SKETCHES IN BEDLAM. (continued 3)

He fancied himself immensely rich, and intended to pay off all the debts of Government. He had the most confirmed opinion in all his whims, and his eccentricities were beyond the ordinary class of madmen. He was discharged paralytic, on the 4th of April 1822, and is again extremely ill at his own home in Goswell-street.

STEPHEN ST—M—E,

Aged thirty-two, admitted 28th June 1821. This patient had been once in very respectable life, was occupied as a ship-broker, and his derangement was ascribed to heavy losses and disappointments in business. He appeared to have been a very genteel man; perfectly harmless and well conducted for some time after his first admission: but afterwards his disorder became high. He tore his clothes, and became, in his opinion, a very great man. He had in his own hands the insurance of all outward-bound ships from the River Thames to every part of the globe; and, in fact, no ship left the river without having Mr. St—m—e’s seal affixed to her. He knew every body by name, but none by sight. He transacted all his business without ever seeing the principals; and ever since he came here he had done, in imagination, insurance business to the extent of hundreds of thousands.

He was at all times very cheerful, danced and sung, and made many promises of conferring numerous appointments and lucrative situations on his poor fellow-patients. He was at length found to be paralytic, and was discharged. His friends were respectable, and he was known to many opulent merchants in London.

JOHN BURROWES,

Aged twenty-seven, admitted 5th of April 1821. This poor fellow had been a menial servant, sometimes occupied as a coachman, and at others as a labourer about a farm-yard. He became religiously affected: turning from the ways of sin, the flesh, and the labour of industry, he was initiated in the spirit and became a methodist. He was here remarkable for his taciturnity, “because in much discourse there was sin;” but whenever he broke silence it was always on some religious topic, and every occurrence of the day excited him to some quotation from the Holy Scripture. He seemed much read in the Old and New Testaments and Common Prayer-Book; John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and other spiritualized allegories; books of hymns, psalms, and meditations; Baxter’s Shove, Call to the Elect, &c., and perfectly knew the road to heaven; but the evil spirit constantly opposed his progress, and drove him back. His struggles with the wicked one were very great, and he hoped that, ere long, he should conquer and be called. Sometimes his fellow-patients who were recovering would ridicule his sanctity, and call him a Pan-tyler: but he would on those occasions stoutly disclaim methodism, and profess himself a staunch church of England man. No monk could evince a stronger propensity to self-mortification; and, amongst other contrivances for self-punishment, he used to prick pinholes in his face and hands until they were smeared with blood; and he frequently tied a handkerchief round his neck so tight, that it nearly choaked him.

He was ever bewailing his former blindness in the spirit, and the aberrations of his past life; but hoped, by self-mortification, prayer, and good works, that he might still be saved. He acknowledged, with great penitence, his having once stolen some hams, in company with accomplices: but he received no part of the profit, though he shared the blame; and this he hoped would extenuate the offence. He was always prompt in scriptural quotations, and applied them on all occasions, whether reading, eating, drinking, washing, or however otherwise employed.

He remained here until the expiration of twelve months, and was then taken to a private mad-house at Bethnal Green, on the 30th of April 1822, where he still remains.

JOHN NICHOLSON,

Aged sixty, admitted about two years since. This is a north-countryman. He was convicted of a violent assault on a man of whom he was jealous: but was deemed to be insane, and consigned to a mad-house. At present, and for some time past, he appears, in his calm moments, quite sane, rational, quiet, and well-behaved; but is apt to be very irritable and passionate on the slightest provocation.

WILLIAM DRAPER,

Aged forty-six, admitted August 9th 1821. This man had been a labourer in agriculture, and when he came in was highly disordered and violent. Judging from the effects, it would appear that his derangement originated in fanatacism and superstition. His chief amusement was twirling his head about, like a watchman’s rattle; which, of itself, would have been sufficient to addle his brain and excite distraction. His notion was, “that by so doing he kept off evil spirits, sin, and wickedness.” Sometimes, on being asked why he twirled his head thus, he answered, “to make bubbles in the water, and keep them off (the evil spirits); and if I was not to do it, you would soon have them down upon you, and be all devoured up.”

Sometimes he was doing so “to turn the planets in their proper places, keeping off fogs, damps, and heat.”

This man had the repute of being much better informed than most others in his sphere of life: but the poor fellow has exemplified the maxim of the poet, that

As a ploughman, a mower, a thrasher, and an agriculturer, he is said to have no competent rival in his county. His head is conically formed, like a sugar-loaf, and might afford an eligible topic for the speculations of Spurzeim, or any other of the craniologists. He was discharged an ideot, on the 13th December 1821.

JAMES W—L,

London, aged twenty-nine, admitted May 10th 1821. This young man had been a patient in this hospital before, and had continued here for twelve months, when he was placed on the incurable list; but having got much better, and continuing to improve for some time, six months’ leave of absence was granted him, at the expiration of which period he came back completely well, returned thanks to the governors, and was discharged perfectly cured.

The character and symptoms of this patient’s disorder were extremely curious and singular. When the paroxysm came on, however he happened to be situated, his whole frame from head to foot became stiff, as if all his joints and muscles were ossified. His eyes, though staring open, became fixed, and he foamed at the mouth. If sitting or walking when his fit came on, he would instantly fall to the ground, generally extended at full length on his back, with the same symptoms of rigid stiffness and insensibility: his eyes, open and inclined upward, were insensible to the touch of a hand passed over them, which did not produce the slightest wink. No symptom of animation remained, with the exception of breathing: but this so faintly as to be scarcely perceptible. His condition in all other respects resembled death; and in this state he would sometimes continue for one, two, three, and even four days, without any apparent change. He could not be induced on those occasions to eat or take any kind of sustenance; except, under the direction of medical gentlemen, when rich broths were passed by injection sufficient to sustain nature: but of this he seemed quite unconscious. During the fits his whole person was literally as stiff as a plank, and he might be raised to a perpendicular, and carried from place to place like a ladder, without the least appearance of flexibility. Towards the termination of those paroxysms, when a hand was passed over the eye-balls they would sometimes move, which was a prognostic of his recovery: and on being roused from his stupor, he recollected nothing of what had passed; but he would speak of dreams, visions, heaven, hell, and the strange things he had seen, at least with “his mind’s eye.” Visions which, with the fanatical disciples of Hannah Southcote, would have stamped him a sealed prophet, and sanctioned as divine revelations the wild dreams of his disordered fancy. After those fits he always appeared weak and dejected. He was a very fine young man, powerful and active, and had served as a master’s-mate in the Royal Navy.

When formerly confined here he was at times extremely violent; and on one occasion attacked one of the keepers, and did him considerable injury. He is heir to a considerable property in the neighbourhood of Dulwich, but his right of possession still hangs vaccillating in the glorious uncertainty of the law.

He was discharged quite cured on the 28th of February 1822, after a month’s previous leave of absence.

PETER MAXWELL,

Aged twenty-three, from London, admitted here about a year since, and had been previously confined six years in the Penitentiary at Millbank, to which place he was committed in commutation for his sentence of transportation for seven years, incurred by his conviction for picking pockets, in which profession he was an eminent adept; nor does the length of his confinement, or the nature of his insanity, seem in the least to have altered his taste for that pursuit.

On being asked how he obtained a living in all his former life, he answered: “by thieving, to be sure.”

“How would you get your living again, if you were sent out?”

“By thieving, to be sure: nothing like it.”

He became deranged while in the Penitentiary, and still continues so. He is said to have been a thief ever since his childhood. His person is diminutive, and his habits slovenly and uncleanly.

JOSEPH MASON,

Aged thirty-five, admitted here about two years since. This dangerous maniac is a Yorkshire-man, and was convicted of the murder of his own brother by cutting off his head, but as it was the result of insanity, he was ultimately consigned to this place. In general he appears to be a silly simpleton, but on that account is the more dangerous, because his fits of fury burst forth suddenly, and when the least expected. He lately attacked another patient, for some imaginary cause, and would have effectually despatched him but for the timely interposition of the keepers. He is quite persuaded that the keepers only detain him for their own gratification, and might liberate him at any time they chose: he is, therefore, constantly importunate with them to let him go; and extremely displeased at their refusal to comply. He cannot be trusted without strict vigilance.

JOHN NISBETT,

Aged about forty, admitted two years since. This patient is a native of Scotland. He was tried and convicted of breaking open a dwelling-house, robbing it of various articles, and sent to the Hulks; but he there became insane, and was sent here at the period above mentioned.

When he first came to this hospital, he appeared quite rejoiced at his lucky change of quarters. Freed from his irons, which were as usual rivetted on, exempted from labour, and comfortably lodged and fed, he appeared quite happy at his removal to so good a place. In his tranquil intervals his conversation is quite rational, and betrays not the least symptom of insanity; but, on the contrary, he shews all the characteristics of his native shrewdness. He drives a small tobacco trade here, under the rose, amongst his fellow-patients, many of whom are immoderately fond of that article; and by this traffic he takes good care not to be a loser. But, notwithstanding his occasional shrewdness, he is far from being generally sane, for he has frequent intervals of alternate cheerfulness and melancholy. When high, he sings and dances as if elevated with liquor; but when low, he is quite sunk and depressed. Upon the whole, however, he is tolerably quiet and well-conducted.

