A considerable number of the inmates are, as has been intimated, usefully employed. Thus, during the year, 167 men and women were occupied in one way or other, in addition to reading and writing, music, etc. Eighty-six were employed in making and repairing clothing for patients, and bed and house linen for patients and attendants; 144 in cleaning the wards; 40 in the garden and on the farm; 29 in the laundry; 26 in making or repairing uniform clothing, boots and shoes, etc.; 17 in making and repairing furniture, mattresses, mats, carpets, etc. I went into one room where there was a printing-press, and a printer handed me the printed programme of a concert shortly to be held in the asylum. The total value of the labour of patients alone amounted, in 1881, to £2835.
In the carrying out of a system of labour so beneficial to the patient, and so useful to the institution, relaxation and amusement are not forgotten. The patients play at chess, draughts, billiards, bagatelle, etc.; and out-of-door games comprise bowls, cricket, and croquet. There is a library well supplied with papers and journals; and one patient was pointed out who himself contributes to a magazine. There is a band which includes seventeen patients, as well as some attendants, and enlivens the inmates twice in the course of the week.
This sounds very pleasant, but honesty requires us to give the other side of the picture, as portrayed in the words of Mr. Burt, the chaplain; and perhaps nothing serves better to show how much credit is due to the superintendent for the admirable management of an institution containing such elements as these. He said (some years ago) that although he had laboured in asylums and prisons for a long period, it had never fallen to his lot before to witness depravity and unhappiness in such aggravated forms. "In other asylums, when the mind resumes anything like healthy action, there is hope of discharge; in prisons, the period of detention, however long, has some definite duration; but here the fear of relapse, and the terrible acts to which relapse may lead, render the condition of release rarely attainable; for many the period of detention is indefinite, and hope is almost excluded. In prison, whatever may be the depravity, it is kept under some restraint by reason and by fear of consequences; but here there are patients with passions depraved to the utmost, upon whom neither reason, nor shame, nor fear impose any restraint."