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APPENDIX.
well as arrangements for accommodation, watch and ward, and maintenance. The actual
expense of the whole asylum system will thus be capable of exact estimation; different
institutions will bear comparison with each other and with those of other countries, when all
debits and credits are invariably shown in a general balance sheet, and the precise expendi-
ture necessary to secure certain results will be capable of accurate record. The accounts
hitherto rendered are imperfect and fallacious, and offer no certain guide as to the liability
which must be incurred in establishing new institutions of the kind.
4. As the debit and credit account of the asylum has thus been unified, one general
budget for the financial year is rendered necessary, and the industrial budget will be merely
a section of the general budget and must be drawn up for the same period. The experience
of previous years will be the guide to the amounts entered under the head of raw materials,
indulgences to patients, other items, &c. &c., and the superintendent will have a considerable
latitude in providing particular articles according as he may find it necessary or advisable
under such general heads.
All similar undertakings and entries should however, I submit, be shown under one
heading. Thus, such entries as establishment, new buildings, repairs of buildings, should
be shown under the same head, whether the expense of such provision has hitherto been
met by Government, the industrial fund, or receipts from paying-patients.
* In this office letter No. 101
of the 29th April 1872.
†Superintendent's No. 34,
dated 10th January.
Deputy Inspector-General's
No. 74C, dated 12th January.
This office No. 4560A, dated
29th January.
Superintendent's No. 72,
dated 3rd February.
Deputy Inspector-General's
No. 4100, dated 6th February.
5. As I have already urged,* the scale of establishment should be a single
and fixed one. Hitherto, as I have shown, the establishment
shown in the public records of the asylum is a fictitious one,
as regards both number and rates of pay, as long as the superintendent had the uncontrolled
power of adding to the number or supplementing the pay from funds obtained from labor
profits or paying-patients. Thus the whole staff necessary to attain certain results, namely,
the management of this institution and the care and treatment of so many insane persons,
has not been exhibited or known, and the institution has apparently been conducted by an
agency far less in number and cost than was actually the case. The experience of one
institution is thus not available for legislating for others, or for setting the scale of agency
necessary for a new institution. I am of opinion that a fixed and true scale of establish-
ment for all the purposes of the asylum—watch and ward, industrial or domestic purposes,
special care of a better class of patients, &c. &c., should be drawn up, and that the superin-
tendent should be strictly debarred from adding to the number or pay of this establishment
under any circumstances without sanction. If he desires to confer gratuities or rewards, he
should obtain the sanction of superior authority; and if he considers it necessary to engage
special or extra attendants, he should represent the circumstance.
The system of permitting patients or their friends to engage their
own attendants, as it appears from the annexed correspondence†
has hitherto been the case, is not a sound one for a public
institution, all whose agents and agencies should be under control
in the superintendent's hands. The supplementing of wages,
giving gratuities and special salaries, can only have the effect of
raising the rate of wages and rendering the employés of other institutions restless and
discontented.
6. The form of cash-book seems all that can be desired. No form of stock ledger
has been given, but a simple account book with double entry will probably be suitable
for it. All the rules drawn up in Appendix B appear to me to be appropriate.
7. I also approve of the diet scales drawn up, and consider them generous and
appropriate.