again call attention to a practice which, to say the least, is distasteful to many of the friends of the inmates, as well as to some of the patients themselves." In 1888 the board of managers appealed to the legislature for better accommodations for colored female patients, who were kept in the basement of the building, without any of the comforts or conveniences of other parts of the building. The colored male patients were treated in all respects like the white male patients.

Colored patients have been received at the Terrell Asylum; but no particulars about their number, care, and accommodation could be obtained from accessible reports.

West Virginia. In 1867, in the Fourth Annual Report of the West Virginia Hospital for the Insane, Doctor Hills, the superintendent, says: "Several applications have been received for the admission of colored insane persons of both sexes. These have been necessarily refused admission, as we have no special arrangements for that class. Their admission into the wards with whites is very properly refused in all the hospitals of the country."

In 1876 Doctor Camden reports that the colored hospital is almost completed, and that soon the colored insane will be placed in a firstclass hospital, equal in every respect to that occupied by the white insane.

In 1887 the board of directors state that the colored hospital is full, and patients of this class are refused for want of room.

In September, 1893, Doctor Crumbacker, the superintendent, reported that "nothing has been done toward the erection of a building for colored patients. The department now assigned them is overcrowded, and is unadapted to the requirements of the insane. There are now on file applications for the admission of ten cases at present confined in jails."

In October, 1894, the directors of the West Virginia Hospital for the Insane inform Governor MacCorkle in their report of the inadequacy of the appropriation for colored insane for either a new hospital or an annex to the existing one, and declare that it would be a waste of money to begin with so small a sum. They ask for $15,000 for a building to relieve overcrowding as well as receive patients in jails.

Missouri. In 1871, at the St. Louis County Insane Asylum, 10 colored patients were treated during the year, presumably in the

wards with white patients. In 1875 Superintendent Howard says, "Separate accommodations should be provided for epileptics as well as colored patients." In 1887 Doctor LeGrand Atwood in his report, after discussing very intelligently and succinctly "Insanity in Negroes," concludes that, "as in the world social equality between the races is recognized as impossible, unattainable, and undesirable, so in an asylum a distinction should be made."

In 1892 Doctor Mueller had succeeded Doctor Atwood; and he reports that "the colored patients of all classes have so far been occupying the same apartments with the whites, which arrangement has many disadvantages and is not conducive to the comfort, nor is it likely to promote the welfare, of either race." In 1893 Doctor Mueller continues to ask for relief in this direction, and recommends that a frame building on the asylum grounds known as the Cottage be turned over to the colored female patients.

No particulars were attainable from the reports of the State asylums of Missouri.

North Carolina. In March, 1875, the General Assembly of North Carolina appropriated $10,000 to provide a branch asylum for colored insane, at Wilmington, to be subject to the same superintendence, rules, and regulations as in the institution for whites at Raleigh, where a small number of negroes had been under care since emancipation.

The act also provided that the expenditures for each patient should not exceed $200 per annum. As the directors empowered to carry out the purposes of this act were unable to effect a lease of the Marine Hospital building in Wilmington, the first steps toward establishing a separate hospital for the colored insane of North Carolina were temporarily obstructed.

In 1878 an appropriation was made to build for the colored insane a separate asylum at Goldsboro. The building having been. completed, it was occupied in 1880, and has since been successfully maintained as a separate and distinct hospital in the centre of the colored population of North Carolina.

In his report for 1890-92 Doctor P. L. Murphy, of the Morganton Hospital, says: "Of the 1,732 insane reported by the United States Census for 1890, 1,322 are white and 410 colored. In round numbers the capacity of this hospital is 550; the Raleigh Asylum, 300; the Eastern Hospital (for colored people) at Goldsboro, 300,

making 1,150 insane provided for and 582 not in any institutions. In this district we have 281 white insane persons not in the hospital. In the Eastern district there are 191, and there are 110 colored people throughout the State. It is seen by these figures that all the institutions need enlarging, this one most of all, and the one at Goldsboro the least. North Carolina has provided better for the negro insane than for the white."

