A fête day at Earlswood, June 16, 1864.

  • Sidney, Edwin, -1872.
Date:
[1864?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: A fête day at Earlswood, June 16, 1864. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    A FÊTE DAY AT EARLSWOOD, JUNE 16, 1864. It is a characteristic of the principal achievements of the present day, that they are such as would have been pronounced the wildest dreaming if they had been predicted to those who lived only a half-century ago. Who could then have believed that London, or any part of it, would be traversed by one railway underneath its buildings, and by another crossing the Thames and running over their tops ? Still more strange would it have seemed had it been foretold that any of the passengers by either of them would be on their way to London Bridge, to go on by another line of railway to one of the most agreeable of holidays, the attraction to a company of its generous and kind citizens, being a summer fête for the pleasure and the benefit of an assemblage of poor Idiots ! He that prophesied of such a day, would have been lucky if he escaped by being regarded only as a harmless madman, and avoided confinement. This event, however, happened on the 16th of June, and not for the first time, but with increasing interest and success. The .proceedings at this gathering are not merely intended to give the idiots of the Asylum a few hours gratification, but form part of a system for awakening their dormant faculties, and bringing them into improving contact with those who have escaped their misfortunes, but who are earnestly desirous to palliate them by whatever Christian kind ness and the skill of modern science can effect. It has been