Chapter VI: Introduction (5)

Then his associates were all bloods of the first order, all tip-top Corinthians. He would rank with none other. He had driven about in prime sporting style, with the best appointments. His grooms, like his horses, were all blood: true Newmarket breed, up to anything. And as to himself, he was the best sporting judge on the turf, not excepting any member of the whole jockey club.

But, notwithstanding these imaginary notions of his great wealth and pre-eminence, the dashing Peter Upsdale was, in sober sadness, very poor; and, but for the management of his excellent wife, and the liberality of his friends, he would have been reduced to extreme indigence.

He was discharged from this asylum well, for the second time, in October 1822; since which he again called at the hospital in his carriage: but his blood cattle have again run away with his understanding, and he has been lately consigned to a private mad-house.

HENRY JOSEPHS,

Aged twenty-six, admitted 20th December 1821. This unfortunate Israelite had been a travelling Jew pedlar, and, in times less enlightened, would seem to be really possessed by a dæmon of discord. Grumbling and discontent seemed to be the prevailing symptoms of his disorder; and his whole time, from morning till night, was occupied in growling and finding fault with everything about him, and endeavouring to render his fellow-patients as unhappy as himself. He totally denied all derangement, termed his confinement here “false imprisonment,” and demanded to be brought to his trial. The food, the drink, the treatment, were all unwholesome and bad. He was extremely noisy and violent by day and night, tore his clothes to pieces at times, and frequently required restraint. He was brought here from Drury-lane, where he lived, very much deranged. He then had lately come from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where he had been dealing rather too largely in the profits of his calling. He was there taken before a magistrate for selling a most capital watch to an honest Scotsman for fifty shillings, which cost himself but twenty-three shillings: but the bargain was rescinded by the magistrate, and Josephs was forced to return the purchase money. His vexation at being thus foiled was the leading cause of his derangement.

He sometimes amused himself in epistolary correspondence with his friends, and was extremely anxious to be replaced here by some substitute.

The following is a specimen, addressed to his mother:

“DEAR, UNGRATEFUL MOTHER:

“I have been here ten days; long enough, I think; almost starved,
and my boots without any soles. I think it very hard to be kept here
so long, especially as my brothers have not been kept here too. Why
don’t you send my brother Charles here, and take me home? He has as
much right to be here as I have. Besides, you might find a substitute
for a trifle of money. There are plenty of soldiers and sailors who
have been discharged, and who would come here in my place for a
trifle: and I would pay you again.

“I am, dear ungrateful mother,

“Your unhappy son, &c. &c.”

He was sometimes tolerably tranquil, but never without grumbling. When a little high, his habit was to continue all night complaining of his unjust confinement and hard treatment. But this he chaunted in a sort of poetic manner, of which the following couplets may serve as a specimen:

“Confined here:
Oh, dear!
What a shame!
Who’s to blame?
---- my eyes,
What blow’d lies.
Brought me here?
Never fear!
Where’s my mother?
And my brother?
Come in here,
Conscience clear;
Newcastle-on-Tyne,
That’s the time:

“Sold a watch,
Nabb’d a catch.
Stopp’d my gig,
What a rigg!
License now,
What a row!
All’s well:
Go to hell!
Who’s there?
Bring some beer!
Half starved,
Nothing carved!”

This “sweet singer of Israel” obtained a month’s leave of absence on the 18th of July, and was finally discharged, cured, on the 1st of August 1822: he is now at liberty to follow his professional calling.

JOHN BOYETT,

Aged thirty-four, admitted 9th of August 1821. This man appeared to have been originally an ignorant, self-conceited, ambitious country fellow, full of low cunning; which was sufficiently apparent, even through the veil of his derangement. The leading traits of his malady were, a notion that he was to inherit an immense fortune, and an inveterate itch for reform. He imagined that he was sent to this institution expressly for the purpose of correcting abuses, and establishing a new system of management; and, under the influence of this whim, he became quite busy and inquisitive, found fault with every thing, complained of every body, and declaimed in his way against every department. The physicians, the stewards, the keepers, the cook, and the very gardener were, according to him, all doing wrong, and were the persons he particularly came to look after. He was very busy in communicating his purposes amongst such as he met in the gallery and airing ground; and as he could not write eligibly himself, he employed an old patient, named Moore, as his secretary. All transactions that struck his notice were immediately noted down by his dictation, with his own comments upon them. One of the first results he expected from his vigilance and activity was, that he should be appointed keeper in chief. He applied to the physician for the purpose, and assured his companions that he was immediately to have the charge of a gallery, as the present keeper there was found unfit. He had an excellent knack at making mischief, exciting discontent, and promoting quarrels amongst his simple associates, by telling tales of one to the other, eliciting resentments, and then reporting what he heard to the others: and thus he set them together by the ears, proving himself more of a knave than a simpleton. He was greatly disappointed in finding he was about to be discharged without the promotion he so confidently expected; and he wrote a letter to his aunt, stating that as he intended to begin business for himself, as soon as he should get out, he wanted some part of the great fortune, which he imagined he was to possess some time or other, to begin the world with, as he was quite tired of being a labourer, and knew more of his business than any other man.

The following copy of one of his letters, indited with a piece of burnt stick on whited-brown paper, will afford a specimen of his epistolary style.

