The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-01-26
TO.DAY'S LETTRE DE CACHET.
The Process by Which Sane Man Is
] Imprisoned with Lunatics.
How Prominent Citizen of YOnkers Was
Seized and Imprisoned in the
Insane Asylum at Utica.

/. New YORK Jan 25.-'Is it possible in this
free republic in the latter part of the nineteenth
century for a man with impunity to cause
another who may be obnoxious to him, but who
is of perfectly sound mind, to be incarcerated in
an insane asylum and subjected to indignities
that even lunatics should be protected against!'
This inquiry was addressed to reporter by a
well-known lawyer. The man of whom the law
yer spoke James B. Silkman, who is now over
sixty years of age and has lived for over twenty
years in Yonkers. His family consisted of a
wife and four children, one son and three
daughters. Mrs. Silkman died over
five years ago, and bequeathed to her chill
dren a house and lots, valued at $25, OOO
The husband was appointed trustee. of the es-
tate, in which he had life interest. The
brother of Mrs. Silkman, Darius Crosby, is a
wealthy lawyer of this city, and a member of
tho firm of Lockwood & Crosby. Mrs. Silk
mans son, Theodore H., has for some years
been employed in the office of Lockwood &
Crosby. He is now about twenty-six years old
1t is alleged the son, nstigated by his uncle, be-
gan to make alterations in the house, which
Mrs. Silkman had bequeathed her children,
without consulting his father, and in opposition
to his fathers wishes. Mr.. Silkman protested
quarrel ensued with the son and Crosby, who
ordered the father to leave the premises A
threat made by Mr.. Silkman to expose certain
discrepancies in certain marriages and births in
Mr. Crosby's family it is asserted, provoked
Crosby's resentment.
A few evenings afterward-May 49, 1882
Silkman was attending lecture in the house of
Everett Gale, at Yonkers, when the bell rang
Silkman, on going to the door, con
fronted by three officers, who arrested
him, placed him in a carriage, and conveyed
him to White Plains. 1t is charged that
on the next day, without being taken before
Judge Clifford who had issued the warrant for
his arrest, he was taken to Utica and placed in
the State Lunatic Asylum, and there he was de
tanned until Aug. %, 1882, when Judge Barnard
discharged him on the ground that he was not
insane or of unsound mind and his restraint and
imprisonment were unlawful"
Papers have Just been served in a suit brought
in the Supreme Court, in Westchester county
by James G. Silkman against Darius G. Cros
by, in which the latter is charged with instigat-
ing and procuring Silkman's incarceration in
lunatic asylum. and $25, 900 damages are claimed
In the complaint Sikman alleges that he was
treated with unnecessary harshness by the of
fcers, who arrested him and took him TO White
Plains at midnight; they refused to give him
food annoyed him in various ways, and would
not alloy him to communicate with
his friends, finally incarcerating him at
Utica He declares that the proceedings aud ar
rest were a mere fraudulent pretense and sub
tertuge on the part of the defendant to procure
the plaintiffs Imprisonment before he should sus
pect '.what was intended and lin order that
said defendants and accomplices could forcibly
enter upon plaintiffs premises and his library
in said city of Yonkers for which purpose the
defendant employed divers persons to go with
tools and implements and break open all locks
ON drawers and closets in said plaintiffs library.
with the purpose of finding and appropriatng
certain family records, which said defendant
afterwards forcibly and fraudulently took from
an iron safe in plaintiffs Office, No. 81 Wall
street"
The most interesting part of Silkman's com
plant, aside from that relating to the facility
with which he was seized and conveyed to the
asylum, is that in which he describes
his treatment after he had been ncarcerated at
Utica. On entering the asylum, he was locked
up alone in a small cell or bedroom, at P. M.
with no light, separated from all bodily com
forts and friends, and no opportunity given him
to communicate with any person in his interest.
While inmate Of the house, he was compelled
to associate with ordinary poorhouse patients
and those who were really insane to listen to
obscene language; to endure the privatiOn of all
decent sanitary arrangements; to eat p0orhouse
fare, such as wretched butter, sOggy potatoes
and Long Island coffee, under threats of resort
to the mouth-screw and stomach tube in case of
revolt at such unaccustOmed and disgusting
food, while the plaintiffs chronic internal all
ments called for specific articles of food
which were refused to him. He was compelled
to make his own bed, sweep his room
and the halls, and and to go out with squad
of patients daily, hoe garden vegetables and
work in the manure in the barn-yard where
sixty COWS were fed: he was forced to go into the
public streets of Utica under guard, and com
PEELED to sweep the sidewalks, pull weeds out of
the street cutters and roadways, and hoe the
cutters out; he forced to take from three to
five doses Of drugs daily, under threats of pun
ishment, and compelled to perform servile and
mental work in cold, windy weather He charges
that letter which he wrote to an intimate
friend containing information concerning i'm
portant papers was sent by the asylum officials to
Crosby, and that the papers mentioned were
taken from a safe in his office and used in an eff
fort to prevent his release, after being altered
for this purpose. Mr.. Silkman is one of the man
ayers of the Society for Promoting the Condi-
ton of the Insane