I first saw Miss Lawn in the short hall from the head of the stairs; appeared pleasant and sociable; days passed and I again saw her, but she was much disfigured; she had lost her beautiful head of hair; appeared to be in trouble on that account; talked much about it; months passed on, and I saw her hands bound with the muff, E; not long after saw her with the whole of the harness on, walking in the hall below me, where I first saw her.
Next, to add to her torture, Isabel, the magdalen attendant, fastened her to a window bar in the south hall, where the sun, with all its meridian heat, beamed in upon her.
Many has been the time since I left the incurable house in 1870, I have visited it merely to ferret out what I could for the benefit of others, taking minutes in my diary.
Learned of Wm. Anderson that, in 1873, Miss Lawn, Bridget Hamilton, Walis and others, to the amount of twenty-two, considered incurable, had been sent to the western part of New York State to a State Lunatic Asylum. The Lord have mercy upon them.
The first year I entered the Troy Asylum, I found in the attendant's room a circular containing the by-laws of the Institution. To me, when I read it, there did not appear to be any thing objectionable; the attendants were required to treat their patients kindly. But who knows they do? Does these twenty-six Governors, under whose direction is this Institution? If not, they come short, and will be held amenable at the judgment.
An institution is an institution, and a kingdom is a kingdom.
And when the righteous are in authority the people rejoice; but when the wicked beareth rule the people mourn.
There is a chapel in the main house of the institution where prayer is wont to be made. But what is that to one shut out, more than the passing look of the priests and levites who passed by the wounded man who went from Jerusalem down to Jericho and fell among thieves; so I fell among thieves on Ida Hill and was wounded and passed by.
I shall now leave this part of my narrative and speak briefly of the Vermont State Lunatic Asylum at Brattleborough, and the treatment of a few of the inmates.