WILLIAM CHAPPLE,

Aged thirty-six, London, admitted May 3d 1821. This wretched man had been a working engineer, employed for many years under the late Mr. Rennie. His malady commenced without any assignable cause, and the derangement of his own mental machinery was discovered from the wildness and absurdity of some of his operations. He purchased several immense logs of wood to build a hen-house, which he constructed with much labour; but when finished, although it was sufficiently large and strong to contain several elephants, yet it could neither accommodate or secure his poultry. While at work for Mr. Rennie, it was observed that all he did for a considerable time was irregular and imperfect, and finally he appeared quite deranged. He was brought to this institution, and during the period he remained, confinement seemed intolerable to him, and his invention was constantly at work to find his way out. At doors, windows, privies, and every aperture, however small, he attempted escape, in vain. His prayers and intreaties to obtain the loan of the keys from the keepers were alike ineffectual. He frequently attempted to squeeze himself through the interstices between the iron-bars, and over the top of the iron-gate, leading from the basement-gallery to the airing-ground, a width of about five inches. It was soon perceived that this patient was paralytic, and therefore he was discharged on the 24th of May 1821. He was afterwards sent to a private asylum at Somers Town, from which he soon escaped, and rambled about the fields, almost naked, for several days, until he was nearly starved to death. His friends advertised a reward for finding him, and he was at last found near Enfield, lying in a ditch, in a miserable state, with no other clothing than his old flannel drawers. He was brought home to his friends, but found to be so unmanageable that he was sent to St. Luke’s hospital, from which he was afterwards dismissed for the like cause of paralysis, which procured his discharge from Bethlem. His wife, probably displeased at his dismission, fancied that he had been cruelly treated in St. Luke’s, and caused a statement of his sufferings to be inserted in some of the newspapers; but whether this story was founded on the wild tale of a lunatic, or whether the governors of St. Luke’s took the trouble to investigate the charge, the writer is not informed.

EDWARD WHENNELL,

Aged fifty-five, admitted 25th of April 1822. This man came from Hornchurch, in Essex. He was a labourer, and had been confined here a patient six years ago. Want of employment, and consequent distress, are assigned as the causes of his derangement. But, whatever might have been his disposition in a state of sanity, nothing can be of worse character than his manners, disrobed of all influence of morality or discretion; and which, but for the plea of his disorder, would entitle him to no reception elsewhere, save in Bridewell or the Hulks. He is, in fact, a compound of bad qualities; savage, ignorant, unfeeling, selfish, full of low cunning, an inveterate pilferer, so that no trifle, however small, can escape his fingers. He is destitute of all natural feeling or regard for his wife and five children, who never seem to cost him a thought, still less a sigh. He has no more notion of religion of any kind than a horse: he has, in fact, no concern for any person beyond himself. Eating and drinking are his favourite amusements, which he enjoys like a hog; and tobacco the sole idol of his worship, and of which he uses an incredible quantity, by night and day, in the most filthy manner. He is quite insensible to reprimand or reproach: he cares not what any one says of him. His thieving propensities extend to every thing he can lay hands on: provisions, thread, old rags, spoons, knives, forks, skewers, &c.; and his pockets, hat, bosom, and every part of his clothing which he can convert to a receptacle, are continually filled with trash of all descriptions.

Added to these accomplishments, every sentence he utters is accompanied by an oath, or an imprecation, or some blasphemous expression: in fact, he is a most profane and profligate wretch, and very little removed from a brute.

Perhaps it may be thought illiberal, to arraign those vices in a wretched man deprived of his reason; but they are by no means the growth of temporary insanity, and must have had their origin in his disposition and conduct long before insanity commenced.

Previously to his last commitment hither, he attempted, in a fit of treacherous fury, to murder his wife and children; and would, most likely, have succeeded in this sanguinary and atrocious purpose, but for the timely interference of a neighbour.

He obtained a month’s leave of absence, on the 26th of last September, but has not since returned.

URBAN METCALF,

London, aged forty-seven, admitted January 3d 1822. This man was one of the class of lunatic visitants, who some years since, during the life of his late Majesty, were so assiduous and troublesome in their visits to Buckingham House, and their endeavours to gain admission there. He has been frequently, in the course of the last eighteen years, deranged, and in different places of confinement on that account. He was discharged from this hospital on the 12th November 1818; but was afterwards sent hither, by an order from the Secretary of State, and on the 11th of April 1822 was liberated by the same authority, and discharged well.

When in his state of derangement, his propensity was to claim as his own property the royal palaces at Windsor, Kew, St. James’s, Buckingham House, &c.; and he would frequently visit them all, and take imaginary possession of them, by contriving to get within their entrances. He did not imagine himself to be the king, but that the king had no right to those palaces, as they were his property; and he therefore demanded that they might be surrendered to him.

His ordinary employment for livelihood had been hawking laces, garters, braces, &c. about the country; and while in this house, he was generally employed in knitting garters. He conducted himself very properly; he was well acquainted with the history of Bedlam, and was continually passing his remarks upon the whole system of management adopted here, which sometimes he approved, and at others censured. Not the minutest circumstance in the conduct of physicians, keepers, or patients, escaped his notice or observation; and when discharged, in 1818, he published a pamphlet on the management of the hospital, and was pretty free in his criticisms upon all points that did not square with his notions of propriety.

He was a neat little man, of peculiar aspect: his face curiously formed, small and sallow, with a stiff black beard; his eyes diminutive, black, and piercing, like those of a water-rat.

Since his last discharge from this place he has again become deranged, and is confined at an asylum in York.

JOHN PHIPPARD,

Aged thirty-three, admitted 18th April 1822. This man came from Milton Abbey, Dorsetshire; had been a gentleman’s servant, and since a labourer. The leading character of this patient’s malady is the shortness of its intermittent periods, which scarcely ever exceed three or four days, before he again relapses for a similar time; and thus the alternation continues from time to time.

When in his state of distraction, he will stand for hours together, with his eyes fixed on the ground, until roused from his reverie by the approach of strangers, or the physicians, or any person not familiar to him; he will then start suddenly, stamp with his foot on the ground, and exclaim, in a loud voice, “God bless the king, and all the admirals—he would fight up to his neck in blood for them.” He does not like the French; and every person he dislikes he calls a Frenchman. He drinks, in his small beer, “God bless and save the Government, and King George the IVth: he would sooner be transported to Newfoundland than die in France.” His discourse is extremely wild and incoherent. During the short intervals that he continues tranquil, he is obliging, civil, quiet, and anxious to make himself useful: and indeed naturally an honest, industrious, good kind of man; and, from the favourable symptoms of his convalescence, he will probably be soon discharged.

JOSEPH RICHARDSON,

Aged thirty-seven, admitted 24th January 1822. This man is, in stature, a minor giant, for he is six feet and four inches in height. He is a well-digger by profession, and so much attached to this art of sinking by his labours, that, on the first overt attack of his malady, he jumped down into a well, ninety feet deep, with a view to destroy himself; but was got up without much injury. Disappointed in his first attempt, he contrived again to get to the well, and repeated his experiment by another ninety-feet plunge, and again escaped alive, and without any great injury sustained. It was then thought high time to confine him, and since he was brought here he has acted very suspiciously; but a strict watch is constantly kept over him, to prevent suicide. He has once or twice taken a sly opportunity of getting at a pail, which he filled with water at the pump, and plunged his head into it, for the purpose of suffocation, which was prevented. When he cannot get at the pail, he takes the night-bowl in his room, fills it with water, or any liquid he can procure, and plunges his head into it, for the like fatal purpose; but it is too shallow to answer his intentions.

It appears this man has two wives, both living, and four children by the second. Whether the double dose of matrimony, or fanaticism, had the effect of producing his disorder, is not certain: but, he says, his first spouse was troubled with fits, and, when one of those came on, she had the devil in her: she had them so frequently, that at last she became crazed, and was a wife fit for no man, according to his estimation, and therefore he got another.

He says he was a staunch Church of Englandman all his life, until within these few years; but he dissented from the high church, and became a methodist, and from that time he has been made sensible of the enormity of his sins—sins of such magnitude, as can never be pardoned. He is usually sunk in mournful melancholy; and seldom, if ever, speaks, except to answer a question. He will remain for hours fixed like a statue in one position, with a long-drawn visage, the emblem of despair. When he sits down it is often difficult to raise him. He hates locomotion; refuses to go to his dinner, and says he would rather be cut into ten thousand pieces than go. The keepers are then obliged to carry him to dinner by force, and sometimes up stairs from the airing-ground, or wherever this fancy takes him. He is deeply read in the Bible, and quotes promptly, from every part of the Scripture, texts which he thinks corroborate his desponding notions, but he says he cannot follow up what the Scriptures prescribe.

This poor fellow is a native of Somersetshire, where he married his first wife. He came here from Wrotham, in Kent, where he lived a long time, with an excellent character for honesty, sobriety, and industry: but from the time his mind received the first taint of fanaticism his delusion increased. So deeply has his melancholy struck root in his mind, that he has never been once seen to smile since his admission; and although he seems at times to get somewhat better, his case, on the whole, is rather hopeless.

