629 Observations on the Wakefield Asylum. provisions of the county asylum law for upwards of ten years. What I asserted was, that a county asylum law was very much calculated to increase the evils it was intended to diminish, for that a less proportion of those pauper lunatics who were visited by insanity would recover, than had recovered previously, and that it would consequently cause an accumulation of incurable pauper lunaties. All this I had said hundreds of times before I had any actual proof of what I so confidently asserted-by merely reasoning from the nature of insanity, and on what is required in the perfect cure of it. Far be it from me to impugn the motives of the magistrates acting for the West Riding of Yorkshire; on the contrary, I believe that they were highly honourable and humane; but it is possible that they may have mistaken the path of humanity and public utility in this important particular. No one can doubt the purity of intention in the statesman who framed the county asylum law, yet I much doubt his possessing any correct information on the subject of insanity, and of what the proper treatment of it requires. And as the acting under the provisions of this law is quite optional on the part of the magistrates, the doing so involves them in a most awful responsibility. If we justly brand with infamy the medical pretender, who, for the sake of gain, tampers with the lives of his fellow-creatures, and is the cause of premature death; what shall we say of a legislative measure to monopolize the means of curing the most afflictive malady that human nature is liable to, if it does not provide the best means of cure? The ostensible purpose of county asylums is, the providing for pauper lunatics, dangerous idiots, and criminal lunatics, better treatment in regard to their comforts, and better chances of cure for those thought curable. Have they answered this purpose? I strongly suspect that they have not; but the world knows very little about these county asylums. Contemplated with feelings of superstitious horror by the lower classes of society, and merely as a means of security from the annoyances that more liberty for the lunatic and idiot might occasion by the higher, they are little spoken of, and strange laws have been passed respecting them in legislative silence. It is very desirable that the world should know more of them, either as examples or warnings; and as the gentleman before alluded to gave publicity to the 630 Wakefield asylum before its advantages were proved, I trust he will have no ob jection to publish a brief history of them now; and I beg to recommend the Imperial Magazine as the medium of such publi cation. What I have heard of the Wakefield county asylum is briefly as follows; viz. that it was erected in a most excellent situation, the building quite suitable for the accommodation of one hundred and fifty patients at a time, with every arrangement and convenience for domestic economy. That it was intended for the reception of none but pauper lunatics; but for some time at first, being far from full, other patients besides paupers were ad mitted; and that lately, there being plenty of pauper lunatics, all others are excluded; and that now the average number of these patients is two hundred and fifty, with numbers waiting for admission, and numbers discharged not cured, for the sake of giving admission to fresh cases. And that an order has lately been passed for the sum of four thousand pounds, for the pur pose of additions to the building. Now, as the magistrates had the power, and it may be supposed the will, to order all the pauper lunatics to be sent to the county asylum on its first establishment, it seems strange that it was not full, or nearly so, in the first instance, or that there should be such an overflow now. The increase of population in the West Riding of York shire for the last ten years, can have been but trifling; and the increase of fresh cases of insanity, we may suppose, has been trifling too. We must, therefore, believe that the overflow of patients at this time is owing to another cause, viz. that a less proportion of those visited by insanity, have recovered under the operation of the county asylum law, than did recover before this institution was in existence. A few days since, I saw the tenth annual report of the Wakefield county asylum, from which it appears that one thousand one hundred and fifty patients had been admitted; that of these, five hundred and eleven had been discharged cured, eightyeight discharged not cured, two hundred and ninety-nine had died, and two hun dred and fifty-two remained in the house. If five hundred and eleven have been permanently recovered, I can have little more to say; well knowing, that for a few years at first, a large proportion would be admitted of old and incurable cases; but I have my doubts whether half that number, or any thing like it, have been perfectly recovered. For I find that in the last 631 2 Observations on the Wakefield Asylum. " 6 year, thirty cases of relapse were admitted; as It is too much for us to say, that we should thatosis, cases, which had been previously be sure of making lunatics and idiots mote discharged cured" and one of the phy-comfortable in large easylums, othan they sicians too the institution told me, a short can be in the bosom of their own families, stime since, that the calculation of cures or in their down parish workhouses; their was, in the proportion of one in ten cases. comforts depending on the state of their But even supposing that these five hundred feelings and former impressions/m 9, and eleven were all perfect cures, they are onobesoromanys cast I should have expected under the care of the respective parish apothecaries, and that too with this great advantage, that many of them would have recovered without the opprobrious term insanity being imputed to them. But of these five hundred and eleven cases, I am very sorry to believe, that a great proportion are either