A WARNING.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 11495, 30 January 1903, Page 4

A WARNING.

The disastrous fire at the Golney Hatch Asylum can easily rank as one of the most terrible catastrophes of its kind of recent years. The horror of the affair, and the death roll, grow with each succeeding cable message, and, brief as they are, the details of the struggles between, the unhappy patients and their would-be rescuers are ghastly in the extreme. The great lose of life which occurred was no. doubt due to the character of the patients confined in the annexe which caught fire. Colney Hatch is the asylum to which mentally-affected paupers are cent from the unions or workhouses in the "Home Counties." Apparently, though this is not quite clear, the annexe was inhabited by women only, and of these many were cripples or ired-rrdden, so that under the circumstances the number of fatalities might have been burger without causing surprise. The officials, nurses, and attendant* seem-to have behaved with the utmost heroism, and their conduct lightens the gloom of the catastrophe. By ana bye, when the inevitable enquiry has been held/ we may hear who is to blame fire; in the meantime, one obvious criticism is that it is risking calamity to house the infirm and bed-ridden insane in a wooden building. The- next thought that forces itself upon most mincU is one of wonder as to what would happen went a fire to break out at night in any of our own large asylums. One dreads to think of suoh a thing, yet despite all the precautions that we know are tafcen by the asylum atsthoriti-es, fire is always a possibility, ac it is in any building, and the danger is one which must be reckoned withit as increased by tihe notoriously overcrowded state of our asylums. For yeaw the representations of departmental officers on this point 'have been supported by the uxgent appeals of the Press of tihe colony, but the wheeJe of the adminmtratioin move slowly. Only last session, in response to our protests regarding the Government's action in this matter, and strenuous speeches fby Mr G. W. Russell and other members in the House, the sum of £5000 was placed upon the Estimates for much-needed additions to asylume, besides the vote already standing for a new asylum. Having done this, the Government appear to have thought tiuut the clamour would be stQjed, for though four months have passed, nothing visible has yet been done with the money Parliament voted so readily. And in two months more the vote will have lapsed. There is not a brick or a plank on t&e ground at Sanoyside yet, although the buildings are as scandalously over-crowded es ever, if, indeed, tibeir condition is not worse. For what do the Government wait? Do they intend to delay providing the absolutely necessary accommodation for these unfortunate people until the colony lias been stacked by a horror comparable wi& that which has just thrilled England? Upon tbeir heads rests the TesponeibLlity, and we trust that in view of t3te awful possibilities brought home to every one by the fire at Colney Hatch they will put off the work no longer.