MOUNT VIEW ASYLUM.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1367, 12 May 1898, Page 16

MOUNT VIEW ASYLUM.

IMPEOVED EXTERNAL APPEARANCE. Many years of comparative neglect by the department, combined with the influences of weather and age, long ago combined to give the external appearance of this home for the insane a most dilapidated appearance. Fully a decade bad passed away since a paint brush had been laid on some parts, and signs of threatened decay became so manifest that it became imperative to obliterate them and prevent further encroachments. This has now been done. Daring the first week in March a number of painters under the supervision of Mr Gapes were set to work on the whole of the exterior walls, as well as the roofs. An average of about 20 men were employed, who, working under the advantages of the co-operative system and, the fine weather of the last month or two, have been able to make both satisfactory time and wages over the labour. The result of their operations is that the long straggling building looks almost like new. Some indication of the superficial measurement of the premises may be gauged from the fact that fully five tons of mixed paint were required to give the necessary two coats, the total number of yards, including the roofs, being over 7000—about twice as much as the Departmental Buildings. Tue Asylum has probably the largest outside area of any building in New Zealand. A greyish white colour has been applied to the walls, and the roofs coated with red oxide. All the outbuildings, besides the doctor's residence and the cottage for the assistant medical superintendent, have been attended to. Many of the patients have taken great interest in the work, which has their entire approval, though, of course, the details might in one or two instances have been improved upon. And looking from some of the critics to the building one seems to see in the brightness of the latter but the reflection of that which has slowly faded from them.

Probably the department will see its way clear at no distant date to appropriate a sum to be devoted towards the renovation of the interior. This is a work that with advantage might be undertaken, and would conserve the material considerably. Of course the severe cleanliness of the whole establishment prevents anything like decay, and in every part the greatest attention has evidently been paid to the work of maintenance. Still, no doubt, the Inspectoi-General would welcome the news that it was proposed to do inside what has been done out.