The accounts of the fire which destroyed the Montreal Lunatic
Asylum on Tuesday, call up a picture weird and terrible in the extreme. As soon as the building took fire, large numbers of its inmates jumped from the windows, and filled the grounds with a gibbering mob of naked madmen, who yelled with demoniac glee as the flames which enveloped the vast structure shot into the air. Many of those who were extricated by the firemen broke away from their rescuers and rushed back into the flames, which seemed to exercise upon them a horrible fascination. When an entrance was forced into one of the "departments," an appalling spectacle was witnessed, its occupants being one and all in a condition of raving lunacy. In many cases they attacked the firemen with the utmost ferocity, attempting to hurl them off the ladders into the fire. Not more than fifty lives were lost, but three hundred lunatics are missing, and the neighbourhood is terrified by the knowledge that troops of these infuriated creatures are wandering over the country, or are secreted in outhouses and barns. It is reported also that an epidemic of incendiarism has broken out among them, and that they are firing the farms in all directions.
Previous page
