[1][2] A Secret Institution (New York: Bryant Publishing Co.)[3] has the external appearance of a novel, but was intended as a statement of facts concerning the way things were managed in the Utica Lunatic Asylum.

The author, Clarissa Caldwell Lathrop, said that in 1880, at the instance of her mother and sister, she was confined in that establishment and remained there for two years, although she was confident of her sanity during that entire period.

After Lathrop found a way to notify Silkman, he applied for a writ, on which she was taken to Hudson River State Hospital at Poughkeepsie, where her sanity was established and she was freed by Judge George G.

[4] The Catholic World book review of 1891 commented that:[4] Lathrop described some horrible stories, which may or may not be true, concerning atrocities practised upon herself, and known by her to have been inflicted upon others equally helpless.

And it is just here where she unconsciously bears witness against herself, and in favor of the correctness of their impression; for when, without any adequate explanation, she was hurried into a carriage with two policemen, and was driven to the depot to take the train for Utica, she did not appear to have any idea of the seriousness of the situation, or to view with any suspicion the presence of the doctor who accompanied her on the cars.

She was treated with consideration during her restraint; and all her friends and family, including her mother and sisters, concurred in the justness of the certificate of committal, signed by two responsible medical men.

As she was not a dangerous inmate, but, on the contrary, perfectly harmless, and in some measure sane, her release was to be expected, as the two-years' term of incarceration for such patients in the asylum was about to close.