success.



CHAPTER XX--HE VISITS BEDLAM.--THE DISTRESSES OF A DAUGHTER



Or those things called Sights in London, which every stranger is
supposed desirous to see, Bedlam is one. To that place, therefore,
an acquaintance of Harley's, after having accompanied him to several
other shows, proposed a visit. Harley objected to it, "because,"
said he, "I think it an inhuman practice to expose the greatest
misery with which our nature is afflicted to every idle visitant who
can afford a trifling perquisite to the keeper; especially as it is
a distress which the humane must see, with the painful reflection,
that it is not in their power to alleviate it." He was overpowered,
however, by the solicitations of his friend and the other persons of
the party (amongst whom were several ladies); and they went in a
body to Moorfields.

Their conductor led them first to the dismal mansions of those who
are in the most horrid state of incurable madness. The clanking of
chains, the wildness of their cries, and the imprecations which some
of them uttered, formed a scene inexpressibly shocking. Harley and
his companions, especially the female part of them, begged their
guide to return; he seemed surprised at their uneasiness, and was
with difficulty prevailed on to leave that part of the house without
showing them some others: who, as he expressed it in the phrase of
those that keep wild beasts for show, were much better worth seeing