4 FOR THE FLAG

an unreasoning being, bereft of that natural instinct which
is present even in the lower animals—even of self-preser-
vation—and he had to be treated like a child. In Pavilion
No. 17, which he occupied in the park of Healthful House,
it was his keeper’s duty to watch him day and night.

Ordinary madness, when it is not incurable, can only be
cured by moral means. Medicine and therapeutics are
impotent, and their inefficacy has long been recognized by
specialists. Were moral means applicable in the case of
Thomas Rech? This was doubtful, even with the peaceful
and healthy-surroundings of Healthful House. The symp-
toms—restlessness, varying moods, irritability, eccentricities
of character, melancholy, apathy, repugnance to either
amusement or serious occupation, were distinctly marked.
No doctor could be mistaken, no treatment promised to
be efficacious in either removing or reducing them.

It has been justly said that madness is an excess of
subjectivity, that is to say, a state in which the mind
devotes itself too much to its interior working, and not
enough to impressions from the outside. In Roch this
indifference was almost absolute. He lived only within
himself, a prey to a fixed idea whose obsession had brought
him to his present state. Would something happen; a
shock which should “exteriorize” him—to employ a
sufficiently exact word? It was improbable, but not
impossible.

Let it now be related under what circumstances Thomas
Roch had left France for the United States, and why the
Federal Government had deemed it prudent and necessary