Dr. Clouston says (Clinical Lectures on Mental Diseases, 4th Ed., p. 330) “As we watch children grow up we see that some have the sense of right and wrong, the conscience, developed much sooner and much stronger than others; just as some have their eye teeth much sooner than others; and looking at adults, we see that some never have much of this sense developed at all.  This is notoriously the case in some of those whose ancestors for several generations have been criminals, insane or drunkards.”  Again (p. 331) “We know that some of the children of many generations of thieves take to stealing, as a young wild duck among tame ones takes to hiding in holes, and that the children of savage races cannot copy at once our ethics nor our power of controlling our actions.  It seems to take many generations to redevelop an atrophied conscience.  There is no doubt that an organic lawlessness is transmitted hereditarily.”

Mr. W. Bevan Lewis says (A text-book of Mental Disease, p. 203) “It is also notable, that in a large proportion of cases, we find the history of ancestral insanity attached to the grand-parents, or the collateral line of uncles and aunts, significant of a more remote origin for the neurosis.  The actual proportion of cases revealing strongly-marked hereditary features (often involving several members of the subject’s ancestry), amounts to 36 per cent;” while Mr. Briscoe declares (Journal of Mental Science, Oct. 1896) that 90% of the insane have a heredity of insanity.

The following table from Dr. MacGregor’s reports gives an account of two families in New Zealand and their Asylum history.

Cost per head. 
Number.    Name.                         Rate L1          Total
Per week.         Cost. 
Family of B (Brothers).               L  s. d.         L  s. d.

I. A.B. 80 0 0
II.  C.B. 274 4 0
III.  D.B. 230 2 0
IV.  E.B. 8 2 0
V. F.B. 8 2 0
                                      --------- 600 12 0

Family of C.

I. A.C. (wife) 472 2 0
II.  B.C. (husband of A.C.) 418 0 0
III.  D.C. (daughter of A.C.) 834 2 0
IV.  E.C. (ditto) 1,318 2 0
V. F.C. (illegitimate
            daughter of E.C.) 169 8 0
VI.  G.C. (husband of F.C.
          but no blood relation) 5 2 0
                                     ------------ 3,216 16 0
          
                                         ------------
                                                   L3,817 8 0

In his report for 1897, the same writer says:—­“I know of a ‘defective’ half-imbecile girl, who has had already five illegitimate children by different fathers, all of whom are now being supported by the Charitable Aid Board, while, of course, the mother is maintained, and encouraged to propagate more;” while in an appendix to a pamphlet on “Some Aspects of the Charitable Aid question,” he gives the following history of two defective cases:—­