocence for amusements. My brother Charles, with your brother Capt. Dashwood, I think might do something in getting me away, or what their views may be I know not, as to any intentions respecting me; my former letter to you, &c. in support with the annexed side might do much for the families—However I do not wish to trouble myself more than may be satisfactory to you and perfectly to your pleasure and satisfaction—Your aunt does not appear to have drawn any public painting, and that which I first formed may now stand without any madness being attached thereto—and those that acknowledged piracies and slavery were now, as by the statement, freedom and liberty, pax et libertas, St. Domingo, Hispaniola, America et Mexico, et Africa—and this motto as to the drawing.

“On July 10, 1822, I see, the meeting of the Company at the City of London Tavern—for to acknowledge the independence of Columbia;—now no one need be afraid of their sentiments, and will prove mine in conformity of that drawing you’re acquainted with.

“And am,

“Your sincere and loving husband,

“Thomas Jones.

“You must excuse my writing, as my ink was bad, and partly written in the dark.”

There is no such person as the lady described, no such name in the neighbourhood, nor has he any knowledge of her, except by sight, and can merely see the back of the house she inhabits from the hospital. He has, however, furnished the lady with a name, and given her an address quite remote from the view of the hospital. So much for the consistency of poor Thomas Howard Dashwood Effingham Jones.

JOHN PALING,

Aged about forty-five. This man was tried and convicted of the wilful murder of a young woman who was his sweetheart, and a suspicion of her inconstancy was said to have prompted him to the horrid act. But he was found to be insane in his intellects, and was sent here upwards of five years since. He is of a sullen and morose disposition, and it requires, of course, much caution to avoid offending him; but in general he is tolerably well-behaved, and evinces no obvious symptoms of insanity.

RICHARD POCOCK,

From Guilford, Surrey, admitted in March 1818. This poor fellow had been formerly a servant to a gentleman, a banker at Guilford, of whom, even in his present state of derangement, he still speaks in the strongest terms of respect, gratitude, and attachment. In this gentleman’s service he bore the character of a faithful, active, cleanly, and attentive domestic. But his manners in these respects are now, like his mind, totally changed. He was afterwards servant with another gentleman, a contractor in the Island of Jersey; and next enlisted as a soldier, and served in Spain, Portugal, and North America. He was discharged at the termination of the war, and returned to Guilford, where he was first taken ill, and was sent to the workhouse. According to his own statement, his illness at that time was only bodily; but as he got better, being one day hungry, he tore up his shirt, “to make the most of it,” as he says, and sent it out by a boy to sell as old rags; in return for which the boy brought him a two-penny loaf and twopence-worth of tobacco. From the circumstance of thus disposing of his shirt, the overseers deemed him mad, and ordered him to be secured in a straight-waistcoat. This set him mad in earnest: he became violent, and was ultimately sent to this hospital, where he is now deemed incurable.

Though he has some lucid intervals, his time from morning to night is usually spent in lamenting his misfortunes. The principal object of his anxiety and affection is a daughter, whom, he says, he had formerly by a young woman at Guilford. He describes her as a beautiful girl of twenty; and says that she supposes her father dead. It was after her birth that he went to Jersey, which led to all his misfortunes.

From these distracting reflections he will suddenly start off into the most wild and heterogeneous flights of fancy and incoherent nonsense; more especially after he uses much tobacco, of which he is inordinately fond, and which intoxicates and excites him like opium or spirits. Sometimes he supposes the world not thicker than a half-crown, and expects every moment that all things will perish. He imagines that whatever he thinks of is immediately destroyed: or, as he terms it, “thrown up.” In this notion he will often say “he has, by thinking of it, destroyed America, and has just thrown up Jersey, and France, and Spain, and Portugal, and all the monkeys at Gibraltar, and Plymouth-Dock, and Battle in Sussex and Hastings; that he has cut up Mrs. Such-an-one’s hen-roost, and Mr. Such-an-one’s pig-stye at Guilford; and that his poor, dear Guilford, where his good and worthy friends Mr. H—— and his family lived, is now no more.” But he declares he cannot help all this destruction, for, in spite of all he can do, whatever he thinks of is instantly destroyed.

The next day he will try to remedy the mischief and misery he has produced by thinking; and with his eyes closed, his body bent double, and his hands and arms extended in front, like one groping in the dark, he will exclaim: “I never thought of America, nor Jersey, nor France, nor Spain, nor Portugal, nor Plymouth-Dock. I never thought of a pig-stye, nor of Guilford. Oh, poor Guilford! and poor, good Mr. H—— (his former master). I never thought of a ploughshare, nor yet of a knapsack, nor yet of a summer-house, nor a spicket and fosset, nor a monkey’s-beard, nor a hen’s-foot, nor a finger-organ, nor a boar’s-bristle: I never thought of a parson, nor yet of a hedge-hog, nor of a flying-squirrel in America; nor yet of a monkey shaving himself, nor of the hinges of Mr. H——’s cellar-door, nor of the river of Polinac, in France, where I sailed from;” with innumerable other topics equally wild. But when his poor, distracted mind is quite tired out with such exertions, he usually concludes the day by more calm, but pathetic reflexions on his beloved daughter. “Ah! my poor, dear girl! could I but once see you, I should then die contented!” and instantly bursts into tears. After he retires to bed, the first two hours are generally devoted to curses and execrations “on the authors of his confinement; and of his separation from his dear, delightful daughter, his home, and his every comfort and happiness.”

What a task would it be for the metaphysician to analyze the structure of such a mind, or disentangle the confusion of its ideas!

Though he has been sometimes violent in the paroxysms of his disorder, he is in general perfectly harmless.

JOHN READ,

From Lancashire, middle-aged, admitted August 6th 1818. This is a sullen rancorous fellow; he has been a seaman, and formerly in Old Bethlem, and in a mad-house at Hoxton. He never speaks to any one but in a manner quite unintelligible. He sometimes writes with chalk on the walls, in a sort of hieroglyphic quite as obscure as his conversation: such as, “27th Lancashire, mind 1 No. 8. Old clothes. No. 3.—Alepass. Ireland—his own—thro No. 1879. 4th Bridge.”

This man seems by nature savage, and is extremely furious and dangerous. For the smallest imagined offence he will knock down a fellow-patient, and beat and kick him most unmercifully. Indeed he will sometimes do so without any cause, real or fanciful. He has been, therefore, put under restraint; which renders him still worse, and more vicious; and therefore he is sometimes locked up in his room, but has now for a considerable time been under no strict restraint.

The most trivial quarrel or falling-out with another he will remember for years: nay, he will never forget or forgive it. In his general behaviour he is pretty regular, and cleanly in his person; but so vicious and treacherous, that he cannot be trusted. In October 1822 he attacked one of the keepers, tore the waistcoat and shirt off his back, and would have done him much personal mischief, had not assistance immediately arrived. He is a powerful fellow, apparently in robust health. He likes to be alone, and never takes his meals with the other patients, but by himself. At one time he took a liking to the privy as his favourite residence, and used to carry his meals to that place or to the airing ground, if he could get there. While lord of the privy, it was extremely unsafe for any one obnoxious to him to approach it. He would fiercely spring out upon them, like a tiger; and by furious blows or kicks drive them away. But after some time he was induced to abandon this delicate dining-room, and transfer his refectory to the airing-ground, except when the weather was rainy.