“DEAR HAUNT:

“Hi hop u wil excus this lettar, has hi ham gon to bee disscharg,
hand wil cum to se u wen hi av mone in my poket--wen I wil av
plessure, i wis u too sen mee for ponds to by a jakhass hand cart to
sel grens too the hopitil, has hi ham promised: hi will pa u bak wen
hi can.

“hi ham,

“loving hant,

“ure lovin

“frend,

“JOHN BOYETT.”

THOMAS DRIVER,

Aged twenty-six, from Feversham, in Kent, admitted 11th October 1821. This little fellow, consistently enough with his name, was a postillion; and his disease was the result of excessive drinking: a failing but too common with his fraternity.

He came to this hospital from a private mad-house, where he had been confined some time. He could not believe that he laboured under any derangement; his sole misfortune was his having lost such immense sums of money, and being unlawfully kept out of his rights. He boasts that he was the cleverest fellow in England in his profession, and would not turn his back on the first whip on any road in the kingdom. His ambition for excellence in this way seemed to be his ruling passion. He would challenge all the whipsters in England to drive twenty horses in harness against him; and alleges he could do more with them than any other man he ever saw. He thought himself immensely rich, and that the man who passed for his master at Feversham was only his servant: but he himself chose to drive a post-chaise merely for his amusement. He says his coming to this place was merely a hoax upon him: he however soon found out the difference, and he began to make himself useful in the gallery. He was a smart, active young fellow. Continued care and temperance brought him to his rational notions, and he was discharged well, on the 21st February 1822. Probably by a return to his old practices, and the nature of his occupation, he again became deranged, and was presented here for re-admission; but it was discovered that he had become paralytic, of which he had formerly evinced some symptoms, and he was rejected of course.

CHARLES PORCHIRITZ,

From Fribourg, in Prussia, aged forty five, admitted November 15th, 1821. This poor Prussian tailor had been employed for fifteen years at D’Oyley’s warehouse in the Strand, was an excellent workman, bore a good character, and came here deranged from St. Clement’s workhouse.

The _green-eyed monster, Jealousy_, seems to be the familiar spirit that rules his frenzied imagination, and a strong suspicion and a fancied conviction of his wife’s inconstancy, was either the original source, or the perpetual concomitants of his disorder; and the feats of Messalina were nothing to the extent and variety of amours he imputed to her, without the slightest foundation. He used to enumerate a French Count, an English tailor, some publicans, besides other Englishmen, and a long assortment of Germans, Russians, Prussians, Italians, Swedes, Danes, Hanoverians, and Irish; these he would reckon on his fingers until he worked himself up to a furious passion, and then exclaim in a loud tone--“Yesh! by G--, all deir countries--and Greek and Turks has she been wid--I will kill her, by G--, a plood b--h.”

He was continually amusing himself with working at his trade, and spoiling every thing he attempted to repair. He padded his own coat with flocks from his bed; he turned his pantaloons, and put the seams outward. He was so enraged with his wife, that her life was endangered whenever she came to see him; and his young child, which she brought one day in her arms, he swore was a young baboon, and that its father lives at Exeter Change. He was not generally violent here, though he frequently evinced a strong disposition that way, when offended. He was always anxious to get out, and was very importunate for his discharge from Dr. Monro.

His manner of preparing his bed for his night’s repose was curious: first he would throw bed and bedding upon the floor, then lay a large blanket and one sheet on the sacking of the bedstead, afterward he spread the second sheet and another blanket, third came the bed, and over that a blanket and a rug; then, undressing, he would get in on the undermost sheet, with the bed and other drapery over him, and thus he lay snug in press until morning, and this was his regular habit.

He fancied himself immensely rich, and intended to pay off all the debts of Government. He had the most confirmed opinion in all his whims, and his eccentricities were beyond the ordinary class of madmen. He was discharged paralytic, on the 4th of April 1822, and is again extremely ill at his own home in Goswell-street.

STEPHEN ST--M--E,

Aged thirty-two, admitted 28th June 1821. This patient had been once in very respectable life, was occupied as a ship-broker, and his derangement was ascribed to heavy losses and disappointments in business. He appeared to have been a very genteel man; perfectly harmless and well conducted for some time after his first admission: but afterwards his disorder became high. He tore his clothes, and became, in his opinion, a very great man. He had in his own hands the insurance of all outward-bound ships from the River Thames to every part of the globe; and, in fact, no ship left the river without having Mr. St--m--e’s seal affixed to her. He knew every body by name, but none by sight. He transacted all his business without ever seeing the principals; and ever since he came here he had done, in imagination, insurance business to the extent of hundreds of thousands.

He was at all times very cheerful, danced and sung, and made many promises of conferring numerous appointments and lucrative situations on his poor fellow-patients. He was at length found to be paralytic, and was discharged. His friends were respectable, and he was known to many opulent merchants in London.

