OF he 162 TWENTY-SECOND NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CHARITIES England has been attracted by its influence, and representatives from that country have visited this place to see for themselves. Others have inquired by correspondence what could be done for this class of poor humanity, and now similar institutions mark her Dr. Christian philanthropy. The constantly improving condition of these wards confirms the wisdom, the justice, as well as the true Christian kindness, that prompted the effort on their behalf. "There is no doubt that here Such an Ireland, an eminent British philanthropist, in a report of his views on the "Newark Custodial," says: we have a difficult question solved in a simple manner. asylum must be very useful, and can only be supported at the expense of the State. Viewed from a money point alone, the cost of neglecting them [adult feeble-minded women] is likely to be greater than the cost of taking proper care of them." After they have The fact which we desire to impress most forcibly upon the minds of this Conference is that the feeble-minded of sound physical development are not brought to public attention so readily as are the lower grade and those physically deformed. Especially may this be said of the females, who, from selfish or mistaken motives on the part of parents or relatives, are kept hidden from the public until some act or condition forces society to interfere. passed the school age, the training school is not considered available; and it is also quite possible that the immediate treatment required may be of entirely different character. Thus, in the absence of distinct custodial institutions for this particular class, a large portion of the unfortunate beings never receive the care which it is intended by humane society that they should have. They are taken to a hospital, poorhouse, or jail, tossed from one to the other, and in the interim upon the public at large; their life one of abuses and misery; a monster evil to society, in that they are sowing the seed to perpetuate the misfortune of their own existence. We claim for this system distinct and essential points of merit, which cannot be so perfectly attained under any other conditions. The isolation from contact or close knowledge of the opposite sex is wholesome in the fact that there are no conditions to excite sexual instincts, which in the defective are usually abnormal. The moral status of an individual is governed largely by his mental. Being unembarrassed by a large school force and small children, we are enabled to devote the entire energies of the best talent of our official force to moral, religious, and industrial training, thereby fitting our charges to return into the world, and become, under proper guidance, faithful domestics as soon as moral dangers shall have passed. This is as far as the education of the imbeciles can be put into practical use. It might also be said in favor of this system that our doors are always open to the weak-minded woman requiring custodial protection. There is no doubt as to the age limit and class received, which might confuse the committing officer, and cause him to hesitate in making application for admission for the adult where the institution is generally known as a training school for children. A moment's thought, and the fact is plain that unprotected feebleminded women of full physical development are in constant danger themselves, and are always a menace to society,—a twofold reason why custodial care for this class should be the paramount idea in the State's provision for the feeble-minded. Thus their proper care and protection is a twice-blessed charity, in that it blesses the recipient of the State's bounties and blesses society by the removing of a great evil therefrom. Our institution is now in its seventeenth year of existence, having been opened with two inmates Sept. 3, 1878, as an experimental branch of the New York Asylum for Idiots. A careful perusal of the records of those seventeen years discloses the gratifying fact that each one of them has been in the line of progressive, intelligent philanthropy. Each year the number committed to our care has been a considerable increase over that of the preceding; and we have now reached a population at which our extended accommodations are exhausted, with numerous applicants knocking at our doors for admission. Provisions to meet this demand are already near completion. This numerical statement is a most gratifying proof of the good work of the institution, and positive evidence of the full confidence of all public-minded, charitable citizens. OF he VIII. The Insane. THE COLORED INSANE. BY J. W. BABCOCK, M.D., COLUMBIA, S.C., PHYSICIAN AND SUPERINTENDENT, SOUTH CAROLINA LUNATIC ASYLUM. To you, Mr. President, and to other members of this Conference, this has seemed a fitting time to consider the question of insanity in At your request this paper has been prepared; but, the negro. rather than present for your consideration my own opinions only upon this important subject, I have undertaken to compile as well the observations of others, and also to present an historical sketch of the policy pursued by the several States in dealing with the colored insane. The term "colored insane" is here applied to all persons of African descent, to full-blooded negroes as well as to half-breeds. The statement made by Witmer in writing upon this subject that "colored" is used by him because "it is probable that there are no full-blooded African negroes in the United States at this time" (1890) will be denied by any one familiar with the colored people On the islands of the Carolina coast the Of 192 negro men under my care on of the Southern States. negroes are an unmixed race. April 24 last, 78, or 40 per cent., were pronounced "full-blooded" Africans by intelligent men of their own race. I. INSANITY IN THE NEGRO. According to the testimony of travellers and natives, mental disease is almost unknown among the savage tribes of Africa. Among the slaves of the Southern States also insanity appears to have been conspicuously rare in the experience of individual observers. Since emancipation, however, brain diseases have become more common in the negro as compared with the whites, having increased, according to the census, from one-fifth as common in 1850 and 1860 to one-third as common in 1870 and to one-half as common in 1880 and 1890. To sociologists this fact is scarcely of less interest than it is to physicians. According to the figures of the Census Office the colored insane of the United States were in : By the last two enumerations the proportion of colored insane in different parts of the country was as follows: In Virginia it has been claimed the increase of insanity in the colored race has been for twenty-five years at the rate of 100 or more per cent. every ten years. The apparently rapid increase of insanity in the negro after his emancipation began to be recognized by Southern asylum superintendents as early as 1867. In 1848 Doctor John M. Galt, of the Williamsburg (Va.) Asylum, in writing upon the colored insane, observed that "the proportionate number of slaves who become deranged is less than that of free colored persons and less than that of the whites. From many of the causes affecting the other classes of our inhabitants they are somewhat exempt. For example, they are removed from much of the mental excitement to which the free population of the Union is necessarily exposed in the daily routine of life, not to mention the liability of the latter to the influence of the agitating novelties in religion, the intensity of political discussion, and other elements of the excessive mental action which is the result of our republican uld be content to 166 TWENTY-SECOND NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CHARITIES form of government. Again, they have not the anxious cares and anxieties relative to property, which tend to depress some of our free citizens. The future, which to some of our white population may seem dark and gloomy, to them presents no cloud upon its horizon. Moreover, not only are they less exposed to causative influences of a moral character, but the mode of life which they lead tends to strengthen the constitution and enable it to resist physical agents calculated to induce insanity." In his inquiry into the causes of the increase of insanity among negroes since emancipation, Doctor Powell, of the Georgia Asylum, concludes that "their remarkable mental and physical health, and their immunity from certain diseases, while in slavery, was entirely due to the healthful restraints that surrounded them from childhood through life. They were taught from infancy obedience and selfThe cause of insanity and other control, and forced to obey all the laws of health, so that their environments all tended to health. diseases with them now, from which they were exempt in slavery, is the removal of all healthy restraints that formerly surrounded them." It is doubtful whether in the history of the world any race of men has lived in whom such a degree of inhibitory power has been developed as existed in the Southern slaves. "The new and strange relation into which our negro population has been driven by the acquisition of freedom," says Doctor Atwood, of St. Louis, "the sudden demand upon sluggish and uncultivated brains for vigorous and effective action, while competing with the dominant and cultivated Caucasian in the struggle for existence; the melancholy that comes like a blight with the sense of failure, and the hopelessness of contention; the aspirations for social and political success and recognition, so frequently doomed to disappointment, have borne legitimate fruit in the generating of diseased brains and disordered minds, to a degree vastly disproportionate to the numerical relation of the races." --- While placing, in the main, little reliance upon the alleged causes of insanity as given in the statistical tables of asylums, we may, Thus, from the however, arrive at some more tangible results by collating the results obtained by independent investigators. Petersburg (Va.) Hospital, we have the statistics as to causation of 3.052 cases of colored insane in twenty-five years, and from South |