The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1883-05-08
TEwKSBURY.

Whatever else old Ben Butler may
be or may have been, he is fearful
applyer of the knife and the caustic.
1t is real joy to watch his righteous
werk at Tewksbury. Tapped in the
soft habiliaments of immemorial sue
cess, the Massachusetts republicans
went to sleep. They cared only to
awake in presidential years, and
wheel the commonwealth as a cohort
into line for whoever had received
the party's nomination, and stood up
on the party's invariable platform of
God and morality. In the intervals
it slept and snored.
While it SO slept and snored all
kinds and manners of abuses crept in
to its civil service. Trusts were vio-
lated. Power was made oppressive in
many official places. Where police
inspection was necessary, loud out
cries arose against its corruption.
Peculations in public funds became
notorious. But. worst of all, horrible
stories were being circulated of how
matters and things were being con-
Quoted at some of those charitable in.
stitutions where helpless unfortunates
were receiving the guardianship Of
the state.
No note was taken of any charge,
however grave nor aoy stir made
over any scandal, however filthy, uD-
til Butler was made governor by the
democrats, and told to ride as best he
could the reform wave which bore him
into power.
And how he is riding! Why, the
savage horrors unearthed at that
Tewksbury insane and orphan asylum
alone are enough to make the Ameri-
can nation blush for it's very name.
They are almost too monstrous to be
true. No thug. no North American
Indian, no malformed and brutal
prison keeper of the dark ages, no
anything which had the semblance of
the soul or the face of man ever sur
passed or even equalled those horrible
devils there who were charged to care
for and look after the comfort and the
welfare of the idiots, imbeciles, and
maniacs, entrusted to their keeping.
They were starved; they were chain
Cd in cells for weeks and weeks, literally
rotting; the stencil which came out
from, these hell-holes was appalling
maggots went into these wild beasts
and fattened there; a dozen or
more were taken out at various times
more than half devoured idiots we're
lashed to bowling madmen-belpless-
ness to ferocity males and females
went naked and gibbering together !;
limbs we're broken BY blows of a stick !;
: huge keepers leaped with their knees
upon the breasts Of PROSTATE prisoners /;
little children were smothered to
death several ailing patients were
poisoned dying patients lay for
days In utter filth and help'essness /;
dead patients were skinned as SO
many hogs, the skins going to tanners
and medical students but why 60 on?
Every charge made here the testimony
bears out in fifty instances, while hor-
ror after horror of a similar sort is
/; still being piled up and accumulated.
We do not know what power Gov.
Butler has in the premises except to
expose all this infernalism, and clean
cut this horrible aggregation of MUIR
der and beastiality; but if he can
not demand life for life, and maggot
for maggot, and paddock and chain
for paddock and chain, and human
skin for human skin, then is ali life
q lie, and all justice and right delu-
sion and fraud.
We pass by the fact that all thes e
monstrous things have been done in
Massachusetts,, and in the full glare of
the sunlight of that civilization which