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Masaniello was on horseback, because they | one of his attendants to the palace with the did not get out to salute him, he issued an letter, then going up to the grand altar he order "under pain of death and firing," attempted to begin the service, but Masathat they should come to kiss his feet pub- niello interrupted him again, and going licly in the market-place. Instead of obey- himself into the pulpit, he held out a cruing this insolent summons, the fiery nobles cifix in his hand, and addressing himself to hastened to the viceroy's palace and in- the people earnestly besought them not to veighed against the intolerable indignity of forsake him. For sometime he spoke with "A wretch sprung from the very dregs of all his former eloquence; with pathos and the rabble, thus trampling under his feet the earnestness he reminded them of the toils dignity of the proudest Neapolitan nobles." and dangers he had undergone for their Even while they yet spoke Genovino and sakes, the great deliverance and the invaluArpaja entered with heavy complaints able benefits he had procured for them, against Masaniello, who had, that very which they had just seen confirmed in the morning caned one of them, and given a very church where he, their deliverer, now slap on the face to the other. They as- appealed to them for succor. serted that many of the chief citizens were As his discourse became more vehement, so terrified at the extravagances of Masa- the lucid interval quickly terminated; the niello, that if the viceroy would only con- excitement he labored under brought on firm the privileges he had obtained for one of his raving fits, and he began to conthem, they desired nothing better than to demn himself for the badness of his past return to their allegiance to his excellency, life, and exhorted every one present to and to take away the office of captain-gene-"make the like confession to their ghostly ral of the people from Masaniello. The father, that so God's anger might be apDuke of Arcos was overjoyed to find his peased." He then ran on into many riditreachery so far successful that the people were brought into the very disposition he could wish, as it appeared, too, by Masaniello's own act; he immediately published a new ban re-confirming the capitulation; and Masaniello was, in a public meeting of the citizens, deposed from all his offices and condemned to be confined in a stronghold for the rest of his days. Notwithstanding the many outrages he had committed, no one could find it in their hearts to consent to the death of one who had restored liberty to his country. But the viceroy could not feel himself in safety while breath remained in the wretched body which he had deprived of mind. He therefore eagerly accepted the proposal of Michael Angelo Ardizzone, who offered to make away with him at the hazard of his own life. He promised him lavish rewards and unbounded favor, and urged him to immediate action.

The last scene of the fisherman's strange career now approaches. It was the festival of our Lady of Carmine, and the church of that name was filled with an infinite number of persons waiting for the arrival of the archbishop to begin the singing of the mass. The moment he appeared Masaniello rushed forward and made a passionate address to him of mingled complaint and resignation, concluding with a request that he would send a letter for him to the viceroy. Soothing the poor lunatic with his accustomed gentleness, the archbishop instantly sent

culous and extravagant expressions, some of which even savored of heresy! Upon this the archbishop thought it time to interfere, and commanded his assistants to force him out of the pulpit, and to consign him to the care of the monks in the adjoining convent. He had not been long in this asylum when the assassins employed by the viceroy found an entrance, inquiring loudly for Masaniello. As soon as the victim heard his name pronounced, he hastened to meet his murderers, exclaiming, "Is it me you look for, my people? Behold, I am here." The only answer he received was four musket shots, fired upon him at the the same time. He instantly fell dead, only uttering the words "Ungrateful traitors!" as he breathed his last. Salvator Cataneo, one of the four assassins, cut off his head and fixed it on a spear. Thus it was carried through the streets of Naples, the murderers crying out loudly as they went along, "Masaniello is dead! Masaniello is dead! Let the King of Spain live, and let nobody presume hereafter to name Masaniello." The cowardly rabble, who were at that very moment collected in the church and market-place to the number of eight or ten thousand, made no attempt to avenge the death of their benefactor; nor was any opposition offered or murmur uttered when his head, after being carried in procession through the city, was thrown into a ditch called the Corn Ditch. His

lana.