JOSEPH COATES,

An old North-countryman, admitted on the 6th of August 1818. This poor fellow was formerly an inmate of Old Bethlem, and was also at a private mad-house at Hoxton. He had been a seafaring-man, and is much deranged. He has at times lucid, or at least quiet intervals, and is then remarkably composed; and when spoken to merely answers, yes or no. But when his malady returns with some force, and the fit is high, he is a loud ranter, and sometimes believes himself to be Moses: “The only true Moses.” He is extremely abusive to every one he sees; suspects all of robbing him, and is extremely addicted to chewing tobacco; in the place of which he will chew rags, grass, or any thing else he can get. Sometimes he will exclaim, “I am God; I will hang that rascal;” pointing to somebody, “he has robbed me of five hundred johannas” (gold or silver, as his fancy dictates). He considers all yellow metal-buttons gold, and all white ones silver: and such is his avidity to accumulate riches of this kind, while his delirium lasts (which is generally about a week at a time), that he picks up, wherever he can find them, pieces of glass, or scraps of tin, with which he contrives to cut off all the buttons from his own coat, waistcoat, and breeches, and from those of all the melancholy and stupid fellow-patients (never attempting this with those of other descriptions); and the buttons thus obtained he grinds upon the first convenient stone he meets, until they are flat and smooth on both sides; and by virtue of this mintage they become, in his estimation, “lawful money, gold or silver johannas.” The total defect of buttons on his own clothes he supplies by various strings torn from the rug on his bed, his blue handkerchief, or any other rag. Those who give him tobacco, at once obtain his friendship; but he will sell it to any one on any other terms.

He constantly talks of “his ships, of his great losses and misfortunes, and the manner in which he will punish those who robbed him;” which description includes every body he sees. He imagines himself to be a consummate judge of the weather, and director of the winds. Sometimes he changes from a mariner and ship-owner to a builder and mason, and imagines he has a great deal of work to do.

He has never done any remarkable mischief; although, when in his high fits, if he could find a weapon he would become dangerous, and therefore cannot be trusted.

RICHARD JENKINS,

Aged forty-seven, admitted August 6th, 1818. This curious Cambro-Briton is a native of Cardiff, in Wales. He was formerly confined in Old Bethlem, and also in a private mad-house at Hoxton; and altogether, including his residence here, for a period of ten years.

He was originally a labouring-man, but was impressed into the navy. He was last on board the Salvador del Mundo guard-ship, at Plymouth; where his insanity first became apparent, and thence was sent to a mad-house.

He labours under a thorough conviction that he was first confined with a view to murder him; that both his father and mother were murdered; and that his sisters were also murdered by the present King, when he was Prince of Wales. He feels an implacable hostility towards Admiral Young and General England, who, he says, have conspired against him, and employed people to kill him. That they told him if he would change his religion he should become a great man; but that he rejected their offer, told them that he was brought up by his parents in the fear of God, and taught to say the Lord’s Prayer in Welsh, and he would “stand by the Old Books:” (this sage polemic can neither read nor write).

He says, that when he engaged with Admiral Young and General England to enter the service, he agreed for honest dealing, Christian usage, kind treatment, and fair play: but he complains that they broke their agreement with him; and knowing well “that their heads must come off for it, they have tried to murder him, in order to get him out of the way.” That he knows to a certainty Government is concerned, and would readily give him any sum of money he chose to ask, and his release to boot, if he would only consent to hold his tongue. But no, no: this he cannot do; for if he did he would sell his soul. He must be a Shylock: but no, no, that won’t do with him: the two heads! the two heads! they must come off, and nothing else will satisfy him. “I know,” says he, with a sly wink, and a cunning leer, “I shall not be here much longer.” When he goes hence he knows he will be sent to another place of confinement, but that will be only for a short time; and after that his business is to be settled. “The two heads! you know, the two heads! they must come off.” Government, he says, would give him twenty millions of money to have done with him, and prevent the exposure of some grand secret which he has conjured up in his own fancy, and looks extremely knowing and mysterious when he alludes to them. When pressed to divulge those secrets in great confidence, he explains one of them to be, that officers of high rank in the navy get their sons and relatives rated on the ships’ books as midshipmen, as soon as they are born; that their promotions go regularly on from that time; and that they may become lieutenants, captains, and even admirals, without ever joining or seeing the ships on which they are rated.

The other budget of secrets is that unfair practice by which the officers of the Navy should be appointed to try each other by court-martial; when it can never be supposed that they, who mess together, would be hard upon each other. If this is to be, he insists that the sailors, too, should be tried by their own messmates, instead of their officers. But, as things go on now, “there is no law, justice, civil treatment, Christian usage, or fair play, which it was his agreement to have.”

Another of his secrets applies to the alleged abuses in the misapplication of provisions, which he will be bound to prove; and so far from his having any intentions to compromise the business with them, he would sooner lose his life. “Don’t let them think,” says the incorruptible Richard, “that they shall stop my mouth for a paltry bribe of twenty millions!” (then comes a hurricane of blasts, and damns upon eyes, limbs, and timbers, with appellations not the most delicate for the objects of his vengeance.) “No,” continues he, “if they were to give me ten thousand of money I would not make it up with them: for law and justice I will have, from William Young, and that fellow they call General England.”

On being told that Admiral Young was dead: “It don’t signify about that,” continued he, “he must be up and answer for himself; and I will have his head off.”

His religious notions are of a piece with his other vagaries; for although he declares his determination “to stand by the Old Books,” he has never explained the points of doctrine they contain. He has, however, fixed on Wednesday as his Sabbath, which he keeps with great strictness. He has seen very little of the world beyond his native village, and the ship he was on board of: but he believes his own home in Wales to be the garden of the world; and that at the last day God Almighty will come to Cardiff, to try all souls for their deeds: and when he goes to the Town-hall, he will tell him that he is not particularly obliged to him for his mercy, because he has promised to be merciful to all men; and why should one man in particular thank him? He says his prayers every night in Welsh and English; and though his dialect in the latter is as bad as Briton can utter, he fancies that no man can excel him in the language.

He partakes a good deal in the fanciful transmutation of persons so frequent with others; and by a sort of second sight, conceives that he sees persons totally different from those he looks at.

He says, “that Sir George Tuthill, the physician, was a Jew dealer in watches, jewellery, and trinkets at Plymouth, and that his name was Johnson;” by which name he always calls him. He says that “Mr. Burgess,” one of the governors, “is no other than Buggy Burgess, who was a parson’s son at Cardiff, but ran away, and turned pirate in a privateer; obtained a large sum of money, and is now turned fine gentleman;” and in like manner of several others; probably substituting some faint traces of personal similitude in his memory for supposed reality.

With all his vagaries, he is ingenious and industrious. He knits gloves, stockings, and his own jackets and trowsers, of worsted; and is constantly employed, either in this occupation, or in amusing himself with smoaking or playing at hand-ball, which seems in a great measure to divert and relieve his mind.

A favourite ornament of his person is his long pigtail cue, which he attends to as scrupulously as to his Wednesday-Sabbath. His supposed grievances and imprisonment, as he terms it, form a source of much occasional discontent; and on those occasions he is for addressing petitions to the Lords of the Admiralty: but as he cannot write himself, Dashwood Jones Effingham, or some other man of genius, acts as his secretary.