WILLIAM SAVAGE,

Aged thirty, from St. Mary’s Cray, Kent. This poor fellow was a journeyman paper-maker near the village he came from, with a family of a wife and three children. But jealousy, whether founded or not, seems to have originated his malady: for according to his own incoherent story, his faithless rib deserted and left him, without the cheering comforts of a partner in his conjugal cares. His misfortunes having driven him from manufacturing paper, he has commenced a new trade since he came in here, of which his imagination is both the source and the market. In fact, he has established, in his own notion, a very thriving trade in hops and corn, and deals very largely in those commodities. He is always as busy in the airing ground here, in looking out for customers, as if he were in the Southwark hop-market, or in the Corn Exchange, Mark-lane. “Come,” he will say to a fellow-maniac, “I can let you have ten tons of hops to-day very reasonable; or I can put you in a few hundred quarters of wheat well worth your money—come, I will not be hard with you, if you will make me any reasonable offer.”

When he followed the paper trade he could earn, in his own notion, more money in an hour than two other men in a day, and was always “singly equal to eight men in a week.” He is not of that irritable cast, like others, in whom the ardour of the mind emaciates the body; for he is as fat and unwieldy as if he still moved amongst all the plenty and strong ale of his native country, and had no other occupation than the amusements of food and drink. He has no activity, and takes but little exercise, except now and then when he takes a dancing fit, in which his motions fall not much short of the grace and vivacity of an accomplished bear. He is incorrigibly addicted to dirt and slovenliness, and generally has his bosom and his hat crammed with samples—not of hops or wheat, but of straw, bones, pebble-stones, flannel, linen rags, wooden spoons, bread, old handkerchiefs, and filth of every sort that he can pick up: and these are the commodities he exhibits for sale to his customers as hops and wheat, in the gallery and airing ground. But he is perfectly quiet and harmless: and if it be true that “happiness exists only in the mind,” and that “content is a kingdom,” this poor Savage is quite a monarch in his way.

WILLIAM ADAMS,

Aged twenty-seven, admitted August 8th, 1822. This smart little fellow was a conveyancer by profession, but became unfortunately involved in one of the traps of the law: he was arrested for a small debt of £20, which he was unable to pay, and therefore was consigned to the Fleet Prison—a kind of hotel not very reconcilable to the patience of even a stoic philosopher, without the means of existence. In a little time poor Adams, by the rapid movement of his mind, passed through all the gradations from chagrin to insanity; and it became necessary to transfer him hither, without the ceremony of Habeas Corpus.

However extensive may have been the range of his professional talents, it must have fallen infinitely short of the scope and versatility of his imagination in his state of derangement. Wholly unlimited by the identities of time, place, or person, he instantly accommodates each to his fancy in a moment, and he is any where, and every where, and any body, by turns. At one time he imagined himself to be the Lord Chancellor, or, as he emphatically stated himself, “Young Baggs;” and no mortal tongue ever maintained the loquacity of the law, or talked with more incessant volubility, than his imaginary lordship. He would decide ten thousand causes in a day; he would accuse, try, condemn, and execute whole nations in a breath. His language was as wild and far-fetched as his fancy was various; topics of all kinds seemed to come tumbling into his mind, without order or connexion. Of every name he heard mentioned he instantly became the personal representative, and says, “I am he;” thus he is by turns Buonaparte, the King, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Londonderry, the Persian Ambassador, Mr. Pope, Homer, Smollett, Hume, Gibbon, John Bunyan, Mrs. Clarke, the Queen, Pergami. He is successively a Hottentot, a Lascar, a Spaniard, a Turk, a Jew, a Scotsman, a member of any religious sect, except a methodist. He has been in all situations and occupations of life, according to his own account; a potboy at Hampstead, a shoeblack, a chimney-sweeper, an East-India Director, a kennel-raker, a gold-finder, an oyster-woman, a Jew cast-clothesman, a police justice, a judge, a keeper of Newgate, and, as he styles it, “His Majesty’s law ironmonger for the home department:” nay, he has even been Jack Ketch, and has hung hundreds; he has been a soldier, and has killed thousands; a Portuguese, and poignarded scores; a Jew pedlar, and cheated all the world; a member of Parliament for London, and betrayed his constituents; a Lord Mayor, a bishop, an admiral, a dancing-master, a Rabbi, Grimaldi, in the pantomime, and ten thousand other occupations, that no tongue or memory but his own could enumerate. The specimen just given may serve as a sample of what is passing in his fancy.

All the world belongs exclusively to him, and he will dispose of it just as he chooses. He will massacre all blacks, Jews, Roman Catholics, and Quakers, hackney-coachmen, pawnbrokers, lawyers, and lunatics. The last he will first turn out of this house, and have their places filled by wild beasts; all the old women, the lame and blind, all virgins, soldiers, sailors, and children in the small-pox, cripples of every description; all criminals shall be sent here, and debtors from all the prisons and lock-up houses; he will feed them all himself—and then he will be happy. These and the like topics occupy his whole time and conversation from morning till night. His tongue goes incessantly at full gallop, without a moment’s respite. Those whom he threatens to destroy at one hour, are in the next the objects of his favour, and all others are to be destroyed in their stead. It would be scarcely possible to believe, that such a heterogeneous infinity of topics could so rapidly pass through the wildest imagination, if this man did not exemplify the fact. The series goes on in the same endless current, and without a moment’s hesitation, his fancy plies his tongue with new topics.

When he is tired of ranging the airing ground and lower regions of the building, the spirit carries him to the upper galleries, and at the same time elevates to immortality and omnipotence his notions of his own being and attributes. He sometimes styles himself God: loves the top gallery, because it affords him a fine view, and a pleasing opportunity to look down from Heaven, as he says, upon his subjects below.

Another unfortunate maniac here, named Joseph Panter, supposes himself to be our Saviour. One day, when Adams found the door leading to the top gallery open, he ran up stairs to heaven, as he calls it, where he met Panter, who, much out of humour at his appearance, told Adams he had no business to come there, and then gave him a box on the ear and a kick behind, and sent him tumbling down stairs. Adams ran immediately to the airing-ground, rushed towards his keeper, and with frighted looks and almost out of breath, told him that he had been very ill-used. “I went up stairs,” said he, “to heaven, and saw J—— C—— walking about in white. I said nothing to him: but before I had been five minutes in heaven he came up to me, and gave me a punch on the head, and tumbled me down stairs.”

This poor fellow still continues much in the same state as when first admitted. He styles his wife, who sometimes visits him, “his dear little black queen,” and proposes to appoint her a maid of honour to his Queen Charlotte, “for whom,” he says, “he has a much greater affection.”

WILLIAM COLLISON,

Aged thirty-nine, admitted 28th November 1822. This man was a gardener at Northampton, and had been disordered several months. His derangement commenced with a strong notion that he was to fall the victim of poison, administered by some persons having a design upon his life: and so strong was this impression on his deluded mind, that for a long time he took his food, of whatever it consisted, with extreme caution, and marked suspicion; but during three months preceding his transmission to this hospital, he refused all other sustenance but milk alone, and subsisted entirely on this. When he rose from bed every morning he was taken to a meadow near his residence, and furnished with a stool, on which he sat till bed-time. His daily allowance was a can of milk, which was brought to him every morning, and thus provided, he mused the whole day, in a melancholy solitude, utterly careless of his person, and every thing around him. During the whole three months of this meadowed retirement he was neither shaved nor washed; and when presented for admission here, he came with all his filthy appendages thick upon him, more like some non-descript species of the brute creation than a human being. A long beard enveloped the lower parts of his face, and the rest of it was clothed with dirt of various kinds and colours; his head projecting forward, his body bent almost double, his whole frame feeble and tottering, his steps timid and cautious, his eye sharp, scowling, and inquisitive, and his utterance suppressed almost to dumbness. He presented altogether the character of some curious wild animal, better suited for the menagerie at Exeter-Change than for the class of human beings; and, under a new name, might have been viewed as a species of the ourang-outang, and have become an attractive object to the curious in natural history.

The poor fellow, on his entrance here, was impressed with strong fears that he was brought for the purpose of being killed; and, under this notion, he earnestly begged that as he was a poor, weakly object, they would not put him to a very lingering or tormenting death. But, what is extremely singular in the result of his removal here, as a place of proper treatment, that no sooner was his person cleansed from filth, and his squalid apparel changed for comfortable clothing, than a visible abatement of his disorder commenced. From the second day after his admission he took his food without the slightest symptom of doubt or apprehension; he became comparatively cheerful, assumed a contented aspect, and his fear of being murdered quite vanished: and in seven days’ time there appeared a most extraordinary change in his whole manners, health, habits, and opinions: a change perhaps unparalleled within so short a period, in the whole annals of insanity. He has latterly imbibed the extraordinary notion of his being filled with frogs, and that all the food he takes goes to their support.

GEORGE TESTER,

Aged twenty-six, from Balcomb in Sussex, admitted 14th February 1822. This young man had been twice before confined in this hospital; the last time he was admitted on the 19th of October 1820, and discharged, well, on the 22d February 1821.

Since his recent admission he has very frequently relapsed when nearly well, and on no occasion continued tranquil longer than for three weeks or a month. The approach of a fresh attack is discovered from his laughing heartily at every frivolous occurrence; more especially at any thing mischievous. So long as the fit continues, which is generally from one to three or four weeks, his frenzy is very high, and his conduct very bad; he insults all persons he comes near, indiscriminately, and his language is horribly blasphemous, insulting (as poor Captain Lloyd tells him) to the great God of heaven.