Thus ended the unexampled career of Masaniello of Amalfi. Neither ancient nor modern history can furnish any parallel to the brief brilliance of his sudden success.

body also, after being dragged through all | bells of Naples rung a mournful peal, and the kennels of Naples, was thrown into an- passionate lamentations were uttered by the other town ditch, lying without Porta No- surrounding multitude. An old writer quaintly observes, that, "by an unequalled In the meantime, the nobility were hur-popular inconstancy, Masaniello, in less rying in crowds to congratulate the viceroy than three days was obeyed like a monarch, on the death of their mutual enemy. Their murdered like a villain, and revered like a extravagant demonstrations of joy at being saint." rid of Masaniello evidenced how much they dreaded his power. The Duke of Arcos manifested his pious sense of the great deliverance by going in procession with the chief officers and magistrates of the king-" Trampling barefoot on a throne, and dom to the church of Carmine, to return God thanks for the cowardly act of hired murderers. The head and blood of San Gennaro were both exposed to view, to grace the joyful solemnity. At the same time, the confirmation of the articles sworn to the Saturday before, was proclaimed by sound of trumpet in the market-place, amid the loud acclamations of the credulous populace. They soon, however, learned, by the publication of the printed treaty, how futile was their confidence in the justice to be rendered them when their protector was withdrawn. By the aid of Julio Genovino's treachery, a salvo had been inserted into the 14th article, of a tenor to make all the rest null and void, and the Neapolitans, reduced to the same state of oppression as before, were compelled to begin over again the desperate struggle against Spanish tyranny.

wearing a mariner's cap instead of a diadem, in the space of four days he raised an army of one hundred and fifty thousand men, and made himself master of one of the most populous cities in the world; of Naples, the metropolis of so many fair provinces, the mother and the nurse of so many illustrious princes and renowned heroes. His orders were without reply, his decrees without appeal, and the destiny of all Naples might be said to depend upon a single motion of his hand." The qualifications that raised Masaniello to such a height of power, are variously stated by various authors, according to their nation and their prejudices, but the actions he performed are incontrovertible proofs of eminent abilities. Cardinal Filomarino was probably the person amongst his contemporaries best qualified to judge of Masaniello's mental capacity; he professed himself often astonished at the solidity of the fisherman's judgment, and the subtlety of his contrivances. One fact alone, his dictating to seven secretaries at the same time, gives evidence of rare command of intellect in a statesman of six days' expe

In the meantime, one of those quick transitions common in all popular demonstrations, had taken place among the volatile Neapolitans. The day following his death, the head and body of Masaniello were looked out and joined together by a few amongst his more adventurous and de-rience. voted followers, and an exhibition of them In summing up a character, ever destinin the church of Carmine excited violent ed to remain in some degree a mystery to feelings of sorrow and repentance. The posterity, a high place should be allotted to corpse was carried through the most public streets of the city, with all the solemnities commonly used at the funeral of a martial commander. It was preceded by five hundred monks, and followed by forty thousand men-in-arms, and almost as many women, with beads in their hands. As the procession passed the palace of the viceroy, he readily conformed to the times, and sent eight pages with torches in their hands to From the harmony existing between his accompany the corpse; the Spaniards on mental and moral qualities, it may be fairly guard were also ordered to lower their en- inferred that a character of otherwise apsigns, and to salute it as it was carried by. parent completeness, could not have been At last it was brought back to the cathe-deficient in the strength requisite to supdral church, and there buried, while all the port the elevation attained by its own un

the moral qualities displayed by Masaniello under circumstances of strong excitement and extraordinary temptation. So strict was his justice, that amongst the numerous deaths inflicted by his orders, not one suffered who did not deserve it; so noble his disinterestedness, that in the midst of glittering piles of wealth, he remained as poor as in his original condition.

aided efforts. The metaphysical student of human nature will find it far easier to believe in a physical cause for Masaniello's

sudden derangement. There are some discrepancies, some inconsistencies, not possible even to our fallen humanity.

