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WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

CAP. LXXVI.-An Act to amend the Weights and Measures (Ireland) Act, 1860, to abolish local and customary Denominations of Weights, and to regulate the mode of weighing articles sold in Ireland. (7th August, 1862.)

Head and other constables, appointed by the inspector-general of consta bulary, to be ex-officio inspectors of weights and measures. The inspectorgeneral to appoint one officer, in each county or borough, to take custody of imperial standards, who shall also stamp sub-standards. Such inspector to have the power to enter shops to inspect beams, &c. All contracts, bargain, sale, or dealing for corn, grain, pulse, hay, pulses, beef, mutton, &c., or of any quantity of any other commodity not sold by troy weight or by apothe cary's weight, to be sold either by the ounce avoirdupois, by the pound of 16 ounces, the stone of 14 lbs., the quarter-hundred of 28 lbs., the halfhundred of 56 lbs. the cwt. of 112 lbs., or the ton of 20 cwts., and not by any local or customary denomination of weight whatsoever, otherwise such contract to be void. Every article sold by weight to be weighed in full net standing beam. Counterfeiting any brand or stamp used by the owner of a market or sale to denote weights and measures, or counterfeiting the stamp or impression, or having in possession such counterfeited brand, or altering any ticket specifying the weight, or selling any weight or measure with a counterfeited brand, to be misdemeanor, and punished by a penalty not exceeding five pounds.

LUNATIC ASYLUMS, IRELAND.

Eleventh Report of the District, Criminal, and Private Lunatic Asylums in Ireland.

THAT a progressive and marked improvement has steadily taken place in district establishments for the insane is undeniable, both in regard to the comfort and attention bestowed upon their inmates, and the successful treatment adopted in them.

Our present object is simply to state the results of the working of district hospitals for the insane, and in doing so, we can, perhaps, best elucidate the subject by the comparison of them, past and present, with themselves, and with similar institutions elsewhere.

First. Then, as to cures, in regard to which, we venture to say, that Irish asylums have heretofore held a prominent place. The recoveries in them, if we are to judge from official records, being more numerous than have occurred in other countries, no matter how tested-whether by admissions, the daily averages, or the total under treatment, for any definite period. Analysing the returns on these heads for the last nine months, we find the cures proportionally for the time greater than on previous occasions, amounting on 921 admissions to 450, or 49 per cent., and on the daily average (4348) under treatment, to 13.8 per cent. In our last report, the absolute recoveries for the preceding biennial period on admissions appears as 46.71, or 2 under the present; and on the average then under treatment, 14, about the same as now.

Secondly.-Referring to parties discharged as being convalescent, viz., 103, and 40 as uncured, making an aggregate of 143, it would appear that of the total received, (921,) 160 had been through readmissions, but not necessarily of individuals discharged within the nine months. On this point we wish to be as explicit as possible, for if they (the 160) formed part of the 450 already referred to as recovered, there would be reason to question the reality of the cures. These readmissions, however, are, for the most part, made up of cases belonging to more distant periods, and which, after long intervals of health, sometimes of as many as from eight to ten years, were obliged, from the recurrence of insanity, to seek hospital treatment again. Indeed we have reason to believe that no inconsiderable portion, probably a thirteenth or fourteenth of the inmates of the asylums in this country, consists of relapsed patients.

We cannot institute any comparison between Irish asylums and those in England, France, or elsewhere, on the proportion of primary admissions to readmissions, inasmuch as in all other Governmental returns both are grouped without distinction as to their relative numbers under the one heading. With us, each is not only given separately, but the different occasions on which the lunatics may have been previously confined. This system we have adopted as being the most definite and satisfactory in affording information with regard to the liability of relapses in insanity; and, so far as we can form an opinion, fully three-fourths of them would be found immediately referable to dissipation or destitution, particularly if there existed a family predisposition to mental disease.

