Thomas County cat. [volume] (Colby, Kan.) 1885-1891, 1888-05-17
The INSANE ERA.


THE INSANE ERA.
% Cattir0 Sstire.
Statisticians agree in noting the
alarming increase Of insanity among
civilized peoples. and il Is fair to up
pose that the gain of mental abnormity
win continue with advancing years
until sanity will be the exception rath-
er than the rule. In that happy day
for we hold that the imbeciles are the
only happy persons in this world OF
ours-the sane man will be an ohiecs
Of pity and. alas! too frequently Of
mirth. and he will be locked up and
strait-jacketed and repressed and re-
strained in divers ways now prescribed
for the care and cure of the crazy and
the putting Of the lunatic under lock.
In society the people living at that
time will cease to hear of the eccen-
trioities of genius. and the discourse
will consist in praise or blame of the
peculiar phase of insanity of this or
that distinguished parsonage. Gen.
eral A. will be severely criticised for
permitting his normal tendencies to
interfere with his darling project of
building covered way to the moon;
Judge b will b. eulogized to the heav-
ems for his persistent purpose in select
ing for jurymen only such as have slain
relative or compounded a felony.
and interminable discussion will be
provoked by the course of Rev. Mr.. B.,
who has enunc;ated the dogma that
there may be an opportunity for the
right-minded to repent after death, the
arguments Of the disputants at times
waxing as warm as do some of the
wranglers of our own day over specu-
latiOns equally abstruse.
There will be societies for the sup
preston of the sane and associations
for the amelioratiOn of the mentally
albright, and while the crazy ones of
the earth shall fill all public stations
and move about at their pleasure. the
normal-mindcd shall be thrust from all
places of trust and emolument and
be INJURED up within lofty buildings.
which shall internationally burn down
and thus work radical cure upon the
inmates.
Matters will not be greatly unlike
what they are at present, but the
tables will be turned. and as public
affairs can not be conducted less skill
fully than they are now, it is fair to
presume that they may be carried>on
more successfully. for the insane who
will then have charge will not be
hampered by those conventional 4leas
which have proved so abortive of
progress and which have bound nor
NAL humanity to an memorable follow
ing of methods that have invariably
sought out the longest way toward de-
sired results and the lesst practicable
means for the end in view. Untram-
meled. therefore. by the worn-out and
discredited practices of the past. the
lunatics will start out ab mitio. and we
have faith to believe that they will
strike out better systems of govern
ments and develop more perfect ideas
of social science than any that ever
obtained during the aseendency of the
healthy-mindcd race. so called.
There will, of course, be many
changes in public sentiment, which to
anticipate seem odd enough. but which
will in their own season excite little or
no comment People will be found
who will boast that there has been in
sanity in their family for countless
generations. and they will consequent
ly be envied and at the same time
looked up to as favored ones; while,
on the contrary. families whose auces-
tors. Immediately or remote. are
known to have been sane will be
and condemned. and inter-
with them will be regarded
rs something to be dreaded, and
thing 10 be discouraged and avoided
by all possible means
1t is likely. also. that when a man
some such indiscretion as
murder or bigamy. efforts will be made
to prove that he is the victim of |
emotional sanity. and the lawyers of
that day will indulge in long and
wearing arguments. based upon genoa
logical data, to show that one of the
prisoners ancestors. few generations
back. was noted for his strength Of
mind and the unvarying frmness of
MS mental grasp. or negatively upon
statistics to prove that no case of lu.
macy was ever known in his family
The prosecution. probably. will cite
Eases of eccentricity in the past of the
as. for example, that on one
occasion he had been known to tell
he truth when falsehood well stuck
20 would have been better for his
reputation. or that he once refused to
accept . lucrative Office upon the
'pecious plea that he was entirely un-
lifted for the DOsifiOn Rnt The wn;wht |