From the Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review.

EDUCATION OF IDIOTS-THE BICETRE ASYLUM.

1. The Construction and Government of Lunatic Asylums and Hospitals for the Insane. By John Conolly, M.D., F.R.C.P.L., and Physician to the Middlesex Lunatic Asylum at Hanwell. With Plans. London: John Churchill, Princes Street, Soho. 1847. 2. A Letter to Robert Greene Bradley, Esq., Chairman of the Committee of Visiting Justices to the Lancaster Lunatic Asylum, on the Condition of the Insane Poor in the County of Lancaster, not resident in Asylums. By Samuel Gaskell, F.R.C.S., Lancaster printed by W. Newton, Cheapside. 1847.

OUR object is to call attention to the recent | a person being an innocent almost certainly movement in favor of that large and unfor- insures for him the kind treatment of his tunate class of human beings, known as neighbors. imbeciles and idiots; and to diffuse a In England, upon nearly every other knowledge of the measures successfully mental or bodily ill has due attention been practised on the Continent, for the im- bestowed. The deaf, the dumb, the blind, provement of their condition. We need have We need have their appropriate institutions and not stop to inquire whether this movement asylums, where they are successfully treatoriginated in England or in France: it is ed according to their several necessities, sufficient for our purpose to know that it and are thus enabled to assume a certain has been practically and most satisfactorily position in society. But with the more undemonstrated, that no member of the great fortunate members of the human family, human family, however low in the scale of whose cause we are now advocating, the intelligence he may be placed by reason of case is very different. With the single deficient mental organization, is any longer exception, we believe, of an establishment to be considered incapable of improvement, at Bath, opened during the past year, by a either mentally or morally. few charitable ladies, the idiotic and imbecile portion of the community have hitherto had no asylum devoted to their reception and education; and the utmost that appears to have been done by way of ameliorating their circumstances, to adopt the words of Dr. Conolly in reference to incurable insane patients, is, that since "they are reduced to the condition of children, they are now treated as children, fed as children, kept clean like children, put into bed like children; they are only not punished like children; but are guarded by night and by day from danger, violence, or neglect, until their poor remains of life can be husbanded no longer."

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It is a melancholy fact, that in most civilized lands idiots have been too long looked upon as beings devoid of understanding and heart," and as such "shunned with loathing and aversion-shut out from all social relations-regarded as mere animals denied the holy fire of intelligence, and exposed to physical treatment worse than the lowest of the brute creation;" but in other regions, in those for example, where the precepts of Mahomet are received as the rule of faith," those on whom nature has forgot to smile," are treated with a much greater degree of kindness than in many whose inhabitants "profess and call themselves Christians." It must however be observed, that popular sympathy is enlisted in their favor in districts where the number of idiots is largest in proportion to that of the general population; and, as in Scotland and Ireland, so among the peasantry of some parts of the Continent, the fact of

This neglect may perhaps be traced to three principal causes. 1. The comparatively unobtrusive character of this form of mental disease, so different from many of the modes in which decided insanity manifests itself, and which, from their violence, imperatively demand the prompt interposi

tion of the most active and energetic measures. 2. Ignorance of the number of these helpless creatures, existing uncared for and unknown, except by parties more immediately connected with them by ties of relationship or otherwise. And, 3. An idea that by no system of tuition could these hapless beings be rescued from their apparently irremediable condition. And this latter idea may probably have led to the little notice bestowed upon the idiotic and imbecile, even by those who have been the most active in their endeavors to secure the proper treatment of those cases of mental alienation for which our lunatic asylums are provided.

The praiseworthy efforts of Mr. Gaskell to obtain something like an approximation to the comparative numbers of the insane and the mentally deficient, in the county of Lancaster, have elicited some most unexpected results. This gentleman, desirous of gaining information as to "the proportion which the idiotic and imbecile bear to the whole number who are returned as lunatics needing hospital accommodation," addressed a letter to the medical officer of each poor-law union in the county of Lancaster, amounting in number to 139, requesting to be informed, "how many of the pauper insane under his charge are persons who have been attacked with insanity, and how many are congenital idiots?" The following is the gross result of replies from 133 unions.

