It began in this wise:  Early in October there was placed in the ward a man whose abnormality for the most part consisted of an inordinate thirst for liquor.  He was over fifty years of age, well educated, traveled, refined and of an artistic temperament.  Congenial companions were scarce where I was, and he and I were soon drawn together in friendship.  This man had been trapped into the institution by the subterfuge of relatives.  As is common in such cases, many “white” lies had been resorted to in order to save trouble for all concerned—­that is, all except the patient.  To be taken without notice from one’s home and by a deceitful, though under the circumstances perhaps justifiable strategy, placed in a ward with fifteen other men, all exhibiting insanity in varying degrees, is as heartbreaking an ordeal as one can well imagine.  Yet such was this man’s experience.  A free man one day, he found himself deprived of his liberty the next, and branded with what he considered an unbearable disgrace.

Mr. Blank (as I shall call him) was completely unnerved.  As he was a stranger in what I well knew was a strange world, I took him under my protecting and commodious wing.  I did all I could to cheer him up, and tried to secure for him that consideration which to me seemed indispensable to his well-being.  Patients in his condition had never been forced, when taking their exercise, to walk about the grounds with the other patients.  At no time during the preceding fourteen months had I seen a newly committed patient forced to exercise against his will.  One who objected was invariably left in the ward, or his refusal was reported to the doctor before further action was taken.  No sane person need stretch his imagination in order to realize how humiliating it would be for this man to walk with a crowd which greatly resembled a “chain gang.”  Two by two, under guard, these hostages of misfortune get the only long walks their restricted liberty allows them.  After the one or two occasions when this man did walk with the gang, I was impressed with the not wholly unreasonable thought that the physical exercise in no way compensated for the mental distress which the sense of humiliation and disgrace caused him to suffer.  It was delightfully easy for me to interfere in his behalf; and when he came to my room, wrought up over the prospect of another such humiliation and weeping bitterly, I assured him that he should take his exercise that day when I did.  My first move to accomplish the desired result was to approach, in a friendly way, the attendant in charge, and ask him to permit my new friend to walk about the grounds with me when next I went.  He said he would do nothing of the kind—­that he intended to take this man when he took the others.  I said, “For over a year I have been in this ward and so have you, and I have never yet seen a man in Mr. Blank’s condition forced to go out of doors.”

“It makes no difference whether you have or not,” said the attendant, “he’s going.”