The Dallas Daily Herald

THE STATE ELEEMOSYNARY INSTITUTIONS.

We are glad to see a disposition on the part of the present legislature to render that aid necessary for increasing the facilities of our state eleemosynary institutions, especially the lunatic asylum. Those unfortunates of our fellow-beings whom God in his wisdom has made blind, or deaf and dumb, or insane, certainly deserve the commiseration and the protecting care of those not so afflicted. It is eminently right and proper that the state should take upon itself to provide the means adequate for the safety and cure, if possible, of those whose minds are diseased, and for the education of the sightless and deaf mute children in our midst, and as our population increases and the demands in these directions also increase proportionately, our humane institutions must be enlarged. The blind, deaf and dumb and lunatic asylums have large land endowments, the generous bounty of the state, and it will be but a few years before these lands will be marketable and will bring to each a handsome sum, the interest on which will well nigh, if not quite, support them, and in view of this fact, as taxation will then be so light, if necessary at all, the state can well afford to be more liberal now. There is more need for increasing the capacity of the lunatic asylum at this time than either of the other asylums. We take it for the reason that the care of the insane outside of an asylum is so difficult. While it is possible for the relatives of an insane person to keep him or her at home, it is almost impossible for a cure to be effected. But in many instances the relatives are not able to provide the protection necessary and then the county jail is the only resort when admittance cannot be obtained at the asylum. All over the state there are mad people confined in jails. Here in Dallas there is an unfortunate woman, a raving maniac kept in the jail. Every care and attention that can be bestowed is given her, but there are no proper facilities for her comfort or for that medical treatment calculated to benefit her mental disorders. And this may be said of all cases in county jails. We all know that a jail is not the place, in any sense of the word, for the demented. Of course it is more humane to thus confine them than to allow them to go at large or harm others, but only in this sense is it humane or charitable. From all reports, the asylum at Austin is overcrowded with inmates now and every week admittance has to be denied to the friends of insane persons seeking lodgment for them there. There is a large surplus in the state treasury, and we can conceive of no better purpose to which a portion of it can be put than in enlarging the lunatic asylum. We trust the legislature in its wisdom will see this matter in the same light in which we do, and at least make some provision for enlarging the insane asylum at once, that we may hear no more of the county jails being made the refuge for crazy people. Humanity and a common charity demand this much of our civilization and of our generosity.