JOHN BURROWES,

Aged twenty-seven, admitted 5th of April 1821. This poor fellow had been a menial servant, sometimes occupied as a coachman, and at others as a labourer about a farm-yard. He became religiously affected: turning from the ways of sin, the flesh, and the labour of industry, he was initiated in the spirit and became a methodist. He was here remarkable for his taciturnity, “because in much discourse there was sin;” but whenever he broke silence it was always on some religious topic, and every occurrence of the day excited him to some quotation from the Holy Scripture. He seemed much read in the Old and New Testaments and Common Prayer-Book; John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and other spiritualized allegories; books of hymns, psalms, and meditations; Baxter’s Shove, Call to the Elect, &c., and perfectly knew the road to heaven; but the evil spirit constantly opposed his progress, and drove him back. His struggles with the wicked one were very great, and he hoped that, ere long, he should conquer and be called. Sometimes his fellow-patients who were recovering would ridicule his sanctity, and call him a _Pan-tyler_: but he would on those occasions stoutly disclaim methodism, and profess himself a staunch church of England man. No monk could evince a stronger propensity to self-mortification; and, amongst other contrivances for self-punishment, he used to prick pinholes in his face and hands until they were smeared with blood; and he frequently tied a handkerchief round his neck so tight, that it nearly choaked him.

He was ever bewailing his former blindness in the spirit, and the aberrations of his past life; but hoped, by self-mortification, prayer, and good works, that he might still be saved. He acknowledged, with great penitence, his having once stolen some hams, in company with accomplices: but he received no part of the profit, though he shared the blame; and this he hoped would extenuate the offence. He was always prompt in scriptural quotations, and applied them on all occasions, whether reading, eating, drinking, washing, or however otherwise employed.

He remained here until the expiration of twelve months, and was then taken to a private mad-house at Bethnal Green, on the 30th of April 1822, where he still remains.

JOHN NICHOLSON,

Aged sixty, admitted about two years since. This is a north-countryman. He was convicted of a violent assault on a man of whom he was jealous: but was deemed to be insane, and consigned to a mad-house. At present, and for some time past, he appears, in his calm moments, quite sane, rational, quiet, and well-behaved; but is apt to be very irritable and passionate on the slightest provocation.

WILLIAM DRAPER,

Aged forty-six, admitted August 9th 1821. This man had been a labourer in agriculture, and when he came in was highly disordered and violent. Judging from the effects, it would appear that his derangement originated in fanatacism and superstition. His chief amusement was twirling his head about, like a watchman’s rattle; which, of itself, would have been sufficient to addle his brain and excite distraction. His notion was, “that by so doing he kept off evil spirits, sin, and wickedness.” Sometimes, on being asked why he twirled his head thus, he answered, “to make bubbles in the water, and keep them off (the evil spirits); and if I was not to do it, you would soon have them down upon you, and be all devoured up.”

Sometimes he was doing so “to turn the planets in their proper places, keeping off fogs, damps, and heat.”

This man had the repute of being much better informed than most others in his sphere of life: but the poor fellow has exemplified the maxim of the poet, that

“A little learning is a dangerous thing.”

As a ploughman, a mower, a thrasher, and an agriculturer, he is said to have no competent rival in his county. His head is conically formed, like a sugar-loaf, and might afford an eligible topic for the speculations of Spurzeim, or any other of the craniologists. He was discharged an ideot, on the 13th December 1821.

JAMES W--L,

London, aged twenty-nine, admitted May 10th 1821. This young man had been a patient in this hospital before, and had continued here for twelve months, when he was placed on the incurable list; but having got much better, and continuing to improve for some time, six months’ leave of absence was granted him, at the expiration of which period he came back completely well, returned thanks to the governors, and was discharged perfectly cured.

The character and symptoms of this patient’s disorder were extremely curious and singular. When the paroxysm came on, however he happened to be situated, his whole frame from head to foot became stiff, as if all his joints and muscles were ossified. His eyes, though staring open, became fixed, and he foamed at the mouth. If sitting or walking when his fit came on, he would instantly fall to the ground, generally extended at full length on his back, with the same symptoms of rigid stiffness and insensibility: his eyes, open and inclined upward, were insensible to the touch of a hand passed over them, which did not produce the slightest wink. No symptom of animation remained, with the exception of breathing: but this so faintly as to be scarcely perceptible. His condition in all other respects resembled death; and in this state he would sometimes continue for one, two, three, and even four days, without any apparent change. He could not be induced on those occasions to eat or take any kind of sustenance; except, under the direction of medical gentlemen, when rich broths were passed by injection sufficient to sustain nature: but of this he seemed quite unconscious. During the fits his whole person was literally as stiff as a plank, and he might be raised to a perpendicular, and carried from place to place like a ladder, without the least appearance of flexibility. Towards the termination of those paroxysms, when a hand was passed over the eye-balls they would sometimes move, which was a prognostic of his recovery: and on being roused from his stupor, he recollected nothing of what had passed; but he would speak of dreams, visions, heaven, hell, and the strange things he had seen, at least with “his mind’s eye.” Visions which, with the fanatical disciples of Hannah Southcote, would have stamped him a sealed prophet, and sanctioned as divine revelations the wild dreams of his disordered fancy. After those fits he always appeared weak and dejected. He was a very fine young man, powerful and active, and had served as a master’s-mate in the Royal Navy.

When formerly confined here he was at times extremely violent; and on one occasion attacked one of the keepers, and did him considerable injury. He is heir to a considerable property in the neighbourhood of Dulwich, but his right of possession still hangs vaccillating in the glorious uncertainty of the law.

He was discharged quite cured on the 28th of February 1822, after a month’s previous leave of absence.

PETER MAXWELL,

Aged twenty-three, from London, admitted here about a year since, and had been previously confined six years in the Penitentiary at Millbank, to which place he was committed in commutation for his sentence of transportation for seven years, incurred by his conviction for picking pockets, in which profession he was an eminent adept; nor does the length of his confinement, or the nature of his insanity, seem in the least to have altered his taste for that pursuit.

