suet pudding, and on the other two days
what was called a meat dinner, the allowance
of meat to each patient being only about one
ounce and a-half. Firing and other necessaries
of life were supplied on the same scale.
Even at this day, there is the utmost need
for the continued vigilance of the Commissioners
in Lunacy.

But we must go back to recover the thread
of our story. While the York Retreat was
demonstrating the excellence of the right
system of treating the insane, the old York
Asylum, which by its misdeeds had brought
the Retreat into existence, was as conspicuous
for the repulsive form which it gave to the
wrong. In the year eighteen hundred and
fifteen, two little works appeared at York.
One of them by Samuel Tuke, explained
instructions for the building of the Wakefield
Pauper Lunatic Asylum, and illustrated his
principles of treatment. "Chains," he said,
in his preface, "which seemed to identify the
madman and the felon, are discarded from
some of the largest establishments; and
maniacs who for many years were manacled
with irons, are on a sudden, under a more
mild and vigilant system of management
found to be gentle and inoffensive. But,
though much has been done—much still
remains to be effected." Of violent patients,
the same public teacher says in his pamphlet,
"the worst patients require most attention,
and are most likely to irritate their attendants.
A distinct, or very remote building,
exposes them to all the evils of neglect and
abuse; and there is, generally speaking, more
to fear for them than from them. The evil
of noise is not so great as those of filth,
starvation, and cruelty. I have no doubt,
however, that it is possible so to construct
rooms as to avoid the annoyance of the many,
and the injury of the few." The founders of
the Retreat believed that the well-being of
an Asylum very much depended on the open
doing of all that was done in it. "The
regulations of an Asylum," says this tract,
"should establish a system of espionage,
terminating in the public. One servant and one
officer should be so placed as to watch over
another. All should be vigilantly observed
by well selected and interested visitors; and
these should be stimulated to attention, by
the greatest facilities being afforded to
persons who, from motives of rational, not idle
curiosity, are desirous of inspecting such
establishments."

When this was written, there was written
by another pen, also for publication at York,
an account of the old York Asylum, reformed
only a few months before, of which the
substance is thus briefly sketched by Dr. Conolly,
in his recent book upon the Treatment of the
Insane. "Secresy had long been the protection
of the officers. The physicians administered
medicines of which the nature was
concealed. Visitors were, as much as possible,
excluded. The committee of managers
were equally arrogant and ignorant. Every
abuse reigned uncontrolled. The poorer
patients were half-starved. There was no
classification within doors, or without.
Cleanliness and ventilation were disregarded.
Numbers of patients were huddled together
in small day rooms. Some slept three in a
bed. The use of chains seems to have been
very general. The actual disappearance of
many patients was never accounted for; and
some were supposed to have been killed. In,
reporting the number of deaths, several—
sometimes a hundred out of three hundred
—were taken from the list of dead, and
placed in the list of cured. A. general
system of dishonesty and peculation prevailed.
The physician was dishonest; the steward
falsified his accounts and burnt his books;
and the matron, a worthy coadjutor, made a
profit on the articles purchased by her for the
use of the house. Pending the inquiry into
these and various other acts of impropriety
and cruelty, an attempt was made, very
consistently, and evidently with the knowledge
of the officers, to destroy the whole building
by fire—books, papers, and patients. To a
certain extent, the design was successful.
Much of the building was consumed, with
most of the books and papers; and several of
the patients—it was never ascertained how
many—perished at the same time. It was
not until eighteen hundred and fourteen, that
the iniquities of this bad place were finally
put a stop to. It was not even until that
year that secret cells were first discovered by
Mr. Godfrey Higgins, one of the most
indefatigable of reformers—cells, many in
number; and, as his report represented "in a
state of filth, horrible beyond description."
The very existence of these cells had been
kept from the knowledge of the committee,
up to that time."

Then began, also, the reform of Bethlem.
Fifteen years later, lunatic asylums were still
places of dread, and it is hard now to conceive
the force that went with the arguments
urged by Dr. Conolly, in an " Inquiry
concerning the Indications of Insanity," when
that, his first work on a subject with which
his name is now indissolubly bound, was
published. It appeared in the year eighteen
hundred and thirty, when its author was the
Professor of Medicine in London University.
Its argument was mainly for the complete
removal of asylums for the insane from the
hands of the private speculator, by placing
them all under the control of the state, and
for the combatting of that grave error which
places in lunatic asylums, men who could
easily and happily be cared for in their families;
many, even, who could be active and
useful members of society, requiring only
some humouring of this or that harmless
delusion. Thus, there is an old, and pretty well
known story of a gentleman of fortune, who
believed Queen Charlotte to be in love with
him. His friends sued for a Commission of