Report of the Hull Borough Asylum for the Year 1885

Courtesy of a most intriguing publication I picked up today, the Report of the Hull Borough Asylum for the Year 1885, a list of grounds for summary detention for feeble-mindedness in the late nineteenth century. Good to see an over-enthusiastic bout of self-abuse could land a man in the madhouse back then, in theory at least, even if the 1885 figures show a deplorable shortfall of lunatic masturbators banged to rights. If only these humanitarian sages had been around to help me through my teens. It’s not too late now, even, I suspect. A letter to the Hull Daily Mail may be in order.