The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1908-02-12
MATTEA WAN ASYLU UNI, "THE
GREATRED HEM" AND ITS INMA TIES
New Yoks Asylum for Criminal Insane The
Institution Where Harry Thaw Is Confined.

1 i
nate yellow teeth and dark empti-
neSSeS.
A tall man with long, pale features
and dim, blue eyes, through which
passed fitful lights, comes forward
bowling, and drones strange words.
This man had once been a clergy
man.
Good evening, brother. How is
everybody in heaven?"
The other inmates laugh. They al
ways laugh at each other. Like their
sane brothers, only their own ecen-
/ tricities are sacred from profaning
ridicule.
! a huge man with ford face and
merry eyes takes his arm. From
that window you can see the lady
bugs-the famale ward, you know,
| he says.
The new one must go to bed on
| narrow pallet at o'clock No mat
ter what the mood that has seized
him. whether for restless pacing or
| for long night vigils with lighted
candle, and pen and ink and paper,
| or only his own mOrose thoughts, he
must go to bed at nine. He must go
! for the sake of others. They lead
community life at Mattaewan. And
| always, if he be sleepless, he will
hear the soft, ceaseless football OF
the cold-eyed, brawny man on guard.
/ If he stir, if he groan, if in his
! overwhelming sense of helplessness
he curses the fate that placed him
there, strong arms are laid upon him
from out of the darkness. A stern
voice says STEADY; be quiet, or
YOU will have to go to the isolation
ward"
Isolation ward" he soon learns,
| is merely Matteawanese for solitary
confinement. 1t is the dark dun
geon, long confinement in which by
| the alchemy of alienism converts
| sanity into insanity. OF all the six
| hundred men and women in Mattea-
wan only sixteen are confined in the
isolation ward. He hears an attend
ant whisper to the attendant in the
observation ward that to open the
door to that corridor is like opening
/ the gates of Inferno.
| If he losses restlessly all night and
does not sleep until dawn he is new
ertheless awakened with the rest at
! 5:45. At $50 this former exquisite
who has been accustomed to two
hours dawdling over his toilet with
valet must dress and hurry down
| to the dining ROOM
| All who are able to work in Mat
! taeWan are required to work at some
thing during the hours of work. At
| tendants mingle with the groups of
| inmates, stern, watchful-eyed attend
ants, who, with steel-like sinews, men
more accustomed to bullying than to
being bullied, men who know no dis
tinction, to whom millionaire and
pauper patients are one, who know
but two classes, those who are mad
and those who are not mad.
The food for the inmates is all
alike. No one fares DETER than an
/ other The daily menu is:
! Breakfast.
/ Bread, butter, coffee, oatmeal, hash.
Dinner
Bread, butter; roast or boiled beef;
vegetables.
Supper.
Bread, butter, fruit, sauce, tea
For recreation there is the lawn,
with baseball or croquet, for the in
mates. And there is the library with
the loaded chairs and long, loaded
| table.
| For punishment, when the inmates
merit it, there are manacled hands
and the darkness of dungeon in the
/ dreadful isolation ward.
Such is to be the life of Harry
| Thaw at Matteawan Asylum.