Attacked with insanity
Mentally deficient from birth

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Of these 503, congenitally affected,
there are, idiots
Imbeciles.

185

503

688

198

305

503

Mr. Gaskell subsequently takes the number of idiotic and imbecile persons in the county of Lancaster at 550, which is probably near the truth, and asks, "What ought now to be done with them?" This question is one of the highest importance, especially when entertained in reference to the whole number of imbeciles in this country; for, although we have at present no means of ascertaining with precision the total number of persons thus afflicted in the United Kingdom, the number must necessarily be large, if we may take the county of Lancaster as our guide in the calculation. The question is, we think, well answered in the interesting details of the mode of treatment adopted in Salpêtrière and Bicêtre Asylums in Paris, originally published by Dr. Conolly in the pages of the "British and Foreign Medical Review," and reprinted in the appendix to the volume whose title stands at the head of this paper; and more fully in a letter from Paris to Mr. S. G. Howe, of Boston, Massachusetts, dated February 1, 1847, hereafter to be referred to.

Dr. Conolly thus describes his visit to the Biçêtre :

"The first part of the Biçêtre to which I was conducted was a school exclusively established for the improvement of the idiotic and of the epileptic, and nothing more extraordinary can well be imagined. No fewer than forty of these patients

were assembled in a moderate sized school-room, receiving various lessons and performing various evolutions under the direction of a very able schoolmaster, M. Seguin, himself a pupil of the celebrated Itard, and endowed with that enthusiasm respecting his occupation before which difficulties vanish. His pupils had been all taught to sing to music, and the little band of violins and other instruments by which they were accompanied, was formed of the old almsmen of the hospital. But all the idiotic part of this remarkable class also sang without any musical accompaniment, and kept excellent time and tune. They sang several compositions, and among others a very pretty song, written for them by M. Bat"As respects this result," says Mr. Gaskell, telle, and sung by them on entering the class"I think it right to state, that although from the room. Both the epileptic and idiotic first I imagined a large majority of the idiotic and taught to write, and their copy-books would imbecile class would be discovered, yet the have done credit to any writing school for young amount here stated far exceeds any anticipations persons. Numerous exercises were gone through, I had formed. It is worthy of remark, also, that of a kind of military character, with perfect corthis number, large as it is, does not in all proba-rectness and precision. The youngest of the class bility represent this body of persons in its full was a little idiot boy of five years old, and it was magnitude. For when we take into considera-interesting to see him following the rest, and imition the circumstance that the whole of the idiotic are less likely to come under the observation of medical officers, than those attacked with insanity, it is probable that some of the former class may be omitted in these returns."-p. 5.

were

tating their actions, holding out his right arm, left arm, both arms, marching to the right and left at the word of command, and to the sound of a drum beaten with all the lively skill of a French drummer by another idiot, who was gratified by

