Could a properly-organized system of supervision and control be established, the disposal of poor insane persons in the homes of the industrious classes would not be open to the objections it is at present, when no adequate legal provision to ensure their inspection and welfare is in existence. Indeed, it would be an improvement and blessing to many of the chronic lunatics in our great asylums, could they so far be set at liberty, and have their original independence restored to them by a distribution in the cottage-homes of our country, where, under sufficient control, they could exercise useful employments, and relieve the rates of part of their cost. We have used the term 'cottage-homes' advisedly, because it is evident, that, except in very small towns, a town-residence would be most unsuitable.
The example of the great colony of insane persons at Gheel, in Belgium, has suggested this plan of boarding lunatics in the homes of the working classes, chiefly of agriculturists, to the minds of many English philanthropists desirous to ameliorate the condition of our pauper insane, and to lessen the large costs of asylum provision. The only attempt, however, as far as we are aware, partaking at all of the conditions calculated to render such a scheme satisfactory and successful, hitherto made, is that on a small scale at the Devon Asylum under the direction of Dr. Bucknill, and we are happy to find from this gentleman's Report that the arrangement has hitherto worked well.
We shall return to this subject in a subsequent section,--"On the distribution of the chronic insane in cottage-homes."
§ _Transmission of unfit Cases to Asylums--improper Treatment prior to Admission._
In preceding pages it has been remarked that the transfer of lunatics to asylums is regulated not by the nature of their case, and its amenability to treatment or amelioration, but by the circumstance of their being refractory and troublesome, annoying by their habits, or so infirm and sick as to require attentive nursing; or, in general, in such a state that their residence involves an increased and unworkhouse-like cost. The question of the recency of the attack is treated as of far less moment; for if the poor sufferer have what are called harmless delusions, or if he is only so melancholic that suicide is not constantly apprehended, then under these and such similar conditions, the economical theory of the establishment commonly preponderates over every consideration of the desirability of treatment in the presumedly expensive asylum, and the patient is retained. In course of time his malady becomes chronic, and in all probability incurable, and his condition so deteriorated in all respects by the absence of proper measures for his mental and moral treatment, that sooner or later his physical health gives way, or his habits grow inconveniently annoying and troublesome, and then it is that workhouse officials discover that the County Asylum is his suitable abode.