Insanity and Race Suicide

New Zealand Tablet, 22 October 1908, Page 9

Insanity and Race Suicide

The dismal figures issued by the Commissioners In Lunacy continue to swell year by year. In 1907 there were in England and Wale's no fewer than 126,084 persons under restraint, as having '' Eaten on the insane root -»■- That takes the reason prisoner.' This was an increase of 2096 on the returns for 1906. In. this connection we might refer to a remarkable fact in regard to the mental condition of Irish Catholic- parents"which (says the Catholic Times) receives prominence in the sixth volume of the Report of the Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded. 'In the section dealing with Glasgow,' says our Liverpool contemporary, ' which has a large Irish population, it is pointed out that " the race whose birth-rate is not on the decline produces* fewer defective children by half than the race whose birth-rate'is"* declining." In the Irish Catholic schools the mentally defective were 4 per 1000; tin the School Board schools they were 8.2 per 1000.'