The Express.
London, England, 1864-09-06 00:00:00

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1•1311118. MTTITNY AT THE NOR.E...Kbaglag by Hr. H.
Clifton =4 Mr. J. H. Eked : Madame noon. —Mr. G. W. Neter.
—Concluding with THE DEUKEALLYS MUDPACK.

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Toyouow Maniac AL .....Mower.

LONDON, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6.

ONLY the other day all England was horrified
at the story of a wretched lunatic in Cornwall
who had been hidden away so many years, and
kept like a pig in a stye. It was pronounced
almost incredible that the "local authorities" could
have overlooked a case so gross. Yet this, which
was generally admitted to be a not very rare
instance in those distant counties of the West, was
absolutely humane compared with hundreds permit-
ted to exist in Scotland under the disgraceful evasion
of the law for the protection of lunatics and for
guarding society from fearful opportunities of crime
and vice of the most loathsome and degrading kind.
The Scotch lunacy law is said to provide broadly
for the care and treatment of the insane. This
is the description given by Dr. 3frrcaxxx, '
Deputy Commissioner in Lunacy for Scotland,
and it is decidedly a true one, by the account he
gives of the way the insane are treated under this
law, or rather under the evasion which actually
results ; for so broad is the application of the law,
that it may be a question whether it is not worse
than no law. Certainly, it permits a state of
things horrible to contemplate. The report of the
Commissioners tells of many naked idiots, men,
women,and younggirls,living amongst theirrelatives, ,
often chained to a stake or kept in a cage or a ken-
nel, some grovelling in filth, others crouching in heaps I
.of cinders near the fireplace. One of these cases had I
been treated in this cruel way for seventeen years,
and others for long periods, while it seems to be not
uncommon for idiots to be what are called " wan-
derens," roving naked like savages about the ,
moors for weeks together, whenever they can elude
the care of their so-called guardians. It would I
be salty to give the details of these cases from the '
official report before us, if this were desirable ;
but our object is rather to point out the fact,
not leas horrible to think of, that the law can be,
and is, completely thwarted in any attempt to ,
force the unwilling guardians of these poor wretches •
to treat them more humanely. "Thu require-
" merit of the law (says Dr. MITCHELL) has been
"so extensively evaded as to be practically a dead
"letter." Here is a case, for example, of a poor
woman who was actually submitted to the most
horrible torture, when in the end she was, after
being twice released at intervals of two years, found
by the Commissioners to be a rational being.
Dr. '3ltrear.m. says, in relating this case : " I
" found her in a strait jacket, the arms of which
" were laced with a rope to the sides of the bed,
" the shoulders and back were laced to the bed
" also. To the lower border of the jacket • long
" apron of strong canvas was attached, also laced
"to the bed at the foot. She had been ten years
" insane, and for several years without intermis-
" sion the subject of this inhuman treatment.
" Before entering the house I heard her cries, and
" while I was beside her she was struggling to
" escape her bonds, trying to sit up, howling,
" swearing, singing, and laughing. It was a case
"of chronic mania, aggr►vated and kept up by
" the treatment pursued. In my opinion it would
" have expiated her crime had she been the most
" foul-hearted murderess that ever breathed."
This wretched woman had a family, some of whom
became insane ; her husband was a jobbing car-
penter, and the house was his own—his castle of
despair—where he defied the Sheriff and the Com-
missioners, under the law that by giving up his
wife to be cared for by the pariah he became a
pauper and must give up all he possessed. For
two years the law was tried, and failed, even
on appeal to the Sheriff principal ; and
at the next visit of the Commissioner,
in the summer of 1860, she was found in the same
fearful condition of torture. He requested she
might be released, and she made not the least at-
tempt at violence. The case was once more brought
before the Sheriff, but it was argued that there
were no grounds for depriving her family of her,
custody, that they were unable to bear the expense
of her maintenance in an asylum, and that there
were no grounds for subjecting the parochial
board to the expense. The Board of Lunacy ap-
peal against this extraordinary finding of the law ;
their appeal is dismissed, and another two years
pass, when the Commissioner goes through the
same farce of calling to see this wretched victim of
sordid parochial meanness and brutal inhumanity.
The report he makes closes this most painful his-
tory in the strangest and most touching account of
the poor creature, now in the tenth year of her
torture. She was in too loathsome a condition to
be released at the time, but the next morning she
was washed and dressed, sitting up ; "Sur-
"rounding objects interested her. She ex-
" mined my watch with care, tried to make
" out the hour, said it was gold and pretty.
" She asked me where I came from, and said
" over and over again that she would go away
" with me. She shook hands with me twice or
" thrice, and seemed pleased with my visit, and
" said she would like me to bring her sweetmeats
" when I returned." The sequel is almost too
horrible to believe, but here are the words of the
Deputy Commissioner in Lunacy for Scotland :
" After the departure of the Visiting Commis-
" aioner this frail, crippled, and exhausted woman,
" sixty-seven years old, was cruelly bound down
" again to her filthy bed, where she remained till
" she died last autumn."