The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1878-02-23
fhr Tn" Cecil Wing.
BROADBRIM'S NEW YORK LETTER.

BROADBRIM'S NEW YORK LETTER.
SEVEN YEARS IN A MAD HoUsE-THE CASE
OF SUSAN DICKIE THE ARREST OF
NOTORIOUS MADAM REsTELL-oUR NEW
| RELATIONS THE TALKING MONKEY--
THE GREAT SHOW OF BEAUTY AT GIL
MORE S GARDEN.
ITS a very good world we live in,
| To lend, or to spend. or to give in:
| But to borrow, or to beg, or TO come by
ones own,
It's the very worst world that ever was
known
| | sometimes feel like registering an
oath that | never will say anything in
c"mmendation of my kind again. | am
| gradually coming to the conclusion that
we are ii bad lot, and that if there is hot
hell there ought to be one TO be used on
| special occasions. In a letter only three
or four weeks ago, | ventured the opinion
that perhaps We were growing better.
! take it all back now: don't believe a word
of it; in fact am fully convinced that we
are a good deal worse than | ever thought
we We're before. and join with Sir Peter
! Feazrl in the unqualified opinion that " It's
a-wicked world, and the fewer we praise
i'll it the better"
Several weeks ago | mentioned that
there were abuses in connection with the
Bloomingsdale Lunatic Asy lum that needed
a thorough investigation, and | called
| upon the legislators to give additional
powers to the board of examiners, and
then compel them to do their duty. I'm
fortunately, our legislators are too busy
looking ont for themselves to pay much
attention TO the demands of humanity; the
black horse cavalry has begun its annual
| raid on the ferries. the gas and insurance
companies, and the abuses of lunatic asy-
huns aud hospitals will have to take back
! seat, for, as Sir Charles Coldstream re-
. marked when he looked down into the
crater Of Nesuvlus, There's nothing in
it,"
1t scarcely seems possible that here, in
the great center of American civilization,
with its iundl eds of churches and chart
fable associations. that we should find the
| terrible realization Of Charles Reads story
| Of Very Hard CASH Yet such is the
shocking fact that starcs lis in the face,
that for seven years IA woman has been con
fined in a mad house because she had the
| misfortune to be a heiress to one hundred
and ninety thousand dollars. Had she been
poor she might have had the blessed priv
iege of lIberty--she might have marched
mp and down the Buwery and Chatham
streets morning and evening, with the
thousands of poor girls who exc out their
miserable lives for two or three dollars a
week. She might have starved respectfully,
or jumped into the East River, like poor
Mary kavanah, and no one outside of the
cororer's Office would have troubled them.
selves about her. But Miss Susan Dickie
was an heiress: a hundred and ninety thou
sand dollars are not picked up from every
hUckleberry bush; so her dear brothers
and sisters thought that the best place for
her was mad house. True, she had never
done anything; but that did not make any
difference. She had her likes and dislikes,
aud was not at all afraid to express them.
She WAS charitable to the poor. loved her
friends, and was beloved by them; but she
was guilty of the crime of having hun
dred and ninety thousand dollars, and that
settled her case. Now, am willing to ad
NIT that if any fellow said had hundred
and nj tbnuSap5 6aiIarc that If unulI
be good and Unsuitable grounds for sending
him TO lunatic asylum. But Miss Dickie
really had the stamps, and her brothers
and sisters wanted to get them, and so they
concluded that the shortest way of accom-
plishing this laudable purpose was just TO
clap her in a mad house. | could have
suggested a much more merciful way than
that: a giant torpedo or some nitro glycer-
ine, Paris green or Prussic acid either one
of these would have been equally effective
and much more respectable, for il the way
| that suggest these miserable gossips would
have little or nothing to talk about as dead
| people tell no tales. Well, poor little Miss
! Susan Dicke has been shut up for
seven years in the Bloomngdale mad
house, and it was done on the Ger
tificate of a physician who had only
! seen her for ten Minutes, aud who knew no
more about her complaints or the nature OF
! her antecedents than he did about the back
| of his head. He got good fat fee for his
opinion, which was possibly a salve to his
! conscience, though that opinion deprived a
fellow being OF her liberty, and consigned
J her to living tomb and the fellowship of
/ maniacs for seven long years. Gentle
brothers, loving sisters, look to your handi.
work. This poor, stricken creature, de-
! serted by her own flesh and blood finds
! shelter in the home of trusted friends who
have never ceased to cry out against this
/ infamy. God be thanked, to-day her cry
is heard, and she is free woman once
more, and the managers of the Blooming
dale Asylum, who profiied 10y her incarcer-
alton to the extent of twenty dollars
week may throw their blood money away,
as Iscarlot did of old; and 1 shall bring in