Chapter V: Introduction (4)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The Right Honourable the Lords of Admiralty.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

“There is one thing more that I do crave,
That his body may never lay in the grave:
May he be damned, and overboard be thrown,
The sharks have his body and the devil have his soul;
The sharks have his body and the devil have his soul.”

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

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

RICHARD TURNER,

Aged fifty, admitted here about four years since. This man is another transmit from the Hulks. He was tried in Bedfordshire for robbing a house of forty pounds in cash, found guilty, and sent to the Hulks, where he became insane, and was thence transmitted here.

Whatever might have been this man’s original frame of mind, he has here distinguished himself only as a capricious, ill-tempered, disagreeable fellow. He changes his humours every ten minutes throughout the day, is always sulky, peevish, haughty, insolent, and abusive. He is what is called a _knacky_ man, and is employed in several little operations about the hospital, particularly in repairing the patient’s clothes, for which he is regularly paid: but although this privilege supplies him with many little comforts in his confinement which do not fall to the lot of others, he thanks no one for the indulgence, takes the little jobs with reluctance, snatches them roughly from the hands of those who bring them, and dashes them violently into a corner of his room; insults all who approach him in some way, and scarcely any one escapes the vulgar abuse of his bitter and virulent tongue. He is always discontented, unsettled, and obstinate; and, what renders this conduct the more unsufferable is, that he appears to know very well what he says and does: that his brutal rudeness is not the mere result of insanity, but of his abominable temper, which he will not try to controul; and which is, at all times, so unsufferable, that it frequently becomes necessary to lock him up in his room. He is, however, remarkably clean and regular in his person and in his apartment, which he always keeps in the nicest order.

DAVID LITTLE,

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

JOHN JONES,

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

ELI DAWES,

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

REV. FRANCIS MARDIN,

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

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

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

GEORGE WOODS,

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

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

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

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

JOHN POOLE,

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

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

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

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

JAMES CHEESBURGH,

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

JOSEPH WATERSON,

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

THOMAS EASTON,

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

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

THOMAS FLETCHER,

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

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

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

EDWARD L----Y,

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

“Great wits to madness nearly are allied.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

ARTHUR THUROGOOD,

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

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

JOHN BAKER,

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

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

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

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

HENRY SNELLING,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GENIUS SPARALEIU,

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

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

ROBERT CARTER,

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

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

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

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

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

JOHN HARTLAND,

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

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

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

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

PETER UPSDALE,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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