I have been dragged around this ward by the hair of my head by the maniacs; I have received blows from them that almost killed me. My seat at the table was by the side of Mrs. Triplet, the most dangerous and violent patient in the whole ward, who almost invariably threatened to kill me every time I went to the table. I have had to dodge the knives and forks and tumblers and chairs which have been hurled in promiscuous profusion about my head, to avoid some fatal blow. I have begged and besought Dr. McFarland to remove me to some place of safety, where my life would not be so exposed, only to see him turn, speechless, away from me! I have endured the scent and filth of a ward, from which my delicate, sensitive nature revolts in loathsome disgust, until I had had time to clean the whole ward with my own hands, before it could be a decent place for human beings to inhabit.
From this eighth ward I was not removed until I was discharged, two years and eight months from the day I was consigned to it. I did not set my foot upon the ground in the mean time, although, for the last part of my imprisonment there, Dr. McFarland exchanged some of the noisiest and most boisterous patients for a more quiet class.
I have been threatened with the screen-room, and this threat has been accompanied with the flourish of a butcher knife over my head, for simply passing a piece of johnny-cake through a crack under my door to a hungry patient, who was locked in her room to suffer starvation as her discipline for her insanity.
I have heard a fond and tender mother begging and pleading, for one whole night and part of a day, for one drink of cold water, but all in vain! simply because she had annoyed her attendant, by crying to see her darling babe and dear little ones at home. I finally persuaded the matron, Mrs. Waldo, to interpose, and give her a drink of water.
There was but one of all the employees at that Asylum whom the Dr. could influence to treat me, personally, like an insane person. This was Mrs. De La Hay. Besides threatening me with the screen-room, as I have stated, she threatened to jacket me for speaking at the table.
One day, after she had been treating her patients with great injustice and cruelty, I addressed Mrs. McKonkey, who sat next to me at the table, and in an undertone remarked, “I am thankful there is a recording angel present, noting what is going on in these wards;” when Mrs. De La Hay, overhearing my remark, exclaimed in a very angry tone, “Mrs. Packard, stop your voice! if, you speak another word at the table I shall put a straight jacket on you!”
Mrs. Lovel, one of the patients, replied, “Mrs. De La Hay, did you ever have a straight jacket on yourself?”
“No, my position protects me! but I would as soon put one on Mrs. Packard as any other patient, ‘recording angel’ or no ‘recording angel,’ and Dr. McFarland will protect me in doing so, too!”
The indignant feeling of the house soon became so demonstrative, in view of the treatment I was receiving, that the Dr. seemed compelled to discharge Mrs. De La Hay to defend his own character from the charge of abusing me, and Mrs. De La Hay soon after became insane, and a tenant of Jacksonville poor-house.
He cut me off from all written communication with the outside world, except under the strictest censorship, and made it a dischargeable offence of his employees to permit me to have any means of communication with the outside world. He has refused Mrs. Judge Thomas and other friends, whom he knew desired to comfort me with human sympathy and some choice viands, admission into my presence, and has put them off with the inquiry, “why do you wish to single out Mrs. Packard from the other patients, to administer to her comfort?” and when asked by his guests, who often mistook me for the matron, “why he kept so intelligent a lady in an Insane Asylum?” he would reply, “you must not take any notice of what a patient says!” And the reply he would make to my indignant friends at the hospital, who ventured sometimes to inquire “why are you treating Mrs. Packard in this manner?” has invariably been, “it is all for her good!”