Report of the Committee of Visitors of the County Lunatic Asylum, at the Epiphany Sessions, 1856 / [Hants County Lunatic Asylum].

  • Hampshire County Lunatic Asylum.
Date:
[1856?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Committee of Visitors of the County Lunatic Asylum, at the Epiphany Sessions, 1856 / [Hants County Lunatic Asylum]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/38 (page 11)
    Wickham, December 21 sU 1855. Mr. Chairman, My Lords and Gentlemen, In presenting my first Report, it may be proper to remark, that I commenced, as instructed, the Duties of the Chaplaincy on Sunday, June 24th—from which date they have been regularly performed by me. There have been the two usual Services in the Chapel every Sunday; and it is found, from the Returns, that the average number of Patients attending each Service has been 205:—Males 95, Females 110. And here I cannot refrain from observing, that the orderly and attentive behaviour of your congrega¬ tion, and the manner in which they join in the responses and singing, has produced in my mind no small measure of agreeable surprise. During the period I have officiated, the Services have never been interrupted by any unseemly conduct. Occasionally, a Patient has been seized with sudden illness; but your judicious arrangements made to meet such emergencies, which must reasonably be expected sometimes to arise, have always prevented anything like serious annoyance or interruption. The general willingness to attend Chapel which is displayed—the calm and serious attention during both Prayers and Sermon—cannot but lead me to the conclusion that, under the various phases of their mental maladies, there is among the patients a sensibility, in a greater or less degree, to the importance of religious instruction, and an appreciation of the consoling truths of