numbered with the dead or the incurables. The list of deaths is very icheavy, two hundred and ninety-nine, being more than a fourth of the cases. Lunatics are, generally speaking, as tenacious of life as others, after the first paroxysm of the disease is over, which it must be with those taken to a county asylum; and if to bthe above number is added a list of those who have died since being discharged, the whole, we might suppose, would greatly reduce the number of incurables living. The pecuniary management of the sasylum at Wakefield, seems to have been conducted upon a close plan of economy m some particulars, but not so in otherssd The pay for the patients appears small, yet, the saving to a great amount. The amount of salaries and servants' wages is stated as more than £800 for ones year and the sums for luxuries, of which it may be presumed the poor patients do not partake, are considerable, while the charge for plain food averages about two shillings and sixpence per week, or say fourpence halfpenny per day each. Unfortunately for me, I have no experience in cheap living, but I should think fourpence halfpenny per day for adults, and many of them with voracious appetites, musts be too little; most assuredly it is so for those under the process of cure, for they require an ample quantity of good nourishing food. An explanation of this part of the management might benefit other institutions of the like kind. Ad awn ysbau? covery from insanity than county asylums. This I have often said, and I must continue to say it, for it prevents the admittance of patients till, generally speaking, they are not susceptible of permanent cure. amiT Jound out to isvdesi odt Death must be a great blessing to incurSable pauper lunatics; still, an unaccountable numbers of such deaths will cause unpleasant reflections. The great accumu- I wish to observe, however, that Fohave lations of incurables, being eighty-eight never heard of any misconduct or neglect discharged, and upwards of two hundred, being imputed to the managers or servants as we may suppose, remaining in the asy- of the Wakefield asylum, or indeed of any lum, besides, no doubt, many others in their other county asylum. The fault is not lin respective parishes, seems unaccounted for any thing that is practicable in these priImIf the path of the magistrates acting sons, but in the daw that established them; Ounder the county asylum law has been and in principle nothing could, as Imbeohitherto overmarked with deaths or incur-lieve, be more calculated to prevent reorables, it may not only benefit their own counties, but others, if they will turn out of it into the best path for recovery. For after thirteen years of practical close study of the disease, since I so strongly recommend a different system, I do still confiddently assert, that insanity is in almost all In the incipient cors quite recent state of cases a perfectly curable complaint; and insanity, the mental caffection) is only a that those cured may be rendered more symptomatic disease, and the cure mainly, orsafe from a second attack, than they ever if not entirely, depends upon the medical could have been previously from a first; treatment, and it would be ridiculousbto band that the number of deaths under the suppose that the best and most skilful disease, the number of incurables, and, medical treatment is not tos be obtained, generally speaking, all the evils of insanity, or is not practised, in county easylums. nonight be greatly reduced by a judicious But such is the power of habit on the func19treatments My opinions in detaily may tions of thought, that delay alone will conorbes found under my name in the Monthly vert the mental affection into a idiopathic -Magazine, vol 041, and the three suc-disease, and then the cure mainly depends -ceeding vols., and in the Imperial Maga orzine under the head Remarks on Mental Affections,"invol. 4, and all the succeed King vols. Juods zedoarid to diced 19979 2 J upon moral treatment; da streatment .snot practicable in county asylums such as I have seen or heard of, and the law aetually prevents admittance in most instances, 633 wwwpe A blos Country Wakes ost19200 T fill thesecond stage of the disease has Spring Vale, near Stone, June 3d, 1829. 9090110% 772 D*g 9 ༣་*་ ་ COUNTRY WAKES. 1634 pears from the daws of the y confession, wheres the dies dedicationis, or dedicatio, is repeatedly discriminated from the propria festivitas sanctipore celebratio esancti. They remained equally distinetaitill the Reformations the dedication day in 1536 being ordered for the future to be kept on the first Sunday in October, and the festival of the patron saint to be celebratedono longer. The latter was, by way of preeminence, denominated the church's holiday, or its peculiar festival; and while this remains in many parishes at present, the other is so utterly annihilated in all, that bishop Kennet, says Mr. Whitaker, knew nothing of its distinct existence, and has attributed to the day of dedication what is true only concerning the saints' day. Thus instituted at first, the day of the tutelar saint was observed, most probably by the Britons, and certainly by the Saxons, with great devotion. And the evening before every saint's day, in the Saxon-Jewish method of reckoning othe hours, being an actual part of the day, and therefore like that appropriated to the duties of public religion, as they reckoned Sunday from the first to commence at the sunset of Saturday, the evening preceding the church's holiday would be observed with all the devotions of the festival. The people actually repaired to the church, and joined in the services of it and they thus spent the evening of their greater festivities, in the monasteries of the north, as early as the conclusion of the seventh cen. tury. WAKES, formed from the Saxon wacce, bigília, excubia, watch, vigils, or country savakes, are certain ancient anniversary feasts, vin several parishes; wherein the Ipeople were to be awake at the several -vigils, or hours to go to prayer. They are usually observed, in the country, on the Sunday next before the saint's day to 9whom the parish church is dedicated. 