Arkansas.— In the first report of the Arkansas Lunatic Asylum for 1883 Doctor Forbes, the superintendent, in discussing the classification of patients, expresses the opinion that "there is an incompatibility in the races that demands emphatically and imperatively their separation and segregation." A year later Doctor Forbes reiterates his opinion, and remarks that "it [the separation of the races] is not a one-sided question, nor yet entirely a matter of taste. It does not depend more upon the habits of thought of such and such a one, from force of custom, than upon the character and training of the population to be affected by the movement. What might seem unnecessary or inexpedient in New York might be deemed most desirable and proper in Arkansas, as it is decided to be in Washington City. Certainly, the legal status of the colored population as regards the different localities may be that of perfect equality with the whites; while the social status, which is of far more importance as to the influence of association in a hospital for the insane, may be widely different."

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"The opinion obtains here," Doctor Forbes continues, more generally that the races retain so much incompatibility, as they probably will for this and the next and may be for many generations, that a certain degree of friction, from a want of affinity, will undoubtedly prevail where they are congregated under the same régime. Under this view of the question it is unequivocably and earnestly recommended that steps be taken and means provided for their separation under the same administration. In this expression no discrimination is intended. It is only meant that each should be assigned to circumstances and surroundings that would be more agreeable and congenial to both, and therefore much more likely to conduce to desirable results in the treatment of their special maladies."

Louisiana. In the asylum at Jackson the colored insane numbered 199 in 1882 and 347 in 1884, as shown by the reports. The

superintendent, Doctor Perkins, says in 1890: "Our buildings for the care of colored patients are far inadequate to the demand. . . . Each room must accommodate five patients. This is a state of affairs which is in open conflict with all laws of health, comfort, and security, and should not be allowed to exist." In 1892 there were admitted 69 colored men and 57 colored women.

Delaware. In a recent letter Doctor Hancker, of the Delaware State Hospital, expresses his views as follows:

"Owing to limited accommodations, we are compelled to associate upon the same wards both white and colored patients. This summer we will add detached buildings, and then I shall isolate the two races I think it is detrimental to all concerned to compel the white patients to affiliate with the colored race.'

Florida. From this State I have not been able to get reports or other information.

In the preparation of this paper I have, so far as possible, made my citations from the reports of men actively engaged in the practical administration of State charities. Obviously, these opinions have not been prepared for the purpose for which they are now used. All these reports indicate the most earnest and strenuous efforts on the part of asylum officers to obtain from legislatures the means of carrying out the purposes of great public institutions irrespective of race, color, or condition of servitude.

The opinion seems largely to prevail among these authorities that the separation of white and colored patients in lunatic asylums — in the Southern States, at least is to the advantage of both races. In Virginia and North Carolina the geographical distribution of the negroes near the Atlantic seaboard has clearly indicated the need of separate and independent asylums for their insane near their centre of population. Although similar plans have been proposed in several other States, they have not been carried into effect for economical reasons mainly, but also because the negroes are more uniformly distributed through the other States.

Such is the history of this vital problem, as I find it recorded. In many places the record is most honorable, in others it is not creditable. Even in small and wealthy communities it requires a long period to educate public opinion to make proper provision for the insane. In this particular phase of the question to secure legislative co-operation has not always been an easy task; but, whatever

of disappointment the past may have buried with it, the present and future are more encouraging and hopeful.

Mr. James Bryce, in his philosophical study of our "American Commonwealth," devotes to the "Present and Future of the Negro" a chapter, in which he concludes, "And, as the present differences between the African and the European are the product of thousands of years, during which one race was advancing in the temperate and the other remaining stationary in the torrid zone, so centuries may pass before their relations as neighbors and fellow-citizens may be duly adjusted. ... Revolutions of sentiment are no doubt conceivable, but they are more rare than revolutions in politics."

THE INCREASE OF INSANITY.

BY F. B. SANBORN, OF MASSACHUSETTS.

Ever since a few of us met in the city of New York in May, 1874, at the call of the American Social Science Association, and there formed the nucleus around which this great deliberative body has grown, yes, for more than twenty-five years, the problem of the constant increase of insanity has forced itself on the attention of all those who, like myself, had an official connection with the commitment and care of the insane. For we had noticed, and our reports had shown (mine began in 1864, when I was secretary of the Massachusetts Board of State Charities), that the number of the insane under public care was growing rapidly. It was apparently checked a little in the United States by the Civil War (1861 to 1865), for many of the insane were in the great armies then contending; but no sooner did the war end than insanity began to increase again here. It had been steadily gaining ground in Great Britain and Ireland, from the first dates that furnished reasonably exact statistics; and now the same remark is true, I think, of every civilized country. So great has the increase been far beyond the gain in population that some alarm has been felt lest insanity should become a dominant element in our recent civilization. Indeed, a whimsical but