456 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ceiving relief that is, actually coming under treatment is propor- 

 tionally larger in the latter than in the former. In other words, the 

 proportion of fresh cases of pauper lunacy appearing on the poor-roll 

 is higher in urban than rural districts. The commissioners refer this 

 result partly to the greater prevalence of the active and transitory 

 forms of mental disorder cases which before long are discharged 

 and partly to the greater facility of obtaining accommodation in an 

 asylum free of charge in a city, from its being at hand ; and the 

 greater wealth of the urban districts offering no obstacle to admis- 

 sion. They attribute the above-mentioned persistent rural lunacy 

 chiefly to the constant migration of the strong from the rural to the 

 urban districts ; the necessary exodus of the physically and mentally 

 healthy leaving behind an altogether disproportionate number of con- 

 genital idiots, imbeciles, and chronic insane, in the agricultural coun- 

 ties. Hence, returning to England, it is quite clear that the mere 

 ratio of accumulated pauper lunacy to the county population, which 

 is constantly relied upon, proves little or nothing as to the relative 

 liability to insanity of the agricultural and manufacturing districts. 

 One conclusion only can be safely drawn from such figures, until 

 minute investigations have been made into the circumstances attend- 

 ing rural and urban lunacy in England as has been done in Scotland 

 namely, that while theory is apt to say that a country life, passed, 

 as it seems to be supposed, in pastoral simplicity, will not admit of 

 the entrance of madness into the happy valley, fact says that, what- 

 ever may be the ultimate verdict as to the relative proportion of urban 

 and rural lunacy, a large amount of insanity and idiocy does exist in 

 the country districts, and that the dull swain, with clouted shoon,but 

 too frequently finds his way into the asylum. 



A glance at the annual reports of our lunatic asylums reveals the 

 main occupations of the inmates and the apparent causes of their 

 attacks. In a county asylum like Wilts the great majority of pa- 

 tients are farm-laborers, with their wives and daughters ; and next 

 in order, domestic servants and weavers. The number of farmers, 

 or members of their families, is small. The character of the occupa- 

 tions in the population of an asylum like that for the borough of 

 Birmingham of course differs. Here we find mechanics and artisans 

 heading the lists, with their wives. Those engaged in domestic occu- 

 pation form a large number. Shopkeepers and clerks come next in 

 order. In both asylums are to be found a few governesses and teach- 

 ers. Innkeepers, themselves the cause of so much insane misery in 

 others, figure sparingly in these tables. 



Among the causes, intemperance unmistakably takes the lead. 

 This is one of those facts which, amid much that is open to difference 

 of opinion, would seem to admit of no reasonable doubt. Secondly 

 follows domestic trouble, and thirdly poverty. At the Birmingham 

 Asylum, out of 4*70 admissions in three years, eleven cases were at- 



