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COSTUME BALL IN A LUNATIC…

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COSTUME BALL IN A LUNATIC ASYLUM. The Committee of the Middlesex County Asylum, Colney Hatch, invited a number of guests to a costume ball given in the grand hall and recreation-room of the asylum. The asylum contains about 2100 patients. Of these 350 joined in costume in the festivities, and 250 older patients sat round the room and in the gallery overlooking it. There was an excellent band. The attendants' choir sang during the evening, and all present clapped hands and otherwise joined in the applause which followed their performance. There were about 250 visitors, most of them in fancy dress. The costumes of the patients were, to a large extent, the choice and even the handiwork of the patients themselves. For weeks the ball has been talked of, and it will be a subject of conver- sation for some months to come. There are dances every week for the amusement of the patients, but Tuesday night's dance was of special interest and importance. The costumes were not very different from those worn at other costume balls. Dr. Faust and Mephistophiles, Pierrot and the Christmas clown, Watteau shepherdesses and "fine gentlemen" of the Court of Louis XIV., Charles Surface, and Joseph his brother, ladies in stuff gown and Queen's Counsel in silk, Kings, Queens, and Knaves, contadine and contadini, soldiers, sailors, Lap- landers, Negroes, ani Greek goddesses waltzed, gal- loped, and joined in quadrilles. There was special eagerness on the part of the mad people to wear the dress of a king or queen, and one who earnestly desired to appear as a great philosopher was, in pre- sence of the difficulty of expressing that character by magnificence of dress, easily contented with a paper crown instead. When the Roast Beef of Old Eng- land was sung the choristers waved the Union Jack amid tremendous applause. Sir W. H. Wyatt, in the uniform of a Deputy Lieutenant of the County, re- ceived the guests as Chairman of the Committee. Dr. Brewer, Chairman of the Metropolitan Asylums Board. Sir E. H. Ourrie, of ihe London Hospital, Sir 0. Duff Gordon, Mr. Price, Mr. Bodkin, Mr. Dry, Mr. Marshall, Mr. Woodd Smith, and other magistrates of Middlesex; Mr. Skaife, the clerk to the magi- strates Dr. Sheppard, the principal medical officer; Mr. Marshall, the medical officer of the female de- partment, whose patients insisted on dancing with him the Rev. H. Hawkins, the chaplain; Mr. Blake, the steward; and other officers and members of the committee directed the amusements. Everything passed off with great order and hilarity. Of course the dan- gerous patients are not admitted to these entertain- ments, and the mild- looking, child-like lunatics who par- ticipated in the evening's enjoyment were able to con- verse quite rationally with their partners provided the subjects of their craze were avoided. The doors of the wards were, of course, kept locked. It was in that sense a Freemasons' ball, and the warders, with jingling keys, who scrutinised visitors on their way out, helped to remina those present of the peculiarity of the evening's festivity which otherwise in the light and cheerful hall, fes, tooned with evergreens and lanterns and alive with the movements of the brightly clad dancers, would have been forgotten. The precise number of patients on the books at the date of the last published report of the Commissioners in Lunacy was 846 males and 1241 females. The cost of maintenance for each patient is 9s. 7^d. per week. Alcohol and religious frenzy are quoted by the medical officer in his report as the principal causes of the bram disease which here is suffered, alleviated, or cured. as the principal causes of the bram disease which here is suffered, alleviated, or cured.

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