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2d Session. S

No. 58.

REMOVAL OF OBSTRUCTIONS IN THE HARLEM AND EAST RIVERS.

JOINT RESOLUTIONS

OF

THE LEGISLATURE OF NEW YORK,

FOR THE

Completion of the removal of obstructions in the Harlem and East Rivers.

FEBRUARY 1, 1875.- Referred to the Committee on Commerce and ordered to be printed.

STATE OF NEW YORK. IN ASSEMBLY,

Albany, January 25, 1875.

On motion of Mr. Hess: Whereas the work heretofore carried on to remove the obstructions in the East and Harlem Rivers at Hell Gate, in the city of New York, has been retarded and delayed; and

Whereas said obstructions are a serious detriment to the safe navigation of the Harlem and East Rivers, and a great drawback to the commerce of the city of New York: Therefore,

Resolved, (if the senate concur,) That the Congress of the United States be respectfully requested to make such appropriations of the public moneys as may, from time to time, be necessary for the speedy completion of the work of removing the obstructions of Harlem and East Rivers, in the State of New York, and that the proper authorities be directed to vigorously prosecute the same.

Resolved, That a copy of the foregoing resolutions be forwarded to the Senators and Representatives in Congress from this State. By order.

Concurred in without amendment.
By order.

HIRAM CALKINS, Clerk.

IN SENATE, January 26, 1875.

H. A. GLIDDEN, Clerk.

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POSTAL RIGHTS OF INMATES OF INSANE ASYLUMS.

MEMORIAL

IN SUPPORT OF

THE BILL FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE POSTAL RIGHTS OF THE INMATES OF INSANE ASYLUMS.

FEBRUARY 1, 1875.-Referred to the Committee on the Post-Office and Post-Roads and ordered to be printed.

Mr. Chairman and Honorable Gentlemen of the Postal Committee:

As men of intelligence, you cannot be ignorant of the fact that these humanitarian institutions are sometimes perverted from their avowed use as curative homes for the insane, and are sometimes made horrible prisons, where the innocent sane victims of cupidity and malice are hidden, where they are rendered almost as powerless to thwart base designs as if they were in their graves. And you are also aware that the public confidence in these institutions is sometimes shaken by reports of abuse and outrage inflicted upon the inmates while confined in these institutions, and as there now exist no specific and definite means of substantiating the validity of these reports, the innocent are liable to suffer and the guilty to be exonerated, until an adequate remedy is found for existing evils.

And, gentlemen, the governments of England, Belgium, and Germany have long since applied the remedy which this bill proposes to their insane asylums, and they have found it appropriate and adequate to meet the evils which an autocratic power almost invariably generates. And to a limited extent their noble example has been followed by the American Republic, in the State of Iowa, by a bill approved April 23, 1872; in Maine March 4, 1874; in Massachusetts June 25, 1874; in Connecticut July 1, 1873; and New Hampshire July 10, 1874; and this establishment of postal communications between the inmates of their insane asylums and an outside independent board, has been found to be the very key by which these American bastiles have been unlocked and transmuted into republican institutions by holding this before-autocratic power amenable to the laws when abused. And by so doing, they have been simply just to their inmates, by placing them under the protection of the same laws as shield all other citizens; and this board constitutes the link between them and the laws.

Yes, gentlemen; the test of this law for nearly three years in Iowa, and for a lesser time in the other named States, has demonstrated the utility of such a law as a potent remedy for the evils of false imprisonment, unreasonably long detention, and abuse of patients. And since common justice demands that every citizen of the United States should

be under the protection of the laws, and have access to the laws when needed in defense of his rights; and since, under existing laws in most of the States of the Union, there is no direct communication between the inmates of asylums and any responsible party outside, whereby grievances, if any exist, may be redressed; and since the present custom of intrusting the censorship of the letters of the inmates to the officers of the institution renders the mailing of their letters of dissatisfaction or complaint, whether reasonable or unreasonable, exceedingly doubtful; and since it is the acknowledged practice of the officers to burn many of their patients' letters, (as, for example, the superintendent of Brattleborough Asylum, in Vermont, remarked to an official visitor when passing through the asylum, as he pointed to an open-burning grate, "There is our post-office,") there is sad reason to fear that the postal rights of thousands of American citizens have thus been ruthlessly ignored, and will thus continue to be unless the Government do enact laws to secure the postal rights of this unfortunate class of American citizens from evasion; and since the present State boxes have not been found to be sufficiently secure to prevent interference; therefore, we would kindly ask Congress to direct the Postmaster-General to put up post-office boxes upon the insane asylums of such States as desire to place the inmates of their insane asylums under the protection of their laws, and whose legislature pass a bill defining its use, and thereby place the mail-matter of this class of American citizens under the protection of the same laws as those of other citizens.

And we would claim that it is especially due the inmates of insane asylums that their postal rights be protected to them, for the following reasons: A free and unrestricted communication between the inmates of insane ayslums and the outside world through their own body-guard will be a restraint upon the exercise of tyranny, and will be to the in mates of insane asylums what a police force is to a city-a means of preventing crime.

It will afford them an innocent gratification.

It will cultivate their affection for their relatives, which, under the present censorship, is most cruelly shaken, if not destroyed.

It will mitigate their mental torture by allowing it a natural vent, or expression.

As the present censorship is regarded by them as an outrage upon their rights, its removal will help to re-instate in their minds the prin ciple of justice.

It will give their friends a test of their mental condition.

They now have no opportunity for self-defense, and this will afford them this reasonable right.

It might prevent the culmination of evils developed in Illinois, New York, and Vermont by their investigating committees, by affording each case a chance for settlement when the charges were reported.

If the complaints are delusive, it could hurt no one; if true, they could be corrected without public exposure.

Now, the inmates of those insane asylums, who have not their postal rights protected to them, are under an autocratic government entirely. They are outside the pale of justice, and beyond the reach of the laws of the American Republic; even more so than if they were under the control of the autocratic czar of Russia; for there, an American citizen can appeal to an embassador of our Government, if necessary, in defense of his reasonable rights; but from this American autocracy there is no appeal-not even to an embassador of the American Gov

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