After my pedigree was taken I was given the regulation clothes, which, in the mad-house, consist of a blue coat, a pair of grey trousers, a calico shirt, socks and a pair of slippers. I was then taken to the worst violent ward in the institution, where I had a good chance to observe the real and the fake lunatics. No man or woman, not even an habitual criminal, can conceive, unless he has been there himself, what our state asylums are. My very first experience was a jar. A big lunatic, six feet high and a giant in physique, came up to me in the ward, and said: "I'll kick your head off, you ijit (idiot). What the ---- did you come here for? Why didn't you stop off at Buffalo?" I thought that if all the loons were the size of this one I wasn't going to have much show in that violent ward; for I weighed only one hundred and fifteen pounds at the time. But the big lunatic changed his note, smiled and said: "Say, Charley, have you got any marbles?" I said, "No," and then, quick as a flash, he exclaimed: "Be Japes, you don't look as if you had enough brains to play them." I had been in this ward, which was under the Head Attendant, nick-named "King" Kelly, for two days, when I was taken away to a dark room in which a demented, scrofulous negro had been kept. For me not even a change of bed-clothing was made. In rooms on each side of me were epileptics and I could hear, especially when I was in the ward, raving maniacs shouting all about me. I was taken back to the first ward, where I stayed for some time. I began to think that prison was heaven in comparison with the pipe house. The food was poor, we were not supposed to do any work, and we were allowed only an hour in the yard. We stayed in our ward from half past five in the morning until six o'clock at night, when we went to bed. It was then I suffered most, for there was no light and I could not read. In stir I could lie on my cot and read, and soothe my nerves. But in the mad-house I was not allowed to read, and lay awake continually at night listening to the idiots bleating and the maniacs raving about me. The din was horrible, and I am convinced that in the course of time even a sane man kept in an insane asylum will be mad; those who are a little delusional will go violently insane. My three years in an insane asylum convinced me that, beyond doubt, a man contracts a mental ailment just as he contracts a physical disease on the outside. I believe in mental as well as physical contagion, for I have seen man after man, a short time after arriving at the hospital, become a raving maniac. For weeks and months I had a terrible fight with myself to keep my sanity. As I had no books to take up my thoughts I got into the habit of solving an arithmetical problem every day. If it had not been for my persistence in this mental occupation I have no doubt I should have gone violently insane.