The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1883-07-04
THE MISSISSIPPI PUBLIC IEsTI.
TUTI0ES.
Interesting Description.

copy OF a similar building IN Paris, and
beautiful and finished as it is and built
of the best materials, the cost was only
10000. Mississippi, by the way, is one
OF the few States that can mention with
pride all Of its State officials, hence the
unmistakable prosperity one sees on all
sides. The efficient Superintendent of
the Blind Asylum is DIR. Langley, assist
ed by his daughters The inmates have
every comfort. There are few homes in
the South more cozily and cheerily fur
nished than this asylum, even to the
rows Of gay pots of mignonette, red moss
and geraniums, which blossom cheerily
at all the windows. In the wide chapel,
which has the depth of the house, the
wood carvings on balustrades and posts
and doors are such as one may find in
many an old English church. Here the
blind girls came to sing for us. Their
rich cultured voices filled the wide hall
with melody. The outer chapel doors
stood open and / looked down on the
sloping hill sides, dotted here and there
with huddled clumps Of trees, from
whose quiyering shade red chimney or
a white tower or thin flag of smoke
arose Far away stretched the peaceful
valley--broken fields, brown but pie
turesque shaded pastures, where were
lovely Jersey cattle, peaceful homes un-
der the elms and oaks, and still farther
of, here and there, the red outlines of a
smoking brick kiln. In the other direc-
ton the mingled grasses and fields of
waving grain swept down to the belt of
trees outlining the course Of Pearl
River. The blind ones, with their arms
about each other, sang on their evening
hymn, and the peace and beauty of the
hour and surroundings were unlike the
ordinary prosaic events of newspaperlife.
The stately stone building with its fine
central tower and five turrets, known
as the State Lunatic Asylum, is situated
on the top Of hill. A magnificent
park, planted in blue grass with clusters
of fine trees and long shaded avenues
and.graveled drives, sweeps off from the
structure. A hundred or so
women were scattered over the park.
Here little group of them chatting
their maniac thoughts to each other;
there knelt one in the sweet scented
clover washing her hands with impercep-
tlble soap in imperceptible water. Still
another lay at full length under an elm
tree staring up through the quayering
tangle of leaves at the luminous sky
bending above her. Her outstretched
arms were buried under the tall clover
blossoms. DR.. Thos. J. Mitchell, one of
the most polished men and successful
has been superintendent of
the asylum since 1873. BY him we were
shown over the building, from the hand
some parlor with its fine engravings to the
spotless wards of the inmates, through
the dining-rooms, kitchens and stables
There are 46l patients in the hospital,
who cost the State each per year the
small sum of $146 The asylum has an
immense farm, worked mostly by the
men; enough peaches, strawberries,
melons and vegetables are raised to sup
ply all of the inmates. Last year 5000
bushels of sweet potatoes were grown.
The patients are encouraged to outdoor
life and work as the best physic for
them. Their rooms are neatly furnish
ed, many of them having pretty little
fancy work of the inmates making scat
tered about. There are pictures on the
walls, and books, papers and magazines
for such as wish them There is fine
dairy, and plenty of milk, butter and
wholesome food. This asylum looks
like some grand old residence of a coun-
try gentleman, with it's fine stables,
orchards and pleasure grounds. Thus
does Mississippi care for her pauper in
sane. Forty per cent. of these people
recover their reason, mostly among the
whites.
We all are wont to talk earnestly and
grandly about home-life for women.
Gov. Stands at Brookhaven spoke elo-
quently of 1.-THE majority of men will
tell you that it is woman's duty to look
after her house, yet the statistics of in
sane asylums in the North show that
the majority of women who become era
zy are farmers wives; the statistics of
the Mississippi Insane Asylum, which is
undoubtedly the model asylum of the
South, show that more housewives go
crazy than any other class Of women,
and after them come farmers wives and
daughtersl 1t is years and generations
of driving, endless, stubborn labor that
thus Furnishes our women. Cooking
washing, ironing, sewing, serubbing
mending for five, eight, ten persons,
year in and year out, life as drear as
desert, that is the main feeder of our
insane asylums, In one room, as we
made our rounds, sat a white-haired w6-
man, bent and wrinkled and old, Not
an eyehd even quivered as our noisy
party stopped to look in at her Her
clasped hands were rough from such
heavy work that not even years of rest
in the asylum had smoothed out the
horny wrinkles. She had been house
wife, had given the best of her life, nay,
all Of her life to husband and children,
shaving as only woman can slave, each
swift step she took over her own cottage
home bringing her nearer to the pauper
asylum Of maniacs, The floor of her
bedroom in the asylum shonc white as
scrubhing with soap and water could
make it, and by her bedside from the
door to the pitilessly barred windows
her restless feet had worn deep hollows
in the hard floor. lprotcst that in each
of these hollows one might have found
almost half pint of water. A sadder
sight eyes never gazed upon.
The pcnitentiary, brick building un-
comfortably near the heart Of the city
and the State Housp has benn leosed 20