On behalf of these, with my usual piece of
smuggled lead pencil, I soon began to indite and submit to the officers
of the institution, letters in which I described the cruel practices
which came under my notice. My reports were perfunctorily accepted and
at once forgotten or ignored. Yet these letters, so far as they related
to overt acts witnessed, were lucid and should have been convincing.
Furthermore, my allegations were frequently corroborated by bruises on
the bodies of the patients. My usual custom was to write an account of
each assault and hand it to the doctor in authority. Frequently I would
submit these reports to the attendants with instructions first to read
and then deliver them to the superintendent or the assistant physician.
The men whose cruelty I thus laid bare read with evident but perverted
pleasure my accounts of assaults, and laughed and joked about my
ineffectual attempts to bring them to book.
XXXIII
I refused to be a martyr. Rebellion was my watchword.
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