Bethlem Hospital [ Health ]
… so much so that a major parliamentary inquiry in 1815 led to the dismissal of some of its principal officers. A form of sociability nevertheless was to be found there, not among the inmates but rather among those members of the public who paid for admission to witness the antics of the lunatics. But the most telling form of Bethlem sociability was in its popular image as ‘Bedlam’, a crazed version of actual society where all activities that made for … that made any clatter was Ladies’ Chain [...] ‘ 1 The allusion to the chain is not accidental: this episode of organised sociability at Bethlem’s foremost rival asylum is in marked contrast to Dickens’ firm opinion that Bethlem itself was, …
Confinement | Entertainement | Insanity | Punishment | Satire
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