The Placer herald., 1856-11-08
New Years Eve in Lunatic Asylum.

IdSI udy vi tHe olu year, 10 tne pauper WO
men in the county Lunatic Asylum, at Han
well | started from the city about dusk, Just
as the dull fog had thickened over Hyde
Park for the night, and after nine miles drive
in the dark, drew up at the lighted gates of
the Middlesex Madhouse gave our names
and walked into bright, cheerful hall, lead
ing by white stone passages to various parts
Of the house. Following one Of these to the
apartments of the resident physician found
that the party, numbering three hundred
and fifty restless mad women, had already
met in the room below, for the dance.
The crowd altogether reminded me very
much of a crowd Of children. Wilful,
natural, saying what they thought, careless
or unconscious of other peoples opinions,
earnest in trihes, sincere, without conceal
ment, inquisitive, eager observers of every
passing thing, and in continual fidgetty mo-
ton, you might have imagined yourself in
school Of foolish overgrown girls. There
were exceptions, of course, where excessive
pride or inordindte vanity was the insane in
dication. The Queen of Netherlands, for in
stance, proud as Lucifer, looked down upon
You as if you were only dirt; and her equal
in purse-pride, who carried bag Of gold
| foreign money she said, but the bank would
know her pebbles were good foreign money,
and would pass in the country she came
flom--was as conscious of her wealth as the
sanest money-holder on the Stock Exchange,
Size talked about her poor straw bonnet and
sorry grown with a lofty stage stride, as if
she had been the original goddess Of plenty.
Contrasted with her pride was the silly vanity
of feeble and somewhat delicate Young
person, who slipped out between the bysand-
ers, and walked backwards and forwards in
cessantly in a stealthy, selfconscious way,
wishing to attract attention, yet affecting
to disregard it. She had been pretty once,
when better dressed than the majority about
her, and instead of the common drilled cap
she wore her hair in bands, and had less of
the kitchen maid about her than the crowd
that lined the walls She was the wife Of
professional man, gone man, one would think
with excessive vanity. Whenever YOU looked
at her she caught your eye, looked away
suddenly with a complacent smile at having
attracted your notice, and walked on her
way as if. the eyes of all were waiting upon
her. | thought detected an expression Of
uneasiness at her being seen among so many
common people. Many Of them were very
loquacous and pleased at an opportunity Of
talking to strangers. A placid, middlod-
aged woman. of the Mrs. NickIeby order,
with weak flow Of soft, religions words, and
weaker stream of namby-paniby, told me
innocently that she had sweet heavenly
host of pretty little seraphs three inches long
pretty little creatures that she had fed
and nourished; they were up stairs now, she
said; but she had been burrowing in the
ground after them in the morning. which
was the reason why she was not as well as
usual. Her earnestness and minute descrip
tons of particulars showed how completely
she was living in a world of her own, where
she saw the seraphs she described, She
was fully impressed with the notion that she
was sane, and the rest of them mad.
The music of songs played in the course of
the evening were very well received by the
PATIENTS on some of whom it produced sad
ness and on Others unnatural gayety. In the
middle of one ofthe songs, to which all were
listening very quietly, an earnest, voluble
woman standing behind me, to whom all
things seemed possible, whispered in my ear
with an air of familiar truth, which was al
most startling you know I've been in
Heaven and the songs they sing there are
better than that can tell you" 1t was tax
ing her too literally, perhaps, to follow up
such an assertion by any further inquiry; but
her answer to the question, what sort Of
music they had there, was a rather singular
one. She considered moment and then
said, as if she had merely been recalling past
impressions: "Why common sense, to be
sure" When the song was over, she walked
away to the end of the gallery where few
patients sat who appeared slightly more irri-
table than the rest; and among these was
silent feeble girl, having look Of detected
imbeclity on her sharp, coarse face, which
seemed as if her spirit had been broken down
by want She was one of the numerous class
Of patients who had been confined in that
cruel bondage of restraint chairs, sleeves,
straight waistcoats, muf1s, or leg lock, (how
hard it is to call things by their right names,)
from which the judcous humanity of the
physician and the magistrate had released
her. Her wrists were deformed by the hard
leather cases in which they had been con
fined; and so habituated had she been to
wear them at night, that for some time after
they had been removed, she held up her
hands to be bound when she went to bed.
Now she was permitted to wander about as
she pleased, and although under the old sys-
tenn she had been tied up to an iron bar, or
bench, or a heavy restraint chair, as dan
gerous maniac, she conducted herself this
evening with propriety, listening to the piano
with much apparent pleasure, or sat near a
friend, to whom she seemed fond, watching
with varied expression of shyness or sad
ness or apathy, every strange face that she
saw in the room She was not the only y in
stance of the happy effect of removing re-
straint There were forty-seven persons pres
ent, all of whom had been previously con
fined in the same way or another, who now
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