The Massachusetts spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1831-1858, 1832-02-01
From he Boston Courier.
THE LUNATIC HOSPITAL

THE LUNATIC HOSPITAL.
The report recently submitted to the Leg
stature is very satisfactory one. The ed
ihcc erected at Worcester is covered and
slated, and the interior apartments divided,
and S24 GOO only of the appropriation ex-
pended; the remaining $4,000, it is thought,
will be sufficient to complete the building,
for the reception of the turniture-and all
this work has been done without the stnlu-
lus OF ardent spirit.
The. central part of the Hospital ia four
stories in height, and seventy-siX feet IN
length, and the wings extend each way
more than ninety feet each. The CRATES
over the windows are so arranged as to
seem part of the frames. There IS Gel
lar under the whole edifce. The apart
ments for the patients are eight feet by ten,
and have an immoveable seat and tube to
convey both the warm and the cold air
The whole building seems to be rs snug as
monastery, and the patients Will have one
advantage over the monks, that of bathing
! The water is conducted in pipes from a
| neighhoring bill into reservoir on the top
of the building.
| The most unfortunate class of linatics
are those who have been shut up as dan
! gerous, by the authority of Courts, &c,-
and the town panpers. And these will re-
| ceive The greatest adva ntages from the es-
Establishment. Some of the haidsh'ps Of the
old system are detailedin the report and the
situation Of the lunat tics was little credlta-
BILE to the Commo nwealth. Towns also
have made private contracts with the keep
ers of Houses of Correction, for the hoard
ing of lunatic pa upers, and in their bar
, gains it is hut natural to suppose that the
towns. would give as little as might be. and
that the keepers would try to save to them
! selves modicum of that, by graduating
the food of the sufferer upon the most ab-
stemious scale--but the report shall speak
! for ITSELF" In one prison lunatic was
found in an apartment Ia which he had
| been nine years. He had a wreath OF rags
round his body, and another round his neck.
This was all his clothing. He had no bed,
chair, or bench In the prison, or House of
Correction SO ca He'd, in which were ten lu-
natics, two were found about seventy years
Of age, a male and a female, in the same
apartment of an upper story Tho female
was lying on a heap of straw under brok-
en- window. The snow, in severe storm,
was beating through the window and lay
upon the straw around her witheIed body,
which was partially covered with few tllthy
and tattered garments. The former had
been in the apartment six, and the latter
twenty-one years."
Another lunatic, w no was warmed by no
fire, had nevertheless escaped with life, or,
as the woman of the house said, "he had
never froze," though as tothe five lunatlcs
in the cellar, the woman admitte! that she
"had a sight to do to keep themfrom freez-
ing" In another house, however, pauper
who was thus boarded o ut by anelghborlng
town, was so frozen that he died. There
are times when load OF wood IS permit
ted to weigh down poor Nuns purse, but
it is nevertheless not rredital Vie to the Com
monweath that it should preponderate
against his life. Corporations, saws learn
ed judge, have no souls-and towns, he
might have added, have no bowels. No
men, no deputies, no slaves, are held to so
strict an accountability, for moneys expend-
ed, as town officers are held by their con
stituents. The gauds of MammoLl are more
esteemed than the offices of mercy. Now
though the report recommends that all
town pauper lunatics he taken at the Hos
dfGF the hals ray! y 0fsxpsnsss without
that there were some compulsory method
to oblige those fierce little democracies,
called totsns, 10 take advantage of the offer
or the saving of a mill in a town tax, of
ter dollars, would deprive the pour lunatic
ofwhat the Commonwealth has provided for
his relief.
The greatest human calamity is madness
all are liable to it, and perhaps the most
sensitive or gifted minds are the most liza !
bic. When the Saviour was on earth, he |
relieved by miracle, many of the lost in |
mind we can indeed perform no miracles, |
we cannot. like Prometheus, make IA statue
and animate with living soul we cannot |
| "Create soul under the ribs of death -
but we can restore the reason to its lost
pedestal; we can animate the brute body |
which it had deserted, with intelligence and |
warm it with affections. Kindness NAV re-
store the lunatic, severity never can; or. in
the language of the Report, "to him whose
mind IS alenated prison is tomb, and
within lis walls he must suffer as one who |
awakes to life in the solitude of the grave. !
Existence and the capacity of pain alone are
left him. Cut off from all the charities of
life, endued with quickened sensiblities to
pain, and perpetually stung by annoyances,
which, though individually small, rise hy |,
constant accumulation to agonies almost
beyond the power Of mortal sufferance if
ever approach the light by which it was
once cheered and directed, it sees eyety
thing unwelcoming, every thing repusiye
and hostile, and is driven away into return
less punishment Were a system now to
be devised, whose express object it should
be to drive every victim of insanity beyond
the limits of hope, it would SCARCELY be
within the power of a perverse ingenuity
to suggest one more infallible than thai
which, for so many years, has been in prac
tical operation among us. That system
could advance one paramount claim To
preference. Its experiments have been mn.
merons, and have scarcely ever failed in rem
dering the most favorable cases of INSANITY
incurable."
The Commissioners of the Hospital are
Messrs. Mann, TAFT, and Calhoun.
HYDRoPHoBIA. Died, at Franklin Fur-
mace, (Pa.) on the 28th Dec, of hydropho.
bia, Garrett Lucas, Jr, in the 10th wear of