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MRS. S. N. B. O.

I was put into the Asylum without my choice or consent, I was thus removed without my consent, and contrary to my choice. In either case my identity was ignored, in that my right of choice was not recognized in either case. By my pro-test, I alone recognize it, and claim it, illegal as this claim is.

Like the fugitive, I claim protection under the higher law, regardless of the claims of the lower law.

My argument seemed to enable these gentlemen to see that my principles required me to resist the "nonentity" principle of the marriage law in this tangible manner, hoping thus to demonstrate its injustice to the comprehension of the law makers.

This having now been openly done, I had nothing further to do but to be passed on as coming events should indicate.

I recollect one remark made by one of these attendants, was:

"We shall miss you Mrs. Packard, at the Asylum, for there never has been a person who has caused such universal sensation there, as you have. You will be missed at our dances also, for you are regarded as one of our best dancers!"

I thanked him for the compliment, ill-deserved though it was.

Before closing this chapter, I feel bound to say that the action of the Trustees in this case was far from being upright or gentlemanly. They had given me unqualified liberty to do as their Superintendent and I should agree to do. Their Su-perintendent had already discharged me. He had made a bona fide bargain, in presence of a witness, that I might use that room of the Institution as my hired room until I had finished my book. I was no longer subject to his, or the In-stitution's control, as a patient. Now to have these gentle-men ignore this business of their Superintendent in this sum-mary manner, and at my expense, seemed ungallant at least, if not unjust and illegal.

Again, these gentlemen had in their hands, in my own hand-writing, a protest against being put into the hands of my hus-band, assuring them it would never be done by my own consent.

They had also heard from my own lips my reasons for taking this stand, and Mr. Brown, the chairman, had told me himself that he saw it would be useless for me to go to my husband for protection; and yet, after all, he could issue this order to a boarder in the Asylum, that she must be forced into the hands of this her persecutor, just when the way seemed prepared for deliverance, by means of her printed book.

If my readers wish to know why the Superintendent was not on hand to defend the rights of his boarder, I must refer them to him for this. answer, for he has never told me his reasons for doing so.

Therefore, I can only offer you my own conjectures on this point. I suspect this "young convert" was seized with an-other temptation to "backslide," too powerful for his "weak faith" to withstand, and therefore he had tried to throw off the responsibility of my removal upon the Trustees, hoping by this means to secure Mr. Packard's co-operation in destroy-ing my book, without doing so directly himself, and wishing at the same time to retain my good will, he hoped his absence might better subserve all these ends than his presence. There-fore he made Dr. Tenny his agent in doing this mean work, by proxy.

One reason for coming to this conclusion lies in the fact that, after my return home, I accidentally ascertained that the Doctor had advised Mr. Packard to burn my book and put me into another Asylum; and he had volunteered his aid in doing so!

I also accidentally found a letter from Dr. McFarland wherein he says to Mr. Packard, "I have laid your request for Mrs. Packard's re-admission before the Trustees, and have used my influence to have them consent to take her. But they decidedly refuse to do so, on the ground that the Institution is not designed for such cases."

In the same letter, he advised Mr. Packard to keep the facts of this transaction from all public prints, and shun all agita-tion of the subject in any form. For, said he:

"The dignity of silence is the only safe course for us both to pursue."

Another evidence that he had slidden back into the old self-ish "policy" principle is seen in the fact that a letter was read in Court at Kankakee, from Dr. McFarland, wherein he urged that I was insane, in the form of a certificate, which Mr. Packard could use for my incarceration in another Asy-lum!

This did not harmonize with the pledges he had given me in the Asylum that he would be the defender of my personal liberty.

Another evidence that he has backslidden, lies in the fact when I met him in June, 1868, in Jacksonville, before the State's Investigating Committee, at the Dunlap House, he made a most strenuous effort to prove me insane, for the purpose of invalidating my testimony as a witness against the evils of that Institution.

After an examination and a cross-examination occupying nearly seven hours at a single session, with the aid of his attorney and the Trustees, he failed entirely to produce this conviction on the minds of the audience, if ex-Gov. Hoffman's testimony is a representation of others present, which I have reason to think is the case; said he to me at the close of this tedious session;