The Sun.
London, England, 1865-01-13 00:00:00

A Visit to the Criminal Lunatic Asylum,

We are all of us familiar with the verdicts, " ac-
quitted on the ground of insanity," and the invaria-
ble sentence which follows on them, "to be im-
prisoned during her Majesty's pleasure." These
two meagre scraps of information, if such they may
be called, are generally all that the public learn con-
cerning the career of criminal lunatics. Whatbecomes
of them afterwards—where they are imprisoned, how
they live and die, whether they become partially
cured or still more confirmed in their derangement,
and add to their first crime by fresh attempts upon
the lives of their keepers.--none but their own
friends, if even they, ever know afterwards. The
criminal lunatic—and by this term we mean to refer
only to those of homicidal tendencies, persons never
dangerous to themselves, but always so to others—
is, when once acquitted of murder on the ground of
insanity, as dead to the world as if the earth had
already closed over him. For every other class of
criminal there is some chance of ultimate reprieve ;
for these dangerous madmen none whatever.
Two or three years ago there used to be wards
for these miserable homicides, men and women,
in most of the county asylums, while very
many, including Edward Oxford, who so nearly
killed the Queen, Macnaughten, who murdered Sir
Robert Peers Secretary in Whitehall-place, and the
celebrated Captain Johnston, who under such ter-
rible circumstances killed all the crew of his ship,
the Tory, were kept at Bethlehem by a special ar-
rangement with the Home-office. This system, how-
ever, was full of inconveniences, and these inconve-
niences becoming aggravated as every year added to
the numbers of such prisoners, at least grew to such
a height that the Government determined to build
one large asylum capable of holding all the lunatic
murderers, men and women, of Great Britain.
This building is the Great Broadmoor Asylum.
It is distant about two miles from the Wellington
College Station of the South-Eastern Railway, and,
surrounded by pine woods, commands a magnificent
prospect. The building, or rather series of distinct
blocks of buildings which compose it are lofty and
handsome, and if, as Sydney Smith said, the
builder of a red brick house is a public benefactor,
then, indeed, the founders of Broadmoor deserve
no ordinary meed of gratitude, for a warmer and
more comfortable-looking structure was never erected
in a more wild though beautiful situation. Every part
of the buildings, and the long, steep, terraced slopes
which lead down the hill in front, and are to be here-
after used as gardens, are surrounded with high walls,
for the place, as might be expected from the cha-
racter of its inmates, is not only an asylum, but, as
it should be, a strong house of detention also.
Beyond these walls, whether sane or insane, the
murderers once committed to Broadmoor neveipass
in life or death. In all that relates to diet, lodging,
and every other comfort, they are treated with almost
an excess of care. They can see their friends, can
write to whom they please, can take what exercise
they like in the spacious airing grounds, can, in
short, do anything but pass the boundaries which
shut them in for ever from the world be-
yond. Within these they live and die, and within
these are they buried in the little cemetery attached
to the asylum. It may at first seem hard that those
who are restored to comparative sanity should still
be condemned to the darkest and most terrible of
all dooms—that of perpetual incerceration in a mad-
house with the very worst class of maniacs, those
whose homicidal frenzies no discipline can effectually
check nor medical attendance entirely mitigate. Yet
in reality this rule is a necessary even if a harsh one.
There are several now in Broadmoor who years ago
were only saved by accident from completing murder,
and who afterwards passed two or three years in
lunatic asylums. There in course of time the quiet,
healthy life, freedom from mental anxiety, and care-
ful medical treatment at last succeeded in restoring
them to apparent sanity, and they were set at liberty.
But the mind which seemed sane in the quiet good
order of a well-regulated asylum, and amid the more
marked mental derangements with which it was sur-
rounded, soon lost its feeble balance when returned
again to struggle with all the nervous excitements of
the world. Some such who have been once liberated
are now at Broadmoor—committed to its never-end-
ing confinement, not for having attempted, but this
time for having completed, sometimes one, sometimes
more murders under circumstances of peculiar cun-
ning and prejneditation. Some of these are still as
bad as ever ; some the quiet of the asylum and
kindly care of Dr. Meyer have restored again to
almost sanity for the second time. But the result
will be the same in either case. Neither will ever

more be trusted at liberty. A committal to Broad-
moor for murderous madness is as final as regards
the chances of return to the world as death itself.
It is time, however, to speak of the interior of

