After leaving the family we next directed our steps to the insane asylum of the almshouse. Arriving there we made ourselves acquainted with Dr. Richardson, who has charge of the insane. We found the doctor one of the most obliging public officials we have ever met. He appeared to esteem it a pleasure to give us all the information he could in regard to the insane. The doctor has had charge of the insane since December 1866. Previous to that time he was connected with the poor department for many years. Informing the doctor our visit was for the purpose of conversing with him in relation to John Herriges, he at once informed us the Herriges family had received a great and uncalled for injury from the press of this city. As for John he was hopelessly insane, and was doubtless so from the first. He told us insanity incurable was stamped upon every lineament of his countenance, and as for the filthy condition in which he was found that signified nothing. His filthy habits appear to come to him periodically: that is, every other night he will pass his excrement, after which he will smear the walls, floor and his own face and body with it, presenting one of the most disgusting sights the doctor ever witnessed. The doctor informed us that some forms of insanity ran that way, and instanced one particular case of a lady of education and refinement who came under his notice. She acted precisely similar to John Herriges during the time she was under his care. The lady was cured however and has resumed her place in the fashionable world.
Dr. Richardson also informed us that insanity frequently ran to the opposite of dirty habits, one patient, now in the asylum, is continually, if allowed, engaged in washing himself; fifty times a day or more would he go through his ablutions. And it is more frequently in the other direction; we were informed that Herriges cell had to be white-washed and cleaned every other day; that he cannot feed himself at all; when John first entered the asylum the only meal he seemed to enjoy was his dinner; now he eats his breakfast and supper with a relish; in fact he was just in the act of taking supper when we paid a visit to John Herriges; we found a man of five feet eight inches, weighing about 140 pounds, with a skin as white as any lady’s in the city; all traces of the dirt the Sunday Dispatch had ground into his flesh so deep, as never to be washed out, was completely gone, and John presented a better, more gentlemanly appearance than any other man in the asylum. Dr. Richardson made the remark that John had been fed with food of a diversified character; that there was no speck of scrofula appearing upon his body. * * * * * * * He requires to be wheeled on a chair to his meals and back again. His food has to be put in his mouth, or he would never eat, and, altogether, he is one of the most deplorable cases of insanity we have ever seen; and that the sober, second thought of the public will award his family due credit for what they did for him, there can be no doubt; if not before, at least after the trial of Joseph, before a judge and jury shall have taken place.
At the same time we must insert here also the following paragraph, which is taken from The Day newspaper of Thursday June 16th. The article is headed: “A Poor Idiot Caged Up In a Filthy Room For Many Years.”
“The defendent * * * claimed that he had given his brother all the necessary attention and that the condition of affairs at the house was exaggerated by the witnesses. That this is not the case, our reporter who visited the premises in company with Chief Mulholland, Coroner Taylor, and other officers can testify.”
“Alderman Kerr stated that he had known the defendant for twenty years, and knew him as a man of property and owner of real estate. * * * never knew he had a brother living; he was abundantly able to furnish him with better accomodation.”
The facts which we obtained at the Almshouse can be thoroughly relied upon as being correct as we got them directly from Detective John O’Grady who had been detailed specially by Mayor Fox in conjunction with Detective Benjamin Franklin to work up the facts in the case. Officer O’Grady went to the Herriges house and searched it thoroughly the day that the trunk and bags were taken away from the premises. There were the wildest rumors in regard to this circumstance which were entirely unjust as the trunk and bags contained nothing only valuable papers which Herriges, fearing the house would be mored down by the mob, wished to save by thus removing them.
Officers O’Grady and Franklin merit special commendation for the manner in which they worked up their part of the case.