It is only the sensitive and intelligent man who, when placed in such a predicament, really knows what torture is. The cries of the poor demented wretches about me were a terrible lesson. They showed me more than any other experience I ever passed through the error of a crooked life. I met many a man in the violent ward who had been a friend of mine and good fellow on the outside. Now the brains of all of them were gone, they had the most horrible and the most grotesque delusions. But horrible or grotesque they were always piteous. If I were to point out the greatest achievement that man has accomplished to distinguish him from the brute, it would be the taking care of the insane. A child is so helpless that when alms is asked for his maintenance it is given willingly, for every man and woman pities and loves a child. A lunatic is as helpless as a child, and often not any more dangerous. The maniac is misrepresented, for in Matteawan and Dannemora taken together there are very few who are really violent. And now I come to the most terrible part of my narrative, which many people will not believe--and that is the cruelty of the doctors and attendants, cruelty practiced upon these poor, deluded wretches. With my own eyes I saw scores of instances of abuse while I was at Matteawan and later at Dannemora. It is, I believe, against the law to strike an insane man, but any man who has ever been in these asylums knows how habitual the practice is. I have often seen idiots in the same ward with myself violently attacked and beaten by several keepers at once. Indeed, some of us used to regard a beating as our daily medicine. Patients are not supposed to do any work; but those who refused to clean up the wards and do other work for the attendants were the ones most likely to receive little mercy. I know how difficult it is for the public to believe that some of their institutions are as rotten as those of the Middle Ages; and when a man who has been both in prison and in the pipe house is the one who makes the accusation, who will believe him? Of course, his testimony on the witness stand is worthless. I will merely call attention, however, to the fact that the great majority of the insane are so only in one way. They have some delusion, but are otherwise capable of observation and of telling the truth. I will also add that the editor of this book collected an immense number of instances of brutality from several men, besides myself, who had spent years there, and that those instances also pointed to the situation that I describe. Moreover, I can quote the opinion of the writer on criminology--Josiah Flynt--as corroborative of my statements. He has said in my presence and in that of the editor of this book, Mr. Hapgood, that his researches have led him to believe that the situation in our state asylums for the criminal insane is horrible in the extreme.