58 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the old time and tlie mere study of the fact; we have introduced char- 

 acters into the personages, which, while they correspond to living and 

 real characters that we have under our eyes, attempt to resolve a 

 problem and teach us a moral, and go so far as to represent to us a 

 symbolical idea which is a pure abstraction of the author's, reaching 

 thence the maximum of complication. 



Naturally, such salient characters as madmen, eccentrics, and 

 criminals would not be likely to escape the notice of the dramatist, 

 who finds in them motives for great effects without departing from 

 truth and probability. 



But there is another more material reason for the recent introduc- 

 tion of insane characters into the theater, and for their greater fre- 

 quency and participation in real life. It has been remarked that insane 

 persons have multiplied a hundredfold with civilization, to such an ex- 

 tent that where a few years ago one madhouse was enough, now five 

 hundred and six are needed. Taking, for example, the statistics of 

 the most progressive country in the world, those of the United 

 States, furnished by its invaluable census report,* we see that the 

 number of insane persons, which was 15,610 in 1850, 24,042 in 1860, 

 and 37,432 in 1870, rose in 1880 to 91,994; Avhile the population, 

 from 23,191,876 in 1850, increased to 38,558,371 in 1870, to 

 50,155,783 in 1880 — that is, while the population doubled in a little 

 more than thirty years, the insane increased sixfold; so, in the last 

 decade the increase in population was thirty per cent, and that of in- 

 sane one hundred and fifty-five per cent. 



In France f there were 131.1 insane per 100,000 inhabitants in 

 1883, 133 in 1884, 136 in 1888. These figures indicate that the 

 number of insane is larger in the most civilized countries, and is 

 increasing every year. It may indeed be said that many of these 

 insane are not produced but are only revealed by civilization, and 

 that the opening of the large asylums has caused a considerable num- 

 ber to be brought into the light who were not kno^vn of before. It 

 is true that the greater care we give now to the insane, as well as 

 to consumptives, makes them longer-lived. And it is true that as the 

 mind grows enlightened criminals come to be regarded as insane and 

 thus increase the apparent number of such. But all this is not suf- 

 ficient to explain a doubling in a decade, a tenfold increase in twenty 

 years. 



We know, too, that civilization has brought on the development 



* Compendium of the Tenth Census of the United States, Part II, p. 1659. See docu- 

 ments in the new statistical laboratory, the only one in Italy, of Professor Cognetti, recently 

 published at Turin. 



f Bodio. Bulletin de Flnstitut international dc Statistique, 1889, pp. 112 and 123. See 

 8ome Sanitary Statistics in Italy and other European States, by Dr. Raaori. 



