CELL 25, SEVENTH WARD.

       ONE half ths world deems the other half mad; both halves would support the assertion. To ensure a reasonable column in the lunacy statistics, found an asylum conducted on the "mutually confidential" system, and await the advent of those that are stumbling-blocks in the paths of rich and unprincipled relatives. A single certificate, signed by John Brown, M. D., and you are a lunatic whose claims on vour country's laws are nil.

       Have you ever peered into the mysteries of a private, mad-house, passed through its various wards, from the first to the seventh, been held in bondage in such a hell, and tasted in your throat the faint, acrid odor that tells of feverish lunacy? I have. May Heaven forgive the wife and child that put me there for money's sake — money which a doting, blinded husband and father would have gladly given them for the simple asking. Ye men of sixty, look not upon the fairness of twenty years. Ye coddle and mumble over a pretty puff-adder whose kiss is a sting. My heart yearned for her, while my head said nay. I bought her, and she sold me.

       During five years, with but short, delicious intervals of stolen freedom, I have fumed and fretted, groaned and cursed, between the four great walls which have held, and still hold, as many sane martyrs as lunatics. Some time I shall publish a long and detailed account of all that befell me from the day on which I was kidnapped and incarcerated down to the period of my final liberation, of the strange and various reasons of my abduction, and of the unnumbered atrocities that are perpetrated every day under the guise of medical jurisprudence. This short sketch is the relation of my third escape, in which every incident, every circumstance, is a fact.

       To tell precisely why I was imprisoned is not now to the point; let it suffice that I was a legally manufactured lunatic, confined in one of the strongest cells, and that I bore the reputation of being a morose, excitable and extremely dangerous patient. Dangerous! think over it! A sane man of seventy years of age buried alive, totally deprived of the luxuries to which he had all his life been accustomed, cut off from all his relatives and friends, locked up every night at eight o'clock, and gruffly ordered hither and thither at the beck and nod of ignorant, brutal keepers, and be peaceable and contented!

       Even now my fingers tingle as I recall the events of one evening. The doctor, while passing through the ward, hustled me aside, and ordered me to "get to my room." I refused; and grasping me by the neck, he hurled me almost off my feet. Ah! he was carried away senseless, his throat all swollen and bruised by the strong hands of an insulted, desperate man. As a quid pro quo, I was sentenced to undergo the douche. Perhaps this technicality puzzles you? Four keepers rushed toward me when they saw the doctor fall, and in an instant I was tripped up and thrown heavily upon my back. Both legs and arms were then seized and jerked out at angles with my body, while a fifth attendant mounted the high chair, and proceeded to pour down bucketful after bucketful of icy water on my face and neck.

       Fortunately, I soon became unconscious, and awoke the next morning to find myself on the floor of the dark cell, wetted to the skin, stiff and feverish. Pardon — I will to my tale — but the shameless wrongs I've suffered make me nigh really mad.

       After being recaptured the second time, it was deemed advisable to place me in one of the strongest cells in the ward — that contiguous to the watchman's and prescription-room. My last escape had been accomplished through the agency of the heating register, which I wrenched out of place, entered the aperture in the wall, broke through the zinc-piping, and finally reached the cellar, whence I emerged by picking the lock with a bit of twisted wire.

       It was in order to prevent a recurrence of this peculiar and startling mode of egress that Doctor B—– advised cell No. 25 as my fit abode. Now, this cell was peculiarly constructed in several particulars; and in as few words as possible I will endeavor to give you a clear idea of its features, though at the same time I shall perforce be minute and exact.

       From the floor to the ceiling the distance was a trifle over eight feet; its length was ten and its breadth nine feet. The walls and floor were apparently built of solid slabs of granite — apparently, since the granite, which a careless observer would have declared to be at least a foot in thickness around the sides, was but a thin two-inch shell backed up by bricks and mortar, while under the similar slabs that formed the flooring lay rough planks of yellow Carolina pine. These slabs, each about one yard square, were bound firmly together by narrow steel bands soldered carefully in the holes drilled through the granite. The single window — a four-inch slit pierced slantwise in the wall-side — admitted some light and air certainly, but it was chiefly useful as a spy-hole through which the patient inside could be watched by a keeper in the prescription-room, to which, as you have learned, my room was contiguous. The night-watchman, whose duty it was to be on the alert the whole of the night, could, when so disposed, look through the slit at any tune, and it acted accordingly as a check on the actions of fractious patients, the most violent lunatics soon learning to dread the quick punishment that followed at once upon any rebellious movements.

