3-017-043 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Foot-Races at the annual festival of the Asylum for Idiots, Earlswood, 1864. 'The annual festival provided by a kind and judicious management for the inmates of the Earlswood Asylum, near Redhill, took place on Thursday week. A numerous company of the friends and patrons of that institution, with other visitors, had come to witness the enjoyment of these poor young folks in the sports and pastimes of the day. There were games of cricket, football, and croquet, Aunt Sally, Punch and Judy, races, and jumping-matches for prizes. The patients appeared to enter into these games with considerable pleasure, and with an unexpected display of skill and intelligence...The Earlswood Asylum now holds 377 inmates, who are divided into classes, and accommodated according to their rates of payment - those paying the lowest being placed on the same footing as the non-paying inmates. The visitors, who went over the whole house, were fully satisfied with the arrangements for the different classes - private bed-rooms and sitting-rooms for those who can afford them, large airy dormitories, comfortably furnished for the second-class, and for the third-class and elected patients apartments quite as comfortable, but not quite so elegant'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.