Illustrations of Madness
ILLUSTRATIONS
of
MADNESS:
EXHIBITING A SINGULAR CASE OF INSANITY,
AND A NO LESS
REMARKABLE DIFFERENCE
IN
MEDICAL OPINION:
DEVELOPING
THE NATURE OF ASSAILMENT,
AND THE MANNER OF
WORKING EVENTS;
WITH A
DESCRIPTION OF THE TORTURES EXPERIENCED
BY
BOMB-BURSTING, LOBSTER-CRACKING,
AND
LENGTHENING THE BRAIN.
EMBELLISHED WITH A CURIOUS PLATE.
BY JOHN HASLAM.
“Oh! Sir, there are, in this town, Mountebanks for the mind, as well
as the body.”—Foote’s Devil upon Two Sticks; Scene the last.
London:
PRINTED BY G. HAYDEN, BRYDGES-STREET, COVENT-GARDEN:
And Sold by
RIVINGTONS, ST. PAUL’S CHURCH-YARD; ROBINSONS, PATERNOSTER-ROW;
CALLOW, CROWN-COURT, PRINCES-STREET, SOHO;
MURRAY, FLEET-STREET; AND GREENLAND, FINSBURY-SQUARE
1810.
PREFACE.
The publication of the following case is
deemed as much an act of justice, as it
may be regarded a matter of curiosity. It
may possibly effect some good, by turning
the attention of medical men to the subject
of professional etiquette, and to a consideration of those nice feelings and reciprocal
charities, which confer on the practitioners
of medicine the amiable distinction of a
fraternity.
If it should merely succeed in curbing
the fond propensity to form hasty conclusions, or tend to moderate the mischief of privileged opinion, the purpose is sufficiently answered.
From the temperate exposure of facts which the Writer has adopted, it can never be supposed that his views are hostile. The Brethren are unknown to him, and probably may never condescend to notice him beyond an occasional recollection : but if, contrary to his expectation, the Reader, throughout this narrative, should suspect a sneer, the benevolence of the Writer allows him to soften and correct it by a smile.
Of the history and opinions of the Insane, much curious matter is dispersed, and might advantageously be collected from works of various descriptions : most authors (generally without design) have contributed something ; and if such scattered materials were gleaned into a volume, the “Use and Improvement of Madness in a Commonwealth” might be sooner and more clearly ascertained.
In Germany, Mr. Spiess has published four volumes of the biography of insane persons[1], which have been perused with much interest, and deserve to be rendered into English : and in our own country there exists a learned monument of madness, distinguished by abrupt transitions, a generous reconciliation of discordant circumstances, with a felicitous remembrance of transactions that never occurred, and which constitute the broad features of genuine insanity. That the reader may duly appreciate the labours of this gentleman, an extract is submitted to his candid consideration[2].
“ I conclude with offering an interpretation of a few lines from a part of the 3d Æneid, which, according to what is said in my former Notes, p. 140, to which Notes I again here refer, has a particular relation to the whole of this subject :
Corripio è stratis corpus, tendoque supinas 176
Ad-cœlum cum voce manus, et munera libo
Intemerata focis : perfecto lætus honore
Anchisen facio certum remque ordine pando.
Agnovit prolem ambiguam geminosque parentes
Seque novo veteruin deceptum errore locorum.
Tum memorat—
the meaning of which I venture to unriddle as follows : supposing (to speak as Virgil does, in the first person) I have a patient attacked by a contagious pestilential disease (its contagion being implied by the litter of straw, è stratis, in which he lies), I take up his body from thence, without a moment’s delay (corripio), and curry it (corripio), or tan it (tendo), from the back and spine (as implied perhaps by the French dos, tergum, in tendo, and by supinas) to the poll or hollow part of the head (that hollow part being pointed to by the Greek word ϰοιλον, idem quod cœlum), or, in other words, by administering the bark externally to those parts (the bark being implied in the word manus, by a reference to the Andes), as the patient lies supine, with his face turned to the skies, in a bath which comes level with his mouth (cum voce), the great heat of which bath is denoted by (focis), as its containing an infusion of purifying aromatic herbs may be by (munera intemerata), though these words, as coupled with (libo), should at the same time seem to imply the patient’s drinking a quantity of hot tea (implied perhaps by te, in intemerata). After he has thus lain in the bath a full hour (perfecto honore) with the fires that heat it well lighted, or strongly burning (lætus) ; I produce the effect of ensuring (facio certum) the ague-fit (implied by Anchisen, near the ice, or a fit nearly allied to ice in its nature), and thus in due order acquire a key to the fever (remque ordine pando) ; or these last words may perhaps imply (and then in due order resort to the use of cathartics). Of the next two lines, the first seems to intimate that the patient, in consequence of such a process, shews the twofold nature of his complaint, cold and hot, ague and fever ; and the second, when coupled with the context, that the disease is contracted by a change of climate, viz. that of Europe for that of the West Indies. The two last words (tum memorat) intimate that, when that point of the process is attained, the bark (implied by a reference to the river Mamore, on which the tree producing it grows) is afterwards to be taken internally, in order to a completion of the cure.”
That the author of the Andalusia and Supplement is a formidable rival to the specimen now to be produced, cannot in fairness be denied, but in the comparison some “partial fondness” induces me to think, that “the superiority must, with some hesitation, be allowed to Mr. Matthews.” “If the flights of Matthews, therefore, are higher, Deverell continues longer on the wing. Matthews often surpasses expectation, and Deverell never falls below it.”
It only remains to mention that these opinions have been collected from the patient since the termination of the legal proceedings ; and to inform the intelligent reader that, where inverted commas are used, the manuscript of Mr. Matthews has been faithfully copied ; and that, for thus introducing his philosophic opinions to the notice of a discerning public, he feels “contented and grateful.”
JOHN HASLAM.
Bethlem Hospital,
Nov. 2, 1810.
ILLUSTRATIONS
OF
MADNESS.
James Tilly Matthews, whose opinions chiefly form the subject of the following pages, was admitted a patient into Bethlem Hospital, by a petition from the parish officers of Camberwell, on the 28th of January, 1797. Although his insanity was then most evident, yet his relatives did not possess the faculty of perceiving his disorder. They employed an attorney, and by a legal process he was ordered on the second of May following to be brought to the dwelling house of the late Lord Kenyon, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, who, after conversing with him, was perfectly satisfied that he was a maniac, and desired him to be remanded to his former custody. On the 21st January 1798, he was placed on the incurable establishment. In this situation he continued for many years ; sometimes, an automaton moved by the agency of persons, hereafter to be introduced to the notice of the reader ; at others, the Emperor of the whole world, issuing proclamations to his disobedient subjects, and hurling from their thrones the usurpers of his dominions.
In the year 1809 his relatives again interfered, and confiding in their own opinion, that he was of sound mind, and possessed the proper direction of his intellects, requested that he might be discharged. They also made application to the Churchwardens and Overseers of the parish of Camberwell, who, in the first instance, had been compelled to confine him in consequence of an order from the magistrates of Bow Street. These parish officers visited the lunatic, and being competent judges of the subject, demanded his release, on the pretence that he was perfectly recovered.
To confirm their opinion of the rational state of Mr. Matthews, the relatives employed two learned and conscientious Physicians, gentlemen deeply conversant with this disease, and doubtless instructed by copious experience to detect the finer shades and more delicate hues of intellectual disorder.