       Fairly in the middle of the floor was set a revolving register, which in summer breathed upward a constant stream of cool air, and in winter one of hot air. This was nicely imbedded in the slabs, and the interstices between its outer rim and its bed were filled in with leaden solder. It was the unique character of its iower arrangements that had more especially decided the doctor in his choice of Cell 25.

       I will explain. In every other cell the register was in all cases placed along the' side of the wall a few inches above the floor, and by means of various flues was indirectly connected with the large furnace below. In Number 25, however, the register, being in the centre of the apartment, was constructed on an entirely different plan. The furnace-room was situated directly beneath, and at quiet moments I could hear distinctly the bubbling of the water in the boilers and the hissing of the steam as it escaped from the waste-pipes. Rising in a straight line from the furnace, but so provided with various valves and fans that the draughts could be regulated to a nicety, was one large flue, from which branched a zinc pipe ending at the mouth of the register. This was connected by a joint to the main flue, and, as I afterward learned, protruded fully two feet below the ceiling in the lower apartment.

       Perhaps these minutiæ try your patience, reader; but unless I were to note them accurately, you would very likely fail to fully comprehend the exhausting and arduous task involved in my struggle for freedom. My bed, a lumpy, foul-smelling sack of straw, with two ragged horse-rugs for a pillow, lay against the wall, and on the opposite side to the window. In this arrangement, also, a cunning watchfulness betrayed itself, since in any other part of the cell I should have been partially screened from observation, while there I lay continually under the eye of the watchman. One of the hated by-laws was that requiring all patients to be in bed by nine o'clock, under the penalty of receiving a three-bucket douche. Inside the sack, and of course unknown to any one but myself, were the following articles: a jagged bit of window glass, three inches in diameter; seven or eight inches of stout, rusty wire, originally part of a steel umbrella-frame; a plug of cavendish — a precious solace it was during the long, dreary hours; a parcel of wrapped violin strings, stolen from a fellow-madman who had probably stolen it also from chance visitors or one of the officers, and five dollars in bank-notes and postal currency.

       There! the inventory of my cell's contents is finished, unless the narrow band of light traversing the flags, falling athwart my pillow and running up the wall, streaming from the slit, can be called a tangibility. Now to my escape.

       I had been confined here for eight days and nights, and as an extra punishment had during this time been forbidden the customary daily saunter in the yard or hall-way. What were my thoughts you may imagine; companion of any kind I could not have borne — a scheming, vengeful brain was companionly enough; and when I tired of brooding, I bit my nails and lips until they bled, then cried — ay, cried like a child — and the salt, bitter tears relieved me, or I should have raved and screamed and beaten my head against the wall.

       One night, about nine o'clock, I was shivering in bed, counting the hairs in my thin, white beard. Never laugh! wait until you have passed days and weeks in prison solitude, with naught to do but think, think, and you may perform more ridiculous operations than this. I have counted the very fly-spots on the walls in summer-time, and known them so well that a new spot could not be laid there but I could point it out! Anything to while away the fevering time and divert my thoughts from the outside world, that I loved with a love that would have shamed the loves of men for women, mothers for babes. Suddenly escape flashed before me, and seemed scored in fire-letters wherever I turned my eyes: my head whirled and my heart almost ceased to beat. Carelessly but keenly glancing toward the band of light, I knew that for the time I was unobserved, and crept silently off my pallet on to the floor, thrust my hand among the straw, and pulled out the glass, violin strings, tobacco, money and wire. This accomplished, I kept perfectly quiet for a time, too fearful to move.

       Nothing occurring, I grew bolder, and speedilv bundled up the rugs, making them appear as though I still lay abed, taking the precaution, however, to push the pallet farther toward the end of the cell, the light in consequence falling, not upon the pillow, but on the rugs. Finally, a comprehensive glance assured me that the tout ensemble might well deceive the watchman, and I hesitated to consider my next move in the perilous game.

