Regarding "Getting Into the Spirit" (Oct. 13): while a former mental hospital might be the perfect setting for a pre-Halloween ghoulish overnight, I can't help but think at whose expense. Loved ones of those unlucky enough to have been hospitalized in an institution that was meant to accommodate 250 patients but "housed nearly 10 times that number by the 1950s" might be more haunted by feelings of guilt and remorse than amused by the antics of thrill seekers who strain to hear the voices of former patients. Sadly, as anyone who has ever had to seek emergency mental health care in our country knows, mental hospitals are not theme parks, and patients who inhabit them are more than "a discontented bunch." Cathy Bernard New York City I can't believe how offensive this article is on so many levels: that a hospital has this tour; that someone would go to it; that someone would write about it; and, most offensive, that The New York Times would publish it as leisure. Gloria Prevost Columbia, S.C. The writer is executive director of Protection and Advocacy for People with Disabilities Inc.