trusts. Their character was thus defined in
one of the reports of the Metropolitan
Commissioners in Lunacy:—"These hospitals differ
materially from other hospitals for the sick
in this respect, that although most of them
derive some portion of their income from a
charitable foundation, the patients admitted
into them invariably pay the greater part,
and sometimes the whole of the expense of
their own maintenance, and medical attendance."
Out of the same reports we learn that
there are thirteen institutions of this nature.
Bethlehem hospital, and one or two asylums
for insane soldiers and sailors, not being
within the jurisdiction of the Commissioners
in Lunacy, are not included in this estimate.

On the first of January, 1850, these thirteen
institutions afforded accommodation for eight
hundred and sixty-five private patients, some
little space being reserved for pauper cases.
There were also three thousand seven
hundred and seventy-four private patients under
"appropriate superintendence"; out of which
number seventy per cent. were under the care
of persons who look upon their reception as a
means of livelihood.

Possibly they may be better cared for in
some of these licensed houses than in the
lunatic hospitals themselves. The hospitals
are not all in a satisfactory condition. Of
the thirteen institutions named in the report
we have cited, five admitted paupers among
other patients; six or seven were not able to
find room for more than fifty private cases.
We doubt much whether any hospital on a
small scale, containing fewer than about a
hundred inmates, could possess the finances
requisite for maintaining grounds and other
requirements of a lunatic community on a
sufficient scale. Again, while some of these
hospitals have admirable sites, there are others
situated in the midst of towns, where the
patients are either to be screened from
observation by high prison-like walls, or to be
overlooked from the windows of adjacent
houses. No natural sky-line can cheat the
disturbed imagination with a sense of liberty,
and still less is there the solace to the mind
of an extensive or a cheerful prospect.
Furthermore, we feel by no means convinced
of the wisdom with which funds are
managed in some of these hospitals. In walking
over one of them we asked why the
walls of the galleries, and of some of the
day-rooms were so dingy, when a very trifling
outlay upon paper-hanging, paint, or even
simple whitewash, would have converted the
gloom into comfort. We then learnt that
the money paid on account of lunatic patients
in that institution was not all spent in
providing for their maintenance; but that every
shilling that could be saved out of its
expenses was paid over to the Treasurer of an
adjacent General Infirmary, for the support
of which institution the lunatics were
deprived of a considerable portion of their
dues.

The public has, of late years, ceased to
regard a lunatic hospital as a scene

"Of horrid shapes, and shrieks and sights unholy."

The governors of Bethlehem represent the
improved knowledge and feeling of society
when they draw a veil over the hideous
sculptures of Cibber, which used to keep
watch over their gate, caricaturing madness.
Too many of us in this country have to watch
with affectionate solicitude the wanderings of
a mind that has been one with ours in love—
the anxious search for a fit place of repose
and cure occurs at times within the sphere of
every man's acquaintance. The search is now
too difficult.

We have seen that, on the 1st of January,
1850, there were three thousand seven
hundred and seventy-four members of families
who could afford to pay for due assistance
placed under appropriate superintendence.
Of this number, not more than thirty per
cent.—in exact numbers one thousand and
ninety seven—were residing in county asylums
and lunatic hospitals. The remaining two
thousand six hundred and seventy-seven
were, therefore, being lodged in licensed
houses. Of these licensed houses, therefore,
it remains for us to speak.

Places of safe custody for lunatics being
quite indispensable, and such places not being
provided otherwise for seventy per cent. of
the whole number, it has become a matter of
necessity that private houses should be open
for their reception, and that private persons,
physicians or others, should endeavour to
meet the demand that exists for people
competent to watch over the insane. If the
keeping of such licensed houses has become
one of the private modes of earning a livelihood
in England, we must by no means say
that, as a mode of earning bread, it is an
improper trading in affliction. Like most
other occupations, it supplies a pressing want,
in the only way and the best way that is at
present practicable. The better the men who
engage in it, the more efficiently will the
want of the public be supplied; and among
the keepers of these licensed houses, there
are most certainly persons of high principle
and noble purpose, who devote themselves to
their charge in the true spirit of men who
labour in their sphere to increase the well-
being of society. The system, however, of
licensing private houses for the care of the
insane, is but an inefficient substitute for that
which alone can ensure a due provision for
their wants. We quote the opinion of the
highest living authority upon these matters,
when we say, "that all persons of unsound
mind should become the care of the state;
and should continue so until recovery." And
"that every lunatic asylum should be the
property of the state, and be controlled by
public officers." We quote these suggestions
from Doctor Conolly's work on "The Indications
of Insanity," published in 1830. Since