His expressions in this state are too dreadful to repeat, and his oaths and imprecations terrible beyond conception.

When in this way, the unfortunate man becomes dirty and slovenly. He wears his hat with the crown torn out, and the brim uppermost. On those occasions his disease is at the worst, and, while the paroxysm continues, his notions are wild and incoherent to excess. He believes one man to be God, another to be the devil. Some he believes to be angels; others horses, dogs, bears, tigers, porcupines, &c. &c. One man he takes to be his father; another the king; and, in short, every person, and thing, assumes, in his fancy, some character, quality, or appearance totally wide of the reality.

But when the poor fellow’s frenzy is abated, and something like calm reflexion returns, it is impossible for penitence to express more sorrow and shame for what he has said or done; as, most unfortunately for his own mind, he remembers all that has passed in his delirium. In consequence he becomes depressed and melancholy, and sometimes continues so until another fit comes on.

Latterly he became extremely anxious for a trial at home with his friends; and, at the insistence of his father, a month’s leave of absence was granted him, on the 7th November 1822.

He was formerly servant to a gentleman near Cuckfield, in Sussex; and while on a visit to Devonshire with his master, at the beginning of the year, the first symptoms of his derangement appeared. He wrapped himself up in all the great-coats he could find, and set off on a ramble, he knew not whither. He sometimes ordered dinner at an inn, and drank a bottle of wine, without a farthing in his pocket. Sometimes he went into a field where labourers were at work, and, watching his opportunity, seized and carried off their provisions. At other times he would enter a farm-house, and seating himself demand whatever he chose. On one occasion he took possession of a cottage, got his dinner, took a nap afterwards, and then demanded his supper. The poor terrified hostess, who was alone at his entrance, became much alarmed; but had courage enough to remain until her husband returned from his work, in the evening, when he found poor George sitting very comfortably by the fire, after his supper, and very leisurely preparing for bed, his smallclothes knees unbuttoned, neckerchief and coat off, stockings down, and shoes slip-shod. The husband, who was a powerful young man, naturally enough inquired of his wife the quality and character of his strange guest, and learned from her all that had passed. But the gruff Hodge, not altogether approving such an inmate, lost no time in preparing for his exclusion; and by virtue of an ejectment, in the shape of a stout cudgel, put in so many pleas upon the shoulders, ribs, and other appurtenances of poor George, that without waiting for replications, rejoinders, or rebutters, he vacated the premises, leaving behind him his hat, coat, and one shoe, and scampered off at full speed to save his life.

He was recognized as a madman at various times and places, but the parishes through which he passed did not choose to assume the burthen of his maintenance, and so transferred him from one to another, until he reached his home, where he refitted his damages by another coat, hat, and shoe; and sallying forth from his native cottage in quest of new adventures, he proceeded to a farm-house, and filled himself with such good things as he could get.

This poor fellow’s malady evinces little or no hope of a perfect recovery through life. The faculty of memory, in recollecting every thing which passes in his fits of frenzy, is very remarkable, and is a source of much affliction to his mind at lucid intervals.

THOMAS DOWLE,

Aged twenty-eight, admitted 28th October 1822. This unfortunate young man is the son of a farmer near Chepstow, in Monmouthshire. No taint of insanity ever before appeared in any of his family. Sudden fright was the immediate cause of his derangement, and he now presents a deplorable example of the mischievous consequences of those practical jokes, so frequently played off for the momentary diversion of inconsiderate young people, upon their unsuspecting companions, and but too often productive of lamentable, and even fatal, consequences. Numerous are the instances wherein dementation, and even death, have followed the too sudden excitement of the stronger passions. The momentary impulse of excessive fear, grief, and even of joy, have produced those effects. The superstitious tales of ghosts and goblins, so frequently impressed on infant minds, have often proved indelible through life, in spite of education, philosophy, and all the powers of reason; and we have heard numerous instances of brave men, who have intrepidly mounted a breach, or stormed a battery pregnant with death, who yet could hardly summon firmness enough to go alone in the dark, or cross a church-yard after nightfall, merely from the early impressions of nursery-tales told them in their childhood. A frightful mask, a strange noise, a pretended ghost, or even the suddenly bouncing on a person, wholly unaware of the trick, have often caused the most deplorable consequences, not only in children but in adults, to the loss of reason, and even of life.

Poor Dowle, the unhappy subject of this article, was a simple peasant; and as he was one morning crossing his father’s fields, on his way to his usual labours, cheerful, guardless, and, like another Cymon,

an intimate rustic acquaintance saw him coming, knew his simplicity, and, in mere frolick, stepped aside, and concealed himself behind a bush until Dowle came up, when he suddenly rushed out upon him with a loud shout. He was so astounded by the shock that he was struck almost senseless: he staggered, fell, and fainted away. The current of his blood seemed for some time arrested, and his pulsation ceased. He was taken up and conveyed home; delirium ensued; and confirmed madness followed, which has ever since continued without abatement, to a degree not only pitiable, but dangerous to all who approach him. His propensities are fierce and vicious; he tries to kick at all who come near him, and even to bite at them, with all the rabid fury of an enraged dog. In this manner he continually snaps at all who pass him. He seizes and tears rugs, blankets, his own clothes, and any thing within his reach. In this state, of course, he is not suffered to have intercourse amongst the other patients, but is fastened to the coal-chest in the basement gallery. His malady has shewn no signs of abatement since he came in, and probably he may never recover his reason. He appears quite unconscious of his situation, or of the place where he is, nor does he seem to feel his confinement irksome; his only object seems to be, watching for the approach of any one whom he may attack.

Such, in his case, are the miserable effects of a practical joke, which cannot fail to embitter for life the feelings of the unthinking author, as well as those of the unfortunate young man’s family.

JOSEPH REDFERN,

Aged forty-three, admitted 28th November 1822. This is a married man, with several children; was a hatter by trade, and is in a high state of derangement. He became so from some unaccountable cause, and was at first sent to a private mad-house, at Somers Town; where, having some altercation with his keeper, he attacked the man with great fury, got him down, and nearly strangled him with his own neckerchief, which was drawn so tight, that it became necessary to cut it from his neck, to save his life. It then became requisite to restrain him by handcuffs; but, notwithstanding this restriction, he made his escape through the roof of a summer-house in the garden, proceeded to the next coach-stand, and hired two hackney-coaches, telling the drivers “he had a party to take up:” and, by his order, they drove from place to place until quite tired; when, becoming doubtful of their fare, and observing his handcuffs, they took him before a police magistrate, when he was found to be insane, and was secured. He was shortly after brought here from the White-house, Bethnal Green; but with two black eyes, received during the struggle with his keeper at Somers Town.

He is always noisy, wild, and incoherent, and wears, even in his insanity, all the characters of having been a disorderly and dissolute man. It is highly probable that excessive drinking of ardent spirits was the cause of his derangement; for he frequently boasts of having drank the greater part of twenty glasses of brandy and water after business-hours, and a bottle of cogniac in a morning, before business commenced. But this, he says, was done to relieve him of spasms, with which he is much afflicted.

The first symptoms of his derangement was an aerial speculation for building churches all over Derbyshire, of which he is a native; and this he proposed to do on a scale much higher, longer, broader, handsomer, more commodious and ornamental, than any other churches in England, in half the time, and for one-quarter the expense that other builders have charged.

As to his hat-making trade, he affects to despise it; although he considers himself the first maker in Europe.

He believes another patient, William Collison, to be his father; abuses him grossly, asks him numberless questions about his money, and his business, and inquires of him about persons whom poor Collison never before heard of. Collison is a mild, harmless poor fellow, and is often alarmed at him, and assures him he is not his father, for he never had a son or a daughter in all his life.

Redfern insists that old Groves, another patient, was the Bishop of London, but was deprived for practices similar to those of a late Irish Bishop. He affects to know every body, and all their private affairs, and is familiarly acquainted, he says, with every part of England; and that, while he remains here, he is making more money than all the hatters in the trade together. His skill and dexterity in this art is his favourite hobby-horse, and most frequent topic of discourse. He can make hats much better than those usually sold, out of any stuff: a pair of old bellows, matting, blankets, old carpets, rugs, mops, old wigs—in short, any thing, no matter what. He is extremely deep and knowing in his own opinion, and sets all others down as flats and greenhorns. But as he is very noisy, quarrelsome, and violent, he frequently gets into scrapes with the more sturdy of his fellow-patients.

JOHN GILBERT,

Aged twenty-three, admitted July 25th 1822. This young man came from Ramsgate, where his family had been once reputable, but are now reduced. He carried about him no signs of frenzy, although his intellects were quite deranged. He would sometimes say that Ramsgate was two thousand miles off, sometimes only four hundred, and at other times not more than twenty-five; but, if he were let out, he would go home in half an hour. On being asked if he was aware of what place he was now in, he would sometimes answer, “yes, in the West-Indies:” and at other times in Turkey, America, France, &c.; sometimes he would answer in Newgate, and at other times in the Rule of Three!! He laughed at every thing, gay or serious, and seemed happy in his mind, particularly at meal-times. He frequently danced for his amusement, in his own peculiar style, which was by hopping on one foot, and turning round all the while, until he fell down from giddiness. He was found to be merely silly, and not dangerous to be at large, and was discharged as idiotic, on the 7th November 1822.

