MADMEN WHO TAKE MONEY

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 144196, 12 September 1913, Page 8

MADMEN WHO TAKE MONEY

EXPERIENCES OF A LUNACY EXPERT. “I am sure/' said a well-known mind doctor, “you would be amazed at the clever work that is done by hundreds of men and women who arc hopelessly insane; some of it at least as good as that done by sane people who earn largo incomes. “Among my patients to-day is one man whose skill with the brush would almost surely qualify him for Royal Academician rank if he were only m possession of his senses. There are few ■ of the great exhibitions which do not contain one or more of his canvases, and lie has often received os much as £IOO for a picture. And yet this man is as ‘mad as a hatter,’ the victim of terrible delusions, and subject to violent homicidal attacks. . , ■ “Naturally his work is unreliable. One week He will produce a masterly and beautiful picture, with genius in every lino of it. . The next he ? wul paint the most weird picture, a perfect nightmare in colour, which, curiously enough-, he always considers a masterpiece. ' , ‘•And this man is no exception, tor there are scores of lunatics who are qnito excellent artists, and many of them make good incomes by their art. Some years ago an exhibition of pictures, 'the work of insane patients of the Bcthlcm Royal Hospital, was opened to the public, and 1 can assure you many of them are beautiful works of art. There is a mural - painting of heroic size over the main staircase m one asylum in which the subject of the Good Samaritan is magnificently treated, and I have seen a series of the Passions which surpasses anything I have ever seen at the Royal Academy. “There are hundreds of. other lunatics who are just as skilful in music and literature. One. of my own patients, who is hopelessly mad on one subject and who is a perfect musical genius, has composed operas and symphonies and scores of songs, which have won fame for him all over Europe, and have brought him a small fortune. And i know of many other insane men and women who earn small and regular incomes in the same way. “There are, similarly, hundreds of tho insane who make a hobby, and sometimes a very profitable one, of writing. Indeed, many of our asylums have magazines which are almost entirely the work of the patients. Seventy-five years ago the first number of tho ‘New Moon’ made its appcaranco at tho Crichton Royal Institution, Dumfries; seven years later, the Royal Edinburgh Asylum followed, with the ‘Morningsule Mirror,* and later came the quarterly ‘Excelsior* from Murray’s Royal Asylum, Perth, ‘Under the Dome,’ the journal of the Bethlom Hospital, Loudon, and so on—and full of bright and clever reading, often containing admirable drawings done by insane patients. • . . “Of course such work is< not .paid for, but both in and outside our asylums are many mad people who make a comfortable income from their pens. Indeed, I know of two—a man and a Woman—whose' incomes from fiction come to manyhundreds a year. “Even in our public asylums there are hundreds of patients who make money by skilled work of, one sort or another." Thus in a county asylum I know well one man does the most exquisite water-colour sketches, for which ho receives from £3 to £JIO each, and ho has a market for as many as he can produce. Unfortunately, like so many mad artists, ho is often unable oj* unwilling to finish a picture, and thus at least four-fifths of his work is wasted. “Another patient, an ex-sea captain, spends his time in making tho most perfect tiny friodel of ships, carved.with infinite skill and pains from bone or ivory, for each of which he gets a pound, or two. For one. very elaborate and beautiful model of a cathedral he was paid as much as £3O, .and it was certainly very cheap at the price. „ A third patient in the same asylum earns a good many pounds a year by Cutting the cleverest silhouettes out of coloured paper. For a small book of these cuttings his regular charge is a guinea. “Other patients are equally skilled in a very wide rang© of industries, from inventing toys and puzzles to making watches and picture-frames, and from breeding canaries and mice to raising flowers. One very ingenious man actually made a clock with no other material than pins, buttons, iron bed-lathe, and pieces of knitting needles. *

“Tho women, too, are just as clever ns the men. I know- one demented lady 1 who writes . the most charming books for children and verses for Christmas cards, another who makes a good income, in her lucid hours,‘by illustrating books, and a . third who draws some hundreds a year from royalties on her plays. And there are countless women in our public asylums who ear:; money in scores of ways, such os knitting, lace-making, straw-plait-ing, and'leather work.” .