Group of seven Idiots, brothers and sisters, from a Photograph

Extract

In passing through an asylum I saw five odd and apparently aged men, seated together around a table and apart from the other patients. They smiled; spoke a few words; gabbled or jargonised. My companion said, “They like to dine together.” On complimenting him for his attention to their wishes, he answered, “Oh, they are all brothers.” On going to the department for females, I observed two quiet, elderly women, indulged in the same way. “These,” said my guide, “are sisters, and sisters of the five brothers. They were the children of poor but industrious and self-supporting parents, who were somewhat eccentric, and believed to be cousins, or related. They are all, in different degrees, imbecile, ineducable, irresponsible, and incapable of guiding or maintaining themselves. They had, besides, a brother who disappeared, and was supposed to have been drowned in a quarry; another imbecile sister still alive; and two brothers and one sister, who were healthy.”