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5. Recently, when visiting one of the largest and best managed asylums
in Scotland, the Physician Superintendent, a gentleman of exceptional experience
and of world-wide renown as a specialist, assured me that he looked on the
management of institutions for the treatment of the insane where no escapes took
place with grave suspicion, as the best results were obtainable where fewest re-
strictions were imposed. He was speaking of non-criminal insanes. I saw from
the arrangements obtaining in his asylum that the principle just enunciated was
given full effect to, but whilst I concur in the view of the Committee that keepers
should not be too readily punished for negligence on occasions of escape, I think
it would be unwise in this country to do anything which would tend to lessen in
their minds the importance of constant vigilance. The other points referred to
by the Committee do not seem to me to call for remarks.
6. There remain to be noticed some few matters which are dealt with in
the body of the report:—
(a) When Major Raikes paid his visit to the asylum in August last, all the
female patients were hurriedly paraded for his inspection in the work-shed, which
he designated a cage. The " pandemonium " was purely a temporary arrange-
ment and intended to suit the convenience of the Commissioner. The story of
the Burman who was committed to the asylum for observation, and who succeeded
in escaping by burning his way out of the cell, is an extraordinary psychological
contrast to that of Maung Maung (vide page 7 of the Asylum Report for 1884),
who, for the purpose of being detained in the institution, feigned dumbness for
twelve months. It is to be hoped the watchman on duty on the night of the
occurrence above alluded to met with his deserts.
(b) The buildings marked 19, 20, and 21 in the block plan were originally
padded cells. Whiteants destroyed the padding, after which they were sometimes
used as store-rooms, at others as quarters for the keepers. Padded cells are
considered necessities in every prison and asylum in England and Scotland.
(c) The Superintendent, in condemning the hospital, observes that " many
years ago the use of the hospital was abandoned and the building suffered to
remain empty," two civil male cottages being substituted. This was probably
due to the belief that some contagion was hanging about the hospital, not, I
think, to any inherent or permanent defect in the structure itself. Seeing that the
sick males during the past ten years averaged less than 11, that a certain pro-
portion of these are invariably treated in cells, and that the hospital provides
accommodation for 14, it is not easy to see how the demand for a new hospital
has been unnecessarily delayed.
(d) Without taking more time and trouble than the importance of the subject
seems to warrant, the inconsistencies in the statement of accommodation from
year to year cannot fully be explained, but the various uses to which the padded
cells have been put, the abandonment of the hospital and the occupation of a
couple of civil cottages by the sick, the fluctuations in the area prescribed for the
inmates, and the practice at one time of accommodating more than one insane in
some of the cells, and at another of restricting the occupants one to each cell,
will account for variations. When the contagious wards were put up, it was
probably not intended that the extra accommodation they provided, which would
be used on special occasions only, should be added to the normal capacity of the
asylum. In the table on page 5 those two cottages are shown as capable of
accommodating 38 inmates ; in the table on page 4, on the other hand, the capacity
is put down at 30.
(e) Water-supply, conservancy and gardening.—With increased accommo-
dation and a larger population some increase in the water-supply, even hitherto
in the dry weather scanty, must be provided. Deepening one of the existing
wells, as recommended by me in 1883, offers the best prospect of an enhanced
supply. The area under cultivation will also require extension, and I fail to see
how the present Deputy Superintendent should not find time to attend to matters
of this sort as well as to the other duties of his office. Horticulture and farming
are excellent occupations for insanes, and both should be developed as far as
available labour, area, and water-supply will permit. Authorities are generally
agreed that human excreta may be employed for manurial purposes, even in