The 2732 private patients were thus distributed: In chartered asylums, 652; licensed houses, 231; poor-houses, 9; reported houses, 10; school for idiots, 12; unlicensed houses, 18; with relatives, 1453; with strangers, 297; not under any care, 50; total, 2732.
The 4642 paupers were thus distributed: In chartered asylums, 1511; licensed houses, 426; poor-houses, 667; reported houses, 31; school for idiots, 3; unlicensed houses, 6; with relatives, 1217; with strangers, 640; not under any care, 141; total, 4642.
The receptacles for the insane were thus distributed:--
A. Chartered asylums. The Royal Asylums at Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Montrose; the Crichton Institution, Dumfries, including the Southern Counties Asylum; James Murray's Royal Asylum, Perth.
B. Public asylums not incorporated. The only institution of the kind, that of Elgin, was exclusively for paupers.
C. Poor-houses with separate wards for the insane (twelve given in the table).
D. Prisons. The only one specially adapted for the reception of the insane was the lunatic department of the general prison at Perth.
E. Poor-houses without separate wards for the insane (fourteen given).
F. Private asylums (twenty-three in number).
G. Private houses reported to the sheriff.
I. Schools for idiots. Baldovan, near Dundee; and Gayfield Square, Edinburgh.
This Commission did not report until 1857, and unhappily the evidence more than justified the necessity of the appointment of the Committee, and of a sweeping measure of reform. The difficulty in selecting passages from the Report is to know where to stop. We shall restrict ourselves within moderate bounds; and first let us cite the reference to the condition of the insane and idiotic not in asylums. "It is obvious," says the Report, "that an appalling amount of misery prevails throughout Scotland in this respect. When estimating the condition of the insane not in establishments, it should be remembered that the details furnished by us give only an imperfect representation of the true state of matters. They form only a part of the picture of misery; and, had we been able to extend our investigations, it would, we are convinced, have assumed a much darker shade.