INSANITY. 63 1 



proportion, will be found to be greatly in excess. For my own part, 

 I would sooner trust my life with an insane man than with one whose 

 brain has been inflamed by over-indulgence in the liquors sold in the 

 saloons and grog-shops. Before a person becomes insane there are 

 two symptoms that almost invariably manifest themselves, insomnia 

 and constipation. All the testimony I have been able to collect upon 

 the subject goes to show this ; and I have made very extensive in- 

 quiries. There has never been a single case brought to my notice, 

 where the patient's mind was much drawn to any one subject, that it 

 did not, to a greater or less extent, prevent his sleeping, and always 

 enough to excite the attention of those about him. For my own part, 

 although I believed Guiteau to be a " cranky" individual, of very pe- 

 culiar mental characteristics, I never thought him in a sufficiently 

 abnormal condition to be called insane, and principally for this reason, 

 that with all the intensity of his purpose to shoot President Garfield, 

 and notwithstanding the "pressure" he alleged that he felt upon his 

 mind, he was never known to lose a night's rest. He himself said that 

 he always slept well. Now, an insane man, in the condition which 

 Guiteau wished to make the world believe he was, would not have slept 

 well. He would have been up and down in his room all night, and 

 would have been a nuisance to any one trying to sleep in an adjoin- 

 ing apartment. Nor did Guiteau suffer from constipation. The absence 

 of either of these symptoms would have been sufficient to occasion dis- 

 trust as- to his insanity ; but the lack of both, to my mind at least, 

 furnished conclusive evidence that he was a responsible man. 



Before concluding this article, I wish to say a few words in behalf 

 of a certain class of insane patients that, perhaps more than any 

 others, deserve the sympathies of the public. 



When I was convalescent, in the asylum, I attended an evening 

 card-party, given in one of the pleasantest wards, for the amusement 

 of those patients that were well enough to appreciate and enjoy such 

 an occasion. I met a lady, a patient, who had been in the asylum 

 three years. Although I could see that she was somewhat flighty, yet 

 in all other respects she was quite an intelligent person. She told me 

 that she had left at Home her daughter, an only child, about fourteen 

 years old, whom she had not seen in all that time. This lady's hus- 

 band had virtually put her in prison, and had never taken the pains to 

 call on her himself oftener than once a year, and had never allowed 

 her daughter to visit her. Tears stood in the poor woman's eyes as 

 she told me these things, and I had no reason to believe that she was 

 deceiving either herself or me. And upon inquiry I found that her 

 case was not an exceptional one. There are mothers confined in all 

 our asylums, as there were in the institution where I was, who, while 

 they are insane enough to warrant their being put under restraint, are 

 yet sufficiently intelligent to be sensible of their condition, and, like 

 the lady I have alluded to, be overwhelmed by the thought that they 



