The Trustees find themselves compelled, for the first time in the history of the Institution, to ask an appropriation of fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000) to meet deficiencies incurred in consequence of withholding of a portion of the estimates made in our last report, and also from expenditures not anticipated when that report was submitted. This relatively slight excess of expenditures over revenue could only have been avoided by keeping unoccupied, space imperatively wanted by the insane of the State. After deliberation on the subject, the Board deemed a departure from its hitherto inflexible rule, of confining expenses within receipts, dictated by the urgent necessities of the case.

The Trustees, in view of the fact that the number of patients is fast increasing, and must soon reach its extreme limit-five hundred-cannot safely venture to put the cost of support, on the part of the State, at a less sum than ninety-five thousand dollars ($95,000) per annum. They therefore pray that, to meet these several items of special and general demand, the sum of two hundred and twentyfive thousand and five hundred dollars ($225,500) be appropriated for the use of this Institution, from the first of March, 1869, to the first of March, 1871.

The Trustees believe themselves not wanting in a full realization of the importance of economy in the exercise of their duty, in view of the extensive drafts now being made on the revenues of the State. The charge upon their hands is a large one, involving expenditures somewhat peculiar, and not usually taken into account where the matter of support is alone considered. The most critical examination has always sustained the claim of the Institution to be regarded as preserving the due mean between an unwise parsimony, and waste or extravagance in any particular.

Vol. I-84

During the last regular session of the General Assembly an act was passed, entitled "An Act for the protection of personal liberty," the essential provisions of which, as applying to this Hospital, are as follows:

"Sec. 3. Any person now confined in any Insane Hospital or Asylum, and all persons now confined in the Hospital for the Insane at Jacksonville, whe have not been tried and found insane or distracted by the verdict of a jury, as provided in and contemplated by said act of the General Assembly of 1865, shall be permitted to have such trial. All such persons shall be inform ed by the Trustees of said Hospital or Asylum, in their discretion, of the provisions of this act, and of the said act of 1865, and on their request such persons shall be entitled to such trial, within a reasonable time thereafter: Provided, that such trial may be had in the county where such person is confined or detained, unless such person, his or her friends, shall, within thirty days after any such person may demand a trial under the provisions of said act of 1865, provide for the transportation of such person to, and demand trial in the county where such insane person resided previous to said detention: in which case such trial shall take place in said last mentioned county.

"Sec. 4. All persons confined as aforesaid, if not found insane or distracted by a trial and the verdict of a jury, as above and in the said act of 1865 provided, within two months after the passage of this act, shall be set at liberty and discharged."

The Trustees, within the time named in the above act, proceeded to carry it into effect, according to their best understanding of its meaning, without regard to its discretionary limitations. They proceeded, first, to make personal examination of every patient (removed from the presence of any resident officer of the Institution), putting to each the forms of inquiry specified in the act. Three sets of cases seemed to grow out of this stage of the transaction :

1st. Those maintaining entire silence.

2d. Those refusing participation in any proceeding. 3d. Those desiring trial.

These latter had their sub-division into those requiring trial at the Institution and those wishing it at their homes. The result of these inquiries (made in a manner to give the utmost freedom in reply), will throw some light, hitherto unperceived, on the feelings of the insane. The first

class was most numerous of any; the second was next in point of numbers; and the third least of all; and of those expressing inclination for trial, eleven, only, desired such trial to take place at their homes. On communicating the wish of the latter number to their legal representatives, the refusal was unanimous to be at the expense of such transportation.

The county court of Morgan county proceeded with the trials of all apparently included within the terms of the act. The nature of the proceeding was clearly stated to each patient by the court, as also his rights of counsel and challenge. A verdict of insanity was rendered in regular form in all these cases. The Trustees being in doubt as to their duty in regard to those making no reply, submitted a case of that kind to the supreme court, in session. at Ottawa. In accordance with its decision, all such were tried at a subsequent sitting of the county court. There were also some cases in the Hospital, admitted under the law as amended in 1865, where, in consequence of the use of blanks by county officers, not worded to show conformity with its provisions, there might be a technical appearance of non-compliance with the law. That nothing should be left to a presumption, all such were included among those brought forward at the second trial. In all these cases the same verdict was rendered as in the former ones.

The peculiar delicacy and difficulty in carrying out a law so novel in its provisions, will be only fully apparent to those conversant with the insane, as they are found in hospitals. Many are always to be found in a state of convalescence, and past the stage of their disease where the commonly discoverable evidences of insanity are manifest; others are in the lucid interval occurring between the spells of periodical insanity; others (often a most dangerous class), possess extreme delusions, but latent in character,

and perceptible only to skilled observers. To submit a large institution, with its full share of all these varieties of mental diseases, to a bench of judgment so imperfectly prepared to perceive the nice distinctions of mental derangement as a jury of six men, one only having any professional knowledge, and where the scruples of even one individual, in one of several hundred cases, might subject the restraining authority to a grave charge, is an ordeal which no Superintendent of such an institution would willingly pass, however strongly armed in honesty.

The public is doubtless generally aware that since our last report, a committee, appointed at a period nearly similtaneous with the passage of the act above referred to, has made an examination of the Institution's affairs, and issued a report, in some points conveying censure. It does not appear, in the report, that the Institution is wanting in any comfort reasonably to be afforded its inmates; that its use of the public funds has been other than judicious and economical; or that there is any lack of skill or vigilance in its domestic management. It only appears in the report, that, in some instances-mostly of ancient datesome persons holding subordinate situations may have done acts which the Superintendent would as promptly have condemned as the most rigid constructionist of his responsibility could have desired. The instances alleged, we have been forced, by a full acquaintance with the true facts, to regard as having been, to say the least, not correctly represented, and almost wholly upon testimony of a nature to be accepted with caution.

Having the best of assurances from the people of the State at large, that the report in question has not reflected the public convictions, the Trustees have felt it their manifest duty to withhold acquiescence in its recommendations. It is not a new thing that a committee, appointed on the spur of a transient misconception, may have been

betrayed into a form of investigation not calculated to elicit the exact truth, and conclusions thereby reached unfair to individuals, and not likely to promote the public interest, if acted upon. The Trustees have, therefore, issued a counter report--to be submitted with this--in which we trust the entire subject has been candidly and temperately discussed.

It is hardly to be expected that an institution, environed with most obvious and peculiar difficulties, and touching the public through so many sensitive points, will be always blameless. In claiming that the Illinois Hospital for the Insane is as free from cause of just censure as any one of its class, we only share the sentiments of those who, for the past fifteen years, have been associated with, or have preceded us in this trust.

Since our last report, the Institution has been deprived, by death, of the services of its late Treasurer, Mr. ALEXANDER MCDONALD. The Board takes this occasion to bear unqualified testimony to the signal ability and faithfulness with which its monetary affairs were conducted for the nearly fifteen years of his incumbency of office. The vacancy, thus created, has been filled by the appointment of EDWARD P. KIRBY, ESQ., of Jacksonville, to whom all matters of a financial character should be addressed.

In conclusion, the Trustees feel themselves justified in congratulating the people of Illinois, that they now have an Institution for the Insane, at once spacious, convenient, well located, and having already a lasting foundation in the public regard and confidence. Evidences appear from all quarters that no philanthrophic enterprise in which the people are interested is receiving a more unquestionable support and sympathy, than the one we represent. No Hospital for the Insane in this country has cost less, in proportion to the number it will accommodate. As we now view it, with its more than four hundred inmates