After repeated and wary examinations of the lunatic’s mind, narrowly scrutinizing into his most recondite opinions, and delving into the recesses of his thoughts, they pronounced him to be perfectly in his senses, and sanctified such decision by the following affidavit, and holy affirmation.
In the King's Bench.
HENRY CLUTTERBUCK, of Bridge Street, Black friars, in the City of London, Doctor of Medicine , maketh oath and saith, that he hath had four[3] interviews of considerable length with James Tilly Matthews ; at one[3] of which Doctor Munro was present ; that this deponent could not discover any thing that indicated insanity in the said James Tilly Matthews, and he verily believes him to be perfectly sane.
HENRY CLUTTERBUCK
Sworn in Court, this
Twenty-seventh Day of November, 1809. |
By the Court.
In the King's Bench.
GEORGE BIRKBECK, of Cateaton Street, in the City of London, Doctor of Medicine, upon his solemn affirmation saith, that he hath paid six visits professionally to James Tilly Matthews, now under confinement in Bethlem Hospital. That during these visits he has attempted by every mode of examination which he could devise, to discover the real state of the mind of the said James Tilly Matthews, and that the result of such repeated, careful, and unprejudiced examinations, has been a conviction, that the said James Tilly Matthews is not insane. That in order to corroborate or to rectify this conclusion, he applied to Dr. Munro, the Physician to the Hospital aforesaid, for information, whether, by his knowledge and observation of the said James Tilly Matthews, he had been put in possession of any particular subject or subjects, which, on being mentioned within his hearing, did produce maniacal hallucination, and which this affirmant might not have been enabled to discover in the course of these conferences with Mr. Matthews ? to which question Doctor Munro replied, that he was not acquainted with any such subject, but that he believed him to be insane upon all. To render this investigation more satisfactory and conclusive to this affirmant, it was agreed, that on the following Saturday he should meet the said Doctor Munro together, to see and converse with Mr. Matthews. This meeting took place accordingly ; Doctor Clutterbuck (who accompanied this affirmant professionally in four* of the visits before mentioned)* being also present. That neither in this conference, nor in a conversation with Dr. Munro immediately subsequent thereto, (Mr. Matthews having left the room in which it took place) did any thing occur to alter the opinion of this affirmant as already expressed ; but, on the contrary, that opinion was strengthened by these communications. And this affirmant further saith, that the said Dr. Munro, after finding the reasons advanced by him for the purpose of establishing the insanity of Mr. Matthews unsatisfactory to this affirmant’s mind, did, near the conclusion of the interview above mentioned, declare, that although he might not succeed in convincing them, (Doctor Clutterbuck and this affirmant) or any other person, that Mr. Matthews was deranged, he had a feeling on which he could rely, that Mr. Matthews was insane, or words of the same import. And this affirmant further saith, that the most prominent circumstances adduced in proof of the insanity of Mr. Matthews, referred to parts of his protracted confinement, not including within the last six years, with the exception of his inflexible resistance to the admission of his alledged insanity, and to the customary expression of thanks for the benefits received in the hospital, together with his unabated antipathy against the physician and apothecary, to whose care he had been entrusted during his long confinement. That the circumstances stated mere not, in this affirm an’s judgment, sufficient proofs of insanity, and therefore it is still the opinion and belief of this affirmant, that the mind of the said James Tilly Matthews is sound.
GEORGE BIRKBECK.
| Sworn in Court, this | 
|
| Twenty-seventh Day | 
|
| of November, 1809. | 
|
By the Court.
Thus armed, the relatives moved for a Habeas Corpus, in order that the said J.T.M. should be discharged.
It may here be proper to state that it had been the unvarying opinion of the medical officers of Bethlem Hospital, that Mr. Matthews had been insane from the period of his admission to the present time. Such opinion was not the result of casual investigation ; but a conclusion deduced from daily observation during thirteen years. But aware of the fallibility of human judgment, and suspecting that copious experience which sheds the blessings of light upon others, might have kept them in the dark : perhaps startled at the powerful talents, extensive learning, and subtile penetration which had recorded in the face of day the sanity of a man whom they considered as an incurable lunatic : and flinching at an oath contradictory to such high testimony, the medical officers prudently referred the determination of the case to the constituted and best authorities in the kingdom. For this purpose they assembled a consultation of eminent medical practitioners, who, after a deliberate examination of the patient’s mind, made oath in the following manner:
In the King's Bench.
SIR LUCAS PEPYS, of Upper Brook Street , Grosvenor Square, in the County of Middlesex, Bart. Doctor of Medicine, Physician to His Majesty, President of the College of Physicians, and one of the Commissioners for visiting insane patients at private houses ;
ROBERT DARLING WALLIS, of Tenterden Street, Hanover Square, Doctor of Medicine, Fellow of the Royal College af Physicians ;
SAMUEL FOART SIMMONS, of Poland Street, in the County of Middlesex, Doctor of Medicine, Physician to St. Luke’s Hospital ;
RICHARD RUDD, of Craven Street, in the Strand, Doctor of Medicine, Elect and Treasurer, and one of the Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians, and also one of the Commissioners for visiting insane patients as aforesaid ;
HENRY AINSLEY, of Dover Street, Piccadilly, Doctor of Medicine, Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and one of the Commissioners as aforesaid ;
JAMES HAWORTH, of Bedford Row, in the County of Middlesex, Doctor of Medicine, Fellow of the College of Physicians, and one of the Commissioners as aforesaid ;
WILLIAM LAMBE, of the Kings Road, Bedford Row, Doctor of Medicine, Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and one of the Committee as aforesaid, (being the whole of the Commissioners appointed by the Royal College of Physicians for visiting insane persons at private houses ;)
RICHARD POWELL, of Essex Street, in the Strand, Doctor of Medicine, Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and Secretary to the said Commissioners ;
Severally make oath and say, that they had, on Wednesday, the 29th day of November instant, a long examination of the patient, James Tilley Matthews, at Bethlem Hospital, and that they took considerable pains in ascertaining the state of his mind, and that it is their positive and decided opinion, as the result of such examination, that the patient is in a most deranged state of intellect, and wholly unfit to be at large.
Sworn at my Chambers, Serjeant's Inn, by
SIR LUCAS PEPYS,
ROBERT DARLING WILLIS,
SAMUEL FOART SIMMONS,
RICHARD BUDD,
HENRY AINSLEY,
JAMES HAWORTH,
WILLIAM LAMBE,
RICHARD POWELL,
the above-named Deponents, this 30th Day of November, 1809, before me,
S. Le BLANC.
Madness being the opposite to reason and good sense, as light is to darkness, straight to crooked, &c. it appears wonderful that two opposite opinions could be entertained on the subject : allowing each party to possess the ordinary faculties common to human beings in a sound and healthy state, yet such is really the fact : and if one party be right, the other must be wrong : because a person cannot correctly be said to be in his senses and out of his senses at the same time.
But there is considerable difficulty and some danger in applying logic to facts. Every person who takes the degree of Doctor becomes, in consequence of taking such degree, a learned man ; and it is libellous to pronounce him ignorant. It is true, a Doctor may be blind, deaf and dumb, stupid or mad, but still his Diploma shields him from the imputation of ignorance[4]. It has also not unfrequently occurred, that a man who has been dubbed a Doctor of Medicine at Leyden, Aberdeen, or St. Andrews, and whose Diploma sets forth his profound learning, accomplishments, and competence to practise on the lives of His Majesty’s good and faithful subjects, has been found incapable of satisfying the gentlemen in Warwick Lane that he possessed the common rudiments of his profession, and has been by them accordingly rejected : so that learning in many instances appears to be local.
