The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-05-29

full dream, some wild fantasy of the night !
would awaken soon and find I had dreamed
of horrors that could not exist I arose
walked to q window and looked out.
"Away to the east the roofs Of a few
houses and the spire of a church could be
seen. Almost beneath me was an artificial
lake surrounded by trees The shadow of
the big building was mirrored on the water,
and while I looked bird flew across the sur
face of the pond and alighted almost within
reach of my hand. 1t was soon Joined by its
mate and they flew away. The room seemed
to stife me and went out on the back porch
or cage There found the BIRDS They
were making their nest under the caves and
were talking in bird language to each other
as they built their home. An inmate of the
ward climbed up the iron network of the
cage, and the birds labor of love would have
been ruined by vandal hand had 1 not in
interceded for them
1.-THE birds came to me like message from
nature-a token of the spring time They
told me that the world was alive, donning
her green garlands in the sunhght's smiles,
and that a God watched over all his Great
ures. These little brown birds-they were
only sparrows-seemed to carry message OF
hope to me.
Il looked at the setting sun, saw number
of laborers going to their homes, and other
evidences Of every day life around me- My
horror seemed to roll away, and when l
turned to enter the ward 1 was myself once
moren
HIS COMPANIONS.
He then describes some of the insane men
In the asylum:
lone man who seemed to be Nemesis fol-
lowing me, who was always getting in front
of me and who seemed determined to sit op-
posite me at the table, was most extraordi-
nary being. I will not overdraw the picture
that will describe him as plainly as can. He
was over six feet tall and almost living
skeleton. His skull extended in q short angle
from his low forehead to the crown of the
head, giving him an appearance something
like that of Flathead Indian. His ears were
large and nearly at a right angle with his
head. His nose was enormous. 1t was origi-
nally Roman nose, think, but had been so
broken that it was crooked and very
wide. His emaciation probably made his
mouth appear larger than it really was.
He had q way Of turning one corner of
it up so that when he opened it 1t as
sumed the shape of a pear laid on its side. He
nearly always had his mouth open, and as he
had lost several teeth the effect was not very
pleasant. When he arose from a sitting po-
sition he would start to walk with lurch,
plunging ahead for few feet before he
walked naturally. He carried his right shout
der toward the front and it looked as though
he propelled himself with the other shoulder.
1t was the queerest gait l ever saw. The first
night saw him he had large piece Of court
plaster on his forehead that added to his ex-
traordinary appearance"
But it would be idle as well as painful to
recite any more of the sicksning things about
this awful institution. The reporter describes
the farce which is called a medical examina-
ton; the manner in which the patients, many
Of them ruptured and otherwise disabled, are
put In small bath room with temperature
of 1876 dogs, and there, after being weakened
by this extreme heat for from fifteen minutes
to O half hour, have streams of icy water
poured upon them from hose in the hands
of one of the attendants, the rest Of the at
tendants standing around and laughing at
the pitiful screams Of the insane men; how
the patients were dosed with choral and
other drugs, whether they needed them or not;
and many other atrocities which fill one with
amazement that they could be perpetrated in
this Nineteenth century.