Presently came Anderson with the magdalen, Isabella, and a male bully from the main house entering the room where I was, pounced upon the negro, and, after a long tussle, brought him to the floor, and whilst the two held and bound his feet together with strap, B, the magdalen Isabella was pounding his shins with a broom handle and saying, "'tis his shins that want it," another strap, B, being noosed around the one that fastened his legs together, Isabella hitched a ginny, or her hands, to the strap and started for the door, dragging the poor lunatic out of my sight by his heels and in all probability down two flights of stairs to the bath-room, as may be judged by what is yet to come.
SECOND SUFFERINGS OF WM. JEFFERSON, THE NEGRO.
Again, one morning as I was lying in bed having just finished my breakfast and placed the heavy coffee bowl on the stand, quickly, Jefferson darted across the room, grabbed the bowl and struck me on my head as I was lying in bed, and left, taking a stool went to the next room; did not see him strike Wm. Mine, Mine told me he did. Saw Mine in the poor-house since. Saw Anderson bring the stool out of Mine's room; inch and a half plank bottom split in two. Saw Anderson dress Mine's wounded head. By this time Jefferson was back with me, Anderson pulled the self-locking door and I was locked in with the crazy negro.
Come in doctors, the luny negro will not hurt you, come in doctors, and give me a cup of cold water; you say I am incurable, I say I am faint. Come in, doctors, the negro won't hurt you, his luny mind is turned another way; he stands with a drawn mop, this side the door, ready to meet his foes. At this moment came Anderson with two main house bully fighters. Slam, bang, open came the door and in came the attendant with his two fighters pouncing upon the negro and jammed him down on a bed near where I lay, whilst one, not weighing less than two hundred pounds, grasped both hands in the negro's hair, held him tight to the bed. In the meantime the second one (who had helped bind him previously) pounded him in the face until the blood streamed from his nose and mouth. "Now," says Anderson, who had strapped his feet together whilst they were pounding him, "let him up," instantly drawing him bodily to the floor.
Now he lays bleeding on the floor, and now they raise him upon his feet, and place on his hands muff E. The lunatic being bound, hand and foot, was taken out of my sight.
After a time I saw him lying on the floor bound as described, with the exception of his feet; wet from head to foot; gasping for breath. Come in doctors, the lunatic is cured, he can't hurt you; come in, father, your son won't hurt you; come in, mother, and fan your fainting son; pray, come one and all, make up minds to keep your unfortunate ones from lunatic asylums.
KIRK HULL, OF BERLIN.
Kirk Hull was an orphan boy, some sixteen or seventeen years of age, of a slender constitution; was subject to falling fits,—have seen him have many—falling prostrate on the floor, bruising his head and face till the blood ran down his brow; frothing and bleeding at the mouth, with his hands fastened in muff E. I have seen Anderson put the whole of the asylum harness on him, and lay him on his back in bed and bind him to the bedstead on either side, stretching his legs to the foot, and then fast with the feet straps to the foot of the bedstead, lying in such a torturing state night after night, and week after week. He was cured of fits in the Marshall Lunatic Asylum, Ida Hill, Troy; N. B., not by medical skill, but from torture and such maltreatment. The orphan died in the darkness of night, with no one to smooth his dying pillow, or wipe the cold sweat from his brow. Lying as I was, within two feet of the orphan's body, sleep departed from my eyes till morning, when in came Anderson with the dead board. Bacon, Noals, Anderson and another carried him from my sight.
REMARKS.
When I ask the husband to keep his luny wife with him at Hoosick Falls, he says, "I cannot take care of her." When I pray a sister who has her thousands to keep her foolish sister from Ida Hill Lunatic Asylum, she says, "I can't take care of her." (What! not better than Kirk was cared for?)