CHARENTON: A PARIS LUNATIC SYLUM.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 2826, 23 August 1890, Page 5 (Supplement)

CHARENTON: A PARIS LUNATIC SYLUM.

Charenton with the French is synoninions with Bedlam. It is not a public asylum, as is generally coucluded, but an establishment for the insane having the means to pay for their support and treatment. It is daily becoming more and more a favourite retreat, wherein foreigners place their afflicted relatives, to be cured by alienists professing the ideas of the modern French school of nevro-montal maladies. As soon as a foreigner is admitted the ambassador of the country of which the patient is a native is informed, who duly has the details controlled, to see that no sequestration is being practised.

The asylum is situated outside Paris, overlooking the smiling valley of the Marne. Before 178!) the friends of a lunatic could arrange with the monks, who then directed the establishment, to take charge of a patient for life, for a lump sum of 15,030 francs, guaranteeing to cure the patient in health and in disease, and ill due course to bury him. The Marquis de Sade, of infamous notriety, uasa first-class—and that too in every sense—inmate, taken on these conditions, at 4,000 francs a year on au average.

It is the Home Office that administers Charenton, and the Government grants it a subsidy of ."SO,OOO francs yearly, having the riylit in exchange to 7!) admissions. Tin; latter are reserved for the afflicted, of those families who have done the State good service. The pauper, or public asylum, is tlie Salpiitriere. Charenton at present contains GIS paying patients, of whom 317 are women. There are three classes of boarders, at 1,800, UOO, and 1000 francs. The total admissions from 187!) to ISSS have been 1,840, of which 1,070 women. During the same period, there were 753 deaths, of which, 245 women ; and 60S cures or "improvements," 264 being also women. Rich families, who so desire it, can have a servant, cost DOOfr. a year—and some engage a second, to attend on their patient; the latter must occupy special apartments, and boards at the director's table. The patients of the second and third classes dine there in turn also.

Every kind of occupation is secured for the inmates, for the men, gardening, for the women, needlework. An extensive library is at the command of those who prefer the resources of books and writing. One of the most interesting modern stories was written for, and run in a I'aris evening journal, by a wealthy itr.nato of the asylum, during tho intervals when ho was not as mad as a hatter. Every Sunday and Thursday, the patients of both sexes, as selected by the doctors, unite in tho director's draw-ing-room to chat, play cards, chess, &c., executo music, or danco, under the eyes of keepers. It is very rarely that a distubance ensues. There is walking in the grounds, and promenades through tho open fields but the greatest treat for au inmate is to bejbrought for a drive through I'aris, or to a distant part of tho csuntry for a grass picnic.