The weekly Floridian. [volume] (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1867-19??, 1888-07-19

Folo the precepts OF the risen Lord
And reason self may be in time restored
CAPTAIN MosELEY's SPLENDID MANAGE
MENT
The above estimate of sll6.663 to each
inmate is too large by nearly 25 per cent.
| find that out of the s28 900 appropriated,
the salaries of the superintendent, the
Surgeon, Matron, nurses, etc, must be
paid, leaving less than s23 900 for the in
mates-about S95 each per annum to paw
the Sheriff for taking the lunatic into Gus
tody at home, the home physician for
certifying his insanity, the expense of
bringing him here, feeding, clothing, bed
ding, medicines, ETC., while here, and
suit of clothes when he leaves, with re-
turn passage paid. A lunatic is notori-
ously destructive of clothing and bed
ding. Allow him the low estimate of
$l2 year for medicines, 50 a month for
clothing and bedding, and it is beyond
all skill in figures to cipher MIN out over
three or four dollars a month for rations
Impossible, says the reader, and so it
would seem and 80 it would be, in fact,
but for the attentive, humane, and judi
cious management on the part of Captain
A. Moseley, the big.hearted Superintend-
ent. The State is to be congratulated
on having secured this first great prere-
quisite for every charity of the kinda
general manager endowed by nature with
those all-pervading moral seusibilities
which gold cannot buy and for which not
even the largest appropriations could
atone. lie devOtes more time to his du-
ties here than any man | know of does to
his private business, for during no hour
of the day or night is their voice of dis
tress heard in vain. 1t is touching to see
them gather about as he walks through
the grounds, often old and young alike
kissing his hand or cheek, seeking some
word or token of sympathy. Black and
white, they all krow "the Cap'n," and
follow him like little children. Less
than five years ago the world read with
unspeakable shame of the cruelties in
ficted at Anchorage, KY, when poor
old women had their gray hairs torn out,
and at least one decrepit old man was
held down by fiendish nurses and abso-
luteIy strangled to death in a bath tub
for resisting a cold water shower. The
best nurses, so far discovered, are, as a
WHOiC, Oiutot IL SiNCu % uiSh W ehO
asylum's management. But Captain Nose
ley has abolished punishment here en-
tirely, substituting the law of love. Even
with the small corps of nurses he has
done away with the patent bedstead, or
"crib," in which unruly subjects were
once confined. see from the window as
l write two of those machines converted
into chickencoops. He begs the Legisla-
ture to make appropriations for more
nurses in order that he may not have to
resort to any sort of mechanical restraint
whatever, such as the muff or camisole.
With enough attendants, even the more
desperate men and women who fight and
tear clothing when their hands are un-
shackled could be watched. AS it is, the
muff, or camisole, confines the hands only,
thus permitting them to walk about the
groves with the others rather than to be
locked up in their rooms during the day.
Some months ago nurse struck. with his
fist, patient who had assaulted him vio-
lently. The nurse pleaded sudden exas-
peration and expressed sincere regret, but
to no purpose. He was discharged at
once and never allowed to return, though
by nature a. good q man as the average.
No nurse, or other attendant, is allowed
to lift hand against patient, however