WILLIAM PETER JONES,

Aged twenty-four, admitted the 11th July 1822. This unfortunate genius was a stage-struck votary of Thespis, disappointed in all his hopes of astonishing the world by his histrionic powers, notwithstanding his indefatigable endeavours to obtain an engagement at any of the theatres. His propensities for the stage were cotemporary with the first dawnings of his puerile taste; but, unfortunately, the estimation of his talents in the eyes of others bore no proportion to his notions of himself. His chosen line of acting was that of heroes in tragedy: Alexander the Great, Coriolanus, Brutus, and the like. But, to judge from his pitch of person and talents, Tom Thumb the Great would have been better adapted to his performance, for he is about four feet and a half high, and formed all of a lump, like a butter-firkin. He had made several attempts to mount the London stage, but with singular ill fortune: and the present is his fourth attack of insanity, all incurred by his ardour in his favourite pursuit. He was first admitted on the 6th of August 1818, and discharged quite well on the 31st December following. He returned on the 25th of September 1819, and was discharged again on the 6th of July 1820. He was re-admitted, for the third time, on the 24th of March, and discharged on the 1st of November in the same year; and he again became a sojourner on the 11th of July 1822.

All his former attacks had been more or less calm, but always high; constantly spouting dramatic speeches, or his head occupied by some wild speculation, as well as by a fulness of blood, which was always the leading physical symptom of his disorder. But on his returning the last time, his malady assumed a quite different character; for he was quite low and despondent, in terror of all who approached him, and apprehensive of being burned, or drowned, or cut up piece-meal to make soup. He would cry out murder, at the appearance of his own shadow! He imagined every person who walked quickly towards him, was coming to destroy him. When conversing with the keepers, he would hastily ask, “have you got a knife in your pocket?” and every knife or other weapon he saw or heard of, he considered as intended to destroy him.

At one time he imagined himself in hell, and all who surrounded him demons. Old Lloyd, one of the patients, he imagined to be Beelzebub himself, the prince of devils; Henry Taunton and others he imagined to be minor devils, and attendants on his Satanic majesty. A cat in the place was, at one time, a frightful object of apprehension and terror to him: he said her eyes were fire, and he could plainly see her intention to devour him. He would never venture into the keeper’s room if poor puss was present. In October 1822 he became much better, and all his apprehensions, which he perfectly remembered, were quite dispelled, but his ardour for theatricals by no means abated. He expects to be speedily discharged, and purposes to renew his application for a stage engagement on some of the London boards. He details many of his adventures, and the kind of encouragement he received from several of the managers in pursuit of his object: he began with Covent Garden, and ended with Rathbone-place. His leading object is to put down Kean. He would play none but first-rate characters, and has not the least doubt of speedily becoming more celebrated than any of the Cookes, Kembles, Keans, or even Garrick himself.

Previously to his second attack being known to his friends, he waited one day on Mr. M’Cready, in Berners-street, gave a specimen of his talents, and received, as he imagined, very flattering promises. He afterwards applied to Mr. Charles Kemble, who treated him with the most gentlemanly politeness, and after hearing him sing and repeat a few parts, promised him a rehearsal at his theatre; but his friends dissuaded him from the attempt at that time. He next applied to Sir George Smart, the musician, who took him into the orchestra to see Don Giovanni: where he remained very quiet, until the dancing scene commenced, when he could no longer restrain his ardour but jumped up, and would have joined the ballet on the stage but for Sir George, who withheld him.

He next appeared at the Surrey Theatre. “They appeared there,” he said, “to relish his performance very well;” but some scapegrace fellows led him to a public-house, blacked his face with grease and soot, daubed his coat with paint, and then turned him into the street to exhibit in the part of Othello.

The next attempt was at the Coburg, and there they painted and blacked him all over, and told him to call again next day. A shopkeeper’s wife, near the Coburg, took compassion on his distress and disappointment; took him to her house and had him washed, and the paint was taken off by his father when he got home.

But all this did not dispirit his ambition. He next applied at the Regency Theatre for a first-rate engagement. They brought him on the stage, as he wished, and while he was enacting with all his energy a scene in Alexander the Great, a trap-door in the stage unfortunately opened, and down dropped the poor hero into the lower regions. But this was not all: for before he was half reconciled to the change of scene, down dropt upon him three full buckets of cold water. The ill-starred William Peter was then, by some invisible guide, escorted to the street by a short cut, and left to explore his way to the New Road, dripping wet at all points, like a sheep newly washed.

Disgusted with these adventures, and determined to trust no more to the politeness or liberality of the London managers, he resolved to appeal for his merits to the candid and untried judgment of the public at large: and he one day made his débût in Rathbone-place; scene, the open street; time, noon-day; in the celebrated character of the Third Richard, before a crowded and impartial audience of boys, coster-mongers, Irish women, and such other miscellaneous company as happened to be in attendance; and bursts of pleasantry and applause crowned his performance in every passage. But merit the most consummate cannot please all minds, or at all times receive its due meed of approbation. The parish officers had not taste enough to be pleased; and while Richard, “his eye in a fine frenzy rolling,” had reached the very climax of his exertion, was offering “his kingdom for a horse!” and was about to retire well-pleased with his success, “he was seized by the strong hand of power,” and conveyed to that enchanted castle the parish watch-house, for raising a disturbance.

He then talked of relinquishing the stage, and cultivating quietness in retirement; but his imagination took the new bent that led to his last confinement here.

HENRY TAUNTON,

Aged about sixty, admitted 9th May 1822. This poor old fellow, who came from Brentford, in Middlesex, was formerly a patient in St. Luke’s Hospital, and has at present a son there, who inherits his father’s derangement, the only paternal heir-loom he is likely ever to enjoy.

The old man was by trade a butcher, and has been, by his own account, the whole of his life a flighty and unsettled character. During his period of apprenticeship he had no less than eleven different masters, and did not complete his term of service at last. He was sent to sea, the last refuge for hopeless youngsters; was taken prisoner by the enemy, and carried to a Spanish prison, where he remained a considerable time; and after his return to England, he resumed his trade, sometimes as a journeyman, and sometimes on his own account.

As is usual with many of the wretched men in his state of mind, his fancy is constantly haunted by the recollections of his professional occupation. He incessantly talks of his killing abilities, and is very busy in sticking imaginary pigs, knocking down ideal bullocks, slaughtering suppositious sheep, blowing up visionary veal, and dressing out conjectural joints, for the shambles of his own mind.

By his own account no pig has been killed for a series of years near the neighbourhood he lived in, but by himself; for there, it seems, the fate of the whole swinish multitude was decided by his skilful hand, and no fierce warrior ever delighted more in bloodshed, than Taunton in the slaughter of the bristly generation. How strange is it, that professional vanity should haunt the ambition of so humble an individual, even in his derangement! but it is a trait from which no class of mankind is exempt.

The acquirement of great property was probably one amongst the various reveries that occupied his mind in the season of his sanity. It has not forsaken his fancy to this hour, and fancy supplies what physical exertions could never realize. Poor Taunton supposes himself a man of considerable wealth; in which he enumerates nineteen substantial brick-built dwelling-houses at Whetstone, an estate at Deptford, an extensive stock in trade, numerous flocks of sheep and lambs at grass, and £300 in cash, when he was brought here, and is quite an independent man. To his wealth, fancy has superadded dignity and authority; for he says he is a magistrate, and sits with Colonel Clitheroe on the bench at Quarter Sessions. He complains bitterly of cruel treatment from his family. It is said that his father bequeathed him at his death a handsome property, and left himself and a near relative executors to his will, but Henry mortgaged some parts, neglected others, quarrelled with his brother, went to law, but had not money to carry the suit to its conclusion; and twenty years have elapsed without his receiving any part of the issues. He states his age at no more than forty-five; although he recollects clearly transactions fifty years back, and has a daughter aged thirty-two. He feels quite comfortable here, and speaks highly of his good treatment: but he complains of ill-usage from every one out of doors; “he has been knocked down, had his skull fractured, and his bones broken, though quite innocent of any just cause.” He has lately lost his wife, for which he evinced no grief. In fact, he is quite a man of business; not much affected by losses: but like Whennell, Lloyd, and many others of his fellow-patients, is always well loaded with a general assortment of all manner of rubbish, rags, bones, wooden spoons, &c. that he can collect; he always appears busy and cheerful, and is punctually attentive and industrious at his meals.

He was sent here from his parish workhouse at Putney; and on the 26th of last September he obtained a month’s leave of absence, which was afterwards extended to another month. But during the latter he fell into a sad mistake, which nearly proved fatal to the keeper of his workhouse: for whether from some old grudge, or new cause of irritation, or whether his visit to the former scene of his professional operations revived his ardour for the exercise of his knife, and that he mistook the man for a hog, he attempted to kill the unsuspecting governor, in which purpose he was most fortunately prevented, and brought back here on the 21st of November.

