Page:The New Arcadia (Tucker).djvu/130

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120
THE NEW ARCADIA.

knew to be double what it would be in the country, even if they were unable to contribute by their labour towards their own support.

The doctor called a meeting of chairmen of hospitals and benevolent institutions, to which also public officials and charitable workers were invited. His offer to select from various institutions patients suited for his proposed treatment was gladly accepted. He asked a grant for each at the rate of half the present cost of their maintenance, holding out hopes that at no distant time the subsidy would be unnecessary, and his infirmary village become self-supporting. With the aid of a committee of medical men, convalescents were drafted from the various hospitals; the stronger patients from the benevolent asylums, and even from homes of the incurable.

Eventually the deaf and dumb institution was removed bodily; a selection was very carefully made from patients of the lunatic asylums, even from criminals of a promising character undergoing their first sentence. Arrangements were completed for transfer of the juvenile reformatories to the new settlement. The female refuges were relieved of their more hopeful cases. Special provision was made for the reception and treatment of the intemperate. The good doctor was too capable an organizer to dream of herding all these together.

Across the lake at Mimosa Vale, beyond the spot where Gwyneth and Travers had nearly met their death, the flats and sloping hill-sides were specially prepared. Lands were cleared and ploughed, cottages and dairies erected, avenues laid out on the plan of Mimosa Vale. Each cottage accommodated two or three patients, or a household. Where possible, family life was reconstituted. The deaf and dumb child restored to its parents, one of whom might be under treatment for intemperance, or