399 The learned Mr. Whitaker, in his Hisatory of Manchester, has given a particular yaccount of the origin of wakes and fairs, He observes, that every church at its con-isecration received the name of some particular saint: this custom was practised These services were naturally denomiamong the Roman Britons, and continued nated from their late hours wacean or -samong the Saxons; and in the council of wakes, and vigils or eves. That of the Cealchythe, in 816, the name of the deno anniversary at Rippon, as early as the minating saint was expressly required to commencement of the eighth century, is Jibe inscribed on the altars, and also on the expressly denominated the vigil. But that walls of the church, or a tablet within it off the church's holiday was named cyric The feast of this saint became of course waccan, or church wake, the church vigil, the festival of the church. Thus Chris-or church wake. And it was this comtotian festivals, in the room of the primitive mencement of both with a wake, which ayanaç, (agapas) or love-feasts, were sub has now caused the days to be generally stituted for the idolatrous anniversaries of preceded with vigils, and the church holiIs heathenism: accordingly, at the first intro-day particularly to be denominated the ofduction of Christianity among the Jutes of Kent, pope Gregory the Great advised bwhat had been previously done among the Britons, viz. Christian_festivals to be in -ostituted in the room of the idolatrous, and -the suffering-day of the martyr whose relics Owere reposited in the church, on the day bongwhich the building was actually deditocated, to be the established feast of the I parish. Both were appointed and obgory recommended the festival of the userved; and they were clearly distin guished at first among the Saxons, asi ap church wake. So religiously were the eve and festival of the patron saint observed for many ages by the Saxons, even ease late as the reign of Edgar, the former being. spent in the church, and employed in prayer. And the wakes, and all the other holidays in the year, were put upon the same footing with the octaves of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost.When Gre patron saint, he advised the people to erect booths of branches about the church on the day of the festival, and to feast and be merry in them with innocence. Accordingly, in every parish, on the returning anniversary of the saint, little pavilions were constructed of boughs, and the people indulged in them to hospitality and mirth. The feasting of the saints' day, however, was soon abused; and even in the body of the church, when the people were assembled for devotion, they began to mind diversions, and to introduce drinking. The growing intemperance gradually stained the service of the vigil, till the festivity of it was converted, as it now is, into the rigour of a fast. At length they too justly scandalized the puritans of the seventeenth century, and numbers of the wakes were disused entirely, especially in the east, and some western parts of England; though the order for abolishing them was reversed by the influence of Laud; but they are commonly observed in the north, and in the midland counties. This custom of celebrity in the neighbourhood of the church, on the days of particular saints, was introduced into England from the continent, and must have been familiar equally to the Britons and Saxons; being observed among the churches of Asia, in the sixth century, and by those of the west of Europe in the seventh. And equally in Asia and Europe, on the continent, and in the islands, these celebrities were the causes of those commercial marts which we denominate fairs. The people resorted in crowds to the festival, and a considerable provision would be wanted for their entertainment. The prospect of interest invited the little traders of the country to come and offer their wares; and thus, among the many pavilions for hospitality in the neighbourhood of the church, various booths were erected for the sale of different commodities. In large towns, surrounded with populous districts, the resort of the people to the wakes would be great, and the attendance of traders numerous; and this resort and attendance constitute a fair. Basil expressly mentions the numerous appearance of traders at these festivals in Asia, and Gregory notes the same customs to be common in Europe. And as the festival was observed on a feria or holiday, it naturally assumed to itself, and as naturally communicated to the mart, the appellation of feria or fair. Indeed, several of our most ancient fairs appear to have been usually held, and have been continued to our time, on the original church holidays of the places : besides, it is observable, that fairs were generally kept in church-yards, and even 636 CURIOUS ANECDOTES OF ANIMALS, PLUTARCH hath a very curious treatise on the sagacity of animals, and, among other instances, he admires the considerateness, (if I may so call it) of ants."For those that have no burdens," says he, go out of the way, and leave free room to pass for those that have; and those things that are too heavy, or difficult to carry, they will nibble and tear till they have made them more manageable." I myself was a witness a year or two ago to as remarkable a piece of sagacity and considerateness, in that little animal, as this of Plutarch. For one evening, meeting with a colony of them, I had the curiosity to observe their different employments. Among the rest I perceived one that was pulling along with his mouth, what, for his little strength, I might call a piece of timber; the rest of them were busy in their own way, and seemed to take no notice of him, which gave me some concern. It was not long before he came to an ascent-in the language of ants, I presume, called a hill. But no sooner did his timber become