WILLIAM TUCKER,

Aged forty-eight, from Berkshire, admitted 2d November 1820. This poor man had been a labourer, and appeared ten years older than his age as given in. Delusion had carried him almost beyond conception: he saw no man or woman whatever, either gentleman or lady, labourer or laundress, that passed with him by their own names, or represented their proper characters. This one he knew in gaol, by such a name; another was the youngest brother of Buonaparte; such a lady was Tom Somebody’s wife, who had run away with another man; this young woman was once his servant; that was his niece, or aunt, as her age corresponded. He believed that he was only put here for a “hum;” and he pretended to know precisely the day when he would be discharged, but would name it to no one. He spoke very harshly of his family; said that his wife was an abandoned wretch, and his son no better; that his wife and son were living as man and wife in every particular; that he knew it, had seen many instances of it, and was fully and incontrovertibly convinced that they were aware of it, and, to prevent the consequences, that they had planned to send him here. He was permitted to work occasionally in the garden of the hospital; but latterly he was prevented, in consequence of his concealing a weapon he found while at work. Previously to his coming here he repaired to an auction, and bid for the toll of a turnpike-gate; he outbid his competitors, till the gate was knocked down to him, but unfortunately he had “not sixpence capital.” He was, perhaps, the most cunning man of the age, in his own opinion: “Lord bless you,” says he, “half an eye is enough for me; I can see what they are all about through a brick wall—I know them; little they think who I am, and what I am here for.” He was always a working man, and was discharged uncured.

JOHN WEBB,

Aged forty-three, from East Peckham, Kent, admitted 13th February 1823. This man was an agricultural labourer, lived upwards of twenty-five years at a farm-house in the parish above-named, and ultimately became deranged in his intellects. For some time after his disorder became apparent, he would go regularly to his work in the usual way; but shortly afterwards he would turn out for labour at the plough, or any other occupation, in a state of perfect nudity, much to the scandal and disgust of his neighbours. Being checked in this propensity, and persuaded to desist from a custom so shameful, his fancy took another direction, and he fell deeply in love with a respectable farmer’s daughter, and became so extremely assiduous, obtrusive, annoying, and dangerous in the fervour of his addresses, that it was found necessary to confine him in the parish poor-house, from which, after a little time, he was transmitted to this asylum. His mind, however, is still busy with the scenes of his former residence. He carries on an imaginary intercourse daily with the gentlemen of East Peckham and those of Farley parishes, which adjoins; and he persuades himself that both are at open war with each other for the property of his person as a pauper. “East Peckham,” he says, “claims him stoutly, as belonging to their parish; while Farley, his favourite parish, is determined not to give him up, but to keep possession of him at all risks.” Such a contest, in reality, would be quite novel in the system of parochial disputes: for although expensive law-suits are daily incurred by parishes in the endeavour to cast on each other the maintenance of doubtful paupers, few parish officers would be found to contend for the exclusive honour of supporting a mendicant; but would cheerfully resign that privilege to any person who chose to claim it, all the learning of the poor-laws and opinions of vestry clerks to the contrary notwithstanding.

But while this imaginary contest between these rival parishes still remains pendente lite, until a quo warranto or a mandamus shall settle the point, poor Webb has made up his own mind touching the conjugal property of the young lady he had fixed his heart on, and who, he insists, is his wife, guardian, and trustee. Through the same active medium of his fancy, he carries on a perpetual conversation, and as in wedlock the twain are one, so he answers on her part his own questions, and thus maintains a dialogue for hours together. He will frequently convey to his keeper her earnest injunctions for his own immediate liberation. He will often run, in a violent hurry, to the same guardian, tell him that he has just heard from Farley, and that the parish officers there request he may be sent down without delay, and this he frequently does ten times in a day. But the obstinate incredulity of his keeper still bars his purpose, and then he summons supernatural influence to aid his suit: he contends that all storms, shipwrecks, fires, and dreadful accidents, are entirely attributable to the injustice and cruelty of his confinement. Severe frost, snow, cold, wet or gloomy weather, nay, even a mark or stain on the gallery floor, or the sudden illness of a fellow-patient, are all imputable to the same cause, and would all be prevented by his liberation.

Unable to succeed by such representations, he directly resorts to one of his imaginary conversations with his friends at Farley, much in this manner:

“Now, Mr. John Webb, come home directly to your woife.”

“Very well, zur; Oi wull come, directly.”

“And be zure you brings down sum noice things for hur.”

“Oh yes, zur, that Oi wull; and plenty on’ um, indeed.”

“Oi hopes your are very well, Mr. Webb?”

“Oh yes, zur; very well, zur, Oi thanks you koindly.”

“Your woife is very anxious to zee you, Mr. Webb.”

“Oi dare zay she be, zur; Oi wishes her well, zur, Oi assure you.”

“You be worth a good deal o’ property, Mr. Webb?”

“Oh, that Oi be, zur; many scores o’ pounds, zur.”

“Well, Mr. Webb, whoy do’an’t you cum hoam?”

“Yes, zur; yes zur; Oi’ll go and zee abaout it, zur, directly. Good morning zur.”

Fully impressed with this imaginary conversation with some leading parishioner of Farley, he flies to the keeper, tells him that he has just settled with Mr. Somebody to go home to his wife, guardian, and trustee: that he must go immediately, or the consequences will be very bad to any one who detains him.

Thus he passes his days: at nights he amuses himself with the like soliloquies, and is constantly in fretful agitation.

He has a son twenty-one years of age, for whom, he says, he has been mistaken in this case; and that this son is the man who should be imprisoned, and not he. The most remote notion of his own affliction never enters his mind: for he says he never had an hour’s illness in his life. He has conducted himself pretty well since his admission; but is so fretful and uneasy, as to shew symptoms of soon breaking out into violence, on the score of his detention.

JAMES PARSONS,

Aged forty, came from Suffolk, admitted 18th July 1822. This poor unhappy man had a wife and four children. He evinced no symptoms of violence, or mental derangement, except a settled melancholy. He appeared constantly in a low, dejected, and desponding state, but assigned to no one the cause of his wretchedness; probably that cause was combined of extreme poverty and embarrassment, and the dread of being unable to support his beloved wife and offspring, so dear to his affections.

When first admitted he appeared quite languid; was ordered by the physicians an allowance of wine, but preferred, and was permitted, to have porter instead. After some time he appeared to get better in spirits and health, and was employed in some little offices about the gallery: but he appeared to have an insurmountable antipathy to all social intercourse with the other inmates. If he was sitting down, and a few of his fellow-patients, cheerfully disposed of an evening, began to amuse themselves by singing or dancing, while a keeper played on his flute, poor Parsons would immediately rise from his seat, and wander alone to the remote end of the gallery. He very seldom conversed with or spoke to any one. He had attempted twice to destroy himself, while at home with his friends.

On Sunday, December 1st 1822, he had taken tea with his keeper at six o’clock; and, after tea, the keeper saw him no more till eight o’clock; when, on coming to his room-door, and missing him, he supposed he was in the water-closet, or had fallen asleep somewhere about the gallery. He instantly went in search of him, and at last found him in the dining-room, sitting on the floor, with his legs stretched out, his arms and hands resting in front, his chin supported on his breast, with a rope about his neck, fastened at one end to the iron bars of the window. He was quite dead. The cord with which he effected his fatal purpose was composed of many pieces tied together, and a slip-noose made to receive his neck: it must, therefore, have required deliberate contrivance, as well as determined resolution, to effect his desperate purpose: a purpose which, sooner or later, if once fixed by the melancholy maniac, he will effect in spite of all vigilance, if the means are within his reach. The keeper, on finding him, instantly cut him down; and Dr. Wright, with the steward, immediately attended. He was bled, and every means used to restore him, but the vital spark was fled.

A coroner’s inquest was held on the body, and returned a verdict, Death in consequence of Insanity. But the manner in which he obtained the cord by which he effected his purpose, eluded all inquiry.

HENRY SWINDEN,

Of London, watch-maker, admitted on the 30th of August 1822. This patient had been an inmate here before, and was discharged as cured, in October last year. But as the derangements of his mind most probably had their chief source in the nature of his occupation, his recurrence to that occupation, after he was first restored to reason, had the effect of renewing his malady: and the art of watch-making is the leading subject of his illusions.

According to his own account, he is the greatest artist of his profession in the universe. He can make a chronometer that will go for a whole year, without varying in the thirtieth part of a second. He has sent some thousands of them abroad, at prices from fifty to three hundred guineas each. He boasts continually of his immense property, and his professional excellence. He had forty of his chronometers at Flamstead House, Greenwich Park, the residence of the Astronomer Royal, for examination, and never had one returned as imperfect; and he talks of his certificates from thence, always describing his work as the best they had ever seen: nay, his chronometers had been sunk many fathoms under water, for twenty-four hours together, without the slightest variation or injury: and no weather or climate, hot or cold, wet or dry, can affect them.

He says, by way of anecdote, that his late Majesty having accidentally heard, one morning, that Mr. Swinden was walking in Kew Gardens, sent his compliments to him, stating that His Majesty would be happy if Mr. Swinden would honour him by his company to breakfast. Mr. Swinden complied; and while His Majesty and he chatted together about chronometers, Mr. Vulliamy, of Pall-Mall (the famous watch-maker) came in, and wanted to wind up the King’s clock: but Mr. Swinden happening to have the key in his breeches pocket with some watch-springs, and as he had made this clock, which never varied in a single second, he did not think proper to trust the winding up to another. Mr. Vulliamy, however, demanded the right of winding, in rather an imperative tone and manner; but Mr. Swinden instantly knocked him down; and when he got up again seconded the motion. Mr. Vulliamy, not having any particular relish for a repetition of the compliment, sneaked off: when His Majesty highly applauded Mr. Swinden for his spirit. He then wound up the clock, much to the satisfaction of his Majesty, who promised him a patent; and so they shook hands and parted. Mr. Swinden was to have not only the patent, but all the King’s work, if he had not been maliciously brought in here as a madman.

