360 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. CHAP. xx , 



people whose condition is exactly that described, and 

 from a still greater mass who, living just on t^e edge of 

 the social swamp, are liable to be precipitated into it." l 



But there are yet other indications of our terribly un- 

 healthy social condition besides poverty, misery, and pre- 

 ventable deaths. The first is the increase of insanity, 

 which is certainly great, though not perhaps so large as 

 the mere increase of the insane population. This in- 

 crease from 1859 to 1889 was from 1867 per million in 

 the former year to 2907 per million in the latter, or more 

 than 50 per cent, faster than the population. But it is 

 alleged that this is mainly due to the accumulation of 

 patients, owing to their being better taken care of than 

 formerly. This, however, is only a supposition, and an 

 improbable one, since it is admitted that in our crowded 

 asylums proper curative treatment is impossible; and 

 the returns of the Registrar-General show that deaths in 

 lunatic asylums are increasing faster than the number 

 of lunatics. (In the seven years 1888 to 1895 the deaths 

 increased 25 per cent.) And in " Chambers' Encyclo- 

 paedia," the writer who gives the above explanation also 

 shows immediately afterward that it only accounts for 

 the smaller portion of the increase. He says that, if we 

 take the newly registered cases each year, " we find they 

 have only risen from 4.5 to 6 per 10,000 (or from 450 to 

 600 per million) in the thirty years." But this is 30 per 

 cent, faster than the population increases; and it may 

 therefore be taken as the admitted amount of the con- 

 tinuous increase of insanity among us. 



Closely connected with insanity is suicide, and that 

 this has very largely increased there is no doubt what- 



1 Nineteenth Century, February, 1888. 