On being asked how he obtained a living in all his former life, he answered: “by thieving, to be sure.”

“How would you get your living again, if you were sent out?”

“By thieving, to be sure: nothing like it.”

He became deranged while in the Penitentiary, and still continues so. He is said to have been a thief ever since his childhood. His person is diminutive, and his habits slovenly and uncleanly.

JOSEPH MASON,

Aged thirty-five, admitted here about two years since. This dangerous maniac is a Yorkshire-man, and was convicted of the murder of his own brother by cutting off his head, but as it was the result of insanity, he was ultimately consigned to this place. In general he appears to be a silly simpleton, but on that account is the more dangerous, because his fits of fury burst forth suddenly, and when the least expected. He lately attacked another patient, for some imaginary cause, and would have effectually despatched him but for the timely interposition of the keepers. He is quite persuaded that the keepers only detain him for their own gratification, and might liberate him at any time they chose: he is, therefore, constantly importunate with them to let him go; and extremely displeased at their refusal to comply. He cannot be trusted without strict vigilance.

JOHN NISBETT,

Aged about forty, admitted two years since. This patient is a native of Scotland. He was tried and convicted of breaking open a dwelling-house, robbing it of various articles, and sent to the Hulks; but he there became insane, and was sent here at the period above mentioned.

When he first came to this hospital, he appeared quite rejoiced at his lucky change of quarters. Freed from his irons, which were as usual rivetted on, exempted from labour, and comfortably lodged and fed, he appeared quite happy at his removal to so good a place. In his tranquil intervals his conversation is quite rational, and betrays not the least symptom of insanity; but, on the contrary, he shews all the characteristics of his native shrewdness. He drives a small tobacco trade here, under the rose, amongst his fellow-patients, many of whom are immoderately fond of that article; and by this traffic he takes good care not to be a loser. But, notwithstanding his occasional shrewdness, he is far from being generally sane, for he has frequent intervals of alternate cheerfulness and melancholy. When high, he sings and dances as if elevated with liquor; but when low, he is quite sunk and depressed. Upon the whole, however, he is tolerably quiet and well-conducted.

WILLIAM CHAPPLE,

Aged thirty-six, London, admitted May 3d 1821. This wretched man had been a working engineer, employed for many years under the late Mr. Rennie. His malady commenced without any assignable cause, and the derangement of his own mental machinery was discovered from the wildness and absurdity of some of his operations. He purchased several immense logs of wood to build a hen-house, which he constructed with much labour; but when finished, although it was sufficiently large and strong to contain several elephants, yet it could neither accommodate or secure his poultry. While at work for Mr. Rennie, it was observed that all he did for a considerable time was irregular and imperfect, and finally he appeared quite deranged. He was brought to this institution, and during the period he remained, confinement seemed intolerable to him, and his invention was constantly at work to find his way out. At doors, windows, privies, and every aperture, however small, he attempted escape, in vain. His prayers and intreaties to obtain the loan of the keys from the keepers were alike ineffectual. He frequently attempted to squeeze himself through the interstices between the iron-bars, and over the top of the iron-gate, leading from the basement-gallery to the airing-ground, a width of about five inches. It was soon perceived that this patient was paralytic, and therefore he was discharged on the 24th of May 1821. He was afterwards sent to a private asylum at Somers Town, from which he soon escaped, and rambled about the fields, almost naked, for several days, until he was nearly starved to death. His friends advertised a reward for finding him, and he was at last found near Enfield, lying in a ditch, in a miserable state, with no other clothing than his old flannel drawers. He was brought home to his friends, but found to be so unmanageable that he was sent to St. Luke’s hospital, from which he was afterwards dismissed for the like cause of paralysis, which procured his discharge from Bethlem. His wife, probably displeased at his dismission, fancied that he had been cruelly treated in St. Luke’s, and caused a statement of his sufferings to be inserted in some of the newspapers; but whether this story was founded on the wild tale of a lunatic, or whether the governors of St. Luke’s took the trouble to investigate the charge, the writer is not informed.

EDWARD WHENNELL,

Aged fifty-five, admitted 25th of April 1822. This man came from Hornchurch, in Essex. He was a labourer, and had been confined here a patient six years ago. Want of employment, and consequent distress, are assigned as the causes of his derangement. But, whatever might have been his disposition in a state of sanity, nothing can be of worse character than his manners, disrobed of all influence of morality or discretion; and which, but for the plea of his disorder, would entitle him to no reception elsewhere, save in Bridewell or the Hulks. He is, in fact, a compound of bad qualities; savage, ignorant, unfeeling, selfish, full of low cunning, an inveterate pilferer, so that no trifle, however small, can escape his fingers. He is destitute of all natural feeling or regard for his wife and five children, who never seem to cost him a thought, still less a sigh. He has no more notion of religion of any kind than a horse: he has, in fact, no concern for any person beyond himself. Eating and drinking are his favourite amusements, which he enjoys like a hog; and tobacco the sole idol of his worship, and of which he uses an incredible quantity, by night and day, in the most filthy manner. He is quite insensible to reprimand or reproach: he cares not what any one says of him. His thieving propensities extend to every thing he can lay hands on: provisions, thread, old rags, spoons, knives, forks, skewers, &c.; and his pockets, hat, bosom, and every part of his clothing which he can convert to a receptacle, are continually filled with trash of all descriptions.

