OCR Text |
Show WHOISCBAZYP Not long ago an out-of-town party had ita fill with a white-haired Judge among them while stopping at one of tha leading hotels In the city. The management of the hostelry was given to understand that the Judge was unbalanced and that he was being taken to a hospital for the Insane.- Employees of the place also got the word and were told incidentally that the man in question should not be given anything to eat but soup. The party. Judge Included, went into the dining-room and were aeated at the same table. All ordered soup the first time around. Everybody in the party then ordered meats and other foods that make up the average hotel meal. When the waiters served the second time the Judge waa given another dish of soup. He protested and asked a waiter why he was not given his regular .inner the same as the rest. The waiter could offer no explanation ex-planation and merely walked away. The Judge remarked that since the soup was there he would down with it, and so he did. Then he waited for something else to eat. '. Walters had their eyes oa the old man. who, after a brief wait, cajled two to him and said: . - Now., see here. I will not stand this. Get me the rest of my dinner or I will know the reason why. 1 am paying for what I get the same as the rest of this party,, and I can't understand why joa are so alow serving." " 1 After a brief consultation with the head waiter the old man was served with another an-other dish of soup, whereupon he arose and raved, declaring that he would selxe one of the helpers in the dining-room and throw him out of the window. The head waiter fled to the kitchen, with the rest of the help, and while they Were counseling the victim of the plot was given words of sympathy from every member of the party. par-ty. At last the Judge left the table and went to the proprietor, who simply said:' "We can give you soup, but our .orders are not to give you anything besides that. You 'go upstairs with me and 1 will consult con-sult with your party and see what Tan be . done," When the two arrived in the dining-room dining-room there was a hearty round of laughter. laugh-ter. The proprietor waa told- of the Joke and the waiters were coaxed back. Then followed a. discussion aa to how easy a matter it is to make a man appear insane whether he be so or not Once the accusation is made that a man is. unbalanced unbal-anced there Is a prejudice against him, and the world shies and shies. The Judge, who was as sane a man as ever lived, waa Joked about the incident for some time, and probably never will hear the last of it all. but the lesson brought out will no doubt outlast the Joke. Along this line Dr. Stephen Smith, late commissioner in lunacy of the State of New York, wrote as follows: . "The popular judgment of the insane is largely based on an unjust prejudice," said an eminent alienist. It is true whatever what-ever may be the explanation, that we have an instinctive dread of the Insane, and shrink from contact and association with them. The sudden discovery that our companion with whom we may have an agreeable and profitable conversation, has an illusion, delusion er hallucination, however harmless, gives us at once an un-. definable sense of discomfort, or perhaps Insecurity. We wish to escape his presence. pres-ence. His sane and sensible opinions weigh nothing in our estimation. Failing in one particular mental function, we cannot believe that his Judgment is reliable relia-ble on any subject." The instances cited by Dr. Smith both In and out of asylums are for the purpose of suggesting the propriety of reforming methods of treating this class by giving them proper occupation rather than condemning con-demning them to lives of inactivity in asylums. asy-lums. ' , He points to the fact that thousands of Idiots and teeble-minded living like the lowest order of brutes in almshouses and the homes of the poor are only waiting I the skilled hand and sympathetic heart of a Wilbur to be made reasoning and self-supporting self-supporting citizens. He asks why reoov-eries reoov-eries should not be raised from SO to 40 per cent to 80 and 80 per cent if all the sources of . science and humanity were brought into requisition In one case. Dr. Smith also asks if it would not be more economical if the State devoted lta energlea and money to the creation, equipments and management of curative rather than custodial Institutions. Cleveland Cleve-land Plain Dealer. |