I Found The Legislature In Session; The Senate, A Small Quiet
Body, Deliberating For Aught I Could See, With As Much Grave And Tranquil
Dignity As The Senate Of The United States.
The House of Representatives
was just at the moment occupied by some railway question, which I was told
excited more feeling than any subject that had been debated in the whole
session, but even this occasioned no unseemly agitation; the surface was
gently rippled, nothing more.
While at Augusta, we crossed the river and visited the Insane Asylum, a
state institution, lying on the pleasant declivities of the opposite
shore. It is a handsome stone building. One of the medical attendants
accompanied us over a part of the building, and showed us some of the
wards in which there were then scarcely any patients, and which appeared
to be in excellent order, with the best arrangements for the comfort of
the inmates, and a scrupulous attention to cleanliness. When we expressed
a desire to see the patients, and to learn something of the manner in
which they were treated, he replied, "We do not make a show of our
patients; we only show the building." Our visit was, of course, soon
dispatched. We learned afterward that this was either insolence or
laziness on the part of the officer in question, whose business it
properly was to satisfy any reasonable curiosity expressed by visitors.
It had been our intention to cross the country from Augusta directly to
the White Hills in New Hampshire, and we took seats in the stage-coach
with that view.
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