Added to these accomplishments, every sentence he utters is accompanied by an oath, or an imprecation, or some blasphemous expression: in fact, he is a most profane and profligate wretch, and very little removed from a brute.

Perhaps it may be thought illiberal, to arraign those vices in a wretched man deprived of his reason; but they are by no means the growth of temporary insanity, and must have had their origin in his disposition and conduct long before insanity commenced.

Previously to his last commitment hither, he attempted, in a fit of treacherous fury, to murder his wife and children; and would, most likely, have succeeded in this sanguinary and atrocious purpose, but for the timely interference of a neighbour.

He obtained a month’s leave of absence, on the 26th of last September, but has not since returned.

URBAN METCALF,

London, aged forty-seven, admitted January 3d 1822. This man was one of the class of lunatic visitants, who some years since, during the life of his late Majesty, were so assiduous and troublesome in their visits to Buckingham House, and their endeavours to gain admission there. He has been frequently, in the course of the last eighteen years, deranged, and in different places of confinement on that account. He was discharged from this hospital on the 12th November 1818; but was afterwards sent hither, by an order from the Secretary of State, and on the 11th of April 1822 was liberated by the same authority, and discharged well.

When in his state of derangement, his propensity was to claim as his own property the royal palaces at Windsor, Kew, St. James’s, Buckingham House, &c.; and he would frequently visit them all, and take imaginary possession of them, by contriving to get within their entrances. He did not imagine himself to be the king, but that the king had no right to those palaces, as they were his property; and he therefore demanded that they might be surrendered to him.

His ordinary employment for livelihood had been hawking laces, garters, braces, &c. about the country; and while in this house, he was generally employed in knitting garters. He conducted himself very properly; he was well acquainted with the history of Bedlam, and was continually passing his remarks upon the whole system of management adopted here, which sometimes he approved, and at others censured. Not the minutest circumstance in the conduct of physicians, keepers, or patients, escaped his notice or observation; and when discharged, in 1818, he published a pamphlet on the management of the hospital, and was pretty free in his criticisms upon all points that did not square with his notions of propriety.

He was a neat little man, of peculiar aspect: his face curiously formed, small and sallow, with a stiff black beard; his eyes diminutive, black, and piercing, like those of a water-rat.

Since his last discharge from this place he has again become deranged, and is confined at an asylum in York.

JOHN PHIPPARD,

Aged thirty-three, admitted 18th April 1822. This man came from Milton Abbey, Dorsetshire; had been a gentleman’s servant, and since a labourer. The leading character of this patient’s malady is the shortness of its intermittent periods, which scarcely ever exceed three or four days, before he again relapses for a similar time; and thus the alternation continues from time to time.

When in his state of distraction, he will stand for hours together, with his eyes fixed on the ground, until roused from his reverie by the approach of strangers, or the physicians, or any person not familiar to him; he will then start suddenly, stamp with his foot on the ground, and exclaim, in a loud voice, “God bless the king, and all the admirals--he would fight up to his neck in blood for them.” He does not like the French; and every person he dislikes he calls a Frenchman. He drinks, in his small beer, “God bless and save the Government, and King George the IVth: he would sooner be transported to Newfoundland than die in France.” His discourse is extremely wild and incoherent. During the short intervals that he continues tranquil, he is obliging, civil, quiet, and anxious to make himself useful: and indeed naturally an honest, industrious, good kind of man; and, from the favourable symptoms of his convalescence, he will probably be soon discharged.

JOSEPH RICHARDSON,

Aged thirty-seven, admitted 24th January 1822. This man is, in stature, a minor giant, for he is six feet and four inches in height. He is a well-digger by profession, and so much attached to this art of sinking by his labours, that, on the first overt attack of his malady, he jumped down into a well, ninety feet deep, with a view to destroy himself; but was got up without much injury. Disappointed in his first attempt, he contrived again to get to the well, and repeated his experiment by another ninety-feet plunge, and again escaped alive, and without any great injury sustained. It was then thought high time to confine him, and since he was brought here he has acted very suspiciously; but a strict watch is constantly kept over him, to prevent suicide. He has once or twice taken a sly opportunity of getting at a pail, which he filled with water at the pump, and plunged his head into it, for the purpose of suffocation, which was prevented. When he cannot get at the pail, he takes the night-bowl in his room, fills it with water, or any liquid he can procure, and plunges his head into it, for the like fatal purpose; but it is too shallow to answer his intentions.

It appears this man has two wives, both living, and four children by the second. Whether the double dose of matrimony, or fanaticism, had the effect of producing his disorder, is not certain: but, he says, his first spouse was troubled with fits, and, when one of those came on, she had the devil in her: she had them so frequently, that at last she became crazed, and was a wife fit for no man, according to his estimation, and therefore he got another.

He says he was a staunch Church of Englandman all his life, until within these few years; but he dissented from the high church, and became a methodist, and from that time he has been made sensible of the enormity of his sins--sins of such magnitude, as can never be pardoned. He is usually sunk in mournful melancholy; and seldom, if ever, speaks, except to answer a question. He will remain for hours fixed like a statue in one position, with a long-drawn visage, the emblem of despair. When he sits down it is often difficult to raise him. He hates locomotion; refuses to go to his dinner, and says he would rather be cut into ten thousand pieces than go. The keepers are then obliged to carry him to dinner by force, and sometimes up stairs from the airing-ground, or wherever this fancy takes him. He is deeply read in the Bible, and quotes promptly, from every part of the Scripture, texts which he thinks corroborate his desponding notions, but he says he cannot follow up what the Scriptures prescribe.