Presuming Drs Birkbeck and Clutterbuck to be very learned in their profession, and, if possible, still more learned out of it, uniting many rare talents, and distinguished by extrinsic acquisitions,
“Grammaticus, Rhetor, Geometres, Pictor, Aliptes
“Augur, Schœnobates, Medicus, Magus—”
Conceding so much, it should follow, that if Mr. Matthews were mad, Messrs. Birkbeck and Co. ought to have discovered it ; but the admission of such an inference would be destructive of their veracity : for had they found him to be a madman, it is to be hoped they never would stiffly and point blank have sworn him to be in his senses. How they could fail to detect his insanity is inexplicable, as his disorder was evident to all who saw and conversed with him ; even his fellow-students[5] derided the absurdity of his doctrine :—however, it should be recollected that these gentlemen have much practical experience, and are competent judges of all systems of error but their own.
It appears, these Doctors generally visited him in conjunction : perhaps they might have succeeded better, if they had examined him separately ; for it is within the range of possibility that the judgment may have been warped by the courtesy, or clouded by the formality of a consultation—
“As two spent swimmers,
“That do cling together, and choke their art.”
It may here be allowable to state, that if Drs. Birkbeck and Co. had, in the first instance, made application to the medical officers of the hospital, and announced their object, they would have been received with the urbanity due to professional gentlemen, and furnished with every information ; but they preferred a silent approach and secret inquisition.
In the ordinary language of our courts of law, the relatives took nothing by their motion ; nor is it my intention to bestow a single sentence on their conduct—the practice of the two Doctors shall be left to the humane construction of the Christian reader ; and to finish the paragraph, the churchwardens and overseers of the parish of Camberwell may be supposed to have acted most conscientiously ; and that the convenience of being disburthened of a pauper lunatic never entered their thoughts.
I shall now proceed to develope the peculiar opinions of Mr. Matthews, and leave the reader to exercise his own judgment concerning them.
Mr. M. insists that in some apartment near London Wall, there is a gang of villains profoundly skilled in Pneumatic Chemistry, who assail him by means of an Air Loom. A description of this formidable instrument will be given hereafter ; but he is persuaded that an account of it is to be found in Chambers’s Dictionary, edited by Dr. Rees in 1783, under the article Loom, and that its figure is to be seen in one of the plates relating to Pneumatics.
It is unnecessary to tell the reader that he will fruitlessly search that work for such information.
The assailing gang consits of seven members, four of whom are men and three women. Of these persons four are commonly resident, and two have never stirred abroad since he has been the subject of their persecution. Of their general habits little is known ; occasionally they appear in the streets, and by ordinary persons would be taken to be pick-pockets or private distillers. They leave home to correspond with others of their profession ; hire themselves out as spies, and discover the secrets of government to the enemy, or confederate to work events of the most atrocious nature. At home they lie together in promiscuous intercourse and filthy community.
The principal of this crew, is named Bill, or the King : he formerly surpassed the rest in skill, and in the dexterity with which he worked the machine : he is about 64 or 5 years of age, and in person resembles the late Dr. De Valangin, but his features are coarser ; perhaps, he is a nearer likeness to the late Sir William Pultney, to whom he is made a duplicate. It was on account of something worked by this wretch, that another, by the force of assailment[6], actuated Rhynwick Williams to the commission of his monstrous practices. He also took Hadfield in tow, by means of magnetic impregnations, and compelled him to fire the Pistol at His Majesty in the theatre : but on this subject there is a difference of opinion, as some of the female part of the gang attribute this event to Blue-Mantle, of whom nothing farther is known. In working the machine Bill exerts the most unrelenting and murderous villany ; and he has never been observed to smile.
The next in order, is a being called Jack the Schoolmaster, who is the short-handwriter to the gang : he styles himself the recorder ; somewhat tall, and about 60 years of age. It is not well ascertained if he wear a wig, but he generally appears in the act of shoving his wig back with his forefinger, and frequently says, “So you shall, when you can ketch (catch) us at it.” Sometimes he says, “I’m to see fair play,” and makes a merriment of the business. Jack has very seldom worked the machine.
The third person is Sir Archy, who is about 55 years of age, wears a drab-coloured coat, and, according to the old fashion, his breeches button between the legs. Some of the gang assert that Sir Archy is a woman dressed in men’s apparel ; and whenever Mr. Matthews has endeavoured, by enquiry, to ascertain this fact, Sir Archy has answered in a manner so quaint and indelicate that I cannot venture to communicate his reply. He is considered as the common liar of the gang ; a low-minded blackguard, always cracking obscene jokes and throwing out gibes and sarcasms. In his speech there is an affectation of a provincial accent, so that when Mr. M. asserts the truth of any fact, Sir Archy replies yho (you) are misteaken (mistaken) He constantly stays in the apartment, and says he does not work the machine, but only uses a magnet. His mode of communicating with Mr. M. is principally by “brain-sayings,” which term will be afterwards explained.
The last of the males is termed the Middle Man, who is about 57 years of age, of the middle stature, with a broad chest ; has a twang of the hawk countenance, not pockfretten, and much resembling the late Mr. Smeaton the engineer. He is dressed in a blue coat, with a plain waistcoat. It is said that he is a manufacturer of air-looms, and possesses the first rate skill in working this instrument. Altho’ he is unrelenting in his persecution of Mr. M. he appears to consider it as sport, and sits grinning, apparently delighted that he cannot be taken unawares. After his attacks, he generally observes that Mr. M. is the talisman ; then Sir Archy replies, with a sneer, “ Yes, he is the talisman.”
Among the females who compose this establishment, Augusta may first be described. She is about 36 years of age, of the middle stature, and her countenance is distinguished by the sharpness of its features. In person she is not fleshy, nor can she be said to be a thin woman ; she is not full-breasted. Ordinarily dressed, as a country tradesman’s wife, in black, without powder. Augusta seldom works the machine, but frequently goes abroad to correspond with other gangs at the West end of the town. Of agreeable deportment, and at first seems very friendly and cajoling ; but when she finds that she cannot influence and convince, becomes exceedingly spiteful and malignant. Her object is to influence women by her brain-sayings ; and she states herself to be the chief of this department. Within the last seven years the virulence of her temper has been considerably exasperated.
Charlotte, the next in review, is about the same age as Augusta, and also of the middle stature, but more fleshy ; has the appearance of a French woman, being a kind of ruddy brunette. She constantly stays at home with Sir Archy, and complains that she is forcibly confined to this situation. They keep her nearly naked, and poorly fed. Mr. Matthews is led to suppose that she is chained ; for she has sometimes stated herself to be equally a prisoner with himself. Charlotte always speaks French, but her language and brain-sayings are conveyed in an English idiom. Her character is that of a steady, persevering sort of person, who is convinced of the impropriety of her conduct, but cannot help herself. For several years she has not worked the machine, but is a fixed and established reporter.
A very extraordinary lady compleats this malicious group. She does not appear to have any Christian name, but by the gang is termed the Glove Woman, as she constantly wears cotton-mittens. Sir Archy dryly insinuates that she keeps her arms thus covered because she has got the itch. She is about 48 years of age, is above the middle height, and has a sharp face. On her chin and upper lip there is a considerable quantity of fine downy hair, and she is somewhat pockfretten. Always dressed in a common fawn-coloured Norwich gown, with a plain cream-coloured camblet shawl, and wears a chip hat covered with black silk. The glove woman is remarkable for her skill in managing the machine. She frequently goes abroad. The rest of the gang, but particularly Sir Archy, are constantly bantering and plucking at her, like a number of rooks at a strange jack-daw : she has never been known to speak.