Of his immense property in houses he frequently talks. Besides the whole of Skinner Street, he owns many splendid mansions in various parts of the country. His foreign trade is most extensive in every part of the globe. The deaths of his relations all bring him astonishing riches; and his wife, of whom he always spoke well (contrary to the prevailing custom amongst his fellow-patients), he represents as getting twenty, fifty, and sometimes a hundred guineas from ladies whom she attends as a nurse.

During his sojournment in this hospital he says he has discovered a perpetual motion (possibly it is his tongue, which appears to have that quality, for it rarely ever stops or requires winding), and by this discovery he is to make an immense fortune, when he gets out.

Previously to his last admission here he laboured under melancholy and depression of spirits, and would stand for hours at the corner of a court or street, quite lost in insensibility. It is probable that want of employment and distress sometimes brought on his malady; but as soon as his distresses were relieved, his imaginary wealth was renewed; and he could earn, as he thought, a hundred guineas a day.

In his encomiums on his wife, he said he was not always in earnest. He had his own views in speaking well of her, for he threatened, whenever he got out, to cut her throat, and that of his brother Charles. He was discharged from here as cured, on the 11th of April 1822. He was quite harmless, and, in his lucid intervals, seemed a quiet, good sort of man; and was said to be an excellent workman. But his enlargement served to revive in him the exciting causes of his disorder, and he has been re-admitted here by petition, at the date already mentioned. He is in a very desponding state, and this is the third attack of his disorder.

JOHN DAVID,

Aged forty, admitted in December 1822. This is a Welshman. He was tried for cutting and wounding his wife, and attempting to murder her: but on his trial was found to be insane, and was consigned to restriction in a mad-house. Since his confinement here reason seems to have resumed her seat; for he has behaved himself very well, is quiet and regular, and has shewn no symptoms that bespeak mental derangement.

THOMAS NARROWAY,

London, aged twenty-one. This poor fellow was convicted at the Old Bailey, in October 1822, of stealing some pigs. It was his first offence: but whether it was an act of insanity, or his insanity arose from the remorse, terror, and despondency, naturally arising in a mind not naturally corrupt, from a sense of ruined character, is doubtful. He was sent from Newgate to the Penitentiary, where he proved to be deranged, and was thence sent here. He is at present in a low and desponding state, but quiet, regular, and perfectly harmless.

RICHARD B. E—R—G,

Aged twenty-three, admitted 5th September 1822. This young man was a surgeon and apothecary in Southwark, and his derangement is attributed to the intensity of professional study and application. When he came here he was impressed with a notion that he was principal apothecary to the King, and was to be raised to the dignity of a baronet. He has written several letters, intended for Dr. Cholmley, urging him to forward his views, and confirm his appointment as apothecary to his Majesty; and to the Lord Bishop of Durham, and others, to obtain his baronetcy. As to the former, he urges his ample qualifications; for he has walked the hospitals, attended lectures, and passed his examinations at the College of Surgeons and Apothecaries’ Hall, and cannot see what should delay the confirmation of his appointment; and as to the latter, he thinks himself quite old enough to be a baronet, and knows no reason why he should not be one. His views of advancement are not confined to these two points; for he looks to matrimony as an important round in the ladder of elevation. He wants to obtain a wife with property: ten or fifteen thousand pounds, or so; but even five thousand would do, if no more could be got; and if any one would procure for him a wife with such a portion, he would have no objection to make him a handsome present of five or ten pounds. He would not be over particular as to the lady’s person or education. If he should like her, he would live with her a short time, perhaps: but if not, he would allow her something handsome to live on: half a guinea a week, or so, he should think might do. He has no particular wish to see the lady before-hand, nor to waste time in the tedious forms of courtship: when she comes to church to be married would be quite time enough. He has a high opinion of his own personal symmetry, views himself in the glass, when he has an opportunity, examines the proportions of his limbs, and asks all about him what they think of him.

Besides his medical and anatomical talents, he assumes deep knowledge in theology and moral philosophy; and he has written here several sermons, moral essays, and treatises on human nature, as he calls them; but all in a style of wildness and incoherency perfectly congenial to the deranged state of his intellects, and not legible, in any connection, for two lines together.

His professional pursuits frequently occupy his anxiety in the round of miscellaneous topics. At one time he is extremely busy on subjects of anatomy; at another, in making out accounts of money due to him from his patients, while in practice. But in no two bills made out for the same person do his charges correspond. That which is charged at ten shillings one day, is but five shillings the next; or perhaps fifty, according, as he says, to his consideration of persons, and their circumstances.

He is ever starting from one subject to another, and in that unsettled, uneasy state, which Dean Swift termed “the fidgets.” Sometimes he proposes going into the army; but not abroad, as he does not like, nor understand, fighting: at other times he proposes to travel, for the two-fold purpose of improving his knowledge, and affording him opportunities of gaining a rich wife. But at all times he assumes great consequence, is highly susceptible of the least imaginary slight, extremely irritable, and prompt to violence on those at whom he takes offence, but is much afraid of being hurt in the encounter.

His friends and connexions are respectable, and extremely attentive to him since his confinement.

DAZELY HURRILL,

Aged thirty-three, admitted 21st June 1822. This man had been a rustic labourer. When admitted to this hospital he was in a very weakly state. His countenance and complexion were scarcely of human aspect, having more the resemblance of a baboon, without the lively grimace of that animal.

His mind was deeply impressed with the notion that he was here on board a convict-ship, on his voyage to Botany Bay; that the weather was extremely stormy and dangerous; and he expected the vessel every moment to be upset, wrecked, or sunk; and nothing could dissuade him from this opinion. His conversation every morning was about the rocking and heaving of the vessel during the preceding night. “My eyes!” he would exclaim, “how she did roll about, pitch, and heave last night! I thought it was all over with us.” One morning his keeper found him with his legs and body under his bed, and holding on with both hands by the side of the bedstead. On asking him what he was about; he answered, “my dear soul! I am glad you are come. I have been holding on all night, and am almost gone, I expected that I must have let go, and have gone smack overboard.”

When the keeper shewed him his error, the poor fellow said: “Lord have mercy on me! Why it is a bed!” and heaving a deep sigh, continued, “I thought I was hanging by the ship’s side all night. I did not know till now that I was in the cabin all the while!”

He was asthmatic, had very ill health, and was discharged sick and weakly, July 18th 1822.

WILLIAM ELMORE,

Aged thirty-four, from Kettering, in Northamptonshire, admitted the 11th of April 1822. This poor object had been a common labourer. He was obstinate and untractable, almost beyond all example: it was scarcely possible to do anything that met his wishes, or render him any kindness that seemed agreeable. He stoutly resisted every attempt to dress or undress him. In order to shave him, it required the aid of a keeper at each arm and leg, another at his head, and others to restrain his body: and yet, with all, the operation could not be thoroughly effected. Although apparently reduced to a skeleton, through his obstinate abstemiousness, he was remarkably strong, and on every occasion opposed his strength to any efforts for bettering his unhappy state. He would be induced to take no part of his provisions but by dint of force: and although he would cry out repeatedly, “for God’s sake give me something to eat;” yet the instant that food was brought before him he would reject it with horror, as a patient in the hydrophobia would reject any liquid, and would struggle with all his might to avoid it.

So far did delusion carry this man’s fancy, that he actually believed he had neither eyes, nose, mouth, tongue, nor teeth. While feeding him, his keeper would desire him to open his mouth. “Mouth!” he would answer, “I have got no mouth; I had a nice large one once, but I have got none now.” He actually supposed his mouth to be quite an opposite part of his person, and would call aloud to his keeper when endeavouring to feed him, “don’t! pray don’t put meat and things in there! it’s so unnatural. Nobody ever did that before to any man; its so unreasonable: pray don’t do it!” The like perverse and revolutionary notions of his other organs, already mentioned, gave rise to the most extraordinary misconceptions, as if perception and all its natural organs were at open variance with each other. In this intestine war of the organic elements, his person became emaciated, feeble, and sickly; and he was discharged on the 30th May 1822, and sent to a private mad-house.

JOSEPH HILLS,

From Coggershall, Essex, aged forty, admitted 21st March 1822. This man had been here before, in April 1818, and was discharged well; but became disordered again, it is supposed, from continual inebriety. He was only mischievous, so far as tearing his clothes, and generally wore a number of ornaments about his person, such as pieces of his handkerchief tied about his legs and hat, and of coloured fragments of the rugs, swung from a button-hole of his coat, from which was suspended a piece of old hat, leather, or a button or two, &c. He was continually complaining of his confinement, and for ever proclaiming gross charges against his brother and friends, of robbing him of his farms, estates, houses, lands, gold, silver, brass, furniture, bills of exchange, leases, annuities, cows, horses, sheep, cats, dogs, his intended wife, children, &c. &c. He always had some alleged cause of complaint, and was never deficient in the names of things he had been robbed of: but nothing appeared to hurt him so much as traducing and scandalizing his character, by representing him as a madman. Of his disorder no man could be more unconscious: he would justify every action of his life by an argument as fallacious as possible; his excuse for tearing his clothes was, because he ought to have better; and wearing a collection of strings and fantastical rags about him was, because he ought to have honours and distinctions instead; but they were mere substitutes. He was extremely noisy by day and night, a very strong man, did no mischief, was by no means dangerous, but abusive to excess when crossed or vexed, which a very little was sufficient to do. He had been a married man and had a large family, who were entirely supported by his brother, a respectable farmer. He lost his wife, and he now again felt a second tender emotion towards matrimony: he complained of being imprisoned when he was about being made the happiest of mankind; and frequently said he would not take a million of money to compromise this scandalous and unjust affair. He, however, became less noisy, more calm and rational; and continuing to improve, was enlarged, on leave, 5th December 1822.

