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The judges of the State decided that it was a good law and ought to be enforced.

Rumors of false committals can now be tested, and the penalty of fine and imprisonment can be enforced if the Superintendent is found guilty of receiving any patient in defiance of this wholesome law.

CHAPTER XVIII.
Appointment of the Investigating Committee.

Among the agencies employed for the enlightenment of the legislature of 1867, in order to ensure a thorough ventilation of Jacksonville Insane Asylum, the State Register very kindly allowed me the use of their columns to portray facts of the most startling character for the perusal of the members, and among others of a similar character, the following article was published, and every member was furnished with a copy of the paper containing it, viz.:

Insanity a Crime!

It is a fact too little known and appreciated by the public, that insanity is treated as a crime, instead of a misfortune, at the State Institution of Jacksonville, Illinois. The inmates now there are being treated as criminals rather than unfortunates. This being the case, the Legislature who hold the control of that institution, ought to know of it, so as to interpose to prevent this perversion of the intent of its founders.

Facts in abundance are already within the reach of this Legislature, now in session. But, lest this truth be concealed under the favorable reports of committees appointed to visit that institution, we would solicit this honorable body to read the following fragment of a letter, and then consider whether their duty is done towards the inmates of that institution. Let them consider while reading it, that possibly they or some of their family may, ere another meeting of this body, be inmates there, and thus learn by bitter experience the sad truths this letter delineates.

The writer of this letter, Mrs. S. A. Kain, now at Taylorville, Christian County, Illinois, holds herself in readiness to substantiate the truth of the statements she makes, and is ready to give under oath, any amount of similar testimony, if desired. She wrote this letter, intending it for the Governor, with the promise from the employees in that institution that they would sign it also. She was an attendant there at the time it was written, but left soon after, because she could not carry out the inhuman rule of the house.

JACKSONVILLE, January, 1866.
To his Excellency, the Governor of Illinois:

SIR -- It is with profound respect and a deep feeling of reverence for its laws that permits the weakest of its subjects to appeal direct to the ear of the Executive, without passing through a barrier of nobility or the parade of parliamentary rules, when simply asking for justice for an imprisoned and suffering community.

I speak of the Insane Asylum at Jacksonville. I have had an opportunity of witnessing scenes in this institution so brutal and heart-rending that I shrink with horror from it. Here are females incarcerated in this disgusting prison, subject to every indignity, whose finer feelings are outraged every day, addressed with abusive language, insulted, debased like the negro; and the majority fully sensible of it, insane though many of them may be.

A great many of them are no more insane than the writer, and I believe the imputation has never been cast upon me, but placed there by friends. By friends did I say? No, by those who have the power, some for pecuniary motives, some that they may marry again, or carry on a life of licentiousness, and some to hide their own shame.

And there is one whom I have every reason to believe stands at the head of that institution, ready to take any one who is presented, provided sufficient bribe is paid, but which is received so secretly that it cannot be proved against him. But who can go through that institution, and see its secret workings as I have done, without its becoming a self-evident fact that there are cases there which nothing but heavy bribes would induce him to receive or retain, as the law would not recognize the right.

Perhaps you may ask, where are the trustees? And what are they about? What do the trustees or any other stranger know to come in once in three months, and stay in some wards two or three minutes, the best wards perhaps fifteen minutes, when every jacket is taken off, every strap hid, and the patient compelled by fair or foul means, generally the latter, to keep their seats, or by threats of the screen-room or cold bath to act as decorous as their poor crazy brains will allow.

Word is always sent to the attendants from fifteen to thirty minutes ahead of the Trustees that they have arrived and are coming, and all things must be in order when they come. I know not as they have any knowledge of the institution, except by what they see, and this is nothing, and through the Superintendent, and he tells them what he pleases, and no more. He keeps only his tools about him, who do his bidding without any question, and should he get any by chance that he cannot make tools of, he soon discharges them.