This Home, a beautifully clean
and well-kept place, has accommodation for thirty patients,
twenty-nine beds being occupied on the day of my visit. The lady in
charge informed me that these patients are expected to contribute 10s.
per week towards the cost of their maintenance; but that, as a matter
of fact, they seldom pay so much. Generally the sum recovered varies
from 7s. to 3s. per week, while a good many give nothing at all.
The work the patients do in this Home is sold and produces something
towards the cost of upkeep. The actual expense of the maintenance of
the inmates averages about 12s. 6d. a week per head, which sum
includes an allowance for rent. Most of the cases stay in the Home for
twelve months, although some remain for a shorter period. When the
cure is completed, if they are married, the patients return to their
husbands. The unmarried are sent out to positions as governesses,
nurses, or servants, that is, if the authorities of the Home are able
to give them satisfactory characters.
As the reader who knows anything of such matters will be aware, it is
generally supposed to be rather more easy to pass a camel through the
eye of a needle than to reclaim a confirmed female drunkard.
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