This poor fellow is a native of Somersetshire, where he married his first wife. He came here from Wrotham, in Kent, where he lived a long time, with an excellent character for honesty, sobriety, and industry: but from the time his mind received the first taint of fanaticism his delusion increased. So deeply has his melancholy struck root in his mind, that he has never been once seen to smile since his admission; and although he seems at times to get somewhat better, his case, on the whole, is rather hopeless.

WILLIAM SAVAGE,

Aged thirty, from St. Mary’s Cray, Kent. This poor fellow was a journeyman paper-maker near the village he came from, with a family of a wife and three children. But jealousy, whether founded or not, seems to have originated his malady: for according to his own incoherent story, his faithless rib deserted and left him, without the cheering comforts of a partner in his conjugal cares. His misfortunes having driven him from manufacturing paper, he has commenced a new trade since he came in here, of which his imagination is both the source and the market. In fact, he has established, in his own notion, a very thriving trade in hops and corn, and deals very largely in those commodities. He is always as busy in the airing ground here, in looking out for customers, as if he were in the Southwark hop-market, or in the Corn Exchange, Mark-lane. “Come,” he will say to a fellow-maniac, “I can let you have ten tons of hops to-day very reasonable; or I can put you in a few hundred quarters of wheat well worth your money--come, I will not be hard with you, if you will make me any reasonable offer.”

When he followed the paper trade he could earn, in his own notion, more money in an hour than two other men in a day, and was always “singly equal to eight men in a week.” He is not of that irritable cast, like others, in whom the ardour of the mind emaciates the body; for he is as fat and unwieldy as if he still moved amongst all the plenty and strong ale of his native country, and had no other occupation than the amusements of food and drink. He has no activity, and takes but little exercise, except now and then when he takes a dancing fit, in which his motions fall not much short of the grace and vivacity of an accomplished bear. He is incorrigibly addicted to dirt and slovenliness, and generally has his bosom and his hat crammed with samples--not of hops or wheat, but of straw, bones, pebble-stones, flannel, linen rags, wooden spoons, bread, old handkerchiefs, and filth of every sort that he can pick up: and these are the commodities he exhibits for sale to his customers as hops and wheat, in the gallery and airing ground. But he is perfectly quiet and harmless: and if it be true that “happiness exists only in the mind,” and that “content is a kingdom,” this poor Savage is quite a monarch in his way.

WILLIAM ADAMS,

Aged twenty-seven, admitted August 8th, 1822. This smart little fellow was a conveyancer by profession, but became unfortunately involved in one of the traps of the law: he was arrested for a small debt of £20, which he was unable to pay, and therefore was consigned to the Fleet Prison--a kind of hotel not very reconcilable to the patience of even a stoic philosopher, without the means of existence. In a little time poor Adams, by the rapid movement of his mind, passed through all the gradations from chagrin to insanity; and it became necessary to transfer him hither, without the ceremony of _Habeas Corpus_.

However extensive may have been the range of his professional talents, it must have fallen infinitely short of the scope and versatility of his imagination in his state of derangement. Wholly unlimited by the identities of time, place, or person, he instantly accommodates each to his fancy in a moment, and he is any where, and every where, and any body, by turns. At one time he imagined himself to be the Lord Chancellor, or, as he emphatically stated himself, “Young Baggs;” and no mortal tongue ever maintained the loquacity of the law, or talked with more incessant volubility, than his imaginary lordship. He would decide ten thousand causes in a day; he would accuse, try, condemn, and execute whole nations in a breath. His language was as wild and far-fetched as his fancy was various; topics of all kinds seemed to come tumbling into his mind, without order or connexion. Of every name he heard mentioned he instantly became the personal representative, and says, “I am he;” thus he is by turns Buonaparte, the King, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Londonderry, the Persian Ambassador, Mr. Pope, Homer, Smollett, Hume, Gibbon, John Bunyan, Mrs. Clarke, the Queen, Pergami. He is successively a Hottentot, a Lascar, a Spaniard, a Turk, a Jew, a Scotsman, a member of any religious sect, except a methodist. He has been in all situations and occupations of life, according to his own account; a potboy at Hampstead, a shoeblack, a chimney-sweeper, an East-India Director, a kennel-raker, a gold-finder, an oyster-woman, a Jew cast-clothesman, a police justice, a judge, a keeper of Newgate, and, as he styles it, “His Majesty’s law ironmonger for the home department:” nay, he has even been Jack Ketch, and has hung hundreds; he has been a soldier, and has killed thousands; a Portuguese, and poignarded scores; a Jew pedlar, and cheated all the world; a member of Parliament for London, and betrayed his constituents; a Lord Mayor, a bishop, an admiral, a dancing-master, a Rabbi, Grimaldi, in the pantomime, and ten thousand other occupations, that no tongue or memory but his own could enumerate. The specimen just given may serve as a sample of what is passing in his fancy.

