H.—B

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has slightly improved them. There is a square hole in the roof and two grated openings high up in the wall for ventilation. There are grated openings in the wall into a flue for the admission of hot air; but the heating apparatus, which could never be got to work properly, is not now used. These rooms were at one time so damp and cold that the attendants used to light charcoal fires on the middle of the floors to warm them before the patients were sent to bed. Thoy are furnished with fixed privies, which are not now generally used, as they give rise to great stenches, in spite of the ventilating shafts which have been fitted up .for them. In two of them the floor is made to slope towards one corner, where there is a grating over a drain, so as to permit of the urine being carried away. The bath-room in this block is a mere closet; it is badly lighted and ventilated. The water cocks and even the pipes are fully exposed, and the bath is fixed to the wall on three sides, leaving only a space af about 3 feet wide for a person to stand in. The remaining single rooms of the refractory ward are entirely detached from the rest of the building. They have most of the objectionable features which characterize the rooms for dirty patients — viz., privies fixed in the corner, small strongly-barred windows, with, in some cases, wire netting to protect the glass, and in others heavy movable shutters, wliich are fastened on by bolts which go through the wall, and have nuts screwed on to them on the outside. Besides these special features, there are slits in the walls to admit of the patient's food being handed into them, without the attendants having the trouble of opening the doors, which are very strong, and provided with au inspection hole and fastened by a padlock in the middle and a lock at top and bottom. There is not even a covered passage leading to these rooms. The refractory division on the female side is nearly the same, but has not so many single rooms. The day-room is the room which was intended for the laundry. It is dingy and cheerless; the walls are whitewashed. The furniture consists of a table and four benches without backs, and one with a back, a rocking-chair, a Windsor chair, two ugly heavy arm-chairs, which serve also the purpose of commodes, and are furnished with straps for fastening patients into them, and a cane-bottomed armchair for paralytic patients, with handles to admit of its being carried about, and an ugly big padlocked fender projecting nearly 3 feet into the room. The windows are large and open freely, but are guarded with strong iron bars. A door off this room leads into a small dormitory about 16 feet square and 9 feet high, which is occupied by six wet and dirty patients. This room has two windows, the upper sashess of which open freely, and there is a square hole in the roof for ventilation. But it had when examined a very close urinous smell, although both the windows were wide open. In fine weather the windows are kept open all night, but in cold or windy weather they have to be shut, and the room, occupied as it is by six patients of wet and dirty habits, with about 380 cubic feet of air each, must be insufferably close. There are no blinds nor shutters to the windows, which are protected with iron bars and wire netting. Several of the single rooms in the female refractory ward, although apparently clean, had a very offensive smell, owing to the fixed privies. There are four airing courts on the male and three on the female side. They are all quite unfitted for their purpose, being far too small to afford sufficient exercise, aud being surrounded on all sides with buildings and high galvanized iron fencing, which permit of no view. Two of these on the male side, which are more particularly dismal, are not used, as they are found too cold and damp. The dining hall is large and well lighted. The patients do not take their meals in it. It is used as a chapel and recreation-room. It has a stage at one end of the room for theatrical performances, contains a piano, and is furnished with benches. The washing-house, the fittings of wliich are not very convenient, is used for its proper purpose, but the laundry having been converted into a sitting-room for the refractory ward, all the clothes have to be dressed and ironed, and in wet weather dried in the day-room of the front ward, an arrangement which is found to be extremely inconvenient. The day-rooms are heated by open fire-places. There are fire-places in some of the dormitories, but they are not used, as the atmosphere of these rooms is at all times oppressively close and warm owing to their crowded state. There are no means of warming the larger corridors and single rooms opening off them, nor the detached single rooms. There is a heating apparatus in connection with the single rooms set apart for dirty patients, but as it cannot be got to work satisfactorily it is not used. The ventilation of the sleeping-rooms is generally speaking very defective. Gas pipes have been laid from the town to the door, but have not yet been introduced into the house. The corridors and day-rooms are lighted by kerosine lamps, but the associated dormitories are left entirely dark during the night. Two wells about 70 feet deep have been sunk, and from these it is said an abundant supply of water can be got. The water is pumped by the patients. There are no water-closets. The soil from the closets is removed daily. The drains from the urinals, bath-rooms, &c, have several apparently untrapped openings, which emit disgusting smells. The sewage is discharged over a slope at some distance from the building, and allowed to escape the best way it can. There is no provision against fire. This Asylum was intended for fifty patients, but the original accommodation has been increased by the addition of five single rooms on the male side, by the conversion of the workshops into day-rooms and sleeping-rooms for male and female patients. Each of the front wards is capable in reality of accommodating about twenty patients, provided they were all of the same social position, and that no classification were required. The back wards cannot be considered as affording proper accommodation for any class of the insane at all. They are merely collections of outhouses, constructed with a view to what has been called the " wild-beast theory of insanity," and are as nearly as possible exactly the reverse of what they should be. What more could be done to degrade an insane person, and to confirm his malady, than to place him in a cell remote from supervision, badly lighted by a small barred window near the roof, having a sloping floor with a drain to carry off urine, and furnished with a fixed privy and a straw bag, and having a slit in the wall through which food can be pushed, and an inspection hole in the door, which is fastened with a padlock and bolted top and bottom ; and to restrict him for exercise to a small damp paved yard shut in by walls of sheet-iron 10 or 12 feet high ? This is the treatment which is suggested by the construction of these wards, and which to a large extent is