A copy of one of these petitions is subjoined as a specimen:

“The Right Honourable the Lords of Admiralty.

“My Lords: I am very sorry I cannot honour your Lordships with pleasure, but I am obliged to honour your Lordships with torments.

“I beg to inform your Lordships I have been confined in New Bethlem upwards of four years. After repeated applications to the physician, Sir George Tuthil, he has invariably replied, in answer to me, he did not consider me either sick or mad: I then inquired of Sir George why I was detained; in reply thereto, he said he was not the cause of my detention; on the contrary, he should have a pleasure in discharging me. I asked him to inform me who was the cause of my being detained: he said your Lordships.

“Permit me to inform your Lordships, being at a loss how I could make appeal to your Lordships, being under confinement, where I could only look at high walls and bars of iron; I was induced to write several letters to the Governors of this house, who sit in Committee every Thursday, to none of which have I received any reply; yet I have reason to think they have been forwarded to your Lordships. The last letter laid before them, last Thursday, when two of the gentlemen of the Committee came round the house, I inquired if they had read my letter: they answered in the affirmative; I then asked what answer they could give me: they said I must make application to the Lords of Admiralty, which is the cause of the present trouble to your Lordships.

“I deem it necessary to inform your Lordships, I cannot write myself. I should feel great satisfaction in receiving a reply to this; when I should be better enabled to write further to your Lordships, as my sufferings have been upwards of eleven years’ duration, consequently it is impossible to give your Lordships a particular statement of my hardships in this letter.

“I beg permission also to inform your Lordships I was a pressed man to his late Majesty’s sea-service, and would wish my Admiral,⁠[11] Captain, and Officers to come before me, to make their complaints, if any, against me; and it is also reasonable I should have justice so far done me, as to be informed why and for what cause I have been so long detained in several places of confinement.

“It is equally just and right the Governor of His Majesty’s Royal Hospital at Stonehouse, together with all the officers under him should appear, and make what complaints, if any, they have against me.

“Likewise I judge it needful the Commissioner of His Majesty’s Dock-Yard, Dock at Hamoaze, the Master of Tenders, also the man who came with him in a boat on board His Majesty’s ship the St. Salvadore del Munda, by night, when lying at anchor at Hamoaze. My agreement with the Admiral, Captain, and all the Officers concerned with me from commencement of my ill-usage, was that I should have law and justice, Christian usage, and honourable terms; yet I can with truth affirm, I have experienced no other than barbarity and cruelty.”

N.B. This letter was written in July 1822; but he would allow it to bear no date, as “that, he supposed, would injure his cause;” nor would he allow his name to be put to it, as “that would ruin him for ever:” so the Lords of the Admiralty were left to find out by their own learning who it came from. Lloyd was the writer; great cunning was used in getting it up, and several sheets of paper written over, before a perfect letter could be completed; but to none of those petitions will he allow his name to be annexed; for he says “that is all they want, and he will never indulge them.”

This man is reported to have been in other places of confinement a dangerous maniac, and was almost constantly in irons; but he has been here under no restraint whatever, nor has he ever done any mischief. He is noisy at times, and sings a good deal, in his way; but when the idea of his ill-usages gets uppermost, he then begins an extempore sea song, in a cramp and resentful manner. The following favourite verse may serve as a specimen of his lyric poetry:

The last, a chorus line, he roars with a stentorian voice that makes the whole building echo; while his eyes roll, with a mixed expression of resentment and self-complacency.

His conduct in general is very quiet and regular: but no man so mad ever seemed less conscious of derangement.

RICHARD TURNER,

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.

DAVID LITTLE,

Aged about thirty, admitted about three years since. This patient comes from Surrey, where he was tried at the Assizes and found guilty of cutting and maiming a female; but his insanity was satisfactorily proved, and he was sent here. He is perfectly harmless, and rather silly than frantic.

JOHN JONES,

Aged about fifty-five, admitted about four years since. This is another Welshman, a plasterer by trade, and convicted of a desperate assault on a man and threatening his life; but he was found to be deranged, and was in consequence sent here. He is constantly complaining of the hardship of being detained in confinement, and prevented from following his business. But he is too irrational and unsettled a character to be allowed to go free.

ELI DAWES,

Aged forty, admitted here about three years since. This man stole a horse at Birmingham, which he brought to Smithfield, London, and sold. He was apprehended, tried, and convicted for the fact, at the Old Bailey; but was found to be deranged, and was transmitted to this hospital. The symptoms of his disorder very rarely rise above idiotcy, but he is ever fretful, peevish, and discontented.

REV. FRANCIS MARDIN,

Of London, aged thirty-seven years, a minister of the Gospel, originally admitted on the 3d of June 1819. This unfortunate clergyman, towards the latter end of the year 1820, appeared to be quite convalescent, and obtained leave of absence for six months, in hopes of his perfect recovery: but after a short time his malady returned, and he was brought back, and has remained here ever since. He is in general perfectly tranquil and harmless, and for a period of three months successively will behave remarkably well. He generally occupies himself in reading and writing compositions of his own. But those occupations appear ultimately to agitate his mind, and he gets quite high and distracted, and so continues for a long time. During this state he has usually a tobacco-pipe in his mouth; and from his language and conduct none would suppose him ever to have been the pious, meek, charitable, and philanthropic curer of souls, which at other times he wishes to be thought. Sometimes the wildness of fanaticism seizes on his fancy, and then he thinks himself to be Michael the archangel. Dr. Wright, one of the physicians of the house, he styles Pontius Pilate, another he terms Judas, a third the Devil, all in their turns.

He sometimes composes pieces in Latin, and then translates them, both, in a style of incoherency such as might be expected from a scholar so circumstanced. He composed, amongst other specimens of his genius, a poetical address to his present Majesty King George the Fourth, highly inflated, and comparing his Majesty to Augustus Cæsar. This production he thought extremely sublime; and when his Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, accompanied by Prince Christian Frederic of Denmark, visited this institution on the 10th of June 1822, the poetic parson begged permission to read his production to those illustrious personages: which being allowed, he proceeded to read with such gestures, intonations, trepidation, and embarrassment, as excited the pity, though it exhausted the patience of his princely hearers. At last his Royal Highness, with great condescension and humanity, told him that what he had already read would do, and requested he would defer the remainder to some future opportunity; with this he seemed satisfied. This poor gentleman was spoken of by his friends as a finished classical scholar: and previously to his unfortunate illness, he was curate of a parish church in London. When his lucid intervals return, he is very cunning and artful in his endeavours to attain his object. He speaks to the physician with all the demureness of a bashful girl: but this is easily perceived to be acting, for he hopes by assuming that manner to get leave of absence once more.

When he was last out, he tied the sheets and bed-clothes together to let himself down from his window into the street, although the street-door was open for him, and he might have gone out if he pleased.