STEPHEN ELLIS,

Aged sixty, admitted 21st November 1822. This poor old man is married, has one daughter, is from Greenwich, and was a labourer in Deptford Victualling yard for twenty-nine years; but, in the late economical arrangements in many departments of the country’s expenditure, he was lopped off; and not meeting with employment of any kind, he became low and desponding, tormented by night, unhappy and restless by day: he attempted at last to beat his head to pieces against the wall, but was prevented and sent to this hospital. He imagines that he is charged with stealing government stores, and that he has been sent here for a temporary purpose; but expects every hour to be carried to prison, and condemned for an offence, of which he most solemnly protests his innocence. He is continually under the most painful apprehensions, and every new face he sees, he supposes “that person is come to fetch him away to Maidstone goal.” Soothing advice is completely lost upon him; for although he appears satisfied of his erroneous opinion for the moment, it returns again with increased conviction, five minutes afterwards. He bears an excellent character for sobriety and honesty, civil, harmless, and peacable—a good husband, an affectionate father, and is much to be pitied.

JAMES B——R,

Aged thirty-seven, admitted 18th April 1822. This patient seemed, from the whole bent of his mind, and the tenour of his life, to have been destined by nature for the stage. From his earliest youth the histrionic profession engrossed his thoughts, and occupied his highest ambition; but the taste of his friends took an opposite direction, and they inexorably opposed his favourite object, and forced him to adopt the graver path of commercial life, for which his taste and talents seemed equally unsuited. “A poet must be born, not made,” says a Latin proverb; perhaps the maxim would be equally applicable to an eminent player. Natural genius is indispensable to genuine excellence in either; and as to emoluments, instances are not wanting in modern as well as ancient times, to prove that poets and players may attain wealth from their professions, as well as the most plodding votaries of Cocker and the counting-house; and, probably, if the stage-struck B——r had not been thwarted in his favourite pursuit, he might have found his way to fortune and eminence, as well as the Kembles and Keans of the age in which he has lived. But the source of his misfortune lay in the very track his friends marked out for his prosperity. He was engaged in trade, was unlucky, got into debt, was arrested, and thrown into prison; where his philosophy was not proof against the hopeless privation of liberty. He became deranged in his intellects as well as in his circumstances, and was ultimately sent here a bankrupt in mind.

Still, however, his attachment to the stage bore the ascendant in his ideas. When he came to this place he was tolerably quiet: he supposed Bethlem Hospital to be a Royal Theatre, and he looked with eager attention at the patients in the airing ground, whom he considered as rehearsing their several parts; but finding no person to push him forward for a display of his talents, he determined to volunteer an effort by himself, and to become the busiest actor in the whole drama. He commenced his preparation for appearance by kicking his shoes over the wall; then threw himself into all the varieties of stage attitude, and occasionally personated Richard, Othello, Shylock, Coriolanus, Macbeth, King Lear, Brutus, Alexander, and, in short, ranted through the whole round of tragic characters, in which the Garricks, the Barrys, the Kembles, the Keans, the Youngs, and all our most celebrated dramatists have waged their way to fame and fortune. To specify all the parts he enacted in the course of six months would be an arduous task. His delight was to go without shoes or stockings, probably from his conception of the part he was going to perform, and whenever he received new shoes or half-boots, he took the first opportunity to get rid of them. He would place them loosely on his feet, and by a sudden jerk send them over the wall: whenever he was discovered to be thus discalced, he was directly brought to his own room.

One evening while a party of learned theologians, his fellow patients, were in solemn converse, and profoundly discussing the question, “what became of man after death,” B——r, with both his hands full of mud, advanced to the outer part of the ring formed by this conclave. He listened some time with apparent attention, but suddenly exasperated by some of their arguments, he started into a stage attitude, and exclaimed, in a stentorian voice, “curse ye all! ye vagabonds, and the woman too!” and dashing the mud amongst them, retreated grim as Bajazet; and as he retired, made frequent stops and pauses, darting angry looks at the group, and at each pause reciting some dramatic passage expressive of his rage, until he reached the bottom of the airing ground, when he made his exit, not to the green room, but to the privy.

He was at one time necessarily confined in straw, when his malady was at the height; and during that time he imagined that his task was to reduce into chaff the material of his couch; in his endeavours to effect which he was extremely sedulous, for next morning there was not a single fragment of straw to be found longer than a pin. He slept but little at a time, for a very considerable period: so that nearly the whole of each night was employed in thrashing to chaff the straw he lay on.

The notion “that Bethlem was a large theatre” was still uppermost in his mind; and that he had an unlimited number of parts to act. And when he saw so great a number of brother actors in the airing ground, each performing his own part in the way his fancy suggested, he declared he could observe no regularity in their acting, nor meaning in their speeches. A fine opportunity thus offered, in his notion, for a happy display of his own superior talents, and never did tragedian enter with more earnest solemnity into the respective parts he assumed for the moment, during the successive scenes of this heterogenous pasticcio, which was continued daily for near six months, when the happy dénouement of his own convalescence terminated his dramatic labours.

In spite of the incessant action of his mind and body, which would have worn out the most robust health of a sane subject in half the time, his strength and vivacity continued undiminished, by the aid of a perpetual appetite for all food he could meet. Never was insanity more impetuous, nor less abated by intervals of tranquillity.⁠[12] His whole frame was in constant and violent action, and his tongue never at rest day or night, but during his short and unfrequent snatches of sleep. Besides his dramatic occupations, his mind was in constant ferment from notions of ill-treatment conjured up by his own fancy.

For his wife he had conceived the most inveterate antipathy, and constantly vented against her the most horrid epithets and imprecations. In every part he acted, or speech he uttered, he always contrived to introduce her name in terms of abuse and execration: but there could not be a stronger trait of a perverted mind; for this afflicted partner in his misfortunes, during the whole period of his confinement, was unceasing in her attentions, and made daily inquiries after his health; managed his affairs with singular application and economy, paid off a great portion of his debts, greatly improved his house and business, and conducted herself as a worthy examplar to all her sex.

But as his malady abated, and “reason resumed her seat,” his gratitude and affection to her was not only restored, but redoubled. To abuse and execration, succeeded affection, panegyric, and benediction; and he seemed to hail his recovery only as it would enable him to make her amends. After the lapse of six months, his health daily improved; and on the 7th November 1822, he was discharged cured; and he returned to his home well dressed, calm, collected, and rational, with his excellent wife.

CHRISTOPHER HELMES,

Aged forty, admitted 14th November 1822. This poor fellow was a respectable agriculturist in Devonshire, near Plymouth: but the severe losses he sustained obliged him to give up the concern, when he became deranged, owing to his failure in business. It is impossible to describe the variety of wild ideas he entertained. He called himself a sailing master, captain, admiral, general, in fact, almost every thing in turn; was very noisy by day, and had very restless nights; swearing and cursing, and calling to sailors aloft and below. He was utterly insensible to his own situation, and even the calls of nature. His health was in a very precarious state when he was admitted, which generally declined till the 15th of January 1823, when he paid the debt of nature.

He was of a respectable family, and was remarkable as a good moral man; sober, industrious, and discreet in every particular. He has left a family.

JOHN PARKER,

Aged forty, admitted 19th December 1822. This poor man was a butcher in London, and was in a bad state of health when he came here. His derangement was attributed to a cause, very rarely, if ever heard of, namely, his extraordinary success in business: it is sometimes usual for a man, when anticipating any singular good fortune, to say, if such an event was to occur “I should go mad for joy;” but here we have practical illustration, if the report of his friends be true. He had formerly been much embarrassed, and sustained many severe losses and disappointments; but latterly every thing he undertook was successful: his trade flourished, he was paying off rapidly his former debts, and succeeding in his business far beyond his most sanguine expectations, when he became disordered in his intellects, and was brought to Bethlem.

Here his ideas were continually occupied on his trade; he was always giving answers to his customers; praising the various joints of meat, and fixing his price; and one time he imagined he had bought five hundred bullocks at a halfpenny each; sheep, two for three farthings; and lambs three a penny. He was continually making bargains in Smithfield; “send me home these fifty bullocks, here’s your money, fifty pence make four shillings and twopence; fifty halfpence are two shillings and a penny; here you are; here’s your money; what do you buy? what are you looking for? very well, come in an hour, ma’am, my man’s out; kill them bullocks; yes, sir; do it directly; I am going to get half a pint of beer; very well, make haste; bring me a glass of brandy and water,” &c. &c. &c. In this manner was his distracted mind continually exercised, until his health declining very fast, he kept his bed, and died 14th January 1823.

WILLIAM GARWOOD,