All the world belongs exclusively to him, and he will dispose of it just as he chooses. He will massacre all blacks, Jews, Roman Catholics, and Quakers, hackney-coachmen, pawnbrokers, lawyers, and lunatics. The last he will first turn out of this house, and have their places filled by wild beasts; all the old women, the lame and blind, all virgins, soldiers, sailors, and children in the small-pox, cripples of every description; all criminals shall be sent here, and debtors from all the prisons and lock-up houses; he will feed them all himself--and then he will be happy. These and the like topics occupy his whole time and conversation from morning till night. His tongue goes incessantly at full gallop, without a moment’s respite. Those whom he threatens to destroy at one hour, are in the next the objects of his favour, and all others are to be destroyed in their stead. It would be scarcely possible to believe, that such a heterogeneous infinity of topics could so rapidly pass through the wildest imagination, if this man did not exemplify the fact. The series goes on in the same endless current, and without a moment’s hesitation, his fancy plies his tongue with new topics.

When he is tired of ranging the airing ground and lower regions of the building, the spirit carries him to the upper galleries, and at the same time elevates to immortality and omnipotence his notions of his own being and attributes. He sometimes styles himself God: loves the top gallery, because it affords him a fine view, and a pleasing opportunity to look down from Heaven, as he says, upon his subjects below.

Another unfortunate maniac here, named Joseph Panter, supposes himself to be our Saviour. One day, when Adams found the door leading to the top gallery open, he ran up stairs to heaven, as he calls it, where he met Panter, who, much out of humour at his appearance, told Adams he had no business to come there, and then gave him a box on the ear and a kick behind, and sent him tumbling down stairs. Adams ran immediately to the airing-ground, rushed towards his keeper, and with frighted looks and almost out of breath, told him that he had been very ill-used. “I went up stairs,” said he, “to heaven, and saw J---- C---- walking about in white. I said nothing to him: but before I had been five minutes in heaven he came up to me, and gave me a punch on the head, and tumbled me down stairs.”

This poor fellow still continues much in the same state as when first admitted. He styles his wife, who sometimes visits him, “his dear little black queen,” and proposes to appoint her a maid of honour to his Queen Charlotte, “for whom,” he says, “he has a much greater affection.”

WILLIAM COLLISON,

Aged thirty-nine, admitted 28th November 1822. This man was a gardener at Northampton, and had been disordered several months. His derangement commenced with a strong notion that he was to fall the victim of poison, administered by some persons having a design upon his life: and so strong was this impression on his deluded mind, that for a long time he took his food, of whatever it consisted, with extreme caution, and marked suspicion; but during three months preceding his transmission to this hospital, he refused all other sustenance but milk alone, and subsisted entirely on this. When he rose from bed every morning he was taken to a meadow near his residence, and furnished with a stool, on which he sat till bed-time. His daily allowance was a can of milk, which was brought to him every morning, and thus provided, he mused the whole day, in a melancholy solitude, utterly careless of his person, and every thing around him. During the whole three months of this meadowed retirement he was neither shaved nor washed; and when presented for admission here, he came with all his filthy appendages thick upon him, more like some non-descript species of the brute creation than a human being. A long beard enveloped the lower parts of his face, and the rest of it was clothed with dirt of various kinds and colours; his head projecting forward, his body bent almost double, his whole frame feeble and tottering, his steps timid and cautious, his eye sharp, scowling, and inquisitive, and his utterance suppressed almost to dumbness. He presented altogether the character of some curious wild animal, better suited for the menagerie at Exeter-Change than for the class of human beings; and, under a new name, might have been viewed as a species of the ourang-outang, and have become an attractive object to the curious in natural history.

The poor fellow, on his entrance here, was impressed with strong fears that he was brought for the purpose of being killed; and, under this notion, he earnestly begged that as he was a poor, weakly object, they would not put him to a very lingering or tormenting death. But, what is extremely singular in the result of his removal here, as a place of proper treatment, that no sooner was his person cleansed from filth, and his squalid apparel changed for comfortable clothing, than a visible abatement of his disorder commenced. From the second day after his admission he took his food without the slightest symptom of doubt or apprehension; he became comparatively cheerful, assumed a contented aspect, and his fear of being murdered quite vanished: and in seven days’ time there appeared a most extraordinary change in his whole manners, health, habits, and opinions: a change perhaps unparalleled within so short a period, in the whole annals of insanity. He has latterly imbibed the extraordinary notion of his being filled with frogs, and that all the food he takes goes to their support.

GEORGE TESTER,

Aged twenty-six, from Balcomb in Sussex, admitted 14th February 1822. This young man had been twice before confined in this hospital; the last time he was admitted on the 19th of October 1820, and discharged, well, on the 22d February 1821.

Since his recent admission he has very frequently relapsed when nearly well, and on no occasion continued tranquil longer than for three weeks or a month. The approach of a fresh attack is discovered from his laughing heartily at every frivolous occurrence; more especially at any thing mischievous. So long as the fit continues, which is generally from one to three or four weeks, his frenzy is very high, and his conduct very bad; he insults all persons he comes near, indiscriminately, and his language is horribly blasphemous, insulting (as poor Captain Lloyd tells him) to the great God of heaven.

His expressions in this state are too dreadful to repeat, and his oaths and imprecations terrible beyond conception.

