10 



who were formerly treated in the infirmaries are now sent to the asylums 

 where they can be better cared for. An inducement to send these cases by 

 the Guardians is the fact that the Government pays the Guardians 43. per 

 week for each pauper lunatic. It is hardly fair, however, to cast the stigma 

 of insanity on a stock in the case of simple senile decay. 



The Correlation of Pauperism, Insanity, and Feeble-Mindedness. 



The registered insane in London is 5 per 1,000, whereas in England and 

 Wales it is only 3*5 per 1,000 (Fig. 2). On the face of it, this would 



1 I 1 I i 1 i i i i :j 



Fig. 2. 



appear to show that conditions existed in London which led to insanity that 

 were not so intense, or did not exist in the rest of the country. But more 

 probable is it, that London during the last 15 years by doubling its asylum 

 accommodation has gone far ahead of the rest of the country in this practical 

 method of applied eugenics. 



Nevertheless, when we compare the registered pauper lunatics in different 

 boroughs as this table which I exhibit shows, we shall be struck not only with 

 the variable percentage for the different boroughs of the County of London, 

 but also by the fact that in boroughs with a poor population there is a much 

 higher percentage. You will observe the relative low percentage of Hamp- 

 stead 2'6 per 1,000, Lewisham 2*8, Wandsworth 3*5; whereas it is 7*9 per 

 1,000 in St. Pancras, Westminster 8'i, St. Giles-in-the- Fields and Blooms- 

 bury 9- 2, Strand 12*7. The explanation of the high percentage of these 

 latter, excepting the Strand, is that the pauper population is largely 

 composed of the denizens of one-roomed tenements with a low wage earning 

 capacity, and in districts where we should, owing to improvements and the 

 pulling down of slum property, expect a diminution of pauperism and in- 

 sanity, there is no decrease, and in many instances an increase. Owing to better 

 and cheaper means of locomotion an increasing number of the better classes 

 and more desirable members of the lower classes, e.g., artisans and those 

 in continuous employment, have migrated to the suburbs, the result being 

 that in many boroughs large houses, which were formerly occupied by one 

 family of the better classes, are now converted into flats and tenements 



