The Express.
London, England, 1860-08-08 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 8.

Few greater or more beneficial changes have
taken place in our day than that which has occurred
In the treatment of lunatics generally, and espe-
cially of pauper lunatics. Formerly these unfor-
tunate: creatures were systematically dealt with in a
most inhuman and revolting manner. Instead of
any attempt being made to soothe their excited
needs or recall their lost intelligence by gentle
discipline, all were speedily driven by indiscrimi-
nate violence into the condition of wild and
hopeless maniacs. Force was in fact the only
curative or corrective instrument employed
in dealing with the insane, and, of course,
such a brutal remedy only aggravated ten-
fold the original disease. This was clearly per-
ceived by the more thoughtful and humane students
of medicine long before it was generally rests-
need. They proved that the mind in dis-
ease is still influenced by substantially the same
laws that govern it in health, and that above all
the law of kindness and conciliation works
wonders in the distempered brain. Theme
efforts produced a great and salutary revolu-
tion. Force was wholly banished from our
lunatic asylums, and personal restraint only partially
allowed in very extreme cases. Under this wise
and humane system the treatment of tho insane
has become comparatively easy, the more violent
forms of lunacy are of rare occurrence, and the
frightful incidents, the brutal conflicts between
the patient and his keepers that constantly hap-
pened under the old system, have disappeared.
Such a case as that which appears in our columns
lathe kind of exception that proves the rule. Thirty
years ago it would have excited little surprise,
and led to no inquiry ; but it is impossible to
read it now without being startled and shocked
at diacovenng that such an occurrence is pomade
in a modern and well-conducted asylum. We have
no wish to prejudge • case still under judicial
investigation, but the facts already detailed speak
for themselves. WILLIAM 8 LATER, lately em-
ployed as an attendant at the Colney Hatch Lu-
antic Asylum, stands charged—in conjunction with
another keeper now also in custody—with the man-
slaughter of one of the inmates, named WILLIAM
Swim (in the 18th of May last Swirr was alive,
and as well as usual Mr. TYILII-11•?1, 01W of the
medical officers of the establishment, states that
he had a conversation with him in the morning of
that day, when he was in his customary health,
there being no indication whatever of his having
received any injury. In the evening of the same
day, Mr. T was called into the padded
room, and found him there stretched on the floor
and quite dead. On examination it was discovered
that the dr.:eased had died from injuries of the
most violent character—eleven ribs being frac-
tured, the breast bone broken right across, and the
liver and lungs seriously lacerated by the dreadful
blows that had crushed the chest. The two
keepers who had charge of Swot that day were
ILATAIL, who was brought up on Monday,
and a luau named VIVIAN, who was placed
at the bar yesterday. These men assert, at
least SLAT AR asserted to the doctor in the
presence of Vieux, that Swirr had died
from the effect of a fit, and they both posi-
tively denied that there had been any struggle
between him and themselves. On the
other hand, Mr. Tr =NAN deposes that
to his knowledge Swirr never had a fit,
and that in his opinion it would have been
impossible for him to have received the serious
injuries that occasioned death, "by falling on
" the tables in a tit, or by any fall, unless from a
" great height." He accordingly does not credit
the keepers' statement, and his disbelief is sup-
ported by the direct testimony of several inmates
of the same ward, who were eye-witnesses of the
tragedy which ended in Swirr's death. These wit-
nesses, though inmates of an asylum, are yet capable
of giving an intelligent and trustworthy account of
what falls under their observation; at least the one
who was examined on Monday, Saucac Ctaxx
by name, evidently was so. Mr. TYMMIAN stated
of this witness that he was capable of giving an
account of what he had seen, and when put in the
witness-box he gave his evidence in so rational and
connected a manner that any magistrate would
certainly be justified in receiving it on its own
merits. Dr. Buck NI LL however stated last
year before the Select Committee on Lu-
natics, that he is in the habit of receiving
the statements of intelligent patients aa to what
takes place in their wards if there is any circum-
stance tending to confirm them, and that he has dis-
missed attendants from the asylum over which
he presides on the strength of their evidence.
evelence ill throughout simple and con-
nected, and he gives • very different and far more
probable account of the injuries Seiler received
on that fatal eveuiug. He says, after describing
the violent way in which the keepers brought him
from the airing court into the ward : " They took
" him into the ward and tripped him up. They
" threw him on the .floor and ill-used him.
" VIVIAN kicked him, and KLATxa
punched him.
4. They then got him up and took hint to the door
e of the padded room, where they undressed him
sad pushed him in. He fell on the floor, and '
" they kicked him and pushed him as Wm, at
" was out so that they must have heard
"him all over the airing court. He ' Kill
Ine at once, don't kick me like that.' " Thy
evidence was confirmed yesterday by
VARNEY, another inmate of the same ward.
So the cam stands at meant. The poor lunatic
may have been excited and almost unmanageable,
bust there can he little doubt, we apprehend, that