LUNACY INCREASING.

Colonist, Volume LI, Issue 12401, 17 November 1908, Page 2

LUNACY INCREASING.

A SURPRISING STORY. The ■ annual ; report of the British Commissioners on Lunacy, one •of the most interesting Blue-books of the year, has just been issued. At the beginning of this year there were 126,084 persons certified as insane in England and Wales. That w- a £ ase oi 2096 on the year. Within fifty years the number of insane has increased -by the enormous proportion of 243 percent, while the population has increased by less than 80 per cent. A slight gleam of comfort may be discerned in the fact that while there was a heavy in-. ooo as i c last L year> the increase was A2a less than the average increase for the preceding five years. In ten years the proportion of insane people has risen from one in 309 to one in 280. While the population has increased by 12.2" per ' cent, the certified insane have increased by 23.7 per cent.: .The report contains T aiisurprising story as to a wholesale mistake in identity of women patients, which persisted for years. Some of the patients died and were buried under wrong names., _The Commissioners attribute the blunders to the stitching of wrong name labels on the women's dresses when their clothing, was changed on reaching Fisherton House, Salisbury • whither they had - been sent from other asylums. :