14. Whether deaf and dumb, blind, insane, idiotic, pauper or convict.
18.
Deaf and Dumb, Blind, Insane, Idiotic, Pauper, Convict.-- It will be your duty to inquire whether there be any persons of the above description in the family you are enumerating, and if any, you must, under heading 14, indicate opposite the name of such person, the fact as it may be. A person is to be noted deaf and dumb who was born deaf, or who lost the faculty of hearing before acquiring the use of speech. If a person be
blind from a known cause, it would be well to insert the cause in the column or on the margin. Partial blindness should not be noted. The various degrees of
insanity often create a doubt as to the propriety of thus classifying individuals, and demands the exercise of discretion. A person may be reputed erratic on some subject, but if competent to manage his or her business affairs without manifesting any symptoms of insanity to an ordinary observer, such person should not be recorded as insane. Where persons are in institutions for safety or restoration, there can exist no doubt as to how you should classify them. As a general rule, the term Insanity applies to individuals who have once possessed mental faculties which have become impaired; whereas
Idiocy applies to persons who have never possessed vigorous mental faculties, but from their birth have manifested aberration. The cases wherein it may be difficult to distinguish between insanity and idiocy are not numerous; should such occur, however, you may rely on the opinion of any physician to whom the case is known. It is to be hoped you will not fail to make record respecting all these classes or persons who may be in your subdivision. In all cases of insane persons, you will write in the space where you enter the word "Insane," the
cause of such insanity; and you will in every ease inquire into the cause or origin thereof, and write the word-- as intemperance, spiritualism, grief, affliction, hereditary, misfortune, etc. As nearly every case of insanity may be traced to some known cause, it is earnestly desired that you will not fail to make your return in this respect as perfect as possible. If say person whose name you record be at the time, or within the year, so indigent or destitute of the means of support as to require the support of the community, obtained either by alms-begging or public maintenance, by taxation or poor fund, you are to write the word "pauper" in column 14, on a line with the name of such person. When persons who have been convicted of crime within the year resided, on the lst of June, in any family you enumerate, the fact should be stated by giving in column 14, on a line with the name, the character of the crime; but as such an interrogatory might give offence you had better, where you can do so, refer to the county records for the information, but use care in applying the crime to the proper individual on the schedule. Of course, you are not to insert the name (or crime) of any person who died previous to the lst day of June on this schedule, but may do so on the schedule of mortality. With the county or parish record, and your own knowledge, you will be able to make this return very correctly without occasioning offence by personal inquiry of individuals. Respecting persons in confinement you will experience no difficulty.
Should a poor-house, asylum for the blind, insane, idiotic, or other charitable institution, or a penitentiary, jail, house of refuge or reformation, or other place of punishment be visited, you must number each building or buildings in their regular order, and write in perpendicular column No. 1, the nature of such institution, and in column 14, opposite the name of each inmate, you must state the character of the infirmity or misfortune, in the one case, and in the other the nature of the crime for which each inmate is confined and of which the party stands convicted, and in the column with the name give the year when convicted.