The first night I was locked up in the inner prison or cell heretofore
alluded to, and this was enough to make a rational man crazy. What,
said I, a lunatic asylum for my home, a cell for my dining room, a cell
for my lodging, and a cell for my closet of prayer. Ah, friend, can you
imagine how one feels, sick and in prison, friendless and hopeless.
The first night said I, no dear wife to smooth down my pillow, and
no dear daughter to fan my fainting person, or to give a cup of cold
water. Ah, what a deplorable situation, if I die I must die alone.
Main House. In this house I received no maltreatment from attendants
(much from patients, Gibbs, and others). I remained in this house
fifteen months without the opportunity to go out, even to the chapel.
Not a particle of medicine was administered to me while in this house,
not a book did I have to read after O'Donnel destroyed the Bible.
MY BOARD AND BEDDING.
As to my board in this house, I have no fault to find, in regard to
myself I had enough and in good order, a few strawberries and grapes
in their season and vegetables occasionally, also on thanksgiving and
the holidays some nice meats from the poultry yard, this is customary.
After I was taken from the dead-house cell or cell near the dead-house,
I was changed from hall to hall and from bed-room to bed-room, and
locked in by different attendants, treated roughly by room-mates, not
by attendants personally, but inasmuch as they did not care they did
it unto me. The bedsteads that I occupied were iron through, the beds
were mattrasses; well supplied with suitable clothing; in this house,
summer and winter, kept neat and clean (on my part) more so than of
many others.
REMARKS.
There is a heaven where angels sing, there is an opposite where devils
prowl. There is a paradise and there is a world of woe, and although
a person be exalted to heaven in point of privilege he may be thrust
down to hell. In this apparent paradise, my five Pittstown neighbors
saw me once, and like the deluded man perhaps made up their minds this
was the place for me. Be it known that I, Moses Swann, was never a
proper subject for a lunatic asylum (only as a spy or for the sake of
others), neither was the devil a christian when he met with the sons
of God. Whoever complained against me or believed me a proper subject
for such a lunatic asylum, was as greatly mistaken as I was in regard
to my future happiness; ten years I was conscientiously mistaken, they
might have been; our Saviour said first pull the beam out of thine own
eye then thou canst see more clearly to pull out the mote that is in
thy brother's eye. Many there are who know their neighbors in their own
estimation better than they know their own hearts.
MY WIFE'S LAST VISIT TO THE MAIN HOUSE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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