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(Ttbwuamy.: 1, 1995
FRY by John Ryan Seawright
Labor and Lunacy in Old Atlanta:
Jim and Ben Osborne. — Part 10.
Ben Osborne had been found not guilty
of the murder of Theodore Schrader by
reason of insanity and sent to state lunatic
asylum in Milledgeville in November
1896. After several months, the doctors
found him in complete possession of his
faculties, but hesitated to release him
because of his history of recurrent bouts of
insanity. Osborne grew impatient and
angry with Dr. T. O. Powell, principal
keeper of the asylum, and told his father
that he would escape and flee the country
if he were not released within a year.
On the night of Jan. 4,1898, a
masquerade ball
was held at the
asylum. Dr.
Powell encour
aged weekly
dances for male
and female
inmates who
were not
considered
dangerous, and
once a year a
more elaborate
entertainment
was held. The
dances attracted
much attention
and were often
pointed to as
evidence of Dr. .
Powell’s humane
and enlightened
administration.
Shortly before
Osborne’s
admission to the asylum, Governor W. Y.
Atkinson had attended one of these
soirees.
The masquerade was held in the
auditorium of the women’s building.
Shortly before midnight Osborne said he
wanted to return to his room, and two
attendants were detailed to escort him,
apparently with some physical restraint.
When the three men had left the building,
Osborne wrenched himself loose and
pulled a pistol, which he fired twice at the
attendants before running toward the main
asylum building. At that moment Dr.
Powell was returning to his apartment in
the main building. He heard the shots, saw
the figure coming towards him, and
positioned himself to intercept him. As
Osborne passed within a few feet of Powell
he fired two shots at the doctor, one of
which passed through his coat. Osborne
did not pause, but kept running for the
asylum gare and freedom.
The alarm was raised throughout the
state and authorities went on alert in the
counties adjoining Milledgeville, through
out Atlanta, and in Towns and Troup
counties, where Osborne had relatives.
Osborne’s cell was searched and a home
made rope found hidden. There were no
clues as to how he had gotten the pistol or
why he had not made his escape less
dramatically with the rope.
The day after the escape the Consrimrion
printed a remarkable letter from Ben
Osborne which he had mailed from the
asylum a few hours before his escape. Part of
the letter, titled “A Voice from the Insane
Asylum,” had been composed in November,
and part in late December. The letter
denounced Dr. Powell as a sadistic charla
tan who presided over a living hell where
patients were starved, tortured and mur
dered at taxpayers’ expense:
If a patient becomes extraordinarily
crazy and hits an attendant or the doctor a
towel is placed around his neck and he is
choked to death,
or “shut off,” as
they call it. The
cause of his death
is reported as a
severe attack of
“convulsion” or
“suicide.” Some
when they arrive
are not very crazy,
but a few weeks of
the above treat
ment under the
most “scientific
physicians” suffice
to render him an
incurable ma
niac.... Life in the
asylum, as it is
conducted in
Georgia, is worse
than death, and :n
closing I wish to
entreat the gooc
people of the state
to never commit any of their loved ones to
such a place as this....
Osborne’s letter continued passionately
articulate till nearly the end when he wrote
of his blighted hopes of becoming one of
the world’s great orators. He compared
himself with Jonathan Swift and John C.
Calhoun and said that he had become a
Theosophist and intended “to shuffle off
this cognomen and physiognomy which has
from its infancy borne the brunt of sorrow
and misfortune and take on one similar to
some of the great men of ancient times.”
Osborne’s charges prompted several
letters in the state press in support of Dr.
Powell, one from a former inmate of the
asylum, one from a patient still under
treatment there, one from a physician
friend of Powell’s, and one from an Ala
bama doctor who said that anyone who
thought mistreatment went on in an asylum
was obviously profoundly insane. The only
newspaper to give any credence to
Osborne’s charges was, predictably,
Atlanta’s iconoclastic Looking Glass,
wherein Orth Stein wrote, "The allegations
of cruelty may or may not be true, but they
do not read like fabrications. They ought to
be thoroughly investigated but under
present political conditions one might as
well wish for the moon.”
. Concluded Next Week.
© 1995, John Ryan Seawright
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