Two years and four months in a lunatic asylum : $b from August 20th, 1863 to December 20th, 1865Chase, Hiram
Science
Two years and four months in a lunatic asylum : $b from August 20th, 1863 to December 20th, 1865
Chase, Hiram
Chase, Hiram; Mentally ill -- Care -- New York (State) -- Utica; Mentally ill, Writings of the, American
I have often had talk with Frank on the subject of his being in the
asylum; he seems to feel bad at times that his mother chooses to keep
him in the asylum. I had the opportunity of watching him for two years.
I have seen him have his fits; he is very little trouble to any one
when he has them; he generally so manages as to have them in his room
on his bed.
It is true that this is not my business, but were he my son, and
knowing what I know of asylum life, I should remove him to some private
family, where he could enjoy the comfort of social life, if I did not
want the trouble of looking after him myself; it could not cost any
more than to keep him in the asylum.
There is one more man in the institution of which I will say a word in
this connection. His room is on the old fourth hall, now called the
second; this is Esq. Bebee. He was in the old asylum at Hudson, I am
told, before the one at Utica was established; and on the opening of
the one in Utica, in 1842, he was removed there, and I think has been
there ever since. He was a lawyer of superior talents. I understood he
fell from a horse and fractured his skull, that a portion of his brains
ran out, and they were preserved.
He is a very eccentric man, and has a very lofty bearing. I have heard
him speak a number of times, and have heard him make some of the most
able and thrilling speeches I have ever heard from any man. He keeps
his room the most of the time; has his liberty; goes where he pleases,
but will doubtless die in the institution. He frequently shows marks
of insanity, not by any low or foolish expression, but by some sudden
outburst of eloquence, or some ludicrous and eccentric act.
He is always very tenacious about having any one come into his room.
I once saw a poor fellow who hardly knew what he was doing, step into
Bebee's room just as he was coming out. Bebee met him at the door,
and with a lofty swagger, exclaimed, with a good deal of energy,
“Scoundrel, many a man has been shot for a less offence than that.” The
poor fellow sneaked off without saying a word. One day he went to the
city, I was told, and while out lost his brains, which he had always
carried carefully done up in his pocket. On his return he said, “I have
lost my brains out of my pocket—the people now won't believe that I
have any brains, as I can no longer show them.”
I recollect that during the time I was on that hall, Bebee went out
on a visit to see his friends, and was gone some three weeks. It has
always been a mystery to me why he should stay there. There is no doubt
but he would have been discharged long ago, had he been a county
patient.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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