| Lecturer. | Subject. | |
| 1. | Professor Blackie, University of Edinburgh. | Beauty. |
| 2. | Hugh Barclay, Esq., LL.D., Sheriff-Substitute of Perthshire. | Authenticity of Ossian’s Poems. |
| 3. | Thomas Miller, Esq., LL.D., Rector of Perth Academy. | Chemical Affinity. |
| 4. | George Lawson, Esq., Demonstrator of Botanical Histology, University of Edinburgh. | Vital Phenomena of Vegetation. |
| 5. | Rev. Dr. Crombie, of Scone, late Moderator of General Assembly. | Winter: its lessons and associations. |
| 6. | Rev. John Anderson, Kinnoull. | Sketches from the History of Ancient Nations. |
| 7. | Rev. Wm. Murdoch, Kinnoull. | Education: its aims and uses. |
| 8. | Dr. Browne, Crichton Royal Institution, Dumfries. | The Genesis of Thought. |
| 9. | Dr. Fairless, Crieff. | Electricity: its phenomena and applications. |
| 10. | Dr. Stirling, Perth. | Natural History of Man. |
| 11. | Alex. Corall, Esq., Montrose. | Natural History of Zoophytes. |
| 12. | Thomas R. Marshall, Esq., Edinburgh. | Art: in its applications to common life. |
These scientific and philosophic expositions are attended by all the better class patients. The paupers have a separate set of lectures and classes, the major part of which are delivered and conducted by the inmates themselves. Galvanism, the Blood, Time, Economic Botany, are among the subjects which the deranged brains of the Perth asylum are contented to hear elucidated. The activity of the place does not stop here: chamber concerts, in which the patients perform; grand concerts, in which artists from without supply the leading stars; and theatrical performances, in which the different characters are all taken by “resident actors,” are among the resources which were employed to amuse and interest the inmates during the winter months just past. A pit full of lunatics watching “Box and Cox” played by their fellows, is a curious subject for contemplation. Not content with these efforts, they seem to think that they are nothing unless critical, and accordingly they have set up a journal, in which they review their own performances. The first number of Excelsior is now before us, in which we find poetry, news, and criticisms on music, and contemporary literature; and he who reads with the idea of finding anything odd in this production, will most certainly be mistaken; for no one could divine that there was a “bee in the bonnet” of printer, publisher, and contributor. Balls and conversaziones form the staple of the lighter recreations of this singular community, whilst the more athletic games of running, leaping, hurdle-racing, Highland dancing, putting the stone, footing the bar, and lifting dead weights, are pursued with such success, that the lunatics boast with pride that they have beaten some of the prize-holders of the outer world.
It might be supposed that intellectual striving was not the medicine to offer to a diseased brain; but we are informed by Dr. Lindsay that in the vast majority of cases the best results flow from this method of treatment, and that a large percentage of cures is obtained. Such patients as would be injured by stimulating their faculties are debarred by the physician from their undue exercise, and others must be too far gone, or be too uninformed, to be capable of the pursuit. The surprise that lunatics should be susceptible of healthy mental exertion, arises from the common forgetfulness that many understandings are slightly affected, or are only deranged upon particular points. When Nat Lee was in Bedlam, he said that it was very difficult to write like a madman, and very easy to write like a fool. The works of the fools are more voluminous than the works of the madmen, because there are more fools than lunatics; but those who are completely mad are so far from experiencing a difficulty in writing in their own character, that they cannot write in any other. As many, however, who are not altogether right in their minds, are no more exclusively insane than people who are not absolutely wise are entirely foolish, it is easy to see that they may still be equal to much profitable mental exertion. In these days poor Christopher Smart would not be deprived of his pen and ink, and compelled to indent his long poem on “David” with a key on the panels of his cell; nor perhaps would the following epigram, which a woman in Bedlam wrote on Martin Madan’s argument in favour of polygamy, be handed about as a phenomenon to be wondered at:—
“If John marry Mary, and Mary alone,
It is a good match between Mary and John:
But if John marry more wives, what blows and what scratches!
’Tis no longer a match, but a bundle of matches.”
