That night the patient died.  Whether he was murdered none can ever know.  But it is my honest opinion that he was.  Though he might never have recovered, it is plain that he would have lived days, perhaps months.  And had he been humanely, nay, scientifically, treated, who can say that he might not have been restored to health and home?

The young man who had been my companion in mischief in the violent ward was also terribly abused.  I am sure I do not exaggerate when I say that on ten occasions, within a period of two months, this man was cruelly assaulted, and I do not know how many times he suffered assaults of less severity.  After one of these chastisements, I asked him why he persisted in his petty transgressions when he knew that he thereby invited such body-racking abuse.

“Oh,” he said, laconically, “I need the exercise.”

To my mind, the man who, with such gracious humor, could refer to what was in reality torture deserved to live a century.  But an unkind fate decreed that he should die young.  Ten months after his commitment to the State Hospital he was discharged as improved—­but not cured.  This was not an unusual procedure; nor was it in his case apparently an unwise one, for he seemed fit for freedom.  During the first month of regained liberty, he hanged himself.  He left no message of excuse.  In my opinion, none was necessary.  For aught any man knows, the memories of the abuse, torture, and injustice which were so long his portion may have proved to be the last straw which overbalanced the desire to live.

Patients with less stamina than mine often submitted with meekness; and none so aroused my sympathy as those whose submission was due to the consciousness that they had no relatives or friends to support them in a fight for their rights.  On behalf of these, with my usual piece of smuggled lead pencil, I soon began to indite and submit to the officers of the institution, letters in which I described the cruel practices which came under my notice.  My reports were perfunctorily accepted and at once forgotten or ignored.  Yet these letters, so far as they related to overt acts witnessed, were lucid and should have been convincing.  Furthermore, my allegations were frequently corroborated by bruises on the bodies of the patients.  My usual custom was to write an account of each assault and hand it to the doctor in authority.  Frequently I would submit these reports to the attendants with instructions first to read and then deliver them to the superintendent or the assistant physician.  The men whose cruelty I thus laid bare read with evident but perverted pleasure my accounts of assaults, and laughed and joked about my ineffectual attempts to bring them to book.

XXXIII

I refused to be a martyr.  Rebellion was my watchword.  The only difference between the doctor’s opinion of me and mine of him was that he could refuse utterance to his thoughts.  Yes—­there was another difference.  Mine could be expressed only in words—­his in grim acts.