152 



trust by the citizens of the town, and this fact probably 

 explains the occurrences which are to be narrated. 



Besides generous kitchens and quarters for a steward, 

 physicians, nurses and attendants, the hospital building! 

 contained an assembly room and ten large lodgings, each 

 well-furnished for eight or ten patients. Eight persons 

 might, before entering, club together and secure a room: 

 to themselves ; otherwise, patrons were admitted and 

 assigned rooms in the order in which their applications 

 were recorded. Major Richard Reed kept, at his place 

 of business in Marblehead, the class books, so called, in 

 which the names of applicants were entered, and Jona- 

 than Glover signed for the proprietors. An island guard 

 and a crew of picked boatmen were enlisted and these 

 were placed under oath. The regulations, which were 

 published, provided that the guard "shall suffer no person 

 to land on the island and no person to embark there- 

 from " without written passport. No letters can leave the 

 island on any account. The average admittance fee 

 seems to have been twelve dollars, payable in advance, 

 the average term of sojourn, four weeks, and a bond was 

 given on entering, to insure the strict observance of reg- 

 ulations. A "coasting sloop" was provided for trans- 

 portation, and these, with the addition of the usual out- 

 buildings for the storage of uninfected clothing, for 

 fumigation and the like, the whole intrenched behind a 

 picket-fence with gates and sentry-boxes, completed the 

 elaborate arrangements at this Castle of Uncleanness. 



At the top of the main building, three stories in height, 

 was constructed a system of signals by which the -exact 

 state of affairs on the island could be telegraphed ashore ; 

 and hundreds of anxious observers, all along the bay, 

 may well be supposed to have levelled their glasses at 

 sunrise for the daily bulletin, with a foreboding scrutiny 



