According to Dr. Forbes Winslow, who acquired international celebrity by his sedulous insistence on his theory that Jack the Ripper was a homicidal maniac, the world is going mad.
Dr. Winslow considers that the rate of progress to that consummation is shockingly rapid. In a book of reminiscences published recently this expert in criminal lunacy says:
"By a simple arithmetical calculation it can be shown the exact year when there will be more insane persons in the world than sane. We in England are gradually approaching, with the decadence of our youth, near proximity to a nation of madmen.
"By comparing the lunacy statistics of 1869 with those of 1909, four decades having intervened, my reflections are sad indeed. A terrible but real curse is in store, and an insane world looks certain to me in the not far distant future.
"In 1869 out of a population of 22,228,299 there were 53,177 registered lunatics in England and Wales, there being one lunatic in every 418 of the total population, whereas in 1909 out of a population of 35,756,615 the number of registered lunatics was 128,787, making on an average one lunatic in every 278 of population, so that in forty years an enormous increase in lunacy is seen - surely a dreadful future for nations still unborn to have to cope with."