GEORGE WOODS,

From Lowes, Lincolnshire, admitted November 25th, 1819. This unfortunate young man had been professionally brought up a surgeon, and the cause of his malady appears to have been a persuasion that he had undergone the fate of Abelard: and this notion was the constant source of his lamentation; for his perpetual complaint was, “Oh! what shall I do? what shall I do? They have taken away my ——! Gone, all gone! What shall I do? All gone! Gone for ever!” Convinced of this privation, he imagined the loss had caused a contraction of his limbs; and under this idea he had acquired habits of contraction extremely painful to himself, and distressing to all who saw him. His elbows were pressed in as if screwed to his sides; his lower arms projecting outward on a line with his breast, and his hands continually clenched with such vigour, that they could be opened only by force for the purpose of washing them; and then the palms were found to be so indented by the pressure of his finger ends, that they seemed almost to have grown together. But no sooner was he freed from restraint, than they returned to their former position. He walked invariably on tiptoe, took very little exercise, and would stand for hours together in one spot without setting his heels to the ground, if not roused by the keepers and urged to walk about. At times he was without appetite, and very weakly: at other times his appetite was good, and he would sit down contentedly to dinner without any appearance of pain. But as soon as he had finished his meal he got up to the gallery, and began his usual plaints: “Gone! gone! all gone! what shall I do for my ——.”

In May, 1820, a party of ladies of rank and distinction came to visit the hospital; and poor Woods was bewailing in his usual vein, “Oh, my ——! what shall I do for my ——? They are all gone.” When one of the ladies, a peeress, asked him what he complained for; but could get no reply but “oh, my ——! what shall I do for my ——! gone! gone! for ever!” and this with a piteous look of tribulation.

The lady, unable to comprehend his meaning, applied for explanation to the keeper; who, with some discreet presence of mind told her ladyship that the poor patient was in the habit of collecting a quantity of pebbles, flints, and other rubbish about the airing ground, which he fancied to be emeralds, rubies, diamonds, and other precious gems; that it became necessary to take them away from him, in order to prevent the accumulation of such rubbish in the gallery; and that a recent privation of this sort was now the subject of his lament. “Oh, poor man,” said her ladyship, turning to the patient, “never mind them! When his lordship comes here again, he shall bring you some pretty ones which he has got at home; they will be much handsomer than those you have lost: so don’t fret about them any more.” But poor Woods, not at all satisfied with the promised alternative, answered with much displeasure, “that won’t do! I will have none but my own.” And thus they separated, each unconscious of the other’s meaning.

After remaining here eighteen months, this poor fellow was removed by his friends, who are respectable, to a private mad-house at Battersea, where he died shortly afterwards.

JOHN POOLE,

Aged twenty-one, a young farmer, admitted 25th August 1819. The malady of this young man was rather idiotcy than frenzy. He was quite harmless, and only remarkable for his quickness in running, for his sly looks, and a constant laughing grin on his countenance. He would run twenty circuits of the airing ground at a time, with the rapid speed of a hare, and laugh and grin for an hour afterwards. He had no vicious propensity, and was a hale, well-looking country youth; but he was discharged, uncured, on the 24th of August 1820.

In the month of May, in the same year, the physician ordered a dozen leeches to be applied to his temples: they were applied accordingly, and soon filled ready to fall off. The keeper, who was attending him, went hastily to answer to the bell which had rung for him, leaving Poole perfectly quiet; but on his return the leeches had vanished, and Poole appeared smeared all over with blood, and was chewing away something with redoubled eagerness, in hopes of finishing his bon bouche before the keeper came back. The keeper immediately conjectured that he had eaten the leeches, and caused him immediately to empty his mouth, when he found the masticated remains of the animals reduced to a state just fit for gorging. Upon collecting the mass, he found his ward had swallowed but little, if any part of them; but great part of the blood they had imbibed certainly had returned to the original system whence it came.

After he was cleaned from the gore which covered him, the keeper asked him what he had been doing? And why he had attempted to eat the leeches? He answered, “Oh! I only ate a few shrimps; give them to me, if you please; I have had no shrimps for a good long time.”

He was sometimes employed to fetch coals to the fires; and if, on his way to the coal or dust-hole, he found any pieces of soap, candles, cold potatoes, or any thing capable of being eaten, he had no sort of objection to gratifying his palate with it, regardless of filth, flavour, quantity or quality.

JAMES CHEESBURGH,

Aged twenty-five, admitted about four years since. This young man comes from Yorkshire, where he was tried and convicted of murdering his mother: but being found insane, he was confined for some time in York Castle, from which place he was sent here. This patient is, in general, quiet and harmless, but when disappointed of getting tobacco becomes extremely violent. Notwithstanding his general quietness, he cannot however at all times be trusted, and is therefore under constant vigilance.

JOSEPH WATERSON,

Aged thirty, admitted about three years since. This is a north-countryman, and was tried and convicted for the wilful murder of his wife, which he effected by strangulation: but on his trial he was found to be insane, and was sent to this hospital. He is very frequently in a high state of derangement, and is at those times extremely fierce and dangerous: but during his lucid intervals is very quiet and harmless.

THOMAS EASTON,

Aged fifty, from London, admitted December 2, 1819. This poor old fellow was formerly a lighterman on the Thames. The ideal immensity of his riches is his favourite topic, and his fancy is as much filled and delighted by this unreal mockery, as if he were the actual possessor of all the wealth he boasts. According to him he is the sole proprietor of all ships, barges, boats, or other craft that float on the River Thames; the Bank of England belongs exclusively to him, and in short the extent of his property is beyond all reach of calculation in our vulgar way. He says that when his son married, he gave him a fortune of 957,000,000 of money, besides some loose silver he had in his pocket, and four pennyworths of halfpence: but his son was a profligate fellow, and all this money soon went. He has some notion of paying off the national debt, if he understood how things were going on.

He affects to know every visitor who comes to the hospital, but by names and characters quite different from those they now assume. Lord —— he knew to be a tinker seven and thirty years ago; but he robbed a public house, made his fortune, bought his title, and now rolls in riches and grandeur. Lady —— was a washerwoman. When he knew her first she lived below bridge; but she happened to be brought to bed of a carrotty-haired child; this lord got her to swear the child to a waterman, although it was his lordship’s own; and afterwards, when she threatened to expose the particulars, his lordship married her. Such a gentleman was formerly a coal-porter; another was a post-boy; a third was a poor fellow who used to ply about the boats at the waterman’s stairs, begging halfpence, with “pray remember poor Jack;” a fourth he knew as a Jew receiver of stolen goods at Ratcliff Highway; a fifth was arrested for cheating two keepers who once lived here, and was transported. He knows all this: cannot be mistaken. “Lord bless you,” he will exclaim, “do you think I don’t know? What, me not know? it’s all stuff; I know every thing, both here and hereafter; you can’t deceive me; no, no, my friend, that won’t do.” He is perfectly harmless and quiet, so long as no one presumes to question his wealth, or doubt his universal knowledge.

THOMAS FLETCHER,

A north-country labouring man, admitted 30th November 1820. This poor fellow had been, previous to his coming here, confined in some lunatic asylum in the country; and when he was presented for admission here, came so corded and tied up at all points, as to be unable to move. He was described by his conductors as extremely violent, but when his restrictions were relaxed, and afterwards wholly removed, he became, and has continued extremely quiet and harmless, though under the influence of strong delusion.