Thirdly. As to deaths. An English writer of great practical experience, and well versed in the statistics of lunacy, lays it down that a

mortality under 8 per cent. bespeaks a very favourable state of things; if so, Irish asylums are particularly fortunate; for assuming 8 to be represented by 100, the mortality in them would be at the annual rate of 82 on the daily averages, and 70 on the total under treatment. It is a source of regret, that even one among the deaths should be referable to accident or suicide. We have to report four produced by the former, and one from the latter cause; but when it is remembered that 249 were transferred in the nine months just from prison as dangerous to themselves or others, independent of those already in asylum under similar circumstances, and that an aggregate of 5210 of all classes were under treatment, the number of such deaths, (five,) will not be surprising;-still less so, if we advert to the suicides in the arrondissement of the Seine, where it would appear that one in every 2600 of the male population at large dies by his own hand.

Fourthly. On the subject of escapes or attempts to escape, we can form no comparison between our district asylums and those in other countries, as in the latter they are not officially recorded, possibly it may be they do not occur. During the past nine months four effected a permanent escape, that is, found their way home and were detained there; and sixteen got over the boundaries, but were retaken by the attendants, and brought back by them :-the longest absent being twenty-four hours. In one instance, that at Sligo, already detailed, the patient lost his life, as it is presumed, from accident.

The disproportion between the single and married, the former amounting to 2984, the latter to 1243, must at first sight seem extraordinary; but the difference is explicable by the fact, that independent of the larger ratio of the unmarried in society at large, insanity is a disease of early much more than of advanced life; while among the single the hereditary taint, when it exists, is more likely to be brought into action by intemperance and continued habits of dissipation.

Our object in introducing the educational condition of the inmates of the different district asylums, and in which the illiterate more than double those who have received a fair amount of education, was to exhibit their previous social position, and to show the beneficial working of these institutions in producing habits of order, neatness, and even some approach to refinement among the insane classes; while the number daily employed in and out of doors, serves to prove the encouragement given to industrial occupations. On this latter head, however, we feel satisfied that great room for improvement still exists, and that suitable occupations could be devised for a much greater proportion of patients than at present; for nothing can be more injurious to the insane themselves than idleness, and that listless mode of existence, particulary within doors, which we regret to observe is too much tolerated. In the absence of industrial employment, pastimes ought to be more generally provided.

In our last report we stated our intention to apply to the Commissioners of National Education for the means of establishing classes in Irish district asylums. We have since done so, and are happy to state that the proposition was cordially assented to. This is a step in advance; and though for obvious reasons it cannot be expected that much success will attend any system of tuition in lunatic asylums, still, the mind is thereby more or less engaged and diverted from the one continuous train of thought.

When stating the condition of each district asylum, in none of them did

we omit to mention the proportions which the incurable bore to the curable, viz., 3265 to 1123-a question at once presents itself: Is regular asylum accommodation required for every incurable? We think not; for while all need supervision, that is not necessarily limited to the precincts of an hospital duly constituted for the treatment of insanity; neither, on the other hand, is the lunatic, however tranquil, amenable, and hopelessly demented he may seem in an asylum, at all times a fit object to be removed from it. Each case must be examined on its own peculiar merits.

The consideration of how chronic patients should be dealt with, is one of considerable importance in a social and fiscal point of view.

It is quite clear that not only the institutions about to be enlarged, but those about to be erected, will be filled, like most of those already established, after the lapse of a few years. The insane are an accumulative community, composed of various classes. There are now in asylums, and will be so, until some counteracting arrangement be arrived at, aged imbecile lunatics, of enervated frame, who have sunk into a state of fatuity, and harmless idiots, beyond the influence of any tuition, whose room might be better filled by more urgent or hopeful applicants, without detriment to the displaced, if the creature comforts of life, and a kindly attendance, were afforded them as before. We cannot fix the exact percentage of these parties, but from personal observation, we apprehend it might be set down as between ten and twelve per cent., one asylum with another. Thus, for example, at Killarney, there would probably be found about twenty of its inmates fit objects for transference from the regular wards of that institution to a less organized, but still not unsuitable, establishment.

