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You treat me worse than if I was a convict, for they do not deceive them, but tell them plainly, what they imprison them for, and for how long a time they must bear their punishment.

But this time you did not even tell me why you imprisoned me, nor do I know that you ever intend to trust me with you again! I shall die of grief before long, unless you do something to alleviate my heart sorrows. I could not treat you as you have me, and Oh, how can you punish me so severely for doing a sinless act?

Oh, children! am I in danger of perpetuating my imprisonment by revealing to you the inmost feelings of my heart? If so, what shall I do? If my own children will not relieve their agonized mother, when it is so easy for them to do so, by simply taking me home, I do not know what I shall do.

The hope that you will do so as soon as you consistently can, after receiving this letter, will sustain me, till then, and when that hope is gone, it seems to me I shall die.

Do not delay one day, for you cannot imagine how long time seems here; one day seems like a month elsewhere. It is not that I am abused physically, for I am not. It is not this which causes my suffering, but the thought of your treating your old mother as you do that is killing me.

Yes, killing me! For my sake do not let the Doctor know of my sending you this letter.

Your Mother,
M. A. TIMMONS.

But I am sorry to say that her relatives did let the Doctor know of it, and did nothing to relieve her!

The Doctor then removed her to another ward to cut off her communication with me, suspecting that I had helped, in some way, to get her letter out.

I retained a copy of this letter in my journal, and now give it to the public, that my readers may see what feelings the asylum discipline produces. Is it right thus to punish for a misfortune?

Her children came to visit her twice while I was there, and although they found her working like a slave for the asylum and Dr. McFarland's family, and never showing the least aberration of mind, they would leave her, with the promise that just as soon as they could get a room prepared for her in the new house they were building with her own money (they were rich) they would take her home.

They told her the room would be ready in about three weeks, and although six years have already elapsed, this promise remains unfulfilled!

The mother who bore them and earned for them the comforts of their own homes, is still left to pine away, a prisoner's life of rayless comfort, doing the cooking in the Doctor's kitchen.

When these children become old and gray-headed, how will they like to have their children treat them as they are treating their mother? "With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again."

CHAPTER XXXIII.
Mrs. Cheneworth's Suicide -- Medical Abuse.

Mrs. Cheneworth hung herself in her own room, after retiring from the dancing party, last night.

Her measure of grace was not sufficient to enable her to bear the accumulated burdens of her hard fate any longer. She was driven to desperation.

I cannot blame her for deliberately preferring death, to such a life as she has been experiencing in this asylum. She has literally been driven to it by abuse.

She was entered in my ward, where she remained for several weeks, when she was removed to the lowest ward, where she has been murdered by slow tortures.

If this institution is not responsible for the life of Mrs. Cheneworth, then I don't know what murder is.

She was evidently insane when she entered -- she was not re-sponsible, although her reason was not entirely dethroned. Her moral nature was keenly sensitive; her power of self-control was crushed by disease and medical maltreatment. She resisted until she evidently saw it was useless to expect justice, and was just crushed beneath this powerful despotism.

She was a lovely woman, fitted both by nature and education to be an ornament to society and her family. Gentle and confiding, with a high sense of honor and self-respect, she despised all degrading associations.

From her own representations, I inferred she had been the pet and pride of her parents -- a kind of household goddess in her father's family. Under these benign influences her virtues were fostered, and she had the satisfaction of being loved and appreciated.

She had been quite a belle, and finally from her many admirers, she married one of her own, but not of her parents' choice. In him she seemed to have found everything her heart could desire. He both loved and appreciated her, as well he might.

She was small, delicately and gracefully formed, and peculiarly lady-like in her manners. She was a most accomplished dancer, having been trained in the school of the best French dancers in the country.

Her complexion white and clear, with regular features; dark but mild and tender eyes; hair long, black and glossy. In short she was a little, beautiful, fawn-like creature, when she came to this Institution.

She had been here a short time once before, after the birth of her first child; and from her account I inferred that her restoration to reason was not then attended with the grim spectre of horrors which must have inevitably accompanied this.