Having described the dramatis personæ, it is expedient to mention the different preparations which are employed in the air-loom, by these pneumatic adepts, for the purposes of assailment.
Seminal fluid, male and female—Effluvia of copper—ditto of sulphur—the vapours of vitriol and aqua fortis—ditto of nightshade and hellebore—effluvia of dogs—stinking human breath—putrid effluvia—ditto of mortification and of the plague—stench of the sesspool—gaz from the anus of the horse—human gaz—gaz of the horse’s greasy heels—Egyptian snuff, (this is a dusty vapour, extremely nauseous, but its composition has not been hitherto ascertained[7])—vapour and effluvia of arsenic — poison of toad—otto of roses and of carnation.
The effects which are produced on Mr. Matthews by the skilful manipulation of these ingredients are according to his relation dreadful in the extreme. He has stated them in the technical language of the assailing gang, and explained their operation on his intellect and person. Whoever peruses a work on Nosology will be painfully impressed with its formidable catalogue of human miseries ; it therefore becomes exceedingly distressing to swell the volume with a list of calamities hitherto unheard of, and for which no remedy has been yet discovered.
Fluid Locking.—A locking or constriction of the fibres of the root of the tongue, laterally, by which the readiness of speech is impeded.
Cutting soul from sense.—A spreading of the magnetic warp, chilled in its expansion, from the root of the nose, diffused under the basis of the brain, as if a veil were interposed ; so that the sentiments of the heart can have no communication with the operations of the intellect.
Stone-making.—The gang pretend they can at pleasure produce a precipitation in the bladder of any person impregnated, and form a calculus. They boast of having effected this in a very complete manner for the late Duke of Portland.
Thigh-talking.—To effect this, they contrive so to direct their voice-sayings on the external part of the thigh, that the person assailed is conscious that his organ of hearing, with all its sensibility, is lodged in that situation. The sensation is distinctly felt in the thigh, and the subject understood in the brain.
Kiteing.—This is a very singular and distressing mode of assailment, and much practised by the gang. As boys raise a kite in the air, so these wretches, by means of the air-loom and magnetic impregnations, contrive to lift into the brain some particular idea, which floats and undulates in the intellect for hours together ; and how much soever the person assailed may wish to direct his mind to other objects, and banish the idea forced upon him, he finds himself unable ; as the idea which they have kited keeps waving in his mind, and fixes his attention to the exclusion of other thoughts. He is, during the whole time, conscious that the kited idea is extraneous, and does not belong to the train of his own cogitations.
Sudden death-squeezing ; by them termed Lobster-cracking.—This is an external pressure of the magnetic atmosphere surrounding the person assailed, so as to stagnate his circulation, impede his vital motions, and produce instant death.
“In short, I do not know any better way for a person to comprehend the general nature of such lobster-cracking operation, than by supposing himself in a sufficiently large pair of nut-crackers or lobster-crackers, with teeth, which should pierce as well as press him through every particle within and without ; he experiencing the whole stress, torture, driving, oppressing, and crush all together.”
Stomach-skinning consists in rendering the stomach raw and sore, as if it had been scalded, and the internal coat stripped off.
Apoplexy-working with the nutmeg-grater consists in violently forcing the fluids into the head ; and where such effort does not suddenly destroy the person, producing small pimples on the temples, which are raised, and rough like the holes in a nutmeg-grater : in a day or two they gradually die away.
Lengthening the brain.—As the cylindrical mirror lengthens the countenance of the person who views himself in such glass, so the assailants have a method by which they contrive to elongate the brain. The effect produced by this process is a distortion of any idea in the mind, whereby that which had been considered as most serious becomes an object of ridicule. All thoughts are made to assume a grotesque interpretation ; and the person assailed is surprised that his fixed and solemn opinions should take a form which compels him to distrust their identity, and forces him to laugh at the most important subjects. It can cause good sense to appear as insanity, and convert truth into a libel ; distort the wisest institutions of civilized society into the practices of barbarians, and strain the Bible into a jest book.
Thought-making.—While one of these villains is sucking at the brain of the person assailed, to extract his existing sentiments, another of the gang, in order to lead astray the sucker (for deception is practised among themselves as a part of their system ; and there exists no honor, as amongst thieves, in the community of these rascals) will force into his mind a train of ideas very different from the real subject of his thoughts, and which is seized upon as the desired information by the person sucking ; whilst he of the gang who has forced the thought on the person assailed, laughs in his sleeve at the imposition he has practised.
Laugh-making consists in forcing the magnetic fluid, rarified and subtilized, on the vitals, [vital touching] so that the muscles of the face become screwed into a laugh or grin.
Poking, or pushing up the quicksilver.—When the person assailed possesses an intellect sufficiently strong to be conscious of his impregnation, he naturally revolts at the atrocities practised upon him by the workers of this infernal machine, and becomes prompted to express his indignation at their perfidy. While in the act, as he supposes, of venting the burst of indignation, they contrive to push a seeming thread of fluid through his back diagonally in the direction of his vitals. Its operation is instantaneous, and the push appears to elevate the fluid about half an inch. This magic touch disarms the expression of his resentment, and leaves him an impotent prey to the malignity of their scorn and ridicule.
Bladder-filling is filling the nerves of the neck with gaz, and by continued distension, effecting a partial dislocation of the brain. This frequently repeated, produces weakness of intellect.
Tying-down ; fettering the energy of the assailed’s judgment on his thoughts.
Bomb-bursting is one of the most dreadful inflictions performed by the infernal agency of the air-loom. The fluid which resides in the brain and nerves, the vapor floating in the blood-vessels, and the gaz which occupies the stomach and intestines, become highly rarified and rendered inflammable, occasioning a very painful distension over the whole body. Whilst the assailed person is thus labouring, a powerful charge of the electrical battery (which they employ for this purpose ) is let off, which produces a terrible explosion, and lacerates the whole system. A horrid crash is heard in the head, and if the shock do not prove instantly fatal, the party only recovers to express his astonishment that he has survived the murderous attempt.
Gaz-plucking is the extraction of magnetic fluid from a person assailed, such fluid having been rarified and sublimed by its continuance in the stomach and intestines. This gaz is in great request, and considered as the most valuable for the infernal purposes of these wretches. They contrive, in a very dexterous manner, to extract it from the anus of the person assailed, by the suction of the air-loom. This process is performed in a very gradual way, bubble by bubble.
The explanation of the forementioned terms will enable the reader sufficiently to understand others which belong to the science of assailment, as foot-curving, lethargy-making, spark-exploding, knee-nailing, burning out, eye-screwing, sight-stopping, roof-stringing, vital-tearing, fibre-ripping, &c. &c. &c.
The correspondence between Mr. M. and the members of this gang is kept up to a considerable extent by brain-sayings, which may be defined a sympathetic communication of thought, in consequence of both parties being impregnated with the magnetic fluid, which must be rarified by frequent changing, and rendered more powerful by the action of the electrical machine. It is not hearing ; but appears to be a silent conveyance of intelligence to the intellectual atmosphere of the brain, as subtilely as electricity to a delicate electrometer : but the person assailed (if he be sufficiently strong in intellect) is conscious that the perception is not in the regular succession of his own thoughts. The first hint Mr. M. received of the possibility of such sympathetic communication was in France, before the period of his confinement. He there, in one of the prisons, became acquainted with a Mr. Chavanay, whose father had been cook to Lord Lonsdale. One day, when they were sitting together, Mr. Chavanay said, “Mr. Matthews, are you acquainted with the art of talking with your brains ?” Mr. M. replied in the negative. Mr. C. said, “It is effected by means of the magnet.”
