"Did you in March 1814, visit certain cells pointed out to you by Mr. Higgins, in the Lunatic Asylum at York?—I did.

"In what state did you find them?—I found them newly cleaned out, the stench was abominable; I turned over the new straw which had been put upon the floor, and the boards were wet; and I pressed my stick upon the floor to see whether it was impregnated with the moisture, and I could have marked any letter upon it in the remains of the filth. I should say it was hardly possible it could have been cleaned out for a considerable time; the floor was completely saturated with filth.

"Do you know any other particulars of the state of the Asylum at York?-The general state of the Asylum was filthy in the extreme.

"Have you read the statement made by Mr. Higgins, of the part which you took along with him, in the examination of the Lunatic Asylum?-I have.

"Are the statements there made, by Mr. Higgins, of your interference in the business, correct?-Perfectly so; I think it was in or about March 1814 there was a meeting at which I attended, and I was desired by one of the governors to go into one of the day-rooms; he said he had a person there that had formerly worked for him, and he wished to see him. I, together with a governor and Colonel John Cooke of Camps Mount, went into a day-room; there were about twelve men patients in it; upon opening the door my feelings were so offended, that I could hardly proceed from the stench; I retreated into the passage and was very near vomiting; Colonel John Cooke, who was with me, staid about two minutes longer in the day-room, and he assured me that he felt the nausea the whole day afterwards." (Report, p. 9, 10.)

To these we must add another testimony, which has the great advantage of plenitude of detail, we mean the testimony of Mr. Jonathan Gray, of York, who in 1815 addressed to Mr. Wil berforce, and published with his name, a History of the York Lunatic Asylum. We consider this account, therefore, as the testimony of Mr. Gray, delivered, not before the Committee of the House of Commons, but a much more august tribunal, the British Nation, including both Houses of Parliament with all their Committees. We recommend it to a peculiar degree of attention; not only as it corroborates, which it does in a very extraordinary manner, the existence of the abuses to which Mr. Higgins and others gave testimony; but because it accounts for them, by producing the causes; and most usefully elucidates the sort of train into which the affairs of public charities are apt to fall, where somebody, either alone, or with others, finds there the means of opening to himself a channel of emolument; eases other people of trouble, by taking it upon himself; and making them a screen as exercising an inspection which they cease to perform, manages just as he pleases; that is, just as his ease and emoluments prescribe.

We shall endeavour, as far as it is possible, in a few words to exhibit a specimen of the sort of facts which it is the object of the publication to bring to light.

The York Lunatic Asylum originated in the commiseration felt by certain individuals in 1772, with the Archbishop at their head," for the deplorable situation of many poor lunatics in that extensive county, having no other support but what a needy parent could bestow, or a thrifty parish officer provide." A subcription was raised to erect a building for the accommodation of such lunatics as were "either parish poor, or belonging to distressed or indigent families." Such was the primary intention of this charitable institution; and such was the purpose for the accomplishment of which the original subscribers contributed their money. It was also declared in the advertisements, by which subscriptions were solicited, that whatever surplus, after the expence of building, should happily exist, should be placed out at interest, "and the produce applied towards the relief of parishes, and private persons in indigent circumstances sending patients."

All the money subscribed was expended in buildings. In the year 1778 Lady Gower, and other ladies,-that the original object of the institution, the relief of persons unable to pay, might not be frustrated,-made liberal donations, under express condition that the money should be applied" for the relief of patients only." This money was vested in the public funds, under the title of the reduction-fund, and the interest employed to reduce the payments of poor persons not receiving parochial relief." The sum was small; and as indigent relatives were unable, and parishes commonly unwilling to afford the expense of maintenance in the Asylum, the number of patients continued to be small. This, in 1784, led to an important innovation;-to admit a proportion of more opulent patients, by whose higher payments "the means might be created of relieving the necessitous."

A Committee was formed to fix the rates, of whom the physi cian, Dr. Hunter, was one. Hitherto, he had given to the charity his attendance gratis. It was agreed that he should take fees from the new or opulent class of patients.

Dr. Hunter had only enjoyed this privilege about two years, when he recommended it to the governors to give the physician a salary of 2007. per annum, in lieu of this species of remuneration. Some of the reasons by which he supported this recommendation are highly worthy of attention. "This salary," he observed, "will attach him to the Asylum; and prevent his establishing a private house of confinement, which would evidently counteract the design of the original foundation of the Asylum.

We mean hereafter to request the particular attention of the reader to the evils which spring from allowing the principal officers of public madhouses to have private madhouses of their own. At present what is worthy of notice is, the strength of the declaration of Dr. Hunter, and the extent which he ascribes to the ruinous consequences of so unhappy a conjunction.

Another reason which the Doctor adduced was expressed in the following words: "Taking fees, at the discretion of the attending physician, may, at a future period, be attended with bad consequences."

Notwithstanding this recommendation, the old practice was confirmed, after a short trial of the new; and the Doctor was left to draw his own emoluments out of the patients.

One immediate consequence of this regulation is obvious,—that the physician had now a strong motive to fill the house, if possible, with opulent patients, to the exclusion of the poor, and of course the frustration of the original intention of the charity. The question is, if he had any check to prevent him.

At first, as we have seen, a Committee was appointed for managing the admission of the opulent patients. "After three or four years," says Mr. Gray, "we cease to hear of any Committee." The easiest mode for the Committee was, to let the Doctor, who best understood the business, manage it for them.