too much for his abilities, than three or four of them immediately came behind, and pushed it up. As soon, however, as they had got it upon level ground, they left it to his care, and pursued their own journey. As this timber was smaller at the end by which he pulled it than at the other, it was not long before he met with a fresh difficulty. For unluckily he had drawn it between two posts, as I imagine he called them, where it stuck. After several fruitless efforts, finding it would not go through, he took the wisest method that any person under the like circumstances could do, which was, to come behind it and pull it back. I staid till he had turned it round, and got clear of the posts, when I was a obliged to leave him, but not without such reflections as you will easily guess at. Plutarch, in the same treatise, observes,⠀ that Cleanthes, though he could not allow inseets to have the use of reason, yet had an opportunity once of seeing, what I sup pose, staggered the philosopher not a little. "A company of ants," he says, "came to an ant-hill belonging to another tribe, and brought along with them a dead ant That several ants came upouts of the ground, and, as it were, held a conference 637 Curious Anecdotes of Animals. with the strangers, and went down again. That they did this two or three times, when at last they brought up a maggot, which they gave to the others as the price of redemption for the dead ant; that the strangers, upon receiving the maggot, went away with it, and surrendered up the dead ant to his friends." This story Plutarch believed, and it must be owned that these little creatures have something very wonderful in them. When I was at college, sitting after dinner in the garden, one hot summer's day, I accidentally fixed my eye upon a single ant. I soon perceived that he was employed about something, and that all his journeys were made to one certain place. The result was a discovery that he was to his tribe, one of the people that the Romans called bespillones. That the place he so constantly went to was the entrance, or perhaps rather the postern, to their habitation, where they brought out, and laid their dead: for I saw him take up in his mouth the dead carcase, and run away with it to a certain distance, where he laid it down, and then went back again for another, which by that time was brought up for him. The cleanliness of these animals, in thus ridding their dwellings of every thing that might be offensive to them, was equally surprising and instructive. But what increased my wonder was, that the little bespillo I observed, never laid two together in the same place, but arranged them in a circle, nearly at an equal distance from the hole where he took them up. This scene engaged my attention for the best part of an hour, when business of my own called me away. I question not that there are many other things in the animal kingdom, and amongst the minutia of nature, equally as amusing and as hard to believe, as any thing here said. They are overlooked for want of leisure opportunities and attention, and yet open a very ample field for the philo sopher's disquisition, as they are certainly not beneath his notice. Time hath discovered the truth of many things unknown to the ancients, or disbelieved by them, and no doubt that time will do the same by us.. Ctesias mentions, as something very extraordinary, the Indian bird psittacus, that spoke with a human voice the Indian language, and Greek if it was taught. This might be new to the Greeks at that time, though, perhaps, afterwards the bird was familiar enough to them, as we know it was to the Romans after that. Plutarch, 638 in the treatise above referred to, has a remarkable story of a magpie, that imitated all kinds of sounds, articulate or otherwise. And that the power of imitation in animals is sometimes very great, he shews by a curious example in a dog, that fell under his own observation. But of all instances of sagacity and reason in animals, none seems more striking than the famous one of the parrot, told by sir William Temple, on the authority of prince Maurice of Nassau. However hard of digestion this story hath seemed to some, yet I am convinced it is not singular it its kind. A few years ago, Mr. B, who lived. at Oxford, had a parrot that would discourse and reason equally with that of Mr. William Temple. There are many instances of this, well known to persons conversant in the family; but the few that follow, will be sufficient to ascertain the truth of what I have here said. As the woman that served the family with butter, rode up to the door one morning, the bird asked her how she sold her butter? She told him. "That's a lie," said the bird. And indeed it was so. Another time when the same woman brought Mrs. B, a present of a bottle of cream, the servant upon pouring it out, put some of it into a tea-cup for her own breakfast; and the better to conceal it' from her mistress, covered it with a pint basin. The mistress coming to see the present that was brought her, was going away satisfied enough with what she had seen, when the bird called out to her, "Madam, there's more under the cup! there's more under the cup!" As the bird told in this manner every› thing that he saw, we need not wonder that there was no very good understanding between him and the servants, or their acquaintance. Among these was the butter-woman herself, who, having an op portunity one morning, gave the bird a stroke with her whip. The bird felt the smart, and ran to the other end of his cage, (which was a pretty long one,) crying, "The butter-woman has beat me!" Another time Mrs. B, desired the same butter-woman, as she was going up into the market, to buy her a roasting-pig for dinner, and to send it down. But she brought it down herself, when the bird, as soon as he saw her, immediately asked her, "What? Pig and butter too?" These are but a few instances of many that might be given, of this bird's reason" and sagacity, which I had not at second |