When he first came in he brought with him an old brass inkstand, two oyster-shells, containing the remains of various coloured paints, and the printed copy of a last dying-speech, purporting to be that of an unfortunate young woman who had been convicted and executed in the country for setting fire to a barn. These trifles he gave to the safe custody of his keeper, with a strict charge not to allow any person whatever to open them; especially the dying speech, which was carefully wrapped up in thirty or forty envelopes of brown paper. The oyster shells he considered very precious jewels, and the inkstand a sacred deposit beyond all price, as being the identical one his father had used in writing his last dying words &c., bequeathing him all his property (or rather all his poverty). The keeper threw these trifles loosely into his drawer, and thought no more of them: but in the month of January following, when this poor fellow came to be discharged as perfectly cured, he had a strong recollection of his treasures, and brought his then keeper to the former one, who had been his trustee for the deposit, to demand the restoration of his precious articles. The keeper, in some surprise, told Fletcher he was astonished to observe a man in all other respects perfectly rational, should think any thing about such trifles as oyster-shells and dying speeches. But he answered, that his mind was all along impressed with a fixed certainty that his father’s will bequeathed him a handsome sum, and that the paper he asked for contained the original will; and he was much surprised the keeper should in the least doubt it. On opening the dying-speech, enveloped within forty wrappers, it appeared to be adorned with the figure of a female hanging on a gibbet. Poor Fletcher seized it with rapture, declaring that was the very thing that made him happy.

Now this poor man was utterly illiterate, and could not read the printed paper, and there must have been some unexplained cause for his valuing it so highly; that the impression which began with his derangement, and was probably the very cause of it, should still continue when he was in other respects perfectly freed from his delusion, was a singular circumstance. He was discharged cured on the 11th January 1821, and does not appear to have since relapsed.

EDWARD L——Y,

From Southwark, aged forty-six, admitted December 14th 1820. This pleasant, cheerful, eccentric fellow, had been an inmate here before, for he was admitted the first time on the 11th of March 1819, and was discharged well on the 20th of May following. He is one of those characters so often found in society to illustrate the poet’s description:

And he says, “he was thought to be mad this time, only because nature had furnished him with more discernment, reflexion, and fancy than his neighbours, and he had not prudence to conceal them: therefore he was found guilty of common sense, and sent to prison.” According to his notion, Bedlam was the only quiet and rational society in the country, for the people out of doors were ten times more mad than those within; and all London should be a Bedlam, in order to restrain its mad inhabitants, one-half of whom were too mad to perceive the madness of the other half.

“Who,” says he, “fit to live out of Bedlam, would spend half his life to gain one or two hundred thousand pounds, and then, instead of cutting with all risk and living like a lord upon his income, would dabble on to double it by new adventures, until he loses the whole, turns a bankrupt, and comes to dependance or beggary in his old age? I have known twenty such fools. Who, fit to live out of Bedlam, would dash in the stocks, at the constant risk of ruin, win a hundred thousand pounds one day, lose it the next by the same game; and then perhaps hang himself or cut his throat for vexation. But the good old city of London has lost its wits, you may depend on it. Your Aldermen are all turned Baronets and members of Parliament, your citizens are all esquires, and your beardless boys all booted beaus or dashing bloods; your city wives and daughters are all ladies of fashion and luxury; nothing like plain joints and puddings, now a-days! Oh, no: cookery and cuckoldom go together; banquets and deserts, and all the wines of the world! And then comes your bankruptcy. Up to-day, down to-morrow. This year a villa, a chariot, or a curricle; the next a shabby lodging, broken shoes, and the top of the stage coach. Well, then, what would be said in the time of our grandfathers, to a projector who would offer to light all the lamps and shops in London with the smoke of pit-coal? Would people then think a man sane, who should not only say he could make mills to spin and looms to weave, but ships to sail against wind and tide by the steam of hot-water? or cause a coach to run without horses? or make a snuff-box to play half a dozen tunes, and no one near them; or a wooden-puppet walk across the stage, salute the company, play concertos on a trumpet, beat any antagonist at chess, drafts, or dominos, and perform many other wonders? or who should teach dogs to play cards, or horses to tell fortunes? or who would propose to drive mail-coaches through iron tubes five hundred miles a day, or establish sea-water baths at Hornsey or Primrose Hills, and pump up the tide from Southend to supply them? I should not be surprised at seeing a wooden Parliament worked by steam, or wooden clergy, to serve out sermons and devotions from the churches to the parishioners’ houses, like pipe-water or coal-gas, through tubes. And, by the way, this would save a devilish deal of money, in bribes and pensions, tythes, and parish-dues. Why,” he would say, “I came in here for quietness, to avoid being bit by some city-baronet or mad stock-jobber; or run over by a citizen’s coach, or crushed to dust under the wheels of a waggon at full gallop. I hope those d——d fellows wo’n’t break in upon us here, to disturb our comfort.”

Such were the wild notions that played round poor L——y’s fancy. He had a prolific genius for inventions, if they were only practicable; and perhaps, under a better education, and earlier care to direct his capacity, such a mind might have been of service to his country.

One of his freaks was the invention of a plan for an aquatic engine to be fixed on the River Thames, between Blackfriars and Southwark bridges, which, by the aid of proper apparatus, might prevent the destruction of St. Paul’s Cathedral if it should ever take fire, and thus protect that noble structure. Similar plans he thought might be adopted in every part of England, and save the necessity of fire insurance offices. But just as he had matured his project, and had almost brought it to perfection in his own mind, some other little whims, combined with this plan, procured him a return to his old quarters here.

While he continued he was very flighty, but tolerably quiet; with the harmless exception of a little noise, singing, dancing, and ornamental writing on the walls, at which last he was very expert and skilful.

He was discharged well, on the 20th of May, 1821, and has since continued so.

ARTHUR THUROGOOD,

Aged twenty-eight, admitted 12th October 1820. This was an assistant surgeon and apothecary, from Chigwell, in Essex. His malady was of a periodical nature; seldom well above ten or fifteen days together. While he continued well, no man could behave better; but when ill he was extremely wild. He was pretty generally in restraint of some kind or other; but principally the belt and handcuffs. He delighted in being put in restraint, and would frequently ask the keeper to put on the belt and handcuffs; for then, as he said, “he had free liberty to do what he pleased.” He was for ever at some mischief or other. He got some rags, and stuffed up the hole of the stone trough, or sink, pumped it full of water, and, with his clothes on, laid himself at full length in it; but, being disturbed, he jumped out in a furious passion, wrenched off the handle of the pump, and began to smash the windows, menacing all around him. He, however, was secured before he did any mischief, except breaking seventeen squares of glass. He was all laughter and mimickry, accompanied at times with violence. He once kicked a keeper, named Roberts, on the knee, in such a manner as laid him up for a long time.

He was continually boasting about his professional business: how he fagged, how he rode; what miracles he performed in his profession; all day, all night, at all distances, and all the toils he went through during the period of his practice. He performed more than any other man, effected more miraculous cures, attended more women in child-bed, was more successful in cases of accidents, than any man since the days of Esculapius; and although Chigwell is but a small village, he would have it believed that he set more limbs, healed more wounds, and repaired more accidents than actually happen in the field of battle between two contending armies, and attended more accouchements than usually occur in a rabbit-warren. His probationary time of twelve months had expired in the hospital; but, as the physicians had still hopes of his ultimate recovery, the period was extended; regular bleeding was resorted to, he got better every day, continued well for some months, and was finally discharged cured, 14th March 1822, and has remained well ever since. He was naturally a well-disposed young man, but certainly much disordered.

