she had been the
result; or the ignorance of her friends, or her own ignorance--or the
competition of modern life--or the wrongdoing of others--had precipitated
a catastrophe which otherwise might never have occurred, and thus society
pays indirectly for its ignorance far more than it would have to do for a
genuine useful education. Think of what desolated homes these poor
creatures form a portion. Remember what a fearful cost it is to the
respectable hard-working amongst us, who can barely manage to make two
ends meet, to have to rear such palatial residences for our pauper
lunatics. The asylum of which I write in its erection cost the county an
enormous sum--in its maintenance it does ditto--and I hear it is now in
an insecure state, firm as it looks, and that the county of Middlesex
will have to spend upon it some tens of thousands of pounds more.

I once visited this place in the winter-time; a large hall was lighted
up, and there were some very pretty dissolving views exhibited, and there
was dancing and music and eating and drinking going on. The room was
covered with laurels and flowers and banners, and, of course, there were
many ladies and gentlemen present, and the place had a cheerful air; and
all confessed it was a good thing to give the poor creatures a little
innocent amusement. But only think of dancing with lunatics--and such
ugly ones too--and being held by the buttonhole by some wild-eyed ancient
mariner. Coleridge might have come here and written:

"He held him with his glistening eye,
The wedding guest stood still,
And listen'd like a child--
The mariner has his will."

But if the wedding guest stays here long, he would not be in a fit state
for the wedding--and still less would he be so if he goes over the
building. What a contrast the present treatment of lunatics is to that
which prevailed till lately! The exposure of the wretched system pursued
at Bethlem, which took place in 1814, in consequence of the investigation
of a parliamentary committee, appears to have been productive of great
good. The visitors thus describe one of the women's galleries:--"One of
the side-rooms contained about ten patients, each chained by one arm or
leg to the wall, the chain allowing them merely to stand up by the bench
or form fixed to the wall, or sit down again. The nakedness of each
patient was covered by a blanket gown only. The blanket gown is a
blanket formed something like