There is a hardness of heart in some men which
those who have it not find it difficult to understand. Dr. Byrne, a visitor to Flush- ing, Cornwall, heard rumours of cruelty in the place, and obtained authority from the Home Secretary to make a search on a mason's premises. He found, on entering the out-house, built apparently for concealment, an imbecile man, "more resembling a baboon than a human being," steak naked, crouched up on a bed- stead with only bare pieces of wood, six inches apart, to lie on. He had been confined there by his brother for upwards of twenty years. The place was one mass of filth, the victim's joints were stiff from sitting in one position, and the knees had been drawn up perma- nently till they almost touched the chin. The cause for the cruelty was not even lunacy, the man being a harmless imbecile, "with a most mild, benevolent expression of countenance." The brother, a mason named Porter, who is responsible for this frightful cruelty, a cruelty which in its persistence is almost without example, is to be prosecuted by the Crown. The strangest fact connected with the case is that the neighbours constantly heard cries and moans proceeding from the out-house, and never interfered, though when Dr. Byrne had liberated the man they showed plenty of feeling. .
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