HOW THEY HUN LUNATIC ASYLUMS IN AMERICA.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3736, 6 July 1883, Page 4

HOW THEY HUN LUNATIC ASYLUMS IN AMERICA.

Tlio Legi.sln.tivo investigation into the charges preferred by Governor 1311 tier against the management of the Tewksbiny Almshousc, Uo.ston, was continued on the 2nd April. The New York Tribune reports that Dudley, a former night-watch-man, was again examined. When he .surprised young sEars(i, the assistant superintendent, in spiriting away a body one night, Marsh said, by way of apology, " We have got to havo some pay for our trouble in taking care of those critters." Ho testified to seeing Mrs Marsh go into the basemeat and secretly remove dresses and clothing , from the trunks and boxes supposed to be-

long to female inmates. The witness said:— " Several times I saw two men taking - out coffins or bodies from the bury-ground. The men were Manning and his negro, and they started off toward Boston, as I suppose. The food for tho inmates and insane was always very poor. Tho bread was sour nearly all the time, and the quantity was very small, especially for those who had to work about the furm. I spoke about it once to Captain Marsh, and reported especially the condition of the hunjyiy nhildren. He said he guessed that they had got enough. I said I thought that they didn't and that I had .several" times carried them pieces of bread. He told mo ho didn't want me to do that any more. Thomas Hall, who drove tho Hospital team, one night told me he had taken up sixty-three bodies inside of eight months, and had got very little extra pay for it. The next night he showed me a roll of bills, and said that "Tom " had made it partly right with him. "In the female Insane Asylum the straw beds were rotten, fairly steaming with filth. Most of tho women were without underclothing , or shoes and stockings; nothing but a thin calico dress. This was T »ii.-. The cells was in a filthy il, <> attic, in another ' . - . - Iving on

■ cleaned out. om, • ;i-diiy, carried to her by im . .said that .she had always taken eaiu _ old woman. I found that the girl threw the food away. I carried the food myself, and in five or .six weeks "we had the woman out of the cell and down into the sittingroom, ho changed that her husband did not know her. Her name was Mary Barren. When the trustees came they asked l'urhcr, and refused to believe me when I pointed her out to them.

" The insane women were employed in the care of patients afflicted with contagious diseases. Captain Marsh said that an mii sane persons could not take disease. He .said they were brought there to die. When I was on the night watch I used to go to the foundling building at night to see that the fires were kept up. At night the infants were under thn cave of an inmate. One night I said to the woman in charge that sho didn't seem to have so much tremble with her babies as formerly. She said that sho had found a way to keep them quiut. She took down a bottle, and said that when they got troublesome she gave (hem three or four drops out of that, and they were quiet all the rest of the night. I took it and smelled it, and found that itwas a mixture of morphine. She said that she was put there for punishment, and was determined to make her work an easy as she could. I told her that it was liable to kill .some of them, and sho said that she didn't care if it did: she didn't care anyhow how many of them died. All the babies that were boui thorc, and that were brought, in during the first year we were there, were seventy-three. I know about them because my wife had to count them. Out of the seventy-throe that we knew of, only one babe was alive at the end of the year."