Broadmoor and its inmates—of those whom a na-

turally defective mental organisation has brought to
its eternal seclusion, of those in whom morbid jea-
lousy, morbid love of notoriety, or morbid vanity—
for all these causes are sufficient to overturn
the weak balance of ill regulated minds--has
at last brought to hopeless insanity and detention.
Broadmoor now contains nearly 500 inmates, about
400 men and 50 or 60 women. With a few rare
exceptions, nearly all are homicides, and we are
probably much within the mark when we say that
the victims of their united crimes would amount to

nearly v 1,000. Y Here one may occasionally see a
female croquet party on the lawn, the players
in which have been guilty in the aggregate of
some 30 murders ; or on the men's side, playing
at bagatelle, a little group, with each of whose
crimes all England at one time rung. Entering one
of the large blocks devoted to the men, the visitor

passes at once to the sitting, dining, and recreation
rooms, which are all on the ground floor, the dor-
mitories and infirmaries being above. In the sit-
ting-room, which is nearly always full, the first
thing which strikes him on entrance is, as a rule,
the criminal type of all the faces. Any who have
been in the habit of visiting our great convict prisons
know what we mean by this expression. The low
mental organisation which one always finds asso-
ciated with crime in the common run of criminals,
the small head, narrow and receding forehead, and
restless furtive eyes, are at Broadmoor intensified, and
in most cases accompanied with a weakly, undersized
physical development. Small ill-formed heads, nar-
row stooping shoulders, weak limbs, and shuffling hesi-
tating gait, are the rule among them. These are the
occupants of a " block" of a hundred, and are what
they alwayscall themselves, " her Majesty's pleasure
people," that is, people acquitted of murder on the
ground of insanity, and sentenced to imprisonment
during her Majesty's pleasure. Some are reading,
some writing, some playing draughts, a few sham-
bling to and fro in moody silence, like caged animals,
while some sit staring with blank intensity upon
the opposite wall from which they never move their
eyes. Here comes one who was, when at large, more
dangerous to her Majesty than Oxford himself,
hopelessly mad from a vain love of notoriety, which
he thinks he has attained, as the great strut with
which he enters the room shows clearly enough. The
once terrible Captain Johnston is here now, cured
to a mild and inoffensive • •
Kh otcy ; and here, too, is
Macnaughten,
as really mad as when he killed poor
Mr. Drummond.
gore
officer, whose murderere is a non-commissioned
of
his wife and family some
E
years ago shocked all
now is about his good ugiaild'
already His only anxiety
conduct
medal. Here, too,
are several whom we have
having been in asylumsalluded to as
before for
attempted
murder, who have been discharged as
having then perpetrated murder outrightcured' and
have been
committed to stay here for evermore.
those reading are the half-cured, and AS
a rule
those seldom
speak or are spoken to. Those writing so are
intensely
generally preparing interminable memorials to the
Home Secretary, or keeping the most insane of
diaries to show the Commissioners in Lunacy as
proofs of their cure and reasons for their discharge.
The maddest of all are those who beset Dr. Meyer
and the governors with endless arguments on the ne-
cessity for their being set at liberty at once. " Mark
me," says one most solemnly, " I hold you now
responsible for my detention, for the jury them-
selves acquitted me." The same individual, as a
reason for not going to church, said, " Why, you
see, I cannot ; the presence of a sane man among
these lunatics always disturbs them. I have no-
ticed it myself, so for their sake I had better stay

away." This man is rather dangerous and has com-
mitted murder. As a rule, however, all in this
block are harmless, though the prefixes which come
attached to their characters and dispositions are not
at first sight calculated to convey this mild impres-
sion. Thus we find "T. M- murdered his wife

and two children ; quiet and very harmless. L.
F- murdered wife, sister, and child ; obedient,
quiet, and perfectly inoffensive." A few who are
sane during the greater part of the year are sub-
ject to periodical returns of their dangerous mala-
dies. But of the symptoms which precede these
outbreaks Dr. Meyer is always a careful observer,
and the patients are in good time removed to the
" strong block," of which we shall have to speak
presently.
All in this first ward, and in fact in all the wards,
as far as it can be enforced, observe the same rules

of early rising, at 6 o'clock in summer and 7 o'clock
in winter. Their diet is nourishing and abundant.

