This person informed the visitors that two rooms had been set apart for the use of John. The "parlor" as she called the den on the first or ground floor was entirely destitute of any furniture but the remains of an ancient sofa, a regular skeliton with nothing left but the wooden slats. Over this was a horribly filthy quilt. This was the imbecile's "parlor." His "bed-room" was the cage to which reference has already been made. The scanty glimmering light that forced its way in between the wooden slats nailed across the window was just sufficient to show the efforts that had been so hurriedly but abortively made to cleanse the den. Most prominent was a bed freshly placed there and covered with a middling good coverlet. One of the gentlemen remarked as he noticed this. "Ah, I see you have put a bed in here. There was none when John was taken out." "Oh, yes it was," said the woman quickly. "The bed was always here, but we have put a spread over it. We did not do any thing else." "Yes you have done something else," was the rejoinder. "You scraped away several inches of filth off this floor, and whitewashed and scrubbed it, it is all wet yet." "Oh well," said she, "the poor old woman down there was not able to keep him clean at all. She is eighty years old and the most devoted loving mother possible, feeding him with her own hands and providing for him every delicacy, like strawberries and such things as that." "Well, now what was the reason you had John confined here?" "John studied too hard when he tried to get into the High School and turned his brain. When he was first wrong his brother Joseph, who is the kindest hearted man alive, had him taken to a public institution; but his mother got uneasy about him and he was brought home again; and Dr. Goddard was called in to attend him. The doctor said he needed nothing but kindness and skillful nursing, which they gave him with an affection beautiful to behold." In reply to an inquiry of how long the poor fellow had been locked up in this room, she said: "He wasn't locked up here at all. He had the range of the whole house." "How long has he been out of his mind?" asked a gentleman. "Somewhere about eighteen years." "Are you a relation of his?" "Oh, no, I am only a neighbor, and came in to stay with his poor old mother, who is nearly scared to death." "Has he any relatives except his mother and brother?" "Yes, he has four sisters." About this time Joseph Herriges, nearly dead with fright, returned with the police force, and expressed great gratification at the presence of the reporters, in order that they might tell his part of the story, and thus have _reliable_ facts to give to the public instead of a pack of lies told by the neighbors. He said: "John, when a boy, was very intellectual, and I had resolved to give him a good education, so I got him into the public school, also into a night school, and had him taught penmanship as well as cigar-making.