B., committed to Industrial school for larceny in 1883; discharged from there, 1887; aged 17.
C., committed to Industrial School for breaking into and stealing, 1886; aged 16; discharged, 1890.
D., aged 14; E. 9½; and F., 7 years; were sent to Industrial School in 1891 by the Charitable Aid Board, the father being dead and the mother in gaol.
D. was discharged last year, aged 18. F. is in hospital for removal of nasal growth, and defective eyesight. E. was admitted to a lunatic Asylum, September, 1897. Four medical men report on him as follows:—"A case of satyriasis from congenital defect." "His depraved habits result of bad bringing up by his mother." "Probably hereditary." "A case of moral depravity associated with mental deficiency, and cretinism." The youngest of the family, a girl aged 11, is said to be dependent on her mother.
With regard to the hereditary nature of Insanity, John Charles Bucknill and Daniel Hack Tuke, M.D.'s, in "A Manual of Psychological Medicine," 4th Ed., p. 65, says:—
"Certainly, if in ever so small degree there is to be a stamping out of insanity, we must act on the principle, better let the individual suffer than run the risk of bequeathing a legacy of insanity to the next generation.... With regard to males, marriage would no doubt be highly beneficial in many instances, and if the risk of progeny is not run, may well be encouraged."
Esquirol, quoted by Bucknill and Tuke, p. 58, says:—"Of all diseases Insanity is the most hereditary."
Bucknill and Tuke, p. 647, say:—
"Of marriage it may be said that the celibacy of the insane is the prophylaxis of Insanity in the race, and although a well chosen mate and a happy marriage may sometimes postpone or even prevent the development of insanity in the individual, still no medical man, having regard to the health of the community, or even of that of the family, can possibly feel himself justified in recommending the marriage of any person of either sex in whom the insane diathesis is well marked."
Again (pp. 647 and 648) "It is thus that the seeds of mental diseases and of moral evils are sown broadcast through the land; and other new defects and diseases are multiplied and varied with imbecilities, and idiocies, and suicidal and other propensities and dispositions, leading to all manner of vice and crime. The marriage of hereditary lunatics is a veritable Pandora's box of physical and moral evil."