General Rules


1. Persons employed in the service of the Asylum will learn that

character, proper deportment, and faithfulness to duty, will alone keep

them in the situations in which they are placed; and they should

consider well, before entering upon service, whether they are prepared

to devote all their time, talents, and efforts, in the discharge of the

duties assigned to them. The Institution will deal in strict good faith

with
ts employees, and it will expect, in return, prompt, faithful, and

self-denying service.



2. No one can justly take offense when respectfully informed by the

Superintendent, that his or her temperament is better adapted to some

other employment; and those receiving such information should regard it

as kindly given, that they may have opportunity to avoid the

unpleasantness of being discharged.



3. Those employed at the Asylum be expected to hold themselves in

readiness for duty when directed by its officers; and the neglect of any

labor, or duty, on the ground that laboring hours are over, or to

hesitate, after proper direction, on such pretexts, will be regarded as

evidence against the fitness of the employee for the place he or she may

hold.



4. It must be remembered by all the employees, that their duties are

peculiar and confidential, and that there is an obvious impropriety in

disclosing the names, peculiarities, or acts of the inmates. It should

never be forgotten that the most cruel wounds may, by imprudent

disclosures, be inflicted on those whose conduct and language, during

their misfortune, should be covered with the veil of deepest secrecy.

Conversations, in relation to the Asylum and its inmates, sought by the

idle and mischievous, should be studiously avoided.



5. All persons employed in the Asylum are required to cultivate a calm

and deliberate method of performing their daily duties--carelessness and

precipitation being never more out of place than in an insane asylum.

Loud talking, hurrying up and down stairs, rude forms of address to one

another, and unsightly styles of dress, are wholly misplaced where

everything should be strictly decorous and orderly.



6. In the management of patients, unvarying kindness must be strictly

observed by all. When spoken to, mild, pleasant and persuasive language

must never give place to authoritative expressions of any kind. All

threats, taunts, or other kinds of abuse in language, are expressly

forbidden. A blow, kick, or any other kind of physical abuse, inflicted

on a patient, will be immediately followed by the dismissal of the

person so offending.



7. Employees having charge of patients outside of the wards, whether for

labor or exercise, will be held responsible for their safe return,

unless, by the direction of an officer they shall be transferred to the

charge of some other person; and when patients employed out of doors

become excited, they must be immediately returned to the wards whence

they were taken, and the fact reported at the office.



8. It will be expected of all employed in or about the Asylum, to check,

as far as possible, all conversations or allusions, on the part of

patients, to subjects of an obscene or improper nature, and remove, when

in their power, false impressions on their minds, respecting their

confinement or management; and any person who shall discover a patient

devising plans for escape, suicide, or violence to others, is enjoined

to report it to an officer without delay.



9. The place of duty of those having charge of patients is in the wards,

or in the yards, or in the garden with the patients. During the day and

while the patients are out of their sleeping apartments, they have no

business in their rooms, except for a momentary errand to adjust their

own clothing; and any employee who shall enter his or her room, and

engage in reading, writing, entertaining visitors, or be otherwise off

duty, will be acting in violation of rule.



10. The employees are not permitted to correspond with the friends of

patients; and all letters or packages to, or from, patients, must pass

through the hands of the Superintendent or Assistant Physician. All

making of dresses, working of embroidery, or any mechanism, for the use

of employees, is prohibited, unless by the special permission of the

Superintendent; and no employee of the Institution shall ever make any

bargain with any patient, or his or her friends, or accept of any fee,

reward or gratuity from any patient, or his or her friends, without the

Superintendent's consent.



11. Employees will not be permitted to leave the Asylum without the

consent of the Superintendent or Assistant Physician, and, when allowed

to leave, they will be expected to return by 9 o'clock P. M.--unless

expressly permitted to remain out longer. Before leaving they must hang

up their keys in the place, in the office, provided for that purpose.

Non-residents will not be permitted to remain in the Institution at

night without the knowledge and consent of the Superintendent or

Assistant Physician.



12. No person will be employed in or about the Asylum who is intemperate

in habits, or who engages in gambling or any other immoral or

disreputable practice; and as the patients are not allowed the use of

tobacco, within the Asylum, the employees are expected not to use it, in

any form, in their presence.



13. While employees are not prohibited from occasionally visiting each

other in their wards, it should never become a habit, and the indulgence

is only allowed in view of the spirit of emulation, which may thus be

encouraged by sometimes inspecting each other's sphere of duty. When it

is discovered that the permission is abused, or that visits are being

spent in idle conversation, it will be held as a violation of rule.



14. The two departments of the Institution--male and female--must always

be separate to its employees, and no person, whose post of duty is

exclusively in the one, shall ever be permitted to enter the other,

unless some express or proper occasion shall demand it; and any one who

shall discover, and not disclose, or who shall in any way encourage, an

acquaintance between two patients, of opposite sex, will be held highly

culpable for such misdemeanor, and will be forthwith dismissed from

service.



15. No employee will be permitted to appropriate to his or her use any

article belonging to the Asylum, or purchased for the use of the

patients, however small or comparatively valueless it may be. From the

salary of the person so offending, the cost of the article will be

deducted, and he or she dismissed from service.



More

;