vacant by the removals and later were occupied by women only, the pavilions being, in part, reserved as an infirmary. The "Lodge" has been abandoned. The basement of the main building has been unoccupied since March, with the exception of two small rooms where the rag working is carried on. The small wards "55" and "E," on both male and female sides, are now reserved for nurses and accommodate twenty. Almost every bed in the main building is now occupied and, by January, 1896, the institution will be crowded again. During the past year a workshop for men has been instituted at Flatbush, and from 25 to 50 men are now employed daily. The rags, having been made into hanks by the women, are dyed, and are woven by the patients into handsome carpets, two breadths of which have been laid in the men's corridors, and a single breadth on the women's side. The patients make all the brooms used at the asylum and all the mattresses, and refill the pillows with hair instead of straw, as fast as required. They make hair clothesbrushes, cocoa mats and tufted and lined rag mats. Two hundred men patients are employed about the house and grounds. In the ragroom from 12 to 15 women, of a less intelligent class than those in the sewing-room, are employed. In the male wards, at Flatbush, the epileptics are now kept separate, and an attempt is made to give them special diet. The suicidal cases are also isolated, and, to some extent, those suffering from phthisis. Last summer the building was supplied with six well-built fire escapes reaching from the ground to the top floor. New fire buckets have been added and the bathtubs are always kept filled. The attendants have practice in fire-drill. The large and pleasant lawn has been enjoyed by the patients during the past summer, a much-to-be-commended innovation, and a number of comfortable benches have been placed on it. The flour and butter are said to be of better quality. New floors are needed and the roofs should be repaired. There is urgent need for a new laundry, and the room thus gained would make it possible to enlarge the kitchen and give much better facilities for cooking. There is no large hall for chapel exercises and entertainments, the men's dining-room, a small and cheerless building in the yard, being the only substitute. The only chapel exercises held are those given on Sunday afternoons by a city missionary. At St. Johnland, two chaplains hold services and an organ has been furnished; weekly entertainments are also provided. The sum of $390,000 was this year asked by the Commissioners of Charities and Correction, for all of its objects; this sum was cut down first by $40,000, and again by $50,000, leaving an insufficient apportionment for the asylums. Queens County. It gives us much pleasure to report that the dependent insane of the Queens County Asylum have been removed to the Hudson River State Hospital. The removal of these 87 patients from the Queens County Asylum, in January, 1894, marks the close of long-continued litigation; its object being to retain, in the one-hundred-year-old dilapidated building at Mineola, the dependent insane of Queens county, without proper care or proper medical attendance, simply because it was less expensive to do so than to send them to a State hospital. To accomplish this purpose the superintendents of the poor of Queens county, in 1890, not only refused to comply with the order to send 55 patients to the Hudson River State Hospital, as required by the State Care Act, but in the litigation which ensued they appealed from each adverse judgment, simply to prolong the situation, a situation which involved human suffering. When the State Care Maintenance Act went into effect, a year ago, they were then willing to have their insane cared for by the State free of charge, and applied for permission to send them to a State hospital. This action swept away the last shred of defense from a proceeding whose only title to respect was based upon the assertion that "the county could take much better care of its insane than the State possibly could." Apparently, in the eyes of the superintendents, it could do so only when county care was cheaper; the moment it cost less to pass their insane over to the State, then State care was the best, and the insane must go to State Hospitals. After three years of litigation the Queens county case was finally disposed of, on December 4, 1893, by the dismissal in the Court of Appeals, with costs against the superintendents of the poor of Queens county, of their appeal from the judgment of the lower court. The Insane Removed from all Poorhouses. Thus closes the chapter of poorhouse care for the insane. Today there are no insane persons in any of the poorhouses or poorhouse asylums of the State, the total number removed from 57 counties since the passage of the State Care Act, in 1890, being about 2,200. In the poorhouses there are idiots, epileptics, and aged persons whose minds are affected, but no certified insane. There now remain but two of the 60 counties of the State where the insane are still under county care. These are the two important counties of New York and Kings, whose county asylums together contain more than one-half of the dependent insane population of the entire State. To bring these two counties into the general State care system, so much to be desired, requires additional legislation. The example of Monroe county, which, almost immediately after the passage of the State Care Act, applied for and obtained the necessary additional legislation to enable the Monroe County Asylum to be reorganized as the Rochester State Hospital, should be followed by New York and Kings counties. (Chapter 335, Laws of 1891.) Already the Commissioners of Charities of Kings county have passed resolutions in favor of State care for their dependent insane, and a committee of the Kings County Board of Supervisors is seriously considering the subject. It is to be hoped that New York, before long, may move in the same direction. The New York, or "Manhattan State Hospital" and the "Long Island State Hospital" (see S. C. A. A. report, December, 1891, p. 30), yet remain to be organized. When this is done we shall see realized the completion of the reform movement which has for its aim and object: State care and State maintenance for all the dependent insane of the State of New York. It is twenty-two years since the association made its first report upon the deplorable condition of the insane in the poorhouse asylums of the State. It is eight years since the association took the initiatory step for the compulsory removal of those insane persons from poorhouse asylums to State hospitals. It is less than one year since this has been accomplished, by the united efforts of the friends of the insane throughout the State. Respectfully submitted, for the Board of Managers, LOUISA LEE SCHUYLER, State Charities Aid Association. December 1, 1894. New York City, 105 East 22d Street. |