       Mechanically I passed my hands up and down the door — a useless proceeding, for long ago I had decided that it would have been foolish to attempt either to pick its massive locks or cut through its iron panels with a bit of brittle glass. The register next attracted my attention; and getting down on my knees, I advanced noiselessly toward it. and ran my thumb-nail around the interstices.

       "This," I murmured, "is my only chance," and immediately began with my glass to pick out the solder that held the rim in its place. Then it was that the thinness of the granite slabs was of great advantage to me, since, in order to completely loosen the register, it was necessary to remove four of the surrounding flags. Had they been as ponderous as they seemed, it is questionable whether my strength would have been equal to the task of removing them; as it was, my arms trembled with their weight.

       My ends were accomplished in less than an hour, when I suppressed a tremulous heart-sigh, and rolled over on my back to wait for new strength. Then for the first time arose the appalling suggestion, Was the aperture sufficiently wide for the passage of my body? A hasty but careful measurement of my shoulders and the register's diameter, and the sickening fear was gone. It was just wide enough, and not the fraction of an inch to spare. Lifting the register from its bed, I carefully rested it against the wall, under the slit, where it could not possibly be seen by the watchman. Then thrusting my head down into the hole, from which the gas and heat were belching in an eddying current, I tried to understand the internal arrangements of the flue; but my strained finger-tips touched nothing, and the hot, gaseous fumes were so giddying that for a moment I drew back.

       Suddenly I remembered that the rising gas would soon fill the cell, and also penetrate into the adjoining room, when the keeper would at once suspect the cause and foil all my plans.

       I glanced despairingly upward, and racked my brain for a plausible scheme, half-wittingly seized the rug, stepped a-top of the leaning register and stuffed it into the aperture, gladly running the chances of a probable discovery to avoid a certain one. Cramming the wire and other articles into my pocket, I returned to the exposed flue and into it lowered myself, meanwhile holding on to the pine joists, afraid to drop I knew not where, or into what.

       "Thank Heaven!" I sighed, as my foot struck a ledge or an abutment, and I pressed my whole weight on it to test its firmness, though its hotness almost blistered my bare, swollen feet. By this time the gas was not so stifling either in quantity or quality, and I stopped to take breath and weigh the chances of ultimate escape.

       I knew that below, and somewhere close at hand, was the furnace, and felt sure that before I could escape to the engine-room I should be forced either to break open the seaming of the zinc pipe or drop myself into the furnace itself, whence I could crawl through the narrow coaling-door to the outside. This latter was not such a perfectly foolhardy scheme as may be supposed, since the following day — Christmas eve — the boilers were to have been cleaned, and I had overheard the superintendent order the engineer two days before to "keep his fires banked very low Saturday and Sunday," and this was Sunday night.

       Slightly changing my cramped position, I bent sideways to brace myself more firmly, when my right foot slipped, and down I sank for about two feet into a branch flue that held me as tightly as a vice, and where the gas and heat were so strong that I wellnigh swooned. A spirit of perfect, strangely-merry recklessness then took possession of me; and actually laughing the while, I thrust out my back and knees with new-born nervous strength, and felt the sides of the pipe bulging outward.

       Another quivering exertion that brought a husky chuckle to my parched lips, and I felt myself fall apparently from a considerable height, and was jolted in every joint. The next minute saw me on my feet, drinking in long draughts of cool, damp air — delicious air — while at my feet lay a battered, rent pipe. Close beside me stood the huge furnace; five feet above its doors, and branching off from the main pipe at an acute angle, was a serrated, broken segment of the flue into which I had so luckily fallen; out of it were pouring hot gas and a thin white smoke.

