Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-08-18
THIRTY YEARS IN CHAINS.
Horrible Treatment OF an Imbecile by
His Brother.

by telegraph
cial from Philadelphia of the 10Th says
A most heartleSs case of cruelty and in
human treatment has Just been brought to
light by the Committee on Lunacy Of the
State Board of Public Charities. The vic
tim, who is an imbecile. has been kept
chained in little hut by his brother for
over thirty years. Tomorrow mornings
mail carry to every physician in Pennsyl-
vania a letter from the Committee on
Lunacy, asking the doctors throughout the
State to look around them and see if similar
cases exist in Their neighbOrhood. The
man who imprisoned his brother for three
decades is h farmer in Crawford county.
Thirty years ago his younger brother be-
came an imbecile through disease. Though
perfectly harmless, his brother disliked to
have him about the house, so he built
little shanty about 100 feet away from
the farmhouse and there he has kept his
brother chained like wild beast during all
these years When the committees agent
appeared upon the farm he found the in
sane man lying on the floor of his hut,
stark naked. He was covered with filth
and vermin and wore a dirty gray matted
beard two feet long. He was reclining
on a bale of straw, which had done
service as bed for many months. Within
his reach lay a big black pan, filled with
old bones and the refuse ofthe family table,
on which the prisoner was expected to
make his MONDAY meal. Upon seeing the
agent he crouched in terror and began to
wall and cry. The hut was dark and dreary,
a little ray of light piercing the gloomy
dungeon from a small window in the roof.
There was no ventilation to speak of, q lit
tie air entering through chinks inside of
+l,a Nr-oa+ bar- boards NOtbiDcy hTt filth
abounded. In the center of the hut was q
little post to which the prisoner was fast
ened by heavy chain, only twenty inches
in length, and fastened to the prisoners
left leg above the ankle by a paddock. The
chain, being short, did not permit the poor
fellow to get far away from the post. The
floor had been worn through i'll a circle
right around where the man walked and
dragged the chain after him, making neces-
sary double floor. The ankle upon which
the chain was fastened had shrunk and
shriveled away. The man looked more
like living skeleton than anything else,
and constant confinement had made him
as weak as child. Some kindly words
were addressed to him by the agent, but he
only chartered an unintelligible reply. Not
having had anybody to converse with all
these years, he had lost the method of
speech The sight of the naked idiot
chained to the floor and groveling
in the accumulated dirt was fearful
to look on, and the inhumanity of
the brother of the captive was wildly por
trayed in the revolving spectacle. The
prisoners brother attempted to shield him
self from blame by saying that his family
did not want to have the insane man placed
in the hospital, ON account of the disgrace
that would be attached to such thing. He
declared that he could not keep his brother
clean, and he had given him a suit of
clothes to wear when he first locked him
up but they had been destroyed. When
all the facts were laid before the members
of the Committee on Lunacy they gave the
family week in which to remove their
relative to the State Hospital at Warren,
and the family got frightened and implored
the committee not to prosecute them, as
they claimed that they did not know they
were doing wrong in keeping the man
penned up in such barbarous manner.
The man was removed to the Warren Hos
pital within the allotted time, and is being
kindly cared for at that institution. The
physicians there said he gives them no an
noyance, but that he never will have his
reason restored. Had he been placed I'M
der the care of physicians at first he would
doubtless have recovered his senses.