"To what number," says the History," the opulent class was originally restricted does not appear-it certainly was limited, but a blot of ink has obliterated the word in the Order-Book."

When Mr. Gray quotes the words of the original advertisements, which declare the relief of the poor to be the object of the institution, he adds, "This is a quotation, verbatim, from the Order-Book; but such pains have been taken to obliterate it, that there was great difficulty in decyphering the passage."

When patients were first admitted in the Asylum at York, the following rule was established: "No keeper or hired servant of the Asylum to accept any money, or other gratuity, for his or her own use, on the behalf of any patient, on any account whatever." On the importance of this regulation we mean hereafter to lay the greatest stress; and earnestly to recommend it to the attention of those members of the legislature who may be chiefly instrumental in framing the provisions of a new enactment.

After the rule for the admission of opulent patients, "this salutary regulation," says our History," was presently repealed. It had been ordered that a board should be put up in the hall, to prohibit any money being given. But on the 7th of July 1785, it was resolved that this order, and the proceedings thereon, had been rescinded."

In the year 1788 the Rev. Mr. Mason, the celebrated poet, and Precentor of York, together with Dr. Burgh and others, were of opinion, that the absorption of all the powers of government relating to the institution, in the hands of the physician, had already led to abuse; that it "had converted a public charity into an hotel for the reception of persons of condition only;' that the sum applied to the relief of the poor from the pay of the affluent bore no proportion to its actual amount; and that the Doctor must appropriate the surplus to his own use. Mr. Mason gave his thoughts to the public, under the title of " Animadversions on the present Government of the York Lunatic Asylum."

What was the consequence of the charges? Was public inquiry instituted; and were they by public scrutiny shown to be false? A very different course was pursued. "The Doctor," says our History, "had the address to persuade the governors that these objections arose not from pure or charitable motives, but from personal hostility." The Governors accordingly settled all complaints by voting that the Doctor's conduct was most meritorious.

In the face of his letter, in which were declared the mischievous consequences to the Asylum if its physician should open a private house of confinement, the Doctor advertised in the newspapers, in 1790, a "house of retirement for persons of condition only;" without any farther opposition on the part of the Governors, than a proposal by Mr. Mason, that the assertion which still continued to be made in the quarterly advertisements, in the following words: viz. "that this institution is intended to lessen the number of private madhouses," should in future be omitted. But the motion was negatived.

Mr. Mason and his friends persevered in their endeavours to introduce some reform into the government of the charity, till 1794. They were baffled, however, in all their attempts; and the year 1794, says our History, "is the latest period in which we hear of any opposition to the plans of Dr. Hunter. It is also the latest period in which we hear of visitors. From 1782 to 1794 visitors have been occasionally appointed. Dr. Hunter, however, being usually one. From the period that the Governors of the Asylum ceased to be watched, the very name of visitation appears to have been unheard of.”

"In 1798," says the History, "Dr. Hunter was induced to wish for an assistant in the superintendance of the Asylum, and of his various private plans of confinement for lunatics."-In this, one thing only is very remarkable, viz. the pretensions of the Doctor. To obviate any inconvenience which might arise

"

from his death or retirement," he thought it desirable to communicate his knowledge to some medical gentleman. Dr. Best was chosen as the favoured pupil, and introduced into the Asylum, with the approbation of the Governors. In a letter addressed on this occasion to the apothecary of the Asylum, and inserted by direction of the Governors in the order-book, the Doctor says, "To Dr. Best I mean to communicate all the knowledge I have gained from the experience of twenty-five years. And farther, to assist his studies in this obscure branch of medicine, I mean freely to disclose to him the manner of preparing the different medicines, so successfully made use of at the Asylum, and of which the composition is unknown to every person but myself."

The author of the history treats this as arrant quackery. And we do agree with him that the doctrine of a nostrum, and a secret, delivered in this manner, has all the appearance of quackery. There is but one alternative; it was either quackery, or the very delirium of ignorance and self-conceit. In the first place, as fewer cures were performed in the Asylum than almost any where else, the Doctor's practice had, according to that evidence, nothing to recommend it. In the next place, lunacy, instead of being an obscure part of medicine, is, more properly speaking, no part of medicine at all. As to his drugs, " of which the composition was unknown to every person but himself," it is found by the most ample experience, that the bodily health of the insane is to be treated on very nearly the same principles as that of other people; and as to the mental disease, that druging it is of very little service.

Things proceeding in the established train, we pass the intermediate circumstances till the death of Dr. Hunter, and the appointment of Dr. Best as sole physician, in 1809. This undoubtedly was the time to introduce reforms, if tenderness to Dr. Hunter had made the Governors averse to withdraw from him any of the powers with which he had been entrusted. Was it used for this purpose? Very far from it. The Asylum was delivered over, or rather abandoned to Dr. Best, in as naked and defenceless a condition as it was held by his predecessor. After a time, an effort seems to have been made to render things worse. In 1813 a rule was adopted, on the proposition of Dr. Best, "that no person should be allowed to visit any of the patients, without a special written order of admission signed by the physician." This was to put it in the power of the physician to exclude, still more effectually, any ray of light which might display to the public the interior of the Asylum. It went to exclude even the Governors of the Asylum, without the express permission of the Doctor. This, however, was afterwards