The poor-houses in this country have varied but little for the last four or five years in the number of their lunatic inmates; but, as a general rule, a better and more considerate system of treatment has been adopted in their regard, particularly in those Unions-as, for example, in the North and South Dublin, the Limerick, Waterford, Kilkenny, Belfast, &c., &c.,-in which many of the insane classes happened to be maintained; a liberal dietary is allowed them, and in other respects, so far as the capabilities of these establishments admit of, their comforts are fairly attended to.

From the collective returns (163) before us, it appears that a very small proportion of these reported as being mentally affected are actually lunatic in the restricted acceptation of the term, the great majority being composed of imbeciles or epileptics.

In the correctness of these returns we concur from our own personal observation, having visited the workhouses already named, and very many others, not alone for the purpose of suggesting arrangements tending to the general benefit of all, but for the object of specially inquiring into the mental condition of each of their demented inmates. As we have already expressed our opinion as to the manner in which the insane classes in question should be provided for, and pointed out the unsuitable construction of workhouses as receptacles for no inconsiderable portion of them, not omitting to mention the deficiency of in-door means for classification, as well as of facilities for out-door occupation or amusement, we deem it unnecessary, on the present occasion, to trouble your Excellency with what would be but a simple reproduction from preceding Parliamentary Reports.

We are quite aware of the difficulties in which the question of suitably locating persons labouring under diseased manifestations of the mind, in all

their varied forms, is involved, and of the large expense to which the community must be subjected, if regular asylum accommodation had to be provided for all, and which, furthermore, would be a useless one, inasmuch as for the major part of the idiotic, epileptic, and demented, it is only necessary to secure a due amount of care and of those comforts and enjoyments which they are capable of appreciating. The subject is one of considerable importance, requiring not alone a mature consideration in its details, but that discussion on the respective merits of suggestions which, just now, it might be premature to undertake.

Since the date of our last report, we have, as far as lay in our power, disembarassed gaols of dangerous lunatics; but the numbers still confined in them, from an almost daily replenishment, show that the relief, practically speaking, has been altogether inefficient; for, instead of diminishing, committals to them appear to have increased within the last nine months; and, as a matter of course, in those districts where asylum accommodation is most needed, the accumulation of lunatics has become greater, as in the gaols of Down, Wexford, Dublin, Donegal-in fact, no stronger evidence can be afforded of the condition of a county in regard to provision for its insane poor, than the state of the prisons belonging to it. In some of them, no doubt very much reduced in the quantity of ordinary prisoners, the lunatics constitute nearly a fourth of the inmates, much to the dissatisfaction of the authorities, as they interfere so directly with discipline, particularly where the separate system is carried out; for the more perfect the organization, the greater would seem the disadvantages accruing to it from an intermixture of the sane and insane. Though detention in prison after a certain time may, as a rule, be considered to exercise a very deleterious influence over lunatics, it would still be a mistake to suppose that all com‐ mittals must necessarily prove injurious to the committed-the reverse is by no means uncommon; neither should this fact be a matter of surprise, when it is remembered that as dissipation, exposure to excitement, and habits of intemperance, constitute no inconsiderable share of the immediate causes of insanity, the sudden interruption to them, caused by the control and isolation of a prison life, not unfrequently acts both promptly and efficaciously on the lunatic. It may also be observed that there are certain ingredients of success which some gaols may possess more largely than the crowded asylum of the district. The former is had recourse to on the first violent outbreak of the disease, while the patient himself, unless there be many of his class confined with him, has a greater intercourse with the sane.

We would thus account for the early cures effected in prison; so that, much as one may disapprove, in very many cases, of the mode of committal, it must be acknowledged there is some good mixed up with the evil; while, under any circumstances, the lunatic who otherwise might be neglected, and possibly maltreated, finds a temporary refuge; so, until some adequate accommodation be established, gaols must be more or less had recourse to, as affording, in urgent cases, an auxiliary provision for the insane. It would, ho doubt, be much more satisfactory for the public service, did magistrates commit persons only to prison as violent or dangerous lunatics, who bona fide were so; but they adopt, as the law advisers of the Crown can fully corroborate, a very lax and culpable practice, on many occasions, in the mode of carrying out the provisions of the Act. The committals being directly transmitted to our office, in order that action may be taken

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