JOHN BAKER,

Of Middlesex, aged fifty-four years, and admitted on the 18th May 1820. The mind of this wretched man, at his advanced years, had become the victim of a most singular, though unfounded notion, that he had had an unnatural connexion ——: and so fully was he persuaded of this fact, and so horrified at his imaginary guilt, that no power of persuasion could convince him to the contrary, or abate the miseries of his remorseful conscience. His constant exclamation, while under this delirium, was “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! I shall certainly go to hell, and be burnt alive for ever.” He imagined the coppers in the kitchen were prepared to boil him, the oven to bake him, and the fires to roast him; that every vessel of water, though but a bucket-full, was intended to drown him; that the heavens were tumbling down on him; that every razor he saw was to cut his throat, every knife to dissect him, and all the workmen’s saws and hatchets to cut him asunder; their chissels, gimlets, awls, and nails to pierce him; their mallets and hammers to beat out his brains, their ropes and lines to hang him. He expected every moment that he was to be torn to pieces, and devoured by dogs, tigers, lions, wolves, bears; that the houses would fall on him, and the earth open and swallow him up. When the least noise disturbed him, he would exclaim, with marked terror, “Oh, Heavens! here they come! oh, what shall I do? where shall I run? how shall I hide myself?”

His distracted fancy constantly pictured the supposed object to his vision, and he would exclaim, with closed and elevated hands, in a despondent tone: “Oh, you detested brute, I wish to God I had never seen you! Curse you! you have been my ruin and destruction, you hateful, ill-looking, lean old devil: Oh, dear me! dear me! what shall I do?” He believed all the meat served up to the dinner-table was horse-flesh, and the beef in the peas-soup to be the flesh of dead men, cut up and boiled in it, for crimes like his own.

He remained twelve months in this hospital in this deplorable condition, and was ultimately discharged incurable. He had a wife and children; and, to aggravate his misery, if possible, when he returned to his parish he found that his faithless wife had increased his family by a young child about a month old; and, what was still worse, that the father of this child, was his own brother!!

Poor Baker was to others a harmless and inoffensive man, though a most deplorable object of pity, and incapable of any relief or abatement of the horrors of his distracted mind.

HENRY SNELLING,

Aged thirty-nine, a native of London, and admitted on the 27th July 1820. When this patient was admitted he was in a high state of derangement; but was discharged finally cured, on the 20th of March 1821.

Like other maniacs, though his mind was wild and extravagant on most subjects that happened for the moment to occupy his memory or attention, he had his favourite topic which prevailed over all others, and seemed to be the main spring of his delusions.

This was with him his imaginary skill in bridge-building; in which, according to his notions, his operations were perfectly magical. He boasted of having built Waterloo-bridge in four days, and the Southwark-bridge in two hours. All the bridges over the Thames belonged to him, as did the Mansion-house, Carlton-house, and Somerset-house; and all the turnpike-tolls in England were his property. Any building wheresoever, in which he had once set his foot, became instantly his: and this was his reason for coming to reside in Buckingham-house (by which name he styled Bethlem-hospital). But to his imaginary skill, and his extensive possessions on these points, he was also an excellent whip; and talked frequently of his dexterity in driving gigs, tandems, and curricles, better than any man in England, and of his deep knowledge in horse-flesh, and the pedigrees of the turf.

On the same day that he came into the hospital there was also admitted a poor woman named Abigail Rees. She was brought in secured in a straight-waistcoat, which was fastened in a very slovenly manner, so that the strings hung loosely about her, before and behind.

Snelling, who marched about with a very knowing strut, observed her sharply for a little time: but his fancy instantly perverted the faculty of vision, and she was changed, in his view, to a very different sort of personage.

He called, with an air of authority, to one of the keepers, and pointing to Abigail Rees, said: “I say, hostler! you see that mare, don’t you?” The keepers answered, “Oh yes, your honour.” “Well, then,” returned Snelling, “I can assure you she is one of the very best bits of blood in this country. Her sire was the son of old Eclipse, and her dam was the Duke of Devonshire’s first breeding-mare, Catherine. I drove her in harness to Brighton yesterday, to see the Prince Regent, in thirty-nine minutes and twelve seconds, by my stop-watch; and this morning I drove her back to town in twelve minutes and thirty-nine seconds. To be sure, there is something to be said for the longer time in yesterday’s journey, because I stopped to dine on the road, and purchased some houses on the way, by just putting my foot into them: but to-day she dashed forward at such a rate, she played the devil with my hands, in striving to rein her in. See,” said he, “how she has broken the reins,” taking hold of the loose strings of the straight-waistcoat.

Poor Abigail seemed quite angry, and rushed away from him with great indignation. “I say, hostler,” continued Snelling, “take care she don’t kick or bite you; she’s d——d vicious.”

Many months afterwards, when this man’s derangement had considerably abated, and he was almost well, he assured the keepers that he remembered this occurrence perfectly, and that for a long time subsequent he believed the woman was a mare, and that all he had said about her at the time was perfectly true.

GENIUS SPARALEIU,

Aged near fifty, and admitted nearly three years since. This patient is a Neapolitan. He was tried at Maidstone assizes on a criminal charge of attempting to violate his own niece; but was found to be insane, and was transferred hither from Maidstone gaol. This man, though not the most frantic, is certainly one of the most troublesome and refractory patients on this establishment. In other times he would be considered as possessed by a dæmon of discontent, for he is certainly one of the most noisy, grumbling, querulent, stubborn, and implacable geniuses that this asylum has ever entertained, and such is his constant practice from morning to night the year round.

He is, besides, extremely cunning and artful; knows perfectly well what he says and does, and is so inveterately dissatisfied with being confined, as he says, for nothing at all, that he sometimes refuses to take his food until it is forced upon him.

ROBERT CARTER,

From Greenwich, aged fifty, admitted 20th April 1820. This little fellow, whose height is not quite five feet, had been formerly a sheriff’s-officer; and, like other artists, probably owed his mental malady to his ardent pursuits in the exercise of his profession. He was always cheerful, alert, and loquacious, and boasted incessantly of his stratagems, exploits, and intrepidity in his important occupation. All impediments to his captures that bolts, bars, gates, doors, or the cautions of the debtor could interpose, vanished before his shrewdness, courage, activity and address. He made innumerable captions which no other officer was to be found willing or daring enough to undertake: no danger to his own life could damp his zeal, or defeat his enterprize. He totally disregarded the menaces of death and destruction in all their forms: guns, pistols, swords, daggers, knives, razors, or bludgeons were trifles to him. “I wanted no assistance; I watched my opportunity,” said he, “and entered the house alone, by the back-door, or the area, or a window, and, desiring the debtor to surrender, I seized him as a spider would seize a fly, brought him off, lodged him in the spunging-house, and was then ready, able, and willing for another job.”

Never did the keenest sportsman evince more apparent delight in recounting his adventures, and detailing his success in pursuing and seizing his game, whom he styled the “shy cocks,” and the numberless stratagems he contrived to lure them to his toils.

