Further, while the Dean's will did not contemplate the payments of patients, boarders were admitted at an early period, and this policy went to such a length that while in 1800 there were a hundred and six free and only fifty-two paying patients, there were in 1857 eighty-eight paying patients, and only sixty-six free. As the Commission naïvely remark, "if the diminution of free patients and the increase of paying patients are to continue, it may one day result that no inmates of Dean Swift's Hospital will be maintained entirely out of his bequest, which certainly does not appear to have been in the contemplation of the founder."[253] A somewhat brighter picture might have been expected when one reflects that, according to the original charter, the government of the hospital was vested in the Primate, Lord Chancellor, Archbishop of Dublin, Dean of St. Patrick's, Dean of Christ Church, Physician to the State, and Surgeon-General, and seven other persons whose successors were to be elected by a majority of the governors, each of whom was required to be a fit person. An asylum was erected at Limerick about 1777, and at Cork in 1788. The Cork Asylum was built on the strength of an unrepealed section in an old Jail Act (27 Geo. III., c. 39. s. 8), which allowed of sums of public money to be "presented" by grand juries for the use of lunatic asylums, without limit, and permitted magistrates to commit to them any individuals, if idiots or insane. It did not provide, however, for the government of the establishment when formed, or for an account of how the money was spent. No medical certificates were required--the magistrate's power was unlimited. Fortunately, however, the Cork Asylum was in good hands (Dr. Hallaran), thanks to which, and not to the law, the institution was as well conducted as in those days it could be. So much was this the case that Mr. Rice stated before the Committee of the House of Commons in 1817, that it was the best managed he had ever seen or heard of, realizing, he added, all the advantages of the York Retreat. He, however, protested against the system under which it, like other asylums, was conducted as radically wrong; its success was a success of circumstances, almost of accident. This Prison Act was at this date the only law which regulated Irish asylums, the only statute by which they could be carried on. All, in fact, depended upon the humanity, skill, and conscientiousness of the superintendent.[254] I believe, as a matter of fact, Cork was the only county which made use of it.