The men who smoke are, under the doctor's orders,
allowed tobacco in moderation. They are encou-

raged to amuse themselves with reading and baga-
telle, and, in fact, everything is done to keep them
quiet, which is about all that can be effected here.
With a class so dangerously afflicted, of course, any-
thing like regular work is out of the question.
All, it is true, would very gladly work. It is, how-
ever, only a very small proportion that can be trusted
with such implements as spades, knives, scissors, or
even needles and thread. In the quiet wards the pa-
tients have blunted knives and forks, just enough

to keep up appearances and enable them to cut and
eat their vegetables. In the " strong block" the
food is cut up and the inmates have only

a smooth horn knife and spoon with which to feed
themselves. Yet in some few cases the labours of
the lunatics can be utilised. Under the eye of

vigilant attendants, a few are trusted to work in the
garden. There is a cobbler's shop, in which every
one at work, save the superintendent, has killed one
or more people. You can pass through a row of
tailors, where all are quiet and busy, but where all
have a history of crime—where the earnest-looking
man in the midst, whose very spirit seems absorbed

in the movement of his sewing machine, is among
the worst, and if mad crime is to be taken as a proof

of danger, the most dangerous of all. Outside are
a small group of gardeners labouring with the mi-
nute labour of love upon the patch of ground com-

mitted to their care ; and again, you come upon a

few painters with Edward Orford, now afat, elderly
man, at their head, all busy, and Oxford himself
carefully graining a door in beautiful style. Oxford
has now perfectly recovered his sanity, and is the
most orderly, most useful, and most trusted of all
the inmates of Broadmoor. A small pecuniary reward
is given to those who labour well as an inducement
to others to do likewise, and this• money they are
allowed to spend in any harmless way they please.
Out of his small earnings Oxford has between 501.
and 601. carefully saved.
In the women's ward the same hours and rules are
observed as in the men's, with only the difference
which their additional fretfulness, vanity, and oc-
casional acts of wanton, though not dangerous,
mischief necessarily entails upon their management.
The first person we meet with here in the corridor on
the women's side is a gaunt Irishwoman, always
violently abusive but not dangerous. The instant
Dr. Meyer and one of the kindest and most careful
governors of the asylum, Sir William Hayter, make
their appearance she assails them with fierce abuse,

and threatens to do for them what she did for Ned
Naylor—the man for whose deliberate murder she
is now restrained. The influence of mind over
matter receives a fresh illustration here, as between
the gaunt virago and the visitors a little wardress
glides, at the mere jingle of whose keys the furious
madwoman subsides at once, and, though still
fierce and abusive, utters threats no more. In
the dark padded cell is a young girl, rather a
dangerous lunatic, but who when her fits of violence
and screaming come upon her, as they often do, at

once runs off to this dark quiet haven, where an hour
or two of self-sought confinement never fails to re-
store her to serenity and cheerfulness. The want
of a refractory ward for the more violent of the
women patients is sadly felt in this division, and the
visitor's ear is often pained and startled by the pro-
longed hysterical outcries of those suffering under
a sudden access of frenzy. Every possible care,
however, is taken of them. Nearly all are quietly