But his skill was by no means confined to this profession: his genius took a much wider range; and amongst other projects, he chiefly attended to the manufacture of shoe-blacking, which he brought to such perfection as far to surpass all the efforts of Day and Martin, Turner, Warren, Healey, and the whole tribe of his japaning competitors. He talked like an inspired amateur of the inestimable qualities of his liquid jet, tint, gloss, adapted to all climates, water-proof, a specific preserver of leather against cock-chafers, black-beetles, and white ants, and would not soil the most delicate fingers or nicest silk-stocking. This was well known to all who tried it; and it was the envy and malice of his rivals that brought him here: but he would soon get out, ruin them all to a man, and make his own fortune.

In this notion he seemed quite happy; was always cheerful, sang, smoaked, and recounted his exploits with much seeming triumph.

This poor fellow was discharged cured about the latter end of 1820.

JOHN HARTLAND,

Of Bosbury, in Herefordshire, aged fifty-eight, admitted January 20th 1820. This poor old eccentric had been a farmer and butcher; and, according to his own fanciful account, was eminent for his great wealth, as well as for his scientific management in agriculture, and his extensive credit. Half Herefordshire belonged to him. He purchased splendid houses and extensive estates at auctions, without sixpence in his pocket towards paying the purchase-money, for no one doubted his means of payment. He invented a new mode of thatching hay and corn-stacks, by tiling them over like the roofs of houses. The subject of tythes had apparently occupied much of his temper as well as his genius. He hated all parsons: he quarrelled with the rector of his own parish, who lived near him, and to annoy him, he would blow an imaginary horn from his own window all night. He used occasionally to follow the rector to market; and at one time continued to annoy him by blowing this horn at his ear all round the market-place, and seemed highly tickled at the recollection of this imaginary prank.

He was constantly occupied by some ingenious invention, according to his own story, and contrived many new-fangled fish-ponds, dove-cotes, ploughs, threshing-machines, gates, and fences; planted trees, and contrived many whimsical erections, of which he talked without order or regularity.

It is a rule of this establishment, that when calm patients are insensible to the calls of nature, they are removed from the upper galleries to the basement story, where they sleep on straw. This man, who was remarkably cleanly in his habits, conceived a strong dislike to his keeper up stairs, and could not agree with him: and this antipathy was probably increased by an attachment he had contracted for the keeper in the basement story. He had applied several times to be removed down to that part of the building, without effect: but at length he drew upon his inventions for a stratagem to obtain his object, which was by plastering his bed, sheets, blankets, and the floor and walls of his apartment with filth, and this operation gained his point.

His malady after a considerable time so far abated, that he was permitted to go out on a month’s leave of absence; he came back apparently quite well, returned thanks, and was discharged cured on the 7th of December 1820, and returned to his small farm. But the state of agricultural affairs were not calculated to keep him tranquil, nor revive his domestic attachments. He came home on a very cold night, and probably influenced by the spice of his recent disease, he forcibly turned his whole family out of doors, to seek shelter where they could from the severity of the weather amongst their neighbours, for the night; and he then set down with perfect composure, to enjoy the comforts of solitary meditation over a pitcher of ale and a pipe, and afterwards retired to bed.

PETER UPSDALE,

Aged thirty-four, London, admitted 15th March 1821. This patient was an attorney at law, and was in this hospital before, admitted August 10th, 1820. His disease soon abated, and he was discharged quite well, on the 19th of October in the same year. But probably a recurrence to his former intercourse and round of amusement again disordered his mind, and he was sent back here on the day above-named.

A high notion of professional superexcellence is a very usual accompaniment to the state of mind which brings patients to this asylum. The memory takes its share in the common delusions of the other mental faculties. The ideas associate more intimately with the incidents of former habits; and poor Mr. Upsdale, probably impressed with a permanent notion of his own pre-eminence in the knowledge of his profession, still thought he had no equal in the skill and practice of an attorney; and when high mounted on this hobby, which was one of his favourite nags, his details were as amusing as wild. According to his own story, no man was more profoundly skilled in the laws of his country, or the practice of the courts, above and below; and so sharp was he, that he never lost a cause he once undertook. The other side, whether plaintiff or defendant, always shook in their shoes where he was concerned: he once went into court with a most intricate and hopeless case, but he astonished the whole bar, flatly contradicted the judge, bothered the special jury, and carried the verdict with a high hand, “and swinging damages with double costs.”

But though professionally a limb of the law, his excellence there was minor, and but secondary to his talents on the race-course: that was his favourite field of action; he was a horse jockey by nature. The dull drudgeries of the desk and Westminster Hall were not for his lively taste, and therefore he relinquished the law list for the Racing Kalendar: deserted John Doe and the court for the hippodrome, the bang-up club, the chariot race, and the turf.

Not only was he the first whip in the kingdom, and up to every thing on wheels, from a sky phaeton and six down to a tilbury, but was deeply skilled in horse-flesh, and quite at home with the pedigree of every bit of blood that had flourished at Newmarket, York, Epsom, or elsewhere, from the days of Eclipse, Hamiltonian, and Diamond, down to the present hour.

He knew all their sires and dams, to the tenth generation: could detail the histories of all the plates, sweepstakes, and heats they had won or lost; their triumphs in steeple-chases and trotting matches, and their flying feats over double ditches, high walls, and five-bar gates: with all the whens and wheres, and hows, and who were their riders: so “damn all fi-fa’s, and ca-sa’s, quitams, trespasses, and trovers! The turf! the turf! was his darling sport!” and the constant topics of his conversation were his feats and fame at Newmarket, Carlisle, York, and Epsom. The superiority of his cattle and the numerous studs of “high-mettled racers” he always had ready for entry, to the number of twenty or thirty; and he deplored the interruption of his detention here, “as he must be at Newmarket by such or such a day, or lose immense sums depending on his bets, “play or pay.”

Report says that this poor fellow was actually so infected by this hippomania, that he deserted his profession and became a convert to the studies of the stable in all the mysteries of physicing, bleeding, sweating, training, and the whole pharmacy of the veterinary school.

His ultimate delight was in dashing to a race-course in his knowing curricle, four-in-hand, quite in the Goldfinch style; and, of course, he was considered by the sharps a finished greenhorn and fair game; he was consequently cleaned out of all the money he could muster, until he had nothing to “carry on the war” but his taste, as an amateur, until his reason ran the wrong side of the post and brought him here.

Still, however, he talked of his numerous stud; the blood, bone, figure, movements, speed, vices and perfections of his cattle; their breeding, what they cost him, how the natives were astonished at their excellence, what immense sums they had won, and what wonders he would do in the racing world whenever he could get out.

Then his associates were all bloods of the first order, all tip-top Corinthians. He would rank with none other. He had driven about in prime sporting style, with the best appointments. His grooms, like his horses, were all blood: true Newmarket breed, up to anything. And as to himself, he was the best sporting judge on the turf, not excepting any member of the whole jockey club.

But, notwithstanding these imaginary notions of his great wealth and pre-eminence, the dashing Peter Upsdale was, in sober sadness, very poor; and, but for the management of his excellent wife, and the liberality of his friends, he would have been reduced to extreme indigence.

He was discharged from this asylum well, for the second time, in October 1822; since which he again called at the hospital in his carriage: but his blood cattle have again run away with his understanding, and he has been lately consigned to a private mad-house.

