The Portland daily press., 1895-01-04
THE DAYS BUSINESS.

The Senate committee on the seat contest
reported. giving the place in dispute to
Senator Hovey OF Somerset. Both Senators
Marston of Somerset and Ferguson of Saga
dahoc spoke eloquently, each maintaining
that his county was entitled to the seat
and supporting his contention with many
citations from legislative history. The
Senate adopted TIE committees report and
here endeth the first great contest of the
session.
1t was ordered in the Senate that joint
committee of three. on the part of the SEN
ate with such as the House may join. be
appointed TO consider all measures relating
MI. Noble of Lewiston, introduced in the
House az order to limit the time for the adj
mission of bills and petitions for private
and special legislation to January 81, and
that all introduced after that date be re-
ferred to he next legislature. This order
was passed and is to be printed IN all the
Mr.. Gilbert of Catonn, introduced an or
der providing each member with $40 worth
of postage stamps TO be used IN DISTRIBUTING r
public document among constituents. The
order passed without he usual contest.
IN BANGoR's WAY.
There is another obstacle in the way of
Bangor's hopes of an insane hospital in the
shape of report which'bas been submit
ted by the special committee appointed I'M
der resolves of the last legislature to in
ouire into the condition of the Augusta hos
pital and the number of insane in the state.
The committee consisted of Hon. Frederick
pitaI trustees, and Hon. Z. simpson of
he Governors council. While the report of
the committee agrees that here is need of
greatly extended facilities for the care of
The insane the fact that they advocate the
expenditure of $13f COG at Augusta doesn't
help Bangor's prospects. The committee
in its report expressly states that 1t does
not deem it its duty 10 express an opinion
on the Bangor matter. In the report, beside
telling of visits made to hospitals In New
England states and describing the institu-
tions, the committee presents IN tabular
form statistics secured from town and city
clerks and the present hospital as follows:
Number of insane reported, l,l33
Considered dangerous, Al
In hospital. OBJ
Towns having aims houses, $50
Insane with means of support, FL
Insane with partial support, 233
Insane with no means 627
IN addition to the above there are TWEEN
ty insane convlcts at Thomaston. and
seventy-five state and sixty-four private
patients at the hospital, making total of
1872 The census OF ios9 made this s., Total /;
the returns that 56U of the states harmless
insane might be cared for in almshouses:
The number Of insane in the hospita tai al
varied during the past year from 706 to $50
The U. s. census reports 1851 of the
idiotic class in the state. As many of these
are undoubtedly insane. the total of the
insane in the state may be 1000. An esti-
mate chasing half the insane in the state
as harmless the committee thinks danger
ously large as experience shows that many
su-called harmless cases are likely to be-
come suddenly violent. They are inclined
TO believe that not more than 500 of the
harmless insane can be properly cared for
in aims houses especially as $50 towns have
no aims houses and many others have un-
suitable buildings.
A careful investigation made by The COM