The clerk tells me that there is now, and has been for three years, an
American lady in the Liverpool almshouse, in a state of insanity. She is
very accomplished, especially in music; but in all this time it has been
impossible to find out who she is, or anything about her connections or
previous life. She calls herself Jenny Lind, and as for any other name
or identity she keeps her own secret.
September 14th.--It appears that Mr. ------ (the insane young gentleman)
being unable to pay his bill at the inn where he was latterly staying,
the landlord had taken possession of his luggage, and satisfied himself
in that way. My clerk, at my request, has taken his watch out of pawn.
It proves to be not a very good one, though doubtless worth more than
five pounds, for which it was pledged. The Governor of the Lunatic
Asylum wrote me yesterday, stating that the patient was in want of a
change of clothes, and that, according to his own account, he had left
his luggage at the American Hotel. After office-hours, I took a cab, and
set out with my clerk, to pay a visit to the Asylum, taking the American
Hotel in our way.
The American Hotel is a small house, not at all such a one as American
travellers of any pretension would think of stopping at, but still very
respectable, cleanly, and with a neat sitting-room, where the guests
might assemble, after the American fashion. We asked for the landlady,
and anon down she came, a round, rosy, comfortable-looking English dame
of fifty or thereabouts.
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