Arizona weekly enterprise., 1890-06-14
THE INSANE ASYLUM.
THE ARCHITECTURAL FREAK IN
 BAD CONDITION.
A Costly Experiment. Fast Going to Ruin---Its Present Appearance Opinions Expressed to its
 Faulty Construction.
[Phenix Herald. l

Phenix Herald.
 The patients have no grassy, shad- ed park in which to take the air, but when they desire to go out for change from hot, close wards, are turned into an enclosure called yards, surrounded by high brick walls that effectuaily shut off from them whatever breeze that may be stirring. The sun beats down hot into these yards, baking the ground and trebly increasing the heat by the reflection from the earth and the walls, and-there is no shelter from this save in whatever shade the walls may cast, and in this shade the heat is almost equally unbearable. Patients, therefore, save those whose disordered intellects do not permit them to dis tinguish the difference between heat and cold, do not voluntarily frequent this yard, save early in the morning before the suns heat becomes too in- tense for comfort.
 Under the present management the building itself is kept perhaps in as good condition as possible-but the building is disgrace to the Territory.
 The reporter, in going over the ter ritory yesterday, first walked around the building to inspect the engine and pumping apparatus. Rounding the corner from the front, the reporter was rather taken back to come upon Chinaman piling wood who at once prostrated himself to the ground be- fore the visitor, and then rushed to skake hands very effusively.
 The engine was found in good con- dition, but the pump is badly out of repair and should be replaced at once. In fact, it would be to the credit of the Territory, as one of the party re- marked, if the whole structure could be torn down and entirely rebuilt.
 Upon the inside the building seems to be literally crumbling away. The ceilings are gradually falling, great areas being left on both upper and lower floors where the lath is exposed, and every door-frame in every ward should be taken out at once and re- placed with frames built in 8 more substantial manner-that is, if it is the desire to keep patients confined in the institution. There is not door in cell or corridor now that a strong man could not lift out bodily with little effort How much easier it would be for a manaic, with a maniac's strength, to pull down these doors, can readily be imagined.
 Indeed, such cases have already oc- cured there, although the facts have seemingly not been reported to the public outside
 The attendant who showed the re- porter through the asylum, not know in for whom he was acting as escort, related two such incidents.
 "All these doors," the attendant said, in the first ward visited, at the same time seizing and easily shaking the wooden barred entrance to one of the cells, "are insecure. Why, not long ago that Chinaman there, point ing to patient who crouched, gibber- ing in one corner, "broke open the doors of the cell and, making down the corridor, would have broken through the outside door had he not been caught. He was nearly through the transom as 1t was.
 This was one of the wards on the ground aoOr-n4.d, ,-in-tlao-eerre ing ward in the east wing of the build ing, the attendant showed his inse- cure doors and fallen clustering, and remarked:
 "Why, the outside door is no more secure than the others. It was only the other day that one of the patients broke out and, getting clear of the building, was not overtaken and re- captured until he had run half a mile"
 These conditions obtain in every ward in the building and, on the up- per floors the fact that the roof leaks adds very greatly to the discomfort of the patients in wet weather.
 There are now in the asylum about seventy-two patients, fifty-seven men and fifteen women, and of these the greater number seem to be confined in the building the greater part of the time. This confinement, however, seems to be very largely farcical un der present circumstances, as no pa- tient, were he sufficiently reasonable or sufficiently frenzied, could be kept in the asylum against his will, pro- vided the vigilance of the attendants were to be for moment relaxed.