in the middle at one end, and a button hole on the other; also staples
and button holes at both ends, as seen in the engraving. I did not
resist, for I knew it would do no good, though I had been terribly
beaten. She placed this last jacket upon me, drew all the straps
tight, and I had on the whole of the accursed harness.
Immediately after this the female attendant proceeded to open the doors
and lead the way down two flight of stairs to the bath room. The male
attendant took me by the arm and hurried me along after her; there we
were met by a patient by the name of E. Scott. I was there ordered into
a bath tub of cold water, compelled to sit down, compelled to lie down,
bound as I was hand and foot, and chilled through and through; my feet
were pressed hard against the foot of the bath tub and my shoulders
against the raised bottom of the tub. The water not being of sufficient
depth over the raised part of the bottom to cover my head or keep it
under water, the attendant took an old tin wash dish, and dipping the
water from between my legs poured the dirty water into my mouth and
down my throat, keeping my mouth pried open all the while. I begged for
my life; I cried for mercy; they would not desist, but again and again
filled the dish and poured it down my throat. I was almost strangled,
but not yet content, they both grabbed my legs and raised them from
the bottom of the tub, thereby drawing my head and shoulders into the
deeper water. Then the attendant, by the aid of Scott, held my head
under water until I was almost strangled. Whenever I was almost gone
they would raise it a moment for me to revive, and then jam it down
again under the water. Oh, fiend! can you tell how one feels in the
act of drowning, with no one near to pity. But He, who is everywhere
present, beholding the evil and the good, delivered me out of their
hands, blessed be his holy name forever and forever. Amen.
It was most unjust; if I was a lunatic it was unjust; if I was not,
it was none the less so. Strange, that in a free land, in a thickly
settled and civilized community, such barbarous and inhuman acts are
allowed by those in authority.
If we can learn, experience and suffer so much in one short hour, what
think you I learned, suffered and experienced in _ten long years_!
MOSES SWAN.
RECOMMENDATION.
_First Baptist Church of Hoosick Falls._
GREETING--This certifies that Brother Moses Swan is a member in our
church in good and regular standing, and has been for forty years, and
this is given him as a traveling letter.
LEWIS CRANDELL, _Clerk_.
Hoosick, _September 30, 1873_.
PREFACE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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