The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-04-15

ana bleeding, on, ladleS; nelp IL poor
suffering creature that can't get out
and help herself!'
What could we say? What could we
do?
There was no place for her. In the
whole length and breadth of the great
State of North Carolina there was not
a single place where poor helpless,
desperate woman could be put to be
kept warm and safe; and spared the
addition of physical suffering to the
wretchedness of her lot. There was
ANOTHER, a few years ago, for whom
there was mo room"
She lived in the country, in a lonely
farm house. with her brother and
some small children. She had suicidal
mania.
Her husband, a Woodworking man
watched her day and night until ex-
haustion overpowered him, and one
night he fell asleep for perhaps ten
minutes; he did not think it had been
longer.
He reused and found her gone, and
the house door open.
He rushed out, and made frantic
search in the yard, and out houses;
she was not there.
He ran back to the house to get a
lantern, and closed the door to keep
the wind off of the sleeping children.
AS he turned round with the lighted
lantern in his hand it flashed upon
the body of his wife hanging behind
the door. She had hanged herself with
a hank of blue cotton thread that she
had spun that day-and she was not
ten steps from her sleeping children's
bed.
If there had been room for her in
the asylum such terrible thing could
not have occurred. / could go on
and multiply case after case that has
come to my knowledge as physi-
clans daughter, and in the ordinary
experience of life. But these two are
fair samples of the average of the
intensity of the suffering and the ter
rible risk of those three hundred wo-
men; for they are every one of them
women, who cannot find shelter and
protection from the State in their mis-
cry and Wretchedness.
Do you ever imagine what the
homes are where there is an insane
member?
How the lives of all of the others
are as wretched as il they, too, shared
the dread malady?
Do you know the horrors of insani-
ty? The terrible, shocking things that
they do and say until life shared with
them becomes an earthly hell?
You cannot guard them night and
day in private houses; you cannot
possibly restrain them without cruel
ty; you cannot control them in any
way. The history of insanity is that
their own families are the very last
people in the world with whom they
should be left. They excite them as
strangers do not; generally they be-
come abhorrent in their sight. They
are less FESTIVE under restraint, more
docile and tractable with strangers
than they ever are with their own.
They should be parted at once from
their own famines. They suffer so,
/ oh, they suffer so! Under the best con-
ditions, under the most benign and
experienced treatment, they suffer
beyond all power of expression; and
what. oh, what of those who are left
al home, or who languish in poor
houses, in iails, or in pens in the
yards, or in the woods? 1t is the eX-
IRENE of human agony, and it need
not be endured if the State, as State,
would do her duty to these, her chill
dren, upon whom the hand of God
lies SO heavily.
Oh, men and women of the State!
oh, fathers and mothers, whose chill
dren may one day writhe in this same
agony, from which no human creature
can be considered as secure, rouse
yourselves to a thought, a realization
of this great evil, this crying shame"
Urge upon the Legislators, upon the
State authorities, upon all public Off
GERS that provision be made for these
helpless ones who madness has separ-
ated from their brethren.
They cannot speak for themselves,
of all of Gods creatures the insane
are the most helpless, for you dare not
believe all that they say; their very
infirmity rules them out of the court
of equity as competent witnesses, yea,
aim through what they say may be
the literal truth.
They are so helpless, they cannot
plead for themselves! They lie at
the mercy of their fellow men and [
call God to witness between us this
day; between us who speak and you
who hear that If you fail to heed, to
take it to heart, to do your best to
have sufficient provision made for
these helpless one, you do not sin
ignorantlv! You know what you are
doing, and be We sure your sin will
find you out! 1t may one day be your
lot to share their Indebtedness; and
to be as helplessly forlorn.
n REBECCA CAMERON.
Hillsboro, n. c., April 4.