multiplies the
sum of every description of disease. Besides, our ancestors were a
hardier race than their descendants, more inured to the regular routine
of physical toil, less given than the men and women of the present day to
hurtful indulgence, and far less exposed to the disturbing excitements of
business and pleasure. So far as I know, there were but two really
insane persons in our population of some seven or eight thousand, though
doubtless certain others were more or less "light-headed." One of those
two was sullenly crazy, and accounted dangerous, and therefore subjected
to physical restraint; the other, generally harmless, roamed through the
town at his own will, calling occasionally upon the acquaintance of his
better days, and making magnificent promises of the benefits he intended
to bestow, "when his ship came in." If I had inherited only a moderate
dividend of the proceeds of the successive ships and their cargoes, which
he promised my mother, on the above favorable contingency, usually
calling her out from dinner to whisper to her these magnificent promises,
more to her alarm than satisfaction, though being a woman of spirit she
put a brave face upon it--I should look down upon a Rothschild, an Astor,
or a Vanderbilt with natural contempt. Sometimes, incarceration was
thought necessary, also, in his case; and I have a vivid recollection of
the place of confinement allotted to each patient.

This was in the yard of the almshouse, for state and county asylums had
not then been thought of, and the strong wooden building in which they
were placed consisted of two apartments, perhaps twelve feet square, one
above and the other beneath the surface of the ground; the latter, in
fact, a dungeon with one barred window on a level with the yard. Here
they passed their gloomy hours as they might, in solitude and darkness,
scarcely relieved by light from without, with nothing to alleviate the
horrors of their condition, and probably considered in a state too
hopeless to admit of any remedy. The tenant of the upper cell was
comparatively lively, on the occasion of resort to his window for
conversation, or out of curiosity, which was freely permitted; but his
neighbor in the dungeon was dangerous; and I can never forget the terror
inspired by a sudden and vicious attempt made by him to seize the legs of
us children through the bars, as we stood conversing with the inmate of
the room above. Science and humanity have don