Insane Asylum

Attention has of late been freshly drawn to this unfortunate class. We propose in this chapter to give some particulars respecting their past history, their numbers, their location...

1. The Watchwoman will have charge of the interior of the female department during the night, and in the management of the patients, and the discharge of other duties, will be gove...

I have already spoken of the singular tradition which for so long a period invested the Glen-na-galt, near Tralee, with the character of possessing healing virtues in madness. The...

1. Those employed in the wards in the care of the patients, as their Attendants, should remember that their first duty is to treat them with unvarying kindness, respect and attenti...

There were in England, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, private asylums for the insane, the beneficial treatment pursued in which was loudly vaunted in the public ear; b...

John Taylour, the "Water-Poet," wrote in 1630: "In London, and within a mile, I ween There are jails or prisons full fifteen And sixty whipping-posts and stocks and cages." Church...

1. Persons employed in the service of the Asylum will learn that character, proper deportment, and faithfulness to duty, will alone keep them in the situations in which they are pl...

1. The meals of the patients shall be served promptly at the following hours: Breakfast. Dinner. Supper. December, } January, } 7 A. M. 1 P. M. 7 P. M. February. } March, } April,...

1. The Gardener, with the aid of such patients as can be taken out for that purpose, shall have the care of the orchard, garden, and grounds around the Asylum and Physician's house...

Before presenting official evidence of the gradual progress in the condition of the insane in England, we must interpose in our history a brief reference to the development of what...

The punishments of authors deserve a separate chapter; for since the days of Greece and Rome their woes have been many. The burning of condemned books begun in those ancient states...

There is nothing more abhorrent to the general sentiment of humanity to-day than the universal custom of all civilized nations, until the present century, of branding and maiming c...

An English writer of the seventeenth century, one Gittins, says with a burst of noble and eloquent sentiment: "A soldier should fear only God and Dishonour." Writing with candor he...

The rare genius of Hawthorne has immortalized in his Scarlet Letter one mode of stigmatizing punishment common in New England. So faithful is the presentment of colonial life shown...

The ducking stool seems to have been placed on the lowest and most contempt-bearing stage among English instruments of punishment. The pillory and stocks, the gibbet, and even the...

John Taylour, the "Water-Poet," wrote in 1630: "In London, and within a mile, I ween There are jails or prisons full fifteen And sixty whipping-posts and stocks and cages." Church...

The brank or scold's bridle was unknown in America in its English shape: though from colonial records we learn that scolding women were far too plentiful, and were gagged for that...

The custom of performing penance in public by humiliation in church either through significant action, position or confession has often been held to be peculiar to the Presbyterian...

Hawthorne says in his immortal Scarlet Letter: "This scaffold constituted a portion of a penal machine which now, for two or three generations past, has been merely historical or t...

There is no doubt that our far-away grandfathers, whether of English, French, Dutch, Scotch or Irish blood, were much more afraid of ridicule than they were even of sinning, and fa...