To do my master's will.
Although I may not have the gift of a poet, and may not have the gift of prophecy, neither be as good as John the Baptist, yet I can truly say, like Paul, I have been beaten for Christ's sake, when bound in the Ida Hill Lunatic Asylum.
It is not a pleasant task for me to reveal the faults of others, more particularly those of the dead, yet when I realize how many are robbed of their liberty and lives, my soul is stirred within me, in behalf of poor sufferers in these institutions.
If these great sins are the sins of ignorance or neglect on the part of any one of the governors or inspectors, or government, it is not to be winked at.
ALFRED THE INTEMPERATE ATTENDANT'S CRUELTY TO JOHN SMALLEY, A PATIENT.
J. Smalley came to the main house in 1860; removed to the incurable one before the 3d of July, in 1862, where he died about 1864 or '65. He was a man some seventy-five years old, weighing about seventy or eighty pounds.
By what I gathered from him he had been an inn-keeper, and had become an intemperate man. Alfred, the attendant, gave him liquor for medicine, a share to himself. John Smalley lodged in the black or brown floor room; I have often seen him bound to the window bars, from day to day; often seen attendants carry him down stairs for washing; but what was more cruel, I saw Alfred pounce upon him while he was lying upon his back in bed, stamping him with both knees upon his bowels. The poor old man had a son come to see him, but what of that, be ye clothed and be ye fed does no more good than the priest's passing look did the man who went from Jerusalem down to Jericho and fell among thieves.
I ask, could not the old man's son have acted the part of the good Samaritan, and took the old man to an inn and bound up the wounds that Alfred, the attendant, made by his cruel treatment.
MY WIFE VISITING ME IN THE INCURABLE HOUSE WITH BROTHER B. AND NEPHEW.
Dr. Gregory, in the Reign of Alfred.