The Express.
London, England, 1858-07-28 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, WEDNEMLY ,AVENING, JULY iss, ASK-

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

A SPECIAL EDITION of the " EXPRESS,"
sentaining the results of the day's Itaora, is pat*
tidied every evening during the Sporting Season, sit
oil o'clock.

Tau state of the Law relating to 'opposed
Lunatics is is anything but a satisfactory position.
The certificate of two medical men is sufficient to
shut up in what may be the vilest of all kinds of
unworn any unfortunate creature whom they may
please to declare insane. The very fact of such an
incarceration, supposing it to be wrongful, is in
itself sufficient, in the case of an excitable and pas-
sionate temperament, to create its own apparent jus-
tification in vehement bursts of remonstrance and
rage. It is really fearful to consider what an amount
of inexpiable wrong may still be wrought under
cover of the existing law of Lunacy in this
land,where personal freedom is loudly vaunted as the '
inalienable appanage of the lowest and weakest
members of the community. It was only the other
day that Lady Wave* LTT7OII was consigned to
an asylam on the utterly groundless certificate of
two medical men of considerable eminence, who had
chows to construe excitability into madness. In
this esse indeed the position of the sufferer, the
notoriety of the proceedings, and the interest taken
is the matter by a large part of the public, procured
the almost immediate restoration of that liberty
which there was no valid ground for having even
moomatarily suspended. Bnt what a system it is
nadir which such proceedings are possible ! The
Write de cachet of the old Bourbon regime were
smugly more opposed to the true spirit of free insti-
tutions. True, there is the possibility of testing the
question of sanity or insanity by a subsequent Corn-
miMisa of Inquiry, a mode of proceeding available
for those, and those only, who have friends zealous
enough and influential enough for procuring a
resort to it. Even when this method is successfully
resorted to, it seems a strange inversion of the
natural order of proceeding. You abut up a
Mama creature on the ground of insanity, and
afterwards inquire whether he is insane or not.
You commit the wrong first and institute the inquiry
afterwards. Then there are the Commissioners in

Lunacy, who periodically travel and elaborately re-
port. No great or protracted awe of hardship can,
it Is said, be kept out of the range of their übiquitous
inspection. We rather doubt it. Commissioners, even
of Lunacy, are lhllible, and the patient, even before
that astute sad humane tribtmal, will frequently have
but a poor chance against the mad doctor. Besides,
if a wrongfully detained person is let out after mow
months of durance by the Commissioners, is it
nothing to have been all that time shut up in a mad-
house on the mere ipso dizil of a couple of doctors,
set in motion, it may be, by the cupidity, or jealousy,
.
or

of those who haves sinister interest
in procuring or prolonging the incarceration of the
alleged lunatic ?
Om readers will probably have noticed in oar
implosion of Monday last a flagrant instance of the
abase of the powers conceded by the Lunacy Laws.
The owe referred to is that of Mrs. CHALLIS
TUREEN, wife of the official assignee in the
Liverpool Court of Bankruptcy. The story is
a melancholy one. The parties were married in the
per 1845. Mrs. TURNER had been her has-
hed's mistress before she became his wife.
When he first met with her she appears to have
been alimetatterly uneducated. She laboured hard,
pod eneasesfully, to improve herself. She be-
nne inaleasted ; she became even accomplished ;
sir leas ma admirable and frugal housekeeper. She
was passionately attached to her husband ; and, as is
Ma unions is not unhecistently the cross, excessively
imam of him. Whether with or without canes
• anamptlbility grew on her, till its symptoms at
Mit ininabbdly presented much of the violence of
Mimmneeia. The husband and wife separated; far
moody Ave years they lived apart. So frugal wee
biee movement, that during this period Mrs. Tox-
in amassed to save nearly 7001. out of the annual
berm allowed her. In the autumn of last year
OM Who lad took her a tour in the Lakes, and ties
apia seem to have left her. An undoubted
Maim then took possession of her mind :
abs believed that an attempt had been
made to poison her, and she proclaimed this
belief in a public and certainly an iadesormas man-
ner. Then the husband's friends interposed; two
medical practitioners of York—Mr. Paocroz and
Mr. Nostw--signed a certificate of her insanity, and
she was at once conveyed to the asylum of a lama
aimed METCALFE, at Aoombe, pear York.

