Memorial. To the legislature of Massachusetts [In behalf of the pauper insane and idiots in jails and poorhouses throughout the Commonwealth. Jan. 1843].

  • Dix, Dorothea Lynde, 1802-1887.
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memorial. To the legislature of Massachusetts [In behalf of the pauper insane and idiots in jails and poorhouses throughout the Commonwealth. Jan. 1843]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    To the Legislature of Massachusetts. GENTLEMEN, I respectfully ask to present this Memorial, believing that the cause, which actuates to and sanctions so unusual a movement, presents no equivocal claim to public consideration and sympathy. Surrendering to calm and deep convictions of duty my habitual views of what is womanly and becoming, I proceed briefly to explain what has conducted me before you unsolicited and unsustained, trusting, while I do so, that the memorialist will be speedily forgotten in the memorial. About two years since leisure afforded opportunity, and duty prompted me to visit several prisons and alms-houses in the vi- cinity of this metropolis. I found, near Boston, in the Jails and Asylums for the poor, a numerous class brought into unsuitable connexion with criminals and the general mass of Paupers. I refer to Idiots and Insane persons, dwelling in circumstances not only adverse to their own physical and moral improvement, but productive of extreme disadvantages to all other persons brought into association with them- I applied myself diligently to trace the causes of these evils, and sought to supply remedies. As one obstacle was surmounted, fresh difficulties appeared. Every new investigation has given depth to the conviction that it is only by decided, prompt, and vigorous legislation the evils to wThich I refer, and which I shall-proceed more fully to illus- trate, can be remedied. I shall be obliged to speak with great plainness, and to reveal many things revolting to the taste, and from which my woman's nature shrinks with peculiar sensitive- ness. But truth is the highest consideration. / tell what I have seen—painful and shocking as the details often are—that from them you may feel more deeply the imperative obligation which lies upon you to prevent the possibility of a repetition or continuance of such outrages upon humanity. If I inflict pain upon you, and move you to horror, it is to acquaint you