They likewise impart their thoughts to him by voice-sayings. This is an immediate conveyance of articulate sound to the auditory nerves, without producing the ordinary vibrations of air ; so that the communication is intelligibly lodged in the cavity of the ear, whilst the bystander is not sensible of any impression.
Even during sleep they contrive to annoy him with their dream-workings, which consist in the power they exert of forcing their phantoms and grotesque images on his languid intellect. These assassins hold in their possession puppets of uncouth shape, and of various descriptions ; by looking steadily at which they can throw the form into his brain, and thus render the perception more vivid to the dreamer ; and the crafty solicitude with which they glean his waking opinions on the mysteries which, during the night, have danced in his imagination, is both wonderful and distressing.
On some occasions Mr. M. has been able to discern them ; but whenever be has been watching their manœuvres, and endeavouring to ascertain their persons minutely, they have appeared to step back, and eluded his search, so that a transient glimpse could only be obtained.
“Diffugient comites, et nocte tegentur opaca.”
But the gang relate that they do not actually step back ; but, at the moment when they are observed, that they grasp a metal which has the power of weakening the sympathy between them and the person assailed, and of benumbing his perception. This metal appears to be formed like a distaff or truncheon, and two such are fixed on the top of the machine. At other times, they have pretended that each member of the gang is furnished with a separate metal.
The annexed figure of the air-loom, sketched by Mr. Matthews, together with his explanations, will afford the necessary information concerning this curious and wonderful machine.
References.
“a a. The top of the apparatus, called by the assassins air-loom machine, pneumatic machine, &c. being as a large table.
“b b. The metals which the workers grasp to deaden the sympathy.
“c. The place where the pneumaticians sit to work the loom.
“d. Something like piano-forte keys, which open the tube valves within the airloom, to spread or feed the warp of magnetic fluid.
“e e. Levers, by the management of which the assailed is wrenched, stagnated, and the sudden-death efforts made upon him, &c. The levers are placed at those points of elevation, viz. the one nearly down, at which I begin to let go my breath, taking care to make it a regular, not in any way a hurried breathing. The other, the highest, is where it begins to strain the warp, and by which time it becomes necessary to have taken full breath, to hold till the lever was so far down again. This invariably is the vital-straining. But in that dreadful operation by them termed lobster-cracking, I always found it necessary to open my mouth somewhat sooner than I began to take in breath : I found great relief by so doing, and always imagined, that as soon as the lever was at the lowest, (by which time I had nearly let go my breath) the elasticity of the fluid about me made it recoil from the forcible suction of the loom, much in the manner as a wave recoils or shrinks back after it has been forced forward on the sands in the ebbing or flowing of the tide : and then remains solely upon its own gravity, till the general flux or stress again, forces it forward in form of a wave. Such appears to me the action of the fluid, which, from the time the lever being fully down, loses all suction-force upon it. I always thought that by so opening my mouth, which many strangers, and those familiar or about me, called sometimes singularity, at others affectation and pretext, and at others asthmatic, &c. instantly let in such momentarily emancipated fluid about me, and enabled me sooner, easier, and with more certainty, to fill my lungs without straining them, and this at every breathing.
“f. Things, apparently pedals, worked by the feet of the pneumaticians.
“g. Seemingly drawers, forming part of the apparatus as eudiometer, &c. &c.
“h. The cluster of upright open tubes or cylinders, and by the assassins termed their musical glasses, which I have so often mentioned, and perceived when they were endeavouring to burst my person, by exploding the interior of the cavity of the trunk. I now find an exact likeness in the Cyclopedia, which, being in electricity, is termed a battery.
“i. The apparatus mentioned as standing upon the air-loom, which the assassins were ever so watchful and active, by deadening the sympathy, to prevent my holding sight of ; so that I could never ascertain what the bulky upper parts were, although the lower parts have appeared as distinct as the strength of the drawing shews. But I never had longer than the slow-glimpse-sight.
“k l m. The bulky upper parts, which, though always indistinct, appeared once or twice to be hid by an horizontal broad projection, and which has often made me query whether they rose through an aperture of the cellar ceiling into the room above, which the assassins’ brain-sayings have frequently seemed to acknowledge.
“n. The windmill kind of sails I have so often mentioned, only seen by the glimpse of sympathy ; and to prevent my judging of which, the assassins would dash with full strong sympathy or brain-saying, ‘a whirligig,’ used by children for amusement. But such windmill ever appeared as standing on the table.
“o. The barrels, which I perceived so distinctly after such long watching, to catch the sight of the famous goose-neck-retorts, which, by the assassins, are asserted to be about their loom, for supplying it with the distilled gazes, as well poisoned as magnetic, but which did not expose the goose-necks, which are here given, to shew the kind the assassins have, during ten years, some thousand times asserted they had : for while I was dwelling upon retorts themselves, which I had expected to find of metal, as stills, but which appeared distinctly hooped barrels standing on end on the floor, they cut the sympathy, and have ever since at all my attempts dashed or splashed the inward nerves of vision to bully and bathe me out of it.
“p q r. That part of the brass apparatus, so often seen distinctly of bright brass, standing on a one step-high boarded floor, having a bright iron railing around it, the part not here shewn was never distinct.
“s s. The warp of magnetic-fluid, reaching between the person impregnated with such fluid, and the air-loom magnets to which it is prepared ; which being a multiplicity of fine wires of fluid, forms the sympathy, streams of attraction, repulsion, &c. as putting the different poles of the common magnet to objects operates ; and by which sympathetic warp the assailed object is affected at pleasure : as by opening a vitriolic gaz valve he becomes tortured by the fluid within him ; becoming agitated with the corrosion through all his frame, and so on in all their various modes of attacking the human body and mind, whether to actuate or render inactive ; to make ideas or to steal others ; to bewilder or to deceive ; thence to the driving with rage to acts of desperation, or to the dropping dead with stagnation, &c. &c. &c. Though so distinct to me by sympathy I have never caught the inward vision thereof, not even by glimpse ; but the assassins pretend, when heated, that it becomes luminous and visible to them for some yards from the loom, as a weakish rainbow, and shews the colours according to the nature of the gazes from which it is formed, or wherewith the object is impregnated : as green for the copper-streams or threads, red for the iron, white for the spermatic animal-seminal, &c.
“t. Shews the situation of the repeaters, or active worriers, when such were employed during the active exertions so long made to worry me down.
“u. One of the assassins called by the rest Jack the Schoolmaster, who calls his exertions to prevent my writing or speaking correctly, dictating, he ever intruding his own style and endeavouring to force it upon me. He pretends to be the short-hand-writer, to register or record every thing which passes. He appears to have a seat with a desk some steps above the floor.
“V. The female of the gang called by the others Charlotte : she has always spoken French, even by her brain-sayings ; but I yet doubt whether she be a French woman, though so much of that description of person, for frequently it is English-French : though this may be from their vocabulary being English and French combined.
“W. The one I call the common liar of the gang, by them termed Sir Archy, who often speaks in obscene language. There has never been any fire in the cellar where the machinery is placed.