In France, and we believe in some other continental countries, it is the habit to employ lunatic labour in the private farms surrounding the asylum. This plan was in the olden time pursued in England; but it appears to have gone out with the ancient system of coercion. When radical revolutions are accomplished, good ideas sometimes perish with the bad; and we cannot help thinking that the abandonment of this method of exercising lunatics was an error, and that a return to the old practice, under proper regulations, would be of advantage both to employer and employed. Never must we lose sight of the wisdom of freeing the patient as much as practicable from the companionship of his fellows, and of placing him, to the utmost of our power, in the same free condition which he enjoyed in his days of sanity.
At Colney Hatch, as at Hanwell, and indeed all other public asylums, the sexes occupy separate portions of the building, and are only allowed to be present together on particular occasions. This unnatural arrangement undoubtedly arose from the introduction into asylums of prison and workhouse systems of management; for certainly nothing can tend to render the life of the patient more dreary than to find himself carefully excluded from the company of the other half of creation. It is stated by the advocates of separation that the mingling of the sexes among the insane would be productive of occasional misbehaviour; but nothing could be more unjust than to deprive the majority of the benefits which would arise from frequent social reunion, in consequence of the erotic tendencies of the few. It is with pleasure, therefore, we see the attempts which are being made to assimilate the intercourse of lunatics to that of the sane at Hanwell, Colney Hatch, and other asylums. The most interesting feature of the former establishment is the ball which takes place every Monday night. Shortly after six o’clock the handsome assembly-room, brilliantly lit with gas, becomes the central point of attraction to all the inmates, male and female, who are considered well enough to indulge their inclinations for festivity. On the occasion of our visit there were about 200 patients present, together with a few visitors and many of the attendants. In a raised orchestra five musicians, three of whom were lunatics, soon struck up a merry polka, and immediately the room was alive with dancers. In the progress of this amusement we could see nothing grotesque or odd. Had the men been differently dressed, it would have been impossible to have guessed that we were in the midst of a company of lunatics, the mere sweepings of the parish workhouses; but the prison uniform of sad-coloured grey presented a disadvantageous contrast to the gayer and more varied costumes at Bethlehem, and appeared like a jarring note amid the general harmony of the scene. In the corners of the room whist-players, consisting generally of the older inmates, were seen intent upon their game; not a word was uttered aloud, not a gesture took place that would have discredited any similar sane assembly; yet not a patient was free from some strange hallucination, or some morbid impulse. Among the merriest dancers in Sir Roger de Coverley was a man who believed himself to be our Saviour, and who wore in his hair a spike in imitation of the crown of thorns; and one of the keenest whist-players was an old lady, who, whilst her partner was dealing, privately assured us she had been dead these three years, and desired as a favour that we would use our influence with the surgeon to persuade him to cut off her head. In the midst of such strange delusions, it was curious to notice how rationally those who were their dupes enjoy themselves; and it is impossible to deny that such reunions are eminently calculated to hinder the mind from morbidly dwelling upon its own unhealthy creations. It is found that the too prolonged and frequent repetition of the balls somewhat diminishes their interest—an evil provided against at Hanwell by restricting the time allotted to them. At nine precisely, although in the midst of a dance, a shrill note is blown, and the entire assembly, like so many Cinderellas, breaks up at once, and the company hurry off to their dormitories. These hebdomadal balls have not yet been introduced at Colney Hatch. A movement has, however, been made latterly towards a limited association between the sexes by allowing them to dine together. Of the 500 patients who assemble in the ample dining-hall, 200 are females and 300 males. The scene when the women first made their appearance is described as something remarkable; the men rose in a body apparently delighted beyond measure, and the presence of the softer sex has not only tended to break the former monotony, but to keep the assembly in order and good humour. Before this happy meeting there were occasional outbreaks of some of the more excited patients; but now, when any of the men are inclined to be fractious or discontented, the women turn them into joke, and they are silenced immediately. As yet the two sexes are not allowed to sit at the same table, but are located on opposite sides of the room. By far the better plan would be to seat them on different sides of the long tables; but as many persons in authority, wanting confidence in human nature, object to this natural arrangement, the innovators must be satisfied for the moment with the present imperfect concession. When it was first proposed to introduce a billiard-table at Bethlehem, the scheme was rejected by a majority of two-thirds of the governors, on the score that the players would fight each other with the cues and balls, and bagatelle, as a kind of half measure, was permitted instead. As the patients confined the balls to their legitimate purpose, and the mace was not turned into an offensive weapon, the billiard-table was at last with reluctance established. The same thing will doubtless happen with respect to the dining arrangements at Colney Hatch; and before long we trust male and female lunatics will exchange courtesies across the table instead of across the room.