Now comes the most shocking part of the case,
The jury were no doubt perfectly right is finding,
as they did by a majority of 19 to 7, that
Jim TURNER " was of sound mind, and
"capable of managing her own affairs 1#
still it is but fair to admit that her
endue, under the infillll.oll of jealousy and sae.
piston, bad been marked by violist paroxysms of
radon, which might in some degree mantenseas I
the theory that, ea a certain elase of subjects, the
was labouring ander insanity. There might, there-
/am be.. hem num ground for greeting a artifi-
cer ; bat theme:old have been no greeted, and them
as be se deisatte, for the infamous treatment
whisk the unhappy weirs received at the Mambo
Asylum. The ruffianly keeper of this place wee com-
pelled le mishit that he bad, or, which le the same
thing, would sot wear that he had not, called this
unhappy mesa by the mod opprobrious epithet that
• warm am bear he had compelled her to Indium
is his swam telling her brutally and ooarsely that
it weasel the drat time she had stripped before men ;
he had treed ler dews on the floor with ruffianly
Amiens, I she was denied all seems to the moans of
esmpliatt as ewe was allowed to visit her; she wee
debarred do the aas of pen and ink. It was not till
the estialter is km truster made his way into her
peemase, under as ceder from Lord ISHAIPTIZEIJIT,
that the bulk came oat. Before this, M re. Tomo ea had
anise offiesied her escape from the Acombe ma-
llow; mos leaking her way os foot as far as Leeds,
the mead time eetablishing herself in lodgings at
Test. Oa this seeond socasica, Ifire.atze, meow-
„atm; by a gram, beebe epee the door of her'
bedchamber dragged bet tilt of bed in her night
dims, and seisig hat by the drodism midis the
groom held bar feet, haled her by main form
dome the stain tats a cab *h he had is waiting. e

His reason for thus acting, as assigned by him-
self, seas this, fr-thot when
,he had persons wider
" hie' temlnnent hieonsidered it his cloths Mke
" evermore of the • One Oiled, at all evehlbi.le
prettpisar, and is, that it is the dutytef the
Lwow Commissioners to take are that thislaissm-
ble brute and ruffian never has " persons under his
" treatment" for the future. The day for the
MiTCALPEB is gone by; and unless this Acombe
madhouse is forthwith shut up, the Lunacy Com-
mission will be generally regarded as nothing better
than an ambulatory sham. Altogether the whole
framework of the Lunacy Law is susceptible of great
improvement, and during the Parliamentary recess
we beg to commend the subject to the attention of
the Law Amendment Society and the Social Science
Conference.

Cbt Court.

OSBORNE, JrLT 27.

Tbs Queen and Prince Consort, accompanied by
Priam ♦rthur, Prince Leopold, Princess Alice, Princess
Leah" and Count Menedord, embarked on bawd the royal
yacht ViClOllll and Albert yesterday afternoon, and cruised
to SOWN&

Hr Majesty's dinner party is the evening included his
Serene Highness Prince Leiningen, end the Rev. G.
Prather°.

A deputation on the rubjem of the bad state of the Serpen-
tine had an interview with Lord John Moaners yesterday at
the offios of Works, Whitehall-plias. The deputation con-
sisted of Dr. Jam.. Copland, De. Pettigrew, Dr. Chriskieu,
Dr. Lankoiter, Mr. S. Carter Hall, and Mr.
Honorary Secretary of the Committee.
A deputation, consisting of the Right Hon. IL T. Baines,
M P., Generel Buckley, Id.P., Mr. Garnett, IL P., Mr.
Watson Taylor, Y.P., Mr. &smolt, M.P.., Mr.
M. P , and the Rev. Edw. Jackson (Leeds), hidi an interview
with the Right Ron. C. B. Adetwkry, at the Council. office
yesterday on the subject of reformatory school'.

The Lineal has been pleased to direct letters
patent to be passed under the great seal, granting
the dignity of s Baron of the United Kingdom of
Cheat Bntain and Ireland unto Sir John Buller
Yards Boller, Bart., and to the heirs male of bis
body lawfully begotten, by the name, style, and title
of Baron Chariton, of Chariton Ferrer., and Lnp•
ton, in the county of Devoo.—Gssette.