This first interview with the doctor made an unfavorable impression upon my mind. I next came to a point in my experience in the institution which added greatly to my fears, and filled me with anguish, and robbed me of all confidence in the attendants, that they had any regard whatever for the feelings and comfort of the patients. In the afternoon of Friday, my second day in the asylum, I was told by the little Dutchman, the second attendant, to go with him; I followed; he went into the bath-room, carrying a change of my clean underclothes, which they had taken from my trunk; when in the bath-room he locked the door; there stood the bath, about two-thirds full of water, or rather mud and slime, in which ten or twelve filthy maniacs had been scrubbed and washed with soft soap, until the water had become quite thick and disgusting to look upon. He said to me in his broken English, “_untress you and kit in dare_.” I looked at him and said, “am I to bathe in that mud and slush?” he said, “yes, kit in dare quick.” I saw I was sold; I was weak in body, the door locked, and though when in my full strength could have thrown him into the bath and held him there; yet now I doubted my ability to vie with him, and besides, I knew he had the power to call to his aid whoever he chose. I did not deliberate long; I threw off my clothes and jumped in, but jumped out as soon as I went in, and called for a towel to wipe off the filth; he refused to give me one, but ordered me to take my cast-off shirt and wipe myself with it. I did so as well as I could, and begged for a clean pail of water to wash myself with, but this was refused. I made complaint to the first attendant on the hall, but got no satisfaction. I saw the matter was all understood between them; it was done to save time and a little work. There was water plenty, so that each and every man could have had a clean bath; if not, it were far better to not bathe at all, than to bathe in a mud hole. But the laws must be obeyed to make each and every patient bathe once a week. I knew if I complained to the doctor, it would be no better, for he would either justify the course, or the attendants would deny that such an event ever took place, and I alone would be the sufferer. I did, however, before I left the institution, lay this matter, with some other things, before Dr. S., a fine humane man who was in the institution for a year before I left. He believed my story and reprobated the course. I only wished at the time that those who forced me into such measures had been obliged to bathe in the same slough hole.