y unfortunate in his parents, they having been largely
chargeable with his proclivities to evil. He was highly excitable,
easily thrown into a perfect phrensy of passion, insane at times, and,
on the whole, very difficult to manage, requiring a large amount of
patience and skill in those over him. They needed to study his
peculiarities and accommodate their treatment to his particular case,
much the same as would the driver of a vicious, balky horse. The former
managers had so treated him, that he had really improved, and his
condition was appearing more and more hopeful. But in the new order,
where officers were not expected to bother themselves over
peculiarities, it was different with Henry. Though laboring with
faithfulness generally, what was bred within would appear in outward
acts. When a spell came on, they would "shake him up," as the deputy
said (the import of which I did not fully understand), and put him in
the solitary. At length his insanity, or whatever had impelled him,
would pass off, and he come out in his right mind. Confinement to his
cell would probably have been just as effective in securing his good
deportment and less injurious to his health. Whenever I visited him, he
would appear hopeful, tell what a good boy he proposed to be, how he
meant to live, and not get into any more trouble; that he should soon be
out, and would then strive to be a good man. Many air castles the poor
fellow thus built, but to see them fall. The prison fare and general
management was now highly unfavorable to his proclivities, tending
constantly to make them worse. Men repeatedly told me that the officers
would severely beat him, and that he was sadly abused. One day, in a
freak of insanity or anger, he struck his overseer to the floor with a
bed-post, coming within a hair's breadth of ending his life, and was
aiming a second blow, which a fellow prisoner arrested, and thus saved
the overseer. Henry was put in the solitary, and I know not how long
kept there, nor how used; but when, at length, I found him in his cell,
he was greatly changed. I was perfectly astonished! He was not only
insane, but changed in physical appearance; shrunken in flesh and with a
strange expression of countenance. For a time, I could hardly believe it
was Henry, but finally had to admit that it was really he. I have seldom
seen one with a fever change more for the time. Soon his insanity took a
boisterous turn by night, keeping the other prisone