engaged in sewing or reading, while many, young

and old, are walking rapidly to and fro in the airing
ground beneath the window. It .is very rarely any
of the women wish to be let out or make any com-
plaint of detention. Their intellect seems to acquire
at once, with a humble feebleness that is inexpres-
sibly touching, in the necessity for their future re-
straint, and their mania seldom rises beyond little
vagaries in the matter of dress or jealous anger
among each other. It is easy to utilise their labour
in the kitchens, laundry, and sewing-rooms, where,
under the care of the wardresses, many of them work
hard and well, while their weekly recreation, the
singing class on Friday, is looked forward to with
eagerness by almost all but those few whom no kind-
ness can entirely conciliate to quietness with the
others. The last comer in the women's block is one
who murdered all her children in a fit of jealous
vanity. The overweening airs of pride which this
i young woman still gives herself would be amusing
in their exaggeration, if they were not also -painful
evidences of the hopelessness of her malady.
It is in the " strong block," however, where the
most dangerous of all the male lunatics are confined;
that what may be called the terrors of Broadmoor
and its fearful collection of patients culminate. Here
are confined the men whose murderous propensities
and love of bloodshed seem almost inextinguishable.
They are in the airing ground as we enter, a ground
enclosed with tall, strong iron railings, within the
area of which they are muttering and pacing to
and fro, only a certain number within each
sub-division of the yards, and with each gang
sufficient warders to guide them, rule them,
and, when their desperate fits of murderous insanity
break out against each other, as they may do some-
times, to overpower them when necessary. As we
enter, a thin, slight, dangerous man advances to the
bars and, clutching them, blasphemes with vague
unmeaning oaths at visitors and all around, and
then with a burst of laughter lets go his hold and
shuffles away across the ground, cursing as he walks.
Another takes his place—a man named G., the most
dangerous of all at Broadmoor. This man,.the sur-
geons say, is not so much mad as irrecoverably bad
—a kind of modern Frankenstein, born apparently
without a moral nature. Of all within the walls of
this asylum there is-none that will not at once be-
tray his fellow in any attempt at escape, any con-
cealment of weapons, any premeditated onset on the
, warders, save this man G. He alone possesses
powers of combination, and can gain over his dan-
gerous associates to do his will and keep it secret
till it is done. lle is here for most cruel murders,
and is of all those in Broadmoor the most watched
and dreaded. He is always asking to be let out and
to be allowed to do work, but one might as soon
trust a tiger with children as him with knives or
tools. Beyond him is a man whom we will call F.,
red-haired, tall, lithe, and powerful, with a quick
bow and fawning smile at the least token of
.recog-
nition. Face to face- with F. you are safe enough,
yet neither warder nor doctor would ever turn their
backs upon him, or woe betide them. He will kill,
or try to strangle and kill, any whom he can sur-
prise unawares and from behind, though, barring
this little failing, he is, 'hen openly confronted,
harmless and even timid enough, though very cun-
ning. He, however, is one whose perpetual yearn-
ing and search is after weapons of offence of any
kind. In this he resembles another dangerous mur-
derer P., of whom we shall have to say more pre-
sently, as also of W., whose cruel slaughter of his
mother and sister shocked all England a few years
ago- As a matter of course all these dangerous
men are kept distinct from the rest, and as
much as possible from each other. Their sleep-
ing rooms are fitted with strong doors, and so
furnished as to
sticks,ecreting. weapons, .
as stones, bits of iron,
possible chance of s •
afford them no apparently
not, however, as a rulThe,theire least such
tendency
k n
feariv e s , 08 cf e.
theseTh people
epre
but homicidal. It is endeney
injuring themselves.
is not suicidal,
murderousare
e tonslaughts on each
other or the warders which
guarded against here. As we enter d dreaded be . and
block" the man whom we have e this " strong
called P. gave W. a

desperate blow on the nose, which almost broke it.

They were instantly separated and transferred to
different enelosures3in the airing-grounds, and

while the man W. broke into an incoherent torrent

of blasphemousribaldry, P. explained, with clearness
and good temper how W. had used some phrases re-
garding his dead mother which he (P.) considered a
cruel insult, and felt bound to avenge.
It requires great care and constant watchfulness
to keep these men from instruments with which to
injure the warders or each other. Their airing-

ground is carefully- weeded of large stones, yet the
man G., a short time back, persuaded his comrades
to collect small pebbles, with which he filled the

locks of the doors, so that the warders could not
open them, while he and others used their forