A MARE'S NEST.

Otago Witness, Issue 1155, 17 January 1874, Page 1

A MARE'S NEST.

"We have every feeling of respect and admiration for those gentlemen who testify to their philanthropy by visiting all the institutions of a country, and who form an independent judgment of their own upon the method pursued in them. Such judgment is often most Valuable. That which from use may escape the notice of a practised inspector will often strike one who is comparatively an amateur. Gaols and Lunatic Asylums, institutions for the relief of indigence and disease, have in Great Britain owed their most valuable reforms to the observation and subsequent exertions of amateur philanthropy. It may be said indeed that the improved treatment of latter years, in both the Asylums and Gaols at home, is mainly owing to the unpaid exertions of those who loved mankind well. It would be a pity if this valuable source of information and enquiry were dried up by incautious utterances. There are many, especially in the official world, who are only too ready to pass by the opinions of those who have no especial training for an especial work as unworthy of consideration. No doubt there are many necessary inconveniences and unavoidable discomforts appertaining to such an institution as a Lunatic Asylum, which strike the unpractised eye as hardships to be amended. The impulse is — agitate for reform at once, though a little more experience and, acquaintance would show the enquirer that the matters that distress him were necessary to the proper conduct of affairs. To find fault, however, seems to some people the one usual consequence of enquiry. When Captain Fraser spoke in the Legislative Council about the Lunatic Asylums of the Colony, and especially about that at Hawke's Bay, in harsh terms, we concluded that though his statements were possibly exaggerated, yet that there was very possibly a substratum of serious truth in them, and that an enquiry would properly ensue. His statement was as follows: — "No information whatever could be derived from such reports as that, for instance, of the Inspector of Lunatic Asylums in Hawke's Bay, which he would supplement with something that came under his own observation. When at Hawke's Bay he went into the Gaol, where he found seven lunatics — four men and three women. Three of the men, for want of curative treatment, had become idiotic and incurable ; the fourth was restless, and had been placed in a ee ll — it was cheaper than any one being appointed to attend him. With regard to the female patients, two of them, he presumed for want of curative treatment, also had become idiotic and apparently incurable ; and the third case left a very sad impression upon his mind. It was that of a young married woman, who was suffering from puerperal mania, and was far advanced in pregnancy, and there was no matron in the gaol." These were definite and very decided charges to bring agaiust the officials. That three men had become idiots from want of curative treatment ; that one woman was without female attendance when she most required it, for we suppose Captain Fraser's statement meant this ; such fault-finding as this betokened a rare aptitude for discovering mares' neste, or exhibited a very serious blot in a public institution. A Government paper has just been issued Containing the answer of the keeper of the Hawke's Bay Asylum, and the Inspector of the Lunatic Asylum, Napier. It would be difficult to conceive a more distinct and absolute contradiction to what the Superintendent of Hawke's Bay calls Captain Eraser's unfounded statements, than that contained in the letters before us. Of the four men at present in the Asylum, one has been an. idiot from his infancy 5 one came from, Dunedin in 1865, where he Ji&dbeeu prpaoujjeed by Pr &WWPW '

incurable fromhavingbeen injuredinthe bead; onehad been previously confined ir the Canterbury and Auckland asylum* for some years. The fourth is subject tc violent fits of insanity for about three days, during which time it is necessary to confine him in a cell. According to Mr Miller's account Captain Frasee himself remarked, during his visit, that "this was the only way to manage such lunatics." As for the female attendance, it appears that a female attended the Asylum patients during the day, and slept there during the night ; and that, in addition, a regular nurse has been employed to attend to the case of the woman especially referred to by Captain Fraser. In addition to the testimony of the Superintendent-keeper and Inspector, as though to make assurance doubly sure, we have Captain Fraser's own testimony against himself. On the 4th July, 1873, he visited the Gaol, and asked to be allowed to make the following entry in the visiting- book :—: — " Visited the Gaol, found it perfectly clean, and everything in a satisfactory state." " Saw all the lunatics, who appeared very well heeded." No doubt, in the heat of debate, the gallant captain may have lost his head, and forgotten what he saw. It is unfortunate that such things should happen, as their occurrence renders it infinitely harder to make the proper stir in a case of real wrong. It would be doing an injustice not to give the same publicity to the contradiction that has been already given to the very unfounded accusation against a deserving bflicer. It is putting the matter very kuldly to say with Mr Scaly, R.M., lhat Capt.FBASKR's statement contained grnor, inaccur,. ics. If such empty assertions were allowed to go uncontradicted, no official would feel that his character «vas safe. We quite agree with Capt. Fraser that there is room in many Provincial Asylums for such improvement in curative treatment of the patients as modern science has rendered known. It is quite another thing to back up such a statement by assertions which convey the impression that the ordinary and procurable means for improving a patient's health are not used. We do not believe that there is any probability, we may say possibility, of a sane patient being immured for a lifetime in any of our asylums. Still less do we believe that when sent there there is any possibility of such neglect as that supposed by Captain Fraser to have been shown at Hawke's Bay. We express a hope that when next the Captain bestirs himself to rake up a grievance, it will prove to have rested upon a more secure foundation.