WHAT I SAW IN MY VISION DESCRIBED.
Here, as I was lying within a few miles of the great and popular institution, Vermont asylum, here I saw an awful pit below. Naught but the inner side did I see; it was made of fire-brick as it appeared to me, round at the top, broad as the eye could extend, the depth was the same as the breadth at the top, running to a point below. Cast one beast into such a pit and where is the bottom for his foot? Fill this to the brim and one torments the other. I awoke from my visionary state and the sun was shining through the window from the east. Soon I was on my way to that earthly hell, Vermont asylum, similar to the Troy asylum, that place of torment and slave depot.
Soon I entered the doctor's office; soon he grabbed my hat with his heavy paw says, "take off your hat"; soon came John White into the doctor's office says, "come," taking me by the arm, and locked me in the third story with thirty-six beast-like men, while tears gushed from my streaming eyes.
I shall say but little of my treatment, let it suffice to say, the worst I was used was from attendant White, he kicked me severely when I was a little too slow to suit him when walking out. This I had to do with some two hundred men, bull-dogs and attendants, with clubs in hand. Here, I contracted the catarrh and rheumatism by his showering me with cold water in the month of November, night after night.
On this hall I became acquainted with Atkins, whom I have designated as the lunatic barber. I will name a few others on this hall; Atkins, Mircells, an old man; a boy called Mecheum, Joel Swain, a Mr. Reed, John Eycleshymer, from Pittstown.
In this hall I was kept during the four months, lodged in the south-east room with from two to three patients, with thirty-six on the hall through the day.