Domesticating Insanity day" would soon cloth a inings 61 He would find his mind distracted 41 from its morbid imag- also contribute substantially to the finances of the asylum; and visiting committees, as John Arlidge shrewdly commented in 1856, were naturally pleased good balance from to see "a tients' earnings, as a set-off to the cost the pa- of their maintenance." 62 The whole economy of county asylums, like that of Dotheboys Hall, was organized on the "practical mode" of occupational therapy, with institutional self-sufficiency as the goal The variety and amount of free labor performed by Victorian asylum patients were truly astonishing At the North and East Riding Asylum, where most of the patients had been agricultural laborers, they grew all the vegetables consumed by the institution and sold the surplus at the asylum gates (demonstrating, according to benefitted Andrew Wynter, "that chronic cases of insanity are greatly as much intercourse as possible with the saner part of the by community") 63 Colney Hatch was conceived as "a self-supporting community, fed by like cleaning, the patients." Dr W its farm and gardens Most of the rural daily chores washing, sewing, and gardening were done for free by 64 A F Browne stressed the bliss of universal industry in his vision of the ideal asylum: When you pass the lodge, it is as if you had entered the precincts of emporium of manufacture You meet the gardener, the common agriculturist, the mower, the weeder, all intent on their sev- some vast eral occupations, and loud in their merriment The flowers are tended, and trained, and watered by one, the humbler task of preparing the vegetables for table, act as is committed to another Some of the inhabitants domestic servants, some as artizans, some overseers The bakehouse, rise to the the laundry, the kitchen, are plied with indefatigable workers In one part of the all rank of well sup- edifice are panies of straw-plaiters, basket-makers, knitters, spinners, com- among the women; in another, weavers, tailors, saddlers, and shoemakers, among the men For those who are ignorant of these gentle crafts, but are strong and steady, there are loads to carry, water to draw, wood to cut, and for those who are both ignorant and is oakum to tease and yarn to wind The curious thing anxious to be engaged, toil weakly, there is, that all incessantly, and in general without are any other recompense then being kept from disagreeable thoughts and the pains of illness They literally work in order to please themselves,