wearing a demi-military uniform. All these ex- organization. These details we give in exercises were gone through by a collection of beings tenso, believing that they cannot be too offering the smallest degree of intellectual pro- widely known, in connexion with a more mise, and usually left, in all asylums, in total in-minute account of the peculiar mode of indolence and apathy."-p. 158. struction pursued at the Biçêtre, which will Dr. Conolly's testimony as to the greatly form a valuable pendant to Dr. Conolly's improved condition of these poor creatures, description of the happy effects resulting induced by this wisely framed and kindly from the adoption of the system. administered system of moral and educa"To M. Voisin, one of the physicians of the tional training, is fully confirme y Mr. Bicêtre, the honor seems chiefly, if not wholly George Sumner, a gentleman residing in due, of having attracted attention to the various characters of idiots, and their various capacities, Paris, who, in a letter to Dr. Howe, of with a view to cultivating, with precise views, Boston, Massachusetts, gives some exceed- even the fragmentary faculties existing in them. ingly interesting details as to the method His work, entitled De l'Idiote chez les Enfants,' of education pursued at the Biçêtre. Dr. abounds with remarks calculated to rescue the Howe was a member of the Commission ap-most infirm minds from neglect, and to encourage pointed in 1846, "To inquire into the con- culture in cases before given up to despair. Fourdition of the idiots of the commonwealth of his opinions; and they have had the sanction teen years' experience has confirmed the soundness (of Massachusetts), to ascertain their num- of MM. Ferrus, Falret, and Leuret, physicians of ber, and whether anything can be done for the highest distinction in the department of mental their relief;" and the letter was elicited disorders. M. Ferrus, who is the President of the from Mr. Sumner by inquiries made in pur- Academy of Medicine, and Inspector-General of suance of a request that the Commission would procure evidence of what steps were being taken in Europe to improve the moral and mental condition of idiots. Mr. Sum

ner says:

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the Lunatic Asylums of France, was, indeed, the first to occupy himself, so long ago as in 1828, with the condition of idiots at the Bicêtre, of which hospital he was the chief physician. He organized a school for them, caused them to be taught habits of order and industry, and to be instructed in reading, writing, arithmetic, and gymnastic exercises. M. Voisin's first publication on the subject appeared in 1830. The efforts of M. Falret, at the Salpêtrière, for the instruction of the insane, already spoken of, began in 1831, by the establishment of a school in that establishment for idiotic females. Nine years later, MM. Voisin and Leuret, as physicians to the Bicêtre, organized a system of instruction and education on a greater scale. These benevolent and successful efforts deserve to be remembered, as they no doubt prepared the way for the systematic attempt since made at the Biçêtre, where M. Seguin is enabled to apply to practice principles of tuition long recognized as regards the deaf and dumb, but only beginning to be acknowledged as respects those unfortunate beings whose mental faculties are congenitally imperfect in all the various degrees classed under the term idiotcy. In this application the master has to educate the muscular system and the sensorial apparatus, as well as the intellectual faculties, or rather the intellectual faculties through them, as a preliminary: doing, in fact, for them by art, by instruction, by rousing imitation, what nature does for healthier infant organizations. The healthy infant is placed in a world calculated to exercise its senses, and to evoke and perfect all its

During the past six months I have watched, with eager interest, the progress which many young idiots have made, in Paris, under the direction of M. Seguin, and at Bicêtre under that of Messrs. Voisin and Vallée, and have seen, with no less gratification than astonishment, nearly one hundred fellow-beings who, but a short time since, were shut out from all communion with mankind, who were objects of loathing and disgust,-many of whom rejected every article of clothing,-others of whom, unable to stand erect, crouched themselves in corners, and gave signs of life only by piteous howls, others, in whom the faculty of speech had never been developed, and many, whose voracious and indiscriminate gluttony satisfied itself with whatever they could lay hands upon, with the garbage thrown to swine, or with their own excrements;-these unfortunate beings -the rejected of humanity, I have seen properly clad, standing erect, walking, speaking, eating in an orderly manner at a common table, working quietly as carpenters and farmers; gaining, by their own labor, the means of existence; storing their awakened intelligence by reading one to another; exercising towards their teachers and among themselves the generous feelings of man's nature, and singing in unison songs of thanksgiv-muscular powers, and, to a certain extent, its inteling."

We naturally ask, How have these results been effected? To Dr. Conolly we are indebted for the following details of the rise and progress of the mode of instruction so successfully practised in France, in the case of persons with imperfect intellectual

lectual faculties. The imperfect or idiotic infant is in the same world, but its senses are, to a great extent, closed to these natural influences, and its Powers of muscular motion are incomplete; its intellectual faculties are not evoked by any means whatever. The attention is vague, the memory feeble, the imagination futile, comparison is most limited, judgment most imperfect, and all the af

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