gentrification (furthermore on institutions)

[Jim Westrich]

While it is an aside to the original topic I think an important to add 
another historical bit to my previous post.  While everyone is familiar 
with the crime and horror of the buying and selling of people as slaves in 
the US South; few are familiar with the practice (popular in the Northeast 
until 1820) of the selling at public auction of "mentally afflicted, aged 
paupers, sick poor, and the mentally distracted" to the *lowest* 
bidder.  That's right, those who offered to take responsibility at the 
lowest price won the day.  Now doesn't this sound awfully familiar. See the 
excellent *The Mentally Ill in America* by Albert Deutsch (1949:  Columbia 
U. Press) for details.

Peace,

Jim

"If I were Prince, I should take this child to the Molda River and drown him"

--Martin Luther to the Princes of Saxony and Anhalt after spotting a child 
he called "massa carnis" (mass of flesh) on a visit to Dessau. *Luther's 
Works*, No. 5207, 1531.