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Letter 18th XIXHon.d Sir
I come now with pleasure, notwithstanding the sadness of the
subject, to an instance, in which the application of the principle will be of the
lenient cast altogether: I mean that of the melancholy abodes appropriated to the
reception of the insane: And here, perhaps, a noble Lord now in administration
might find some little assistance lent to the humane and salutary regulation
for which we are chiefly indebted to his care.
That any of the receptacles at present subsisting should be
pulled down only to make room for others on the inspection principle, is neither
to be expected nor to be wished. But should any buildings, that may be erected in future
for this purpose, be made to receive the inspection form, the object of such institutions
could scarce fail of receiving some share of its salutary influence. The powers
of the insane, as well as of the wicked, are capable of being directed either against
their fellow creatures or against themselves. If in the latter case nothing less
than perpetual chains should be availing, yet in all instances where only the
former danger is to be apprehended, separate cells, exposed, as in the case of prisons,
to inspection, would render the use of chains, and other modes of corporal suffrance,
as unnecessary in this case as in any. And, with regard to the conduct of the keepers,
and the need which the patients have to be kept, the natural and not discommendable
jealousy of abuse would, in this instance as in the former one, find a much
readier satisfaction than it can any where at present.
But without thinking of erecting Mad-houses on purpose, if
we ask Mr Howard, he will tell us, if I do not misrecollect, that there are few prisons
or work-houses but what are applied occasionally to this purpose. Indeed
a receptacle of one or other of these descriptions is the ready, and I believe, the
only resource, which Magistrates find vested in their hands. Hence it
he so often found his senses affected with that strange and unseemly mixture
of calamity and guilt; Lunatics raving, and Felons rioting in the same room. But
in every penal Inspection-house, every vacant cell would afford these afflicted
beings an apartment exempt from disturbance, and adapted to their
wants.
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