THE COMMON COUNCIL AND THE PROPOSED LUNATIC ASYLUM.

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 603, 24 January 1852, Page 2

THE COMMON COUNCIL AND THE PROPOSED LUNATIC ASYLUM.

We have hitherto advisedly refrained from commenting on the proceedings of ouv Town Councillors, sympathising as we did with the difficulties of their position, and desirous that no observations of ours should in any way add to those difficulties. We cannot, however, pursue this course much longer with justice to our readers and to the duty -which we owe to the public at large ; and wo shall feel bound on an early day to review their courso,on the principles which we endeavoured fully and explicitly to maintain before the Municipal Election. But our immediate object just now is to fix the attention of our readers on the attempt which is this day to bo made to array the weight of the Council's opinion against the site" of the projected Lunatic Asylum, and by so doing to procure, so far as the influence of the Council can effect the object, an indefinite postponement of that urgently needed undertaking. We arc aware that objections have been taken to the site, — more, however, we suspect, on account of its real or supposed interference with the interests of tho residents or owners of property in the neighbourhood, than of any professional objection that could be advanced, or at all events, sustained against it; — and, it is worthy of notice than when, some months since, the Colonial Surgeon, on the invitation of the Committee, attended one of its meetings, while he suggested various improvements in the details of the building, he did not leave on the minds of thoso present the slightest reason to suppose that ho disapproved of the site. But whatever view may be taken of the eligibility of the locality, it was distinctly understood all through by the Committee and the Subscribers that the site was to be in the Hospital ground, — and that indeed it must be there in order to bring it within tho legal application of the endowments by which the Asylum was to be supported. On this understanding tho contributions have been paid in. A few weeks since the Government informed the Committee that the work would be forthwith proceeded with, if they were satisfied with the site ; they went personally to examine the spot, and communicated to the Government their acquiescense in it, on which Tenders for the erection of the building were advertised for, and sent in ; and it is very probable that one of them may, before now, have been accepted. It is at this juncture that a member of the Town Council endeavours to interpose the weight of the Council's influence in opposition to the prosecution of the work. \Ve could say much upon the subject, but we content ourselves for the present with remarking that if tho Council take any step involving the indefinite postponement of an undertaking ■which every feeling of benevolence — every dictate of humanity — demands should be expedited, and which the Committee — on behalf of the Subscribers, and still more on behalf of the wretched lunatics, who even now are shut up in our common prison, — have urgently pressed the speedy execution of, — it will be reasonable to expect that they will at least be prepared to show to their constituents that they have done so on sufficient grounds. The question really is — not shall the Asylum be now built in one or another place, but shall it be built at all, — at least for a term of not improbably many months or even years to come. This is no political question. It is a question in which private feelings and interests should be subordinated to public and social duty. It is one in which many who usually occupy thciv thoughts with more solemn subjects than the mere passing strifes of party, will look with an interest acutely quickened by their benevolent desire to alleviate one of the most appalling forms of human affliction, and their painful apprehension lest such an object, when apparently on the verge of attainment, should be frustrated, — if not altogether, yet for such a period as may involve a repetition of the scones of heart-rending distress which insanity has already produced here, — such a period as may placo in the mournful class of hopelessly incurable lunatics, some who are now in a state from which, by judicious and early care, there may be every reasonable prospect of their being restored to mental soundness.

Election op Wardens.-— We bog to remind our readers that, the meeting of Depasturing License Holders in the Hundred of Auckland, for the Election of Wardens for the present year, will take place this day, at twelve o'clock, at Newmarket, Epsom Road.