“X. Suppose the assailed person at the greater distance of several hundred feet, the warp must be so much longer directly towards him, but the farther he goes from the pneumatic machine, the weaker becomes its hold of him, till I should think at one thousand feet he would be out of danger. I incline to think that at such distance or little more, the warp would break, and that the part nearest his person would withdraw into him, and that next the loom would shrink into whatever there held it.
“Y. The middle man working the air-loom, and in the act of Lobster-cracking the person represented by the figure X.
“The assassins say they are not five hundred feet from me ; but from the uncommon force of all their operations, I think they are much nearer.”
They have likewise related that many other gangs are stationed in different parts of the metropolis who work such instrument for the most detrimental purposes. Near every public office an air-loom is concealed, and if the police were sufficiently vigilant, they might detect a set of wretches at work near the Houses of Parliament, Admiralty, Treasury, &c. and there is a gang established near St. Luke’s Hospital. The force of assailment is in proportion to the proximity of the machine ; and it appears that the interposition of walls causes but a trifling difference : perhaps at the distance of 1000 feet a person might be considered out of the range of its influence. Independently of the operation of this complex and powerful machine termed an Air-loom, which requires the person assailed to be previously saturated with magnetic fluid, a number of emissaries, who are termed novices, are sent about in different directions to prepare those who may hereafter be employed in the craft and mystery of event-working. This is termed Hand-impregnation, and is effected in the following manner : an inferior member of the gang, (generally a novice,) is employed in this business. He is furnished with a bottle containing the magnetic fluid which issues from a valve on pressure. If the object to be assailed be sitting in a coffee-house, the pneumatic practitioner hovers about him, perhaps enters into conversation, and during such discourse, by opening the valve, sets at liberty the volatile magnetic fluid which is respired by the person intended to be assailed. So great is the attraction between the human body and this fluid, that the party becomes certainly impregnated, and is equally bound by the spell as the lady was fixed to the chair of Comus, or the harmless fly is enveloped in the shroud of the spider.
In order to ascertain whether a person be impregnated, let him, fasting, imitate the act of swallowing, and if he should perceive a grating noise in his ears, somewhat resembling the compression of a new wicker-basket he is certainly attained.
In consequence of the numerous gangs established in this metropolis, all the persons holding high situations in the government are held impregnated. An expert of the gang, who is magnetically prepared, contrives to place himself near the person of a minister of state also impregnated, and is thus enabled to force any particular thought into his mind and obtain his reflections on the thought so forced.—Thus, for instance, when a Secretary at War is at church, in the theatre, or sitting in his office and thinking on indifferent subjects ; the expert magnetist would suddenly throw into his mind the subject of exchange of prisoners. The Secretary would, perhaps, wonder how he became possessed of such a subject, as it was by no means connected with his thoughts ; he would however turn the topic in his mind and conclude that such particular principle ought to form the basis of the negociation. The expert magnetist, having, by watching and sucking, obtained his opinion, would immediately inform the French Minister of the sentiments of the English Secretary, and by such means become enabled to baffle him in the exchange.
The same process would take place with the other ministers of state, and their opinions would be communicated to the enemy on the subjects of peace, commercial intercourse, or the fitting out of armaments. Let the plan be ever so well devised, the magnetists would be certain to paralize and bewilder the person chosen to command the expedition. This they effected in a very complete manner at Buenos Ayres, and still more recently in the Island of Walcheren.
Notwithstanding the dreadful sufferings which Mr. Matthews experiences from being assailed, he appears to derive some consolation from the sympathy which prevails between himself and the workers of the machine.—Perilous as his present situation may be, it would be rendered still more alarming if he could not watch their proceedings, and thus be prepared to avert the force of their engine. This reciprocal impregnation and continuity of warp enables him to perceive their motions and attain their thoughts. Such seems to be the law of this sympathy, that mutual intelligence is the result ; nor can the assailants, with all their skill and dexterity, deprive him of this corresponding perception. In proportion as their scientific advancement has instructed them in new and ingenious arts of tormenting, the progression of his experience has taught him to diminish the force of their attacks.
These assassins are so superlatively skillful in every thing which relates to pneumatic chemistry, physiology, nervous influence, sympathy, human mind, and the higher metaphysic, that whenever their persons shall be discovered, and their machine exhibited, the wisest professors will be astonished at their progress, and feel ashamed at their own ignorance. The gang proudly boast of their contempt for the immature science of the present æra.
Under all these persecutions and formidable assailments, it is the triumph of Mr. M. that he has been enabled to sustain himself ; and this resistance has depended on the strength of his intellect and unremitting vigilance. Whenever he has perceived them about to make the wrench by suction, he has recoiled as one expecting to receive a blow shrinks back in order to avoid it. Without such ability and precaution he must / long since have become the victim of bomb-bursting, lobster-cracking, or apoplexy-working with the nutmeg-grater.
Having described the machinery and actors in this “insubstantial pageant” it now only remains to afford some idea of the nature of Event-working, a science formerly supposed to depend on certain positions of the planetary system, and regulated by heads of houses in the university of the stars. Although much attention and some valuable time have been lost in becoming acquainted with this novel philosophy, yet after repeated trials and painful efforts, the writer has been unable adequately to explain the manner of working an event, particularly as the event is commemorated before it occurs. From these embarrassments he has been kindly relieved by Mr. Matthews, who has written down his ideas on the subject, and from whose manuscript the following pages are exhibited to the reader.
“The assassins opened themselves by their voices to me about Michaelmas 1798, and for several years called their infamies, working feats of arms, but seldom using the term Event-working : though after four or five years, when I, by perseverance, had beat them out of their insolence of assumption, (for they assumed the right of interfering with every body having heraldic bearings particularly, and for this part of their villanies called themselves the efficient persons to all those having titles to colleges of arms,) and by such titles also they used the term event-working for their actions.
“It is not an easy matter to define fully any regular instance of such, their called event-working, because they in every thing introduced the names of some, or other personages, as concerned therewith, but who certainly, were not only ignorant of their very existence, but more or less victims to their abominations.
“However, to shew what the nature of such event-working is, namely, how infamous human beings, making a profession of pneumatic chemistry, and pneumatic magnetism, hire themselves as spies ; and by impregnating persons, singled out by them as objects for interfering with, obtaining their secrets, actuating them in various ways, in thought, word and deed, as well as they can, to model their conduct, ideas or measures to favour the ends of assassin spies or event-workers, or their employers, &c. in bringing about which ends they sometimes are years and many years, varying from mode to mode from stratagem to stratagem, and sometimes partially fail at last, according to the difficulty of getting near the object to operate upon, the strength of such person’s nerves, brain, and personal affections, as well as nature of soul, &c. & c. The following, divested of their offensive introductions may suffice, being a few instances out of numberless events.
“While I was detained in Paris by the then existing French Government, during the years 1793-4-5, and beginning of 1796, I had even in the early part thereof, sufficient information, to be certain that a regular plan existed, and was furthering by persons in France, connected with persons in England, as well for surrendering to the French every secret of the British Government, as for the republicanizing Great Britain and Ireland, and particularly for disorganizing the British navy ; to create such a confusion therein, as to admit the French armaments to move without danger.
“My sentiments having been resolutely hostile to every such plan, idea, and person assisting therein, proved, (as the assassins have ever avowed) the real cause of my having had Gens d’armes placed with me to prevent my return, and their having by such magnetic means of workers in Paris ascertained, that my said sentiments were so determined for the counteracting such plans, as well as others more dreadful in their nature, that I should persevere even to the loss of my life in my efforts to expose them. They have ever avowed also ; that my having immediately on my return set about exposing the quoted infamies, occasioned a magnetic spy to be appointed from each gang of event-workers in London, specially to watch and circumvent me : for that the chiefs of such gangs were the real persons who were cloked under certain names and titles used in the information given me, and which I have for years found such vile spy-traitor-assassins called by among their fraternity.
