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    310 % INSANITY , PAST AND PRESENT.

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    Qp Insanity, Like Other Diseases, Change...

    the -kingdoms . The same with life social . A man neglects himself , his interests , his responsibilities , and he lowers , not only

    himself , but the children that are born to him ; these occupying * a position one step lower , bequeath to their progeny a debased

    existence , and these again perpetuate the degradation in which they themselves exist . The heritage of paupers is pauperism .

    The children of those born in workhouses will probably be the future inmates of workhouses . When a portion of the

    inhabitants of any civilized country have thus fallen beneath a certain level , they cannot come into comparison with their former position .

    In all large towns there are certain of this class , who , hardened in mind and brutalized in sentiment , are widely recognised as

    emphatically the dangerous classes of the community . Few "who have read _^ Mayhew ' s " London Labour and London Poor / ' but must

    be struck , not only at the squalid misery in which so many of our fellow creatures exist , but also at their debased and narrowed

    intellectual qualities . They live -within the circle of civilization but are not touched by it , evincing extraordinary cunning ,

    perseverance , and cleverness in their own contracted sphere ; they have not a thought beyond it , and in all which constitutes the

    social welfare of mankind , they are much below many savage tribes in their aboriginal state . It is startling to be told that

    in London one out of every seven deaths takes place in a hospital , a workhouse , or other charitable institution . It is

    equally startling , if not more so , to learn that last year out of the 850 , 896 _pexsous - in England and Wales receiving parochial

    relief , 31 , 543 , or one in every twenty-seven , was either an idiot or a lunatic . While pauper lunacy may be thus ascribed

    to a lapsed social position , that among the upper classes may be considered as the result of the . fevered and over-development of

    the intellectual qualities . Where the mind is kept without cessation in action , there we are sure to see the number of the insane

    predominate . Every grave public calamity , every extraordinary occurrence , is marked by an increase among the admissions into

    asylums . The year so remarkable for railway speculation was also remarkable for the _raxoid growth of insanity among the upper

    classes . Even at the failure of the British Bank , the extensive frauds committed by parties hitherto deemed most respectable , and the

    period when great fluctuations pervaded the money-market , the public mind became so agitated and excitedthat numbers fell

    , victims to the mental strain put upon them . Unless facts lead to the consideration of causestheir investigation

    , would be profitless study , similar in result to the crank-labor of convicts , an expenditure of time and strength without return . But

    we believe that the seeming meaningless assemblage of figures in statistical tables are so many keys to the solution of perplexed ques-

    tions ; use them with judgment , and they unlock the barriers which

    ignorance or prejudice has interposed between supposition and

    310 % Insanity , Past And Present.

    310 _% INSANITY , PAST AND PRESENT .

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Jan. 1, 1861, page 310, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01011861/page/22/