HENRY JOSEPHS,

Aged twenty-six, admitted 20th December 1821. This unfortunate Israelite had been a travelling Jew pedlar, and, in times less enlightened, would seem to be really possessed by a dæmon of discord. Grumbling and discontent seemed to be the prevailing symptoms of his disorder; and his whole time, from morning till night, was occupied in growling and finding fault with everything about him, and endeavouring to render his fellow-patients as unhappy as himself. He totally denied all derangement, termed his confinement here “false imprisonment,” and demanded to be brought to his trial. The food, the drink, the treatment, were all unwholesome and bad. He was extremely noisy and violent by day and night, tore his clothes to pieces at times, and frequently required restraint. He was brought here from Drury-lane, where he lived, very much deranged. He then had lately come from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where he had been dealing rather too largely in the profits of his calling. He was there taken before a magistrate for selling a most capital watch to an honest Scotsman for fifty shillings, which cost himself but twenty-three shillings: but the bargain was rescinded by the magistrate, and Josephs was forced to return the purchase money. His vexation at being thus foiled was the leading cause of his derangement.

He sometimes amused himself in epistolary correspondence with his friends, and was extremely anxious to be replaced here by some substitute.

The following is a specimen, addressed to his mother:

“Dear, ungrateful Mother:

“I have been here ten days; long enough, I think; almost starved, and my boots without any soles. I think it very hard to be kept here so long, especially as my brothers have not been kept here too. Why don’t you send my brother Charles here, and take me home? He has as much right to be here as I have. Besides, you might find a substitute for a trifle of money. There are plenty of soldiers and sailors who have been discharged, and who would come here in my place for a trifle: and I would pay you again.

“I am, dear ungrateful mother,

“Your unhappy son, &c. &c.”

He was sometimes tolerably tranquil, but never without grumbling. When a little high, his habit was to continue all night complaining of his unjust confinement and hard treatment. But this he chaunted in a sort of poetic manner, of which the following couplets may serve as a specimen:

This “sweet singer of Israel” obtained a month’s leave of absence on the 18th of July, and was finally discharged, cured, on the 1st of August 1822: he is now at liberty to follow his professional calling.

JOHN BOYETT,

Aged thirty-four, admitted 9th of August 1821. This man appeared to have been originally an ignorant, self-conceited, ambitious country fellow, full of low cunning; which was sufficiently apparent, even through the veil of his derangement. The leading traits of his malady were, a notion that he was to inherit an immense fortune, and an inveterate itch for reform. He imagined that he was sent to this institution expressly for the purpose of correcting abuses, and establishing a new system of management; and, under the influence of this whim, he became quite busy and inquisitive, found fault with every thing, complained of every body, and declaimed in his way against every department. The physicians, the stewards, the keepers, the cook, and the very gardener were, according to him, all doing wrong, and were the persons he particularly came to look after. He was very busy in communicating his purposes amongst such as he met in the gallery and airing ground; and as he could not write eligibly himself, he employed an old patient, named Moore, as his secretary. All transactions that struck his notice were immediately noted down by his dictation, with his own comments upon them. One of the first results he expected from his vigilance and activity was, that he should be appointed keeper in chief. He applied to the physician for the purpose, and assured his companions that he was immediately to have the charge of a gallery, as the present keeper there was found unfit. He had an excellent knack at making mischief, exciting discontent, and promoting quarrels amongst his simple associates, by telling tales of one to the other, eliciting resentments, and then reporting what he heard to the others: and thus he set them together by the ears, proving himself more of a knave than a simpleton. He was greatly disappointed in finding he was about to be discharged without the promotion he so confidently expected; and he wrote a letter to his aunt, stating that as he intended to begin business for himself, as soon as he should get out, he wanted some part of the great fortune, which he imagined he was to possess some time or other, to begin the world with, as he was quite tired of being a labourer, and knew more of his business than any other man.

The following copy of one of his letters, indited with a piece of burnt stick on whited-brown paper, will afford a specimen of his epistolary style.

“Dear Haunt:

“Hi hop u wil excus this lettar, has hi ham gon to bee disscharg, hand wil cum to se u wen hi av mone in my poket—wen I wil av plessure, i wis u too sen mee for ponds to by a jakhass hand cart to sel grens too the hopitil, has hi ham promised: hi will pa u bak wen hi can.

“hi ham,

“loving hant,

“ure lovin

“frend,

“John Boyett.”

THOMAS DRIVER,

Aged twenty-six, from Feversham, in Kent, admitted 11th October 1821. This little fellow, consistently enough with his name, was a postillion; and his disease was the result of excessive drinking: a failing but too common with his fraternity.

He came to this hospital from a private mad-house, where he had been confined some time. He could not believe that he laboured under any derangement; his sole misfortune was his having lost such immense sums of money, and being unlawfully kept out of his rights. He boasts that he was the cleverest fellow in England in his profession, and would not turn his back on the first whip on any road in the kingdom. His ambition for excellence in this way seemed to be his ruling passion. He would challenge all the whipsters in England to drive twenty horses in harness against him; and alleges he could do more with them than any other man he ever saw. He thought himself immensely rich, and that the man who passed for his master at Feversham was only his servant: but he himself chose to drive a post-chaise merely for his amusement. He says his coming to this place was merely a hoax upon him: he however soon found out the difference, and he began to make himself useful in the gallery. He was a smart, active young fellow. Continued care and temperance brought him to his rational notions, and he was discharged well, on the 21st February 1822. Probably by a return to his old practices, and the nature of his occupation, he again became deranged, and was presented here for re-admission; but it was discovered that he had become paralytic, of which he had formerly evinced some symptoms, and he was rejected of course.

CHARLES PORCHIRITZ,

From Fribourg, in Prussia, aged forty five, admitted November 15th, 1821. This poor Prussian tailor had been employed for fifteen years at D’Oyley’s warehouse in the Strand, was an excellent workman, bore a good character, and came here deranged from St. Clement’s workhouse.

The green-eyed monster, Jealousy, seems to be the familiar spirit that rules his frenzied imagination, and a strong suspicion and a fancied conviction of his wife’s inconstancy, was either the original source, or the perpetual concomitants of his disorder; and the feats of Messalina were nothing to the extent and variety of amours he imputed to her, without the slightest foundation. He used to enumerate a French Count, an English tailor, some publicans, besides other Englishmen, and a long assortment of Germans, Russians, Prussians, Italians, Swedes, Danes, Hanoverians, and Irish; these he would reckon on his fingers until he worked himself up to a furious passion, and then exclaim in a loud tone—“Yesh! by G—, all deir countries—and Greek and Turks has she been wid—I will kill her, by G—, a plood b—h.”

He was continually amusing himself with working at his trade, and spoiling every thing he attempted to repair. He padded his own coat with flocks from his bed; he turned his pantaloons, and put the seams outward. He was so enraged with his wife, that her life was endangered whenever she came to see him; and his young child, which she brought one day in her arms, he swore was a young baboon, and that its father lives at Exeter Change. He was not generally violent here, though he frequently evinced a strong disposition that way, when offended. He was always anxious to get out, and was very importunate for his discharge from Dr. Monro.

His manner of preparing his bed for his night’s repose was curious: first he would throw bed and bedding upon the floor, then lay a large blanket and one sheet on the sacking of the bedstead, afterward he spread the second sheet and another blanket, third came the bed, and over that a blanket and a rug; then, undressing, he would get in on the undermost sheet, with the bed and other drapery over him, and thus he lay snug in press until morning, and this was his regular habit.