“That the persons mentioned by me in my letters, narratives, &c. to each of the 1796 administration, and to the then Speaker of the House of Commons as spies, whom I could not discover, but found, as it were, before me, behind me, and on every side of me, every where, and in every thing (as was my expression) were magnetic spy-workers coming from Paris, at the time I was trudging it from thence, and having the charge of circumventing me ; and such were so appointed by each of the London gangs, event-working assassins: who having found my senses proof against their fluid and hand-working, as it is termed, were employed to actuate the proper persons to pretend I was insane, for the purpose of plunging me into a madhouse, to invalidate all I said, and for the purpose of confining me within the measure of the Bedlam-attaining-airloom-warp, making sure that by means thereof, and the poisonous effluvia they used, they would by such means keep me fully impregnated, and which impregnation could be renewable and aggravated at their pleasure, so as to overpower my reason and speech, and destroy me in their own way, while all should suppose it was insanity which produced my death.
That not only such appointed spies, but the whole phalanx of event-workers, all the gangs rose up in arms against me ; because all depended during that year (1796) on their disorganizing the British navy, which they had undertaken to effect, and had their experts at work to bring about ; while my incessant and loud clamours, almost daily writing to, or calling at the houses of one or other of all the ministers in their turn, conjuring them to exert themselves to prevent wretches from disorganizing the British navy ; this obliged such experts and gangs also, to have recourse to such caution till they could get rid of me ; that in truth, they could not make any way therein while I was at large : and to this solely was owing their not having been able to fulfil their engagements with the French, to have the British fleet in confusion by the time stipulated ; and which inability from such fear, more than the storm, forced General Hoche, whose armament was called the Avant-Garde of the intended French invasion to return as he came. And they have ever pretended that Hoche, having been exasperated against the workers, spoke bitterly of them, and was by one of their experts put out : (viz. destroyed by poisonous magnetic fluid, which kills by possessing itself of the hollows of the nerves, and does not affect the stomach, vitals, &c. as poysons in substance,) in order to prevent him from publishing the existence of the profession.
“That finding it much easier to actuate all the ministers, magistrates, &c. to the folly of pretending me mad, than to make me desist from exerting myself to expose the plots and plans of such assassins, they adopted this course, and at last contrived my being forced into Bedlam, where they have ever sworn, they will by hook or by crook hold me ; and some thousand times during the last twelve years, sworn I should never get out of their clutches alive, unless I forgave them ; but they know all compromise with them is impossible.
“That having me safely immured, the experts went to work again boldly, and then, in less than three months blew up that flame in the British navy, which threw the three great fleets into open mutiny, about Easter 1797 : that this proving to the then ministry their danger, from their having mocked, and (by their tools, which as well as the ministers themselves, were tools in the hands of event-working assassins) imprisoned me; they then became so alarmed on the second mutiny of the Nore fleet, under Parker, a man actuated by magnet-working experts, that they opened the Treasury doors, and instead of attending to me, cost the nation near one hundred thousand pounds in secret service money, to quell the mutiny at the Nore, and prevent its again bursting out at Portsmouth, Plymouth, &c. and that to avoid the expenditure being noticed, as such, means were contrived to work it into the accounts, as for other purposes at earlier periods.
“It has ever been their custom to actuate every one to insult or ill-treat me : they could give their time to actuate, and then to swear to avenge it, and make a merit of event-working, to bring disgrace or injury upon such persons : never indeed, to benefit me ; but as pursuing their systems of villany, calling me their Property and Talisman, bringing persons under what they call their Fluid-balances against me ; persecuting and making murderous efforts upon me : using the name or expression, or the presence of particular persons as their authority, and then pretending, because I withstood them, that they had a right against such persons, or whom they called such persons duplicates to.
“Hence they ever asserted that Mr. Pitt was not half able to withstand magnetic fluid in its operative effect, but became actuated like a mere puppet by the expert-magnetists employed in such villanies : that every one of his colleagues and successors to the present moment, have proved equally actuable, though some more, some less, Mr. Grey having proved the strongest, though not full proof : and pretending in their efforts to cajole me, that my having, (though not acquainted with him, and notwithstanding his refusing to attend to me in 1796,) entertained a sort of friendly opinion for him, was the sole means of preserving his life when first Lord of the Admiralty. They say, that having read in my jumbled narratives the facts of traitor efforts to disorganize the navy, and even after the meeting, not only left me to linger here under their incessant murdering efforts, but accepted the office of first Lord of the Admiralty ; the die was cast against him in their system of event- working, and he was to be put out, a term they use for their murdering any one. In truth, they did frequently say to me, when he took upon him the office, ‘We have event-worked that ; he is to he killed there :’ and I mentioned it to several : but as all despised me and said it was insanity, I did not waste so much breath, together with pen, ink and paper, as I had done to expose the assassin’s assertions respecting their putting out Mr. Pitt, which they truly effected.
“That the final order having been given to put out Mr. Grey by the pneumatic magnetists having in charge the Admiralty Department, for attaining its secrets, actuating its members, &c. the moment was determined on, and he actuated to be in a given place by the time. That this being well known as it proceeded, another magnetist contrived to puppet one of their prepared victims to be there also ; and the fluid of this person (a Sir Michael Le Fleming,) having been rendered more attractive than Mr. Grey’s ; the wrench took hold of Sir Michael instead of Mr. Grey, and killed him on the spot; while, they say, by the force, Mr. Grey would have escaped with a rupture like the late Duke of Bedford, or the bursting of some blood-vessels which would not have produced death. Then they cried ‘It's yho (you) that presearved (preserved) him,’ in their affected provincial jargon ; for provincial is not their real language. During some weeks previous to this, they had been ripping at my ventricles by their air-loom-force : a dreadful operation it is! They pretended they worked Mr. Grey into the foreign office, where he might have the means of knowing the reality of the advances made by France to the British Government through me in 1793 , and the folly of his chief friend Lord Grenville, thereupon, and then they said an expert was preparing a puppet to be actuated commemoratively, as Lord Grenville and his friends were to be made to act politically. Every time I saw the Philanthropic Insurance advertisements signed William Ludlam, which was daily, they would cry ‘Voila le Victime,’ then ‘That’s his Ludship, Erskine, Grenville,’ and by brain-saying, refer to Mr. Erskine’s mode of speech, for his Lordship pronouncing nearly Ludship, and say that William Ludlam meant William Lud Grenvile, and touching the fluid in my vitals, would make me quite sorry. When Ludlam, pistol in hand, attempted to tyrant it over the master as well as the waiter of the London Tavern, they said ‘It’s exact. C’est ainsi,’ and to his jumping through the window also, they would cry ‘C’est ainsi aussi,’ and ‘Leighton, Sir William, we puppeted yho, there to commemorate.’ Some time after, when Ludlam was taken, Lord Erskine ordered him under the care of Dr. Monro, and prohibited the Lord Mayor’s warrant from being served against him. There they would cry ‘his Ludship,’ and then brain-say the subject as before. Then ‘Ween, (we will) puppet yho also,’ and brainsay, ‘We will actuate Erkine Monroish, yet.’. I mentioned their pretexts and sent out a memorandum thereupon, stating that, though they were active to prevent my perceiving all their drift, I feared they intended to make Lord Erskine mad ; for they often asserted, that with but half stress on the fluid with which he was impregnated, he would become weak in intellect ; and as it was to my wife, I could not help saying, ‘Notwithstanding the readiness to act as Counsel for me in 1797, which Mr. Erskine professed, yet, when you called upon him to ask him from me to mention my case and imprisonment in Bedlam in the House of Commons, he would not do so ; and for which the assassins boasted once they stagnated him in the House of Commons, by an air-loom warp, attaining him from no great distance ; and would have killed him afterwards there as an example in their pretexts but for my exposing their infamous threats ; he now cares no more for me than he does for the dogs in the street.’ ‘Enough (they cried) we’ll shew you.’ At a subsequent time when it was said that the Lord Chancellor, passing along Holborn, saw several persons pursuing and beating a dog in order to kill him, pretending he was mad ; ‘Aye, (they cried) that’s as you say we pursue you pelting you with our murdering efforts ;’ but he not thinking any madness appeared about him, ran into the midst of them, and taking the dog up in his arms, rescued him from their fury, and ordered him to be conveyed to his stables and taken care of : ‘Yes, (said they) that part is the derision of the event ; we have commemorated your words ; he does care about the dog, but you may lie in the stable (a term used by them for being placed on the incurable establishment in Bedlam) and be damned.
