88 MARRIAGE AND DISEASE. 



of deaths from suicide was in 1864 only 64 to the 

 million, it had risen in 1888 to 8 1 to the million; 

 which is an increase of as nearly as possible 33 per 

 cent, within less than 25 years. How those who 

 maintain that insanity is not increasing explain these 

 figures of the Begistrar-General I do not know, as the 

 matter has not been considered in this connection, so 

 far as I am aware ; but I fail to see how they can 

 reconcile the fact that suicide, which is an unmistak- 

 able sign of what we know as the insane temperament, 

 is increasing among the people, with their assertion 

 that the insane have been winnowed from the people 

 to an extent hitherto unknown, and that in the mean- 

 time there has been no increase of insanity. Until 

 this be satisfactorily explained, I must decline to 

 believe that insanity is not more prevalent now, when 

 suicides rank in the Registrar-General's report at 81 

 to the million, and we have 86,067 certified lunatics 

 in asylums, than when the certified insane were less 

 than half and the suicides 33 per cent, under what 

 they are at present. 



The marriage of those deeply tainted with insanity 

 or predisposition thereto is under any circumstances 

 to be deplored, but what makes such marriages more 

 terrible is the fact that in a great many cases the 

 tainted one is married on the assumption that no such 

 bar exists, and the unfortunate partner only discovers 

 when it is too late how cruelly he or she has been 

 treated by the one above all others implicitly trusted. 

 Concealment of such family blight under the circum- 



