This drawing, which appeared in the Canadian Illustrated News on 5 October 1872, shows a party on the grounds of the Rockwood Asylum in Kingston, Ontario. Recreation such as concerts, lectures, dances and outings were used to divert and to instruct patients, and to this end most asylums were equipped with auditoriums and reading rooms. Any large formal occasion was a chance for patients to practise decorum and restraint in anticipation of the day they would be released.