When in this way, the unfortunate man becomes dirty and slovenly. He wears his hat with the crown torn out, and the brim uppermost. On those occasions his disease is at the worst, and, while the paroxysm continues, his notions are wild and incoherent to excess. He believes one man to be God, another to be the devil. Some he believes to be angels; others horses, dogs, bears, tigers, porcupines, &c. &c. One man he takes to be his father; another the king; and, in short, every person, and thing, assumes, in his fancy, some character, quality, or appearance totally wide of the reality.

But when the poor fellow’s frenzy is abated, and something like calm reflexion returns, it is impossible for penitence to express more sorrow and shame for what he has said or done; as, most unfortunately for his own mind, he remembers all that has passed in his delirium. In consequence he becomes depressed and melancholy, and sometimes continues so until another fit comes on.

Latterly he became extremely anxious for a trial at home with his friends; and, at the insistence of his father, a month’s leave of absence was granted him, on the 7th November 1822.

He was formerly servant to a gentleman near Cuckfield, in Sussex; and while on a visit to Devonshire with his master, at the beginning of the year, the first symptoms of his derangement appeared. He wrapped himself up in all the great-coats he could find, and set off on a ramble, he knew not whither. He sometimes ordered dinner at an inn, and drank a bottle of wine, without a farthing in his pocket. Sometimes he went into a field where labourers were at work, and, watching his opportunity, seized and carried off their provisions. At other times he would enter a farm-house, and seating himself demand whatever he chose. On one occasion he took possession of a cottage, got his dinner, took a nap afterwards, and then demanded his supper. The poor terrified hostess, who was alone at his entrance, became much alarmed; but had courage enough to remain until her husband returned from his work, in the evening, when he found poor George sitting very comfortably by the fire, after his supper, and very leisurely preparing for bed, his smallclothes knees unbuttoned, neckerchief and coat off, stockings down, and shoes slip-shod. The husband, who was a powerful young man, naturally enough inquired of his wife the quality and character of his strange guest, and learned from her all that had passed. But the gruff Hodge, not altogether approving such an inmate, lost no time in preparing for his exclusion; and by virtue of an ejectment, in the shape of a stout cudgel, put in so many pleas upon the shoulders, ribs, and other appurtenances of poor George, that without waiting for replications, rejoinders, or rebutters, he vacated the premises, leaving behind him his hat, coat, and one shoe, and scampered off at full speed to save his life.

He was recognized as a madman at various times and places, but the parishes through which he passed did not choose to assume the burthen of his maintenance, and so transferred him from one to another, until he reached his home, where he refitted his damages by another coat, hat, and shoe; and sallying forth from his native cottage in quest of new adventures, he proceeded to a farm-house, and filled himself with such good things as he could get.

This poor fellow’s malady evinces little or no hope of a perfect recovery through life. The faculty of memory, in recollecting every thing which passes in his fits of frenzy, is very remarkable, and is a source of much affliction to his mind at lucid intervals.

THOMAS DOWLE,

Aged twenty-eight, admitted 28th October 1822. This unfortunate young man is the son of a farmer near Chepstow, in Monmouthshire. No taint of insanity ever before appeared in any of his family. Sudden fright was the immediate cause of his derangement, and he now presents a deplorable example of the mischievous consequences of those practical jokes, so frequently played off for the momentary diversion of inconsiderate young people, upon their unsuspecting companions, and but too often productive of lamentable, and even fatal, consequences. Numerous are the instances wherein dementation, and even death, have followed the too sudden excitement of the stronger passions. The momentary impulse of excessive fear, grief, and even of joy, have produced those effects. The superstitious tales of ghosts and goblins, so frequently impressed on infant minds, have often proved indelible through life, in spite of education, philosophy, and all the powers of reason; and we have heard numerous instances of brave men, who have intrepidly mounted a breach, or stormed a battery pregnant with death, who yet could hardly summon firmness enough to go alone in the dark, or cross a church-yard after nightfall, merely from the early impressions of nursery-tales told them in their childhood. A frightful mask, a strange noise, a pretended ghost, or even the suddenly bouncing on a person, wholly unaware of the trick, have often caused the most deplorable consequences, not only in children but in adults, to the loss of reason, and even of life.

Poor Dowle, the unhappy subject of this article, was a simple peasant; and as he was one morning crossing his father’s fields, on his way to his usual labours, cheerful, guardless, and, like another Cymon,

“Whistling as he went, for want of thought,”

an intimate rustic acquaintance saw him coming, knew his simplicity, and, in mere frolick, stepped aside, and concealed himself behind a bush until Dowle came up, when he suddenly rushed out upon him with a loud shout. He was so astounded by the shock that he was struck almost senseless: he staggered, fell, and fainted away. The current of his blood seemed for some time arrested, and his pulsation ceased. He was taken up and conveyed home; delirium ensued; and confirmed madness followed, which has ever since continued without abatement, to a degree not only pitiable, but dangerous to all who approach him. His propensities are fierce and vicious; he tries to kick at all who come near him, and even to bite at them, with all the rabid fury of an enraged dog. In this manner he continually snaps at all who pass him. He seizes and tears rugs, blankets, his own clothes, and any thing within his reach. In this state, of course, he is not suffered to have intercourse amongst the other patients, but is fastened to the coal-chest in the basement gallery. His malady has shewn no signs of abatement since he came in, and probably he may never recover his reason. He appears quite unconscious of his situation, or of the place where he is, nor does he seem to feel his confinement irksome; his only object seems to be, watching for the approach of any one whom he may attack.