“When the change of Ministry came about, then they asked, ‘Now where’s poor Ludlom ?’ He was actuated to a thought, that, with pistols pointed to them, he could force the parties to yield to him ; but the good sense of the master of the tavern left him no alternative but to jump through the window and be off—brainsaying, that Lord Grenville and Co. were also endeavouring to establish their philanthropic assurance to the Catholics, thinking to make as much more than legal interest thereby, as Lud-lam and his partizans did by their philanthropic assurance, to gain them 8 per cent. besides bonuses frequently ; and as Lud-lam had first opponents in his own party or subscribers, and then for his pistolling was forced through the window, so Lord Grenville, after having endeavoured to force the Master to comply with his wishes, was in turn forced through the window into the street, a term among them for turned out. Lud Erskine and some others were Lord Grenville and Co’s. opponents in the cabinet to the philanthropic efforts to make more than common interest. They pretended they worked Ludlam into Dr. Monro’s hands, as completing the event of my being in them : asserting, that the working the former Administration out, and Lord Grenville in, the rendering all their measures abortive, and then pushing them on to be turned out, was to commemorate and retaliate upon them, for their parts in the persecution and imprisonment I experienced,”
second event-working.
“I ought not to omit mentioning, that about three or four years since, when the assassins so much boasted that a great deal of fluid prepared by them was sent to impregnate the Mollys, as they termed Mollendorf, Brunswick, Kamenskoi, &c. to make fools of them in the battles the event-workers were working to produce : they said Russia must be weighed by me, crying, ‘We told you that you were Buonaparte s talisman, and that we would work him up to as high a pitch of grandeur by the possession of you, as we would fix you degraded below the common level of human nature,” (an expression often indeed used by them in menacing me during the years they so threatened to murder my son and all my family, if I would not forgive them : and would not only counteract me in every thing, but make every person presenting himself mock and ridicule me, and kill me at last, either secretly or openly, for that I should never escape out of their clutches alive ; and after having asserted they would bring Russia to the balances for a few months, they cried ‘Yho are coming,’ brainsaying, that a magnetic fluid impregnated Russian was coming. Soon it was announced through Bedlam, that some of the Royal Family were coming—preparations were made to receive them, when, lo ! as the party entered the gallery, while the assassins were crying, ‘Now for it, we will play you off,’ brain-saying, they should actuate him while they tortured me. One of the patients came to tell me that it was not any of the Royal Family, but the Duke of Somerset and the Russian Ambassador who were coming down. ‘Aye, aye ! (said the assassins) we told you we would give you notice,’ and began to torture and fluid-lock me, viz. binding all the small nerves and fibres so numerous about the parts composing the root of the tongue, which prevents regularity of speech, and forces me to speak rather slower and to be guarded at every word to prevent stammering. When the party came to my cell, five or six of them, I began to explain to them the manner in which I was assailed, and describe to them the nature of it, enquiring if they understood Pneumatic Science, &c., His Grace was with his left arm on the corner of my bed, and the party generally, politely attentive ; but one of them attracted my notice from his seeming to become a little restless, going out of the cell, and not attending to what I was stating. The assassins said, ‘That’s the victim.’ A few days after, I learned that this person was the Russian Count Pahlin ; the assassins chuckling, often asked me if I remembered the Russian with arms too short for his person, and an impediment in his speech, saying, ‘It will he all over with the Mollys.’ Every thing was then quiet, but it was not long before Prussia began to be agitated, and this brought on the war which beat it and the Russians out of the field, and left the Count Pahlin dead upon it.”
By this time it is probable that the curiosity of the reader is sufficiently satisfied concerning the mischievous and complicated science of event-working. Although the fable may be amusing, the moral is pernicious. The system of assailment and working events deprives man of that volition which constitutes him a being responsible for his actions, and persons not so responsible, in the humble opinion of the writer ought not to be at large. After the commission of murder or treason, it would be considered an inadequate defence for the perpetrator to alledge that he had been irresistibly actuated by the dexterous manoeuvres of Bill, or the Middle man ; nor is it at all probable, that the accurate records of Jack the Schoolmaster would be admitted as evidence in a court of law.
There are already too many maniacs allowed to enjoy a dangerous liberty ; and the Governors of Bethlem Hospital, confiding in the skill and integrity of their medical officers, were not disposed to liberate a mischievous lunatic to disturb the good order and peace of society. These gentlemen can have no advantage in detaining a person in confinement who has recovered his senses. Their interest consists in the numbers who are restored to the community and their friends ; and their only reward the incense which Gratitude projects on the altar of Reason.
FINIS
- ↑ Biographien der Wahnsinnigen, von Krist. Heinrich Spiess, Leipzig, 1 795.
- ↑ Vide “ A Supplement to Notes on the Ancient Method of Treating the Fever of Andalusia, now called the Yellow Fever, deduced from an Explanation of the Hieroglyphics painted upon the Cambridge Mummy, by Robert Deverell, Esq. M. P. May 19, 1806,” page 38. It is a subject of regret that these scarce and luminous pages were privately printed.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 See (*) page 7.
- ↑ The feeblest intellect I ever commiserated was a Doctor of Laws from the University of Glasgow.
- ↑ Is any student tearing his straw in piece-meal, swearing and blaspheming, biting his grate, foaming at the mouth, &c.—Vide Tale of a Tub, page 178, edit. 1704.
- ↑ This term, which frequently occurs, and is not to be found in our dictionaries, either originates with Mr. M. or is extracted from the vocabulary of the pneumatic gang.
- ↑ This disgusting odour is exclusively employed during sleep, when, by their dream-workings, they have placed him, as a solitary wanderer, in the marshes near the mouth of the river Nile ; not at that season when its waters bring joy and refreshment, but at its lowest ebb, when the heat is most oppressive, and the muddy and stagnant pools diffuse a putrid and suffocating stench ;—the eye is likewise equally disgusted with the face of the country, which is made to assume a hateful tinge, resembling the dirty and cold blue of a scorbutic ulcer. From this cheerless scene they suddenly awake him, when he finds his nostrils stuffed, his mouth furred, and himself nearly choaked by the poisonous effects of their Egyptian snuff.