       Then I was seized by an awful dread of detection, and vaguely wondered whether the rattling noise had aroused any of the keepers. There lay the long, heavy poker ready to my hand, and sooner than have been recaptured I would have gladly brained a hundred keepers. For a long half hour I stood perfectly motionless, fearing with sickening fear, but determined to strike down the first that entered. Fortunately, no one disturbed me, and once more I grew hopeful and looked around for an avenue of escape. Stealthily treading, I advanced toward the door. The dull red glare from the furnace-fire gave out some light, and my eyes were accustomed to partial darkness; I narrowly examined the lock. In picking the old one I had broken the spring and tumblers, and this was a new lock of much more massive and intricate manufacture. However, it was my only hope; so jerking out my wire, I hastily bent it into the required shape and pushed it into the keyhole.

       In my haste I had thrust it in too far; and protruding on the opposite side of the door, it caught in some way, and baffled all my frantic endeavors to withdraw it. After twenty minutes' tugging and wrenching I gave up the attempt and groaned aloud, and pressed my throbbing head against the iron knobs and cross-bars.

       Oh, the intense, galling bitterness of that moment! Had the devil appeared, I would have eagerly bargained away my soul for liberty.

       Staggering away from the door, I carefully examined the two small windows fronting on the snow-clad lane, the free country, whose crisp night-air, laden with icy blasts, was sweeter to me than you can conceive. Freedom laughed at me, and every second sped a mile away. Heaven forgive me for my words that terrible night! The windows were double barred, and it would have taken days to saw them apart with my poor bit of brittle glass. Again and again I cast my eyes around the room, and found no means of egress.

       Yes, there was one, but I shuddered as I looked toward it. It was a long, narrow aperture in the top of the ceiling. At some time you must have seen a large fly-wheel in motion at a factory, mill or engine-house? At all events, the hot and cold draughts of this institution — the largest mad-house in the State — were created by the action of an immense fly-wheel worked by the engine attached to the furnace. This wheel stood in the centre of the room; it was thirty-five feet in diameter, and in construction resembled an undershot water-wheel in some particulars. In place of the usual polished level surface of the outside wheel-edge, seventy steel fans, like narrow shelves, were protruding, for the purpose, as I judged, of creating a superficial draft as the wheel whirled around. The room being but eleven feet in height, it was of course necessary to build a passage-way for the wheel above the level of the ceiling and below the level of the ground. Thus the ponderous machine revolved partially in a brick-lined gutter, partially in the engine-room, and also protruded a considerable distance into the chamber overhead, where fire apparatus, hose and various utensils were stored.

       Once in this room, and escape would be easy and almost certain, it being the only chamber in the building whose windows were not barred. My long residence in the asylum had made me acquainted with almost every nook and cranny, from the roof, whence I had made one escape, to the cellars.

       Again the purposed cleaning of the boilers was a Godsend for me. Usually the wheel revolved at a rapid speed, far too swiftly for me to have even thought of doing what I had now decided to do, whereas at the present time its motion was little more than perceptible. You have guessed what were my intentions? I had two things to fear — the chance presence of some one in the room above, and the more appalling, if possible, danger of missing my grasp at the railing encircling the wheel (to prevent accidents to those employed in its vicinity). I knew that if I fell I should be mangled to death in the gutter beneath; the dread of this, however, did not long make me falter. Rubbing dry my feet, to diminish the chances of slipping off the oily, foot-wide fans, I sprang on one of them, and lying flatwise on the others, clung to the wheel with all my ebbing strength.

       Upward, slowly upward, I was carried, as the wheel revolved at the rate of perhaps six inches per minute. Several times during this fearful journey I grew giddy, and thought I was falling, but at last my eager fingers rested, on the railing; and though old, stiff and rheumatic, I leaped over those bars like a wild-cat, and alighted safely in the room. It was there that my tobacco and violin strings came into play: the one invigorated me, the other I hastily used in tying together sundry pieces of hose-pipe, until I had made a rubber rope of about forty feet in length. Down this I slid from the window to the ground, then struck off like a hare across the glistening white fields, and never halted until I was miles away from the cursed mad-house. From the hill on whose sloping side I had fallen, utterly exhausted, but happy as Happiness herself, I could see the lights of my native city P—–a, and there I laughed aloud, and hurrahed until my voice was gone.

       How I was again entrapped, prevented from being brought to court through a writ of habeas corpus, the famous trial which resulted in a verdict in my favor, and the story of my final glorious triumph, all shall in time be divulged; until that time I bid you good-bye.