In the chapels of nearly all the larger lunatic asylums the quieter inmates are accustomed to meet at the daily morning and evening service. In the spacious chapels of Hanwell and Colney Hatch, the attendance on week days, as well as on the Sabbath, is far better than can be found among the same number of people out of doors, 250 on the average attending on week days, and 500 on Sundays. We do not suppose that the lunatic is more religious than the sane, but the ennui which, to a certain extent, still attaches to the asylum renders any form of reunion agreeable; and as the going to chapel is “something to do,” numbers of the inmates obey the summons who might stay at home if they were at large. The conduct, nevertheless, of this congregation is most exemplary. “The heartiness,” says the chaplain, in his report for 1856, “with which they join in the responses and the psalmody is very encouraging, while their quiet, orderly conduct—the prayer offered up by many on entering chapel, the regularity with which they all kneel or sit, according to the order of the service—would, I think, if generally witnessed, put to the blush many of our parochial congregations.” Now and then an epileptic patient will disturb the chapel by his heavy fall; but as those who are thus afflicted are located near the doors, the interruption is but momentary. The chaplain of Colney Hatch has trained twelve male and female patients to practise church music and psalmody. The choral service is well performed, and, in conjunction with the organ, has a visible effect in soothing the wilder patients, and in pleasing all. The sacrament is not denied to those who are fit to receive it, and no more touching scene can be witnessed than that which is presented in the chapel, when a score of communicants, disordered though their minds sometimes be, humbly kneel, and
“Drain the chalice of the grapes of God.”
The out-of-door games of the insane are very much regulated by the extent of ground attached to the asylum. Where this is ample, as at Colney Hatch, cricket is the favourite summer recreation; a skittle-alley, a bowling-green, and a fives-court, are found in most county asylums. In America, where women adopt more masculine habits than in England, female lunatics play matches on the bowling-green; and in France gymnastic exercises are employed for the exercise of both sexes, and may, we think, be introduced into the English asylums with advantage. The idiotic patients and those who are incapable of much exertion may be seen in the airing courts enjoying the monotonous swinging motion of the machine known in domestic life under the name of “the nursery yacht,” being nothing more than a rocking-horse with the horse left out by particular desire. In addition to these means of diverting the minds of the patients, walking parties, under the superintendence of officers of the establishment, are made up two or three times a week. During the haymaking season it is customary to allow the inmates of asylums to which farms are attached to go forth into the fields to assist with the rake and the pitchfork. This permission is always looked upon as a great treat, and its effect upon the patients is of the happiest kind, especially if the scene of their temporary labour admits no sight of the asylum and its wearisome walls. Here for a few hours they seem to realize the liberty and delight of younger days. The physician on such occasions may read in their “grateful eyes” that we are at present arrived only half way on the road of non-restraint. Individual patients, again, are suffered to leave the public asylums on a day’s visit to their friends, under the care of a nurse; and some who are nearly convalescent are permitted to go and return of their own accord. It is the custom of Colney Hatch and Hanwell, and we believe of most asylums in England, to grant the patients a certain period of probation among their friends, in order to test their fitness to be discharged as cured; to give them, in short, mental tickets-of-leave. This is an admirable plan, inasmuch as it secures to the patient the full enjoyment of liberty, at the same time that it enables him to keep himself well in hand, knowing that, as he is not unconditionally released, an immediate recall to the asylum would follow any sign of returning irrationality.
The dietary in public asylums is ample, and the quality excellent. Hanwell may, perhaps, be considered the model establishment in this respect. It is the joke of the other asylums, that one man has been regaled there daily for years with chicken and wine. Even the fancies of the patients are now and then gratified at some expense. There is an old lady in Hanwell who believes that the whole establishment is her private property; and, on one occasion, she complained to the medical superintendent that, notwithstanding all the expense she was at to keep up the grounds and forcing-houses, she never could get any grapes. The next day she was presented with a bunch, which had been purchased to appease her repinings. This humouring method of treatment, as it is called in other asylums, is much patronized by the matron, a person who seems to enjoy as much power as the medical officers. In her report for 1856 she thus speaks of a patient who died in the course of last year:—