One of those waves of suspicion and excitement which occasionally pass over the public mind in regard to the custody of the insane, occurred in 1858. Sensational articles appeared in the papers, and novels were written to hold up those connected with the care and treatment of the insane to public obloquy. The author himself did not escape animadversion, and was represented in a newspaper as a brutal mad-doctor using a whip upon an unfortunate patient "in an institution of which better things might have been expected." That the charge was the offspring of a bewildered editor, who confused person and place in an incredible manner, and was obliged to acknowledge that he had been the victim of his own imagination, only shows how the paroxysms of sudden passion and indignation to which John Bull is liable, may lead to the most ridiculous mistakes. However, there must be some fire where there is smoke, and one or two unfortunate events gave colour to the assertion, persistently made, that asylums were the abodes of injustice and cruelty. A Select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed in February, 1859, to inquire into the operation of the Acts of Parliament and Regulations for the Care and Treatment of Lunatics and their Property, including Sir George Grey, Mr. Walpole, Mr. Whitbread, Mr. Drummond, Mr. Kekewich, and others; and evidence was given by the Earl of Shaftesbury, Mr. Barlow, Mr. Gaskell, Dr. Southey, Dr. Conolly, Dr. Hood, Dr. Bright, Dr. Bucknill, Mr. Lutwidge, etc. The Committee commence their Report with presenting the following comparison of the number of lunatics in 1844, 1858, and 1859:-- -----------------------------------------+--------+--------+------- Location. | 1844. | 1858. | 1859. -----------------------------------------+--------+--------+------- Private patients in asylums, hospitals, | | | and licensed houses | 3,790 | 4,612 | 4,762 | | | Pauper lunatics and idiots in asylums, | | | hospitals, and licensed houses | 7,482 | 17,572 | 18,022 | | | Pauper lunatics and idiots in workhouses | | | (655) and with friends, etc. | 9,339 | 13,163 | 13,208 +--------+--------+-------- | 20,611 | 35,347 | 35,992 -----------------------------------------+--------+--------+-------- the last figure showing an increase of 15,000 over the number in 1844, and being one in six hundred in the population. The Committee point out that from 1808 to 1845 the justices had the power to provide, in every county, proper houses for pauper lunatics, but were not obliged to do so. There were in 1859 forty county asylums. Of seventy-one boroughs bound to provide asylums, about forty had done so.