The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-02-14
NOW Lurattcs' RIBS Get Broken


To the Editor of ne Pau Man Gazette
Sir--An important question has been raised as
TO 'the treatment of lunatics," and inter ALA
how Santa Nistri came to have his breast-bone
and eight ribs fractured at Hanweil; and how
other patients have died at the same place of
similar Injuries; and how William Wilson came
to have twelve ribs broken the other day at the
Lancaster County Asylum. The question is
grave; the more so that, by every principle Of
statistics, scores of ribs must be broken, one or
two at q time, and nobody the wiser, under a
system which rises periodically to such high
figures of pulverization and so lets in the faint
light of an occasional inquest, conducted by
credulity in very atmosphere of mendacity.
have precise information, applicable to these
recent cases, but not derived from them, and
ask leave to relate the steps by which the truth
came to me.
On the Cd of January, 1851, Barnes, luuatlc,
died at Peckham House with an arm and four
ribs broken. The people of the asylum stuck
maufully together and agreed TO know nothing
about it, and justice would have been bafiled
entirely but for Donnelly, an insane patient
he revealed that Hill, a keeper, had broken the
mans bones. Hill was tried at the Central
Criminal Court and convicted of mansaughter
on Donnelly's sole evidence, the people of the
asylum maintaining an obdurate silence to the
end. About 1858, think, lunatic patient died
suddenly with his breast bone and eight ribs
broken, which figures please compare with
Santa Nistri's. As IL had taken keeper to
break the five bones of Barnes, nobody believed
Secker-that think, was the victims name;
but this time the people of the asylum had 1t all
their own way; they stuck manfuly together,
stihed truth, and bafiled justice. (See the Ninth
Report of the Commissioners In Lunacy, D. 25.)
Late in July, 1858, there was ball at Colney
Hatch. The press were invited and came back
singing the praises of that best retreat. What
order What gayety! What non-restaint
fortunatos nimium sua 81 bona nornt unaticos.
Next week or so Owen Swift, one of the patti
ents in that blest retreat, died of the following
injures-Breast-bone and eleven ribs broken,
liver ruptured.
Varney, patient-whose evidence reads like
that of a very clear-headed gentleman, if you
compare it with the doctors that follows it
deposed to this effect:-Thursday at dinner-time
Swift was in good health and spirits, and more
voluble than Slater one of the keepers, ap-
proved Slater said, "Hold your noise." Swift
babbled on. Slater threw the poor man down
and dragged him into the padded room, which
room then resounded for several minutes with
"a great noise of knocking and humping
about and with the sufferers cries of agony,
till these last were choked and there silence.
Swift was not seen again till Saturday morning;
and then in the presence of Varney, he accused
Slater to his face of having maltreated him, and
made his words good by dying that night or the
very next morning.
This evidence was borne out by the state of
the body (fractured sternum and eleven frac-
tnred ribs) and not rebutted by any direct, or,
indeed, rational testimony. Yet the accused
was set free. But the press and the country
took this decision Ill. A MiddleseX magistrate
wrote to the Times, August 81 1860 to remon-
strate, and drew attention to a previous idiotic
verdict in a similar case. And whereas the
medical man of the establishment had assisted
to clear the homicide by his own Ignorance of
how bones can be broken wholesale without
proportionate bruises or flesh wounds a cores
spondent of the Daily Telegraph enlightened
his professional ignorance on that head and
gave the public the only adequate solution of
owen Swifts death which had been either
spoken or written up to that day.
That one adequate solution was the true one
Daily Telegraph, Aug. 8 1860
Time, 1862. Place. Hauwel. Matthew Geo
ghegan, patient, refused to go to bed. JONES'
2 keeper, threw him down, aad kicked him
Several times: then got .,icii and beat him;
h then got fre-shovel AID beat him; then
Jumped on his body; then walked up and down
his body; of which various injuries the man
died, not Immediately, but yet so speedily that
the cuts and bruises were still there to show
what had killed him.
Bone. a bricklayer, and eyewitness of the
homicide, swore to the above facts. Linch,
Bones laborer, another eyewitness, swore to
the same facts. The resident engineer swore
that Bone and Linch were both true men. DR..
Jephson had found the man with bruises, one of
which, on his abdomen, had been caused by the
heel of boot Per contra, doctor was found
1 to swear as follows-'1 swear that think he
died of pleuro-pneumonia. L swear that don't
! kRO,U whether his external injuries contributed
to his death"
And upon this, though no pleuro-pneumonia
could be showed in the mutilated body, though
Bone and Linch, disinterested witnesses, deposed
TO plain facts, and the doctor merely delivered
la wild and improbable conjecture, and then
Iqswore to his own ignorance on the point in
| doubt, if doubt there could be-yet this jury,
with their eyes 10 confirm what their ears heard
.eworn, and their ears to confirm what their eyes
|saw written on the mangled corpse, actually de-
i pivered the following verdict:-"Deceased died
latter receiving certain injuries from external
1 violence; but whether the death was occasoned
/ lby natural causes or by such violence, there
Twas not sufficient evidence to show" They
then relieved their consciences in the drollest
way. They turned round on Bone and Linch
and repriman6ed them severely for not having
interfered to prevent the cruelty which they
themselves were shielding in the present and
fostering in the future by as direct a lie as eve
twelve honest men delivered. Suppose the
! bric1layer and his man had replied, "Why, lool
1 We, gentlemen, we came into the madhouse tt
lay bricks, not to do justice But you came
into the madhouse to do justice. We should
have lost our bread If we had interfered; bu
you could have afforded to play the men-ant
didn't z"
enclose herewith the evidence of the brick
layers and the sworn conjectures of the doctor
.n re Geoghegan; also the evidence of the doc
tor and of the comparatively clear-headed luna
tic, in re Swift.
About this time my researches into the abuse
of private asyla (Which abuses are quite dis
tinct from the subject in handy brought me int
contact with multfarious facts, and with
higher class of evidence than the official in
Quirers permit themselves to hear. They rel,
too much on medical attendants and other ser
wants of an asylum whose interest it is to vel
J ugly truths and sprinkle hells with rose-wateI
4 l. on the contrary, examined number of eX
patients who had never been too mad to OF
serve and eX-attendanta male and female. VIII