loathsomeness, while it was still half a religious
house, had been a show-place. Thus,
certain gentlemen in one of Dekker's plays
ask:

"May we see some of those wretched souls
That are here in your keeping?"

And the answer is from

"FRIAR ANSELMO (in charge of Bethlem).—Yes
you shall:

But, gentlemen, I must disarm you, then.
There are of madmen, as there are of tame,—
All humour'd not alike. We have here some
So apish and fantastic, play with a feather:
And tho' 'twould grieve a soul to see God's image
So blemished and defaced, yet do they act
Such antick and such pretty lunacies,
That spite of sorrow they will make you smile.
Others, again, we have, like angry lions,
Fierce as wild bulls, untameable as flies:
And these have oftentimes from strangers' sides
Snatch'd rapiers suddenly, and done much harm ;
Whom, if you'll see, you must be weaponless."

No doubt a like rule was imposed also
upon the promenaders who strolled into
Bethlem from the City Mall. It was only
in the year seventeen hundred and seventy,
that the asylum ceased to be included among
penny-shows.

At the beginning of the present century,
the second hospital being of not more than
about one hundred and thirty years' standing,
it was found necessary to rebuild it on
another site. The City of London granted
eleven acres on the Surrey side of the
Thames, which were part of its Bridge-
House estate, for eight hundred and
ninety-five years, dating from the year eighteen
hundred and ten. Two years later, the
first stone of the existing Bethlehem was
laid by the Lord Mayor, and the building
was completed—two-and-forty years ago
—at an expense of about one hundred and
twenty thousand pounds, of which sum more
than half was contributed by the country in
successive grants from parliament. As the
united hospital of Bridewell and Bethlehem,
the establishment is well endowed, drawing
from its estates and funded property an
income of about thirty thousand pounds
a-year. That is the first material fact
in a case which we shall presently be
stating.

But even at the time, so recent as it is,
when the new Bethlehem was built, and for
some years after, the star of Bethlehem was
set in the deep blackness of night. Simon
FItz-Mary's priors, in the dress he prescribed
for them, might be emblems of the light that
had shed no ray into the darkness round
about. None needed more than the lunatic
to know, and none knew less than he did, of
a star that should lead to peace on earth and
goodwill among men. Afflicted with a disorder
which we now understand to result mainly,
perhaps invariably, from depressing causes,
he was, till the beginning of this century and
after it, submitted to depressing treatment
that alone would have sufficed to drive the
healthiest to madness. The remedy for lunacy
which we now find in cheerfulness and hope
was sought in gloom and terror. It was the
accepted doctrine as regards the lunatic, that
he should not find peace on earth or meet
with goodwill among men. At the beginning
of this century insane people were chained
up, and even flogged at certain periods of the
moon's age. Treacherous floors were
contrived that slipped from under them, and
plunged them into what were called baths of
surprise. One device, supposed to be remedial
in its effect, was to chain the unhappy
sufferer inside a well contrived so that water
should creep slowly, slowly from his feet up
to his knees, from his knees to his arms, from
his arms to his neck, and stop only in the
moment that it threatened him with instant
suffocation. Dr. Darwin invented a wheel to
which lunatics were fastened on a chair, and
on which they were set revolving at a pace
varying up to one hundred revolutions in a
minute. Dr. Cox suggested an improvement
applicable in some cases, that was to consist
in whirling round the lunatic upon this
wheel in a dark chamber, and assailing his
senses at the same time with horrid noises
and foul smells.

It is not our purpose here to tell the
history of that great change in the treatment
of insanity which is one of the most welcome
signs of the advance of knowledge and
civilisation in the present century. Only forty
years ago, when in France the experience of
Pinel at the Bicêtre had already gone far to
reverse in many minds and in some places
the old doctrine of restraint and terror, at
Bethlehem there were found ten women in one
side room chained to the wall, wearing no
dress but a blanket, and without even a
girdle to confine the blanket at the waist.
There were other such spectacles, and there was
a man whose situation is the subject of one of
the plates in the work of Esquirol. In the wise
and good Dr. Conolly's recent book upon the
treatment of the insane, the case of this man,
buried in thick darkness beneath the star of
Bethlehem, is thus described. His name was
Norrris. "He had been a powerful and
violent man. Having on one occasion resented
what he considered some improper treatment
by his keeper, he was fastened by a
long chain, which was ingeniously passed
through a wall into the next room, where the
victorious keeper, out of the patient's reach,
could drag the unfortunate man close to the
wall whenever he pleased." To protect himself,
Norris wrapped straw about his fetters.
A new torment was then invented. "A stout
iron ring was riveted round his neck, from
which a short chain passed to a ring made to
slide upwards and downwards on an upright,
massive iron bar, more than six feet high,
inserted into the wall. Round his body a
strong iron bar, about two inches wide, was
riveted; on each side of the bar was a