As may be supposed, the disposition to build huge asylums is due to the same cause as that of the detention of insane persons in workhouses, viz. to the plea of economy; a plea, which we believe to be about as fallacious in the one case as in the other. The economy is supposed to arise from the saving in commissariat matters and in the governing staff; and it is no doubt proportionately cheaper to provision 1000 persons than 500, other things being the same. But, on the one hand, very competent persons assert that the cost of officers and servants for a population of 1000 insane is more than double that for one of half that amount, when proportionately compared. The multiplication of inferior officers beyond a certain point entails that of superior ones in a higher ratio to overlook them; there is not the same amount of productive labour considering the number employed. The capability of the superintendent to supervise his attendants and the patients stops at a certain point, and he need call to his aid a head attendant at superior wages, and so add an extra person to the staff; if the extent of his charge is farther increased by additional patients and their necessary attendants, then an officer of a higher grade is called for, and other overlookers of attendants and of the _régime_ of the house. But figures showing the relative costs presently appealed to will do more to convince the reader of the fact under notice than any 'aids to reflection' we can supply.
There can be no question, that to build asylums for the insane above a certain size is a fallacy when viewed even in an economical aspect; but when regarded in relation to its ulterior consequences, the plan is not only erroneous, but reprehensible. Were it really the case that a pecuniary saving resulted from the aggregation of large masses of mentally disordered folk, according to the figures in the ledger of the institution, yet no positive gain could be boasted of until it was proved that every case was placed in the most favourable conditions for recovery. Can it be pretended that the very extensive asylums of this country, with their present corps of medical officers, furnish such conditions? Certainly not, if there be any truth in the account we have published of their evils and defects. And if those conditions are not supplied, the primary object of these institutions, _i. e._ the cure of the insane, is frustrated, and chronic lunacy increased. Where, then, is the economy, if patients, failing to receive the means of recovery, by reason of the constitution of the asylum on so large a scale, fall into chronic disease, and become permanent burdens on its funds? Where is the economy of a system, which, by standing in the way of efficient treatment, reduces the proportion per cent. of recoveries to twenty or thirty, when under different arrangements that proportion may equal 60 per cent. or upwards?