VERY HARD CASH.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND."

               CHAPTER XLII.

THE tenacity of a private lunatic asylum is
unique. A little push behind your back and you
slide into one; but to get out again is to scale a
precipice with crumbling sides. Alfred, luckier
than many, had twice nearly escaped: yet now
he was tighter in than ever. His father at first
meant to give him but a year or two of it, and
let him out on terms, his spirit broken, and Julia
married. But his sister's death was fatal to him.
By Mrs. Hardie's settlement the portion of any
child of hers dying a minor, or intestate and
childless, was to go to the other children; so
now the prisoner had inherited his sister's ten
thousand pounds, and a good slice of his bereaved
enemy's and father's income. But this doubled
his father's bitterness,—that he, the unloved one,
should be enriched by the death of the adored
one!—and also tempted his cupidity: and
unfortunately shallow legislation conspired with
that temptation. For, when an Englishman,
sane or insane, is once pushed behind his
back into a madhouse, those relatives who have
hidden him from the public eye, i.e. from
the eye of justice, can grab hold of his money
behind his back, as they certified away his wits
behind his back, and can administer it in the
dark, and embezzle it, chanting " But for us the
'dear deranged' would waste it." Nor do the
monstrous enactments, which confer this
unconstitutional power on subjects, and shield its
exercise from the light and safeguard of Publicity,
affix any penalty to the abuse of that power, if
by one chance in a thousand detected. In Lunacy
Law extremes of intellect meet; the British
senator plays at Satan; and tempts human frailty
and cupidity beyond what they are able to bear.

So behold a son at twenty-one years of age
devoted by a father to imprisonment for life.
But stop a minute; the mad statutes, which
by the threefold temptation of Facility,
Obscurity, and Impunity, ensure the occasional
incarceration and frequent detention of sane but
moneyed men, do provide, though feebly, for
their bare liberation, provided they don't yield
to the genius loci, and the natural effect of
confinement plus anguish, by going mad, or dying.
The Commissioners of Lunacy had power to
liberate Alfred in spite of his relations. And
that power, you know, he had soberly but
earnestly implored them to exercise.

After a delay that seemed as strange to him
as postponing a hand to a drowning man, he
received an official letter from Whitehall. With
bounding heart he broke the seal, and devoured
the contents. They ran thus:

"Sir,—By order of the Commissioners of
Lunacy I am directed to inform you that they are
in the receipt of your letter of the 29th ultimo,
which will be laid before the Board at their next
meeting.
                                                    " I am, &c."

Alfred was bitterly disappointed at the small
advance he had made. However, it was a great
point to learn that his letters were allowed to go
to the Commissioners at all, and would be
attended to by degrees.

He waited and waited, and struggled hard
to possess his soul in patience; at times his
brain throbbed and his blood boiled, and he
longed to kill the remorseless, kindless
monsters who robbed him of his liberty, his rights
as a man, and his Julia: but he knew this
would not do; that what they wanted was to
gnaw his reason away, and then who could
disprove that he had always been mad? Now
he felt that brooding on his wrong would
infuriate him; so he clenched his teeth, and vowed
a solemn vow that nothing should drive him
mad. By advice of a patient he wrote again to
the Commissioners begging for a Special Commission
to inquire into his case; and, this done, with
rare stoicism, self-defence, and wisdom in one so
young, he actually sat down to read hard for his
first class. Now, to do this, he wanted the Ethics,
Politics, and Rhetoric of Aristotle, certain
Dialogues of Plato, the Comedies of Aristophanes,
the first class Historians, Demosthenes, Lucre
tius, a Greek Testament, Wheeler's Analysis,
Prideaux, Horne, and several books of reference
sacred and profane. But he could not get these
books without Dr. Wycherley, and unfortunately
he had cut that worthy dead in his own asylum.

"The Scornful Dog" had to eat wormwood
pudding and humble pie. He gulped these
delicacies as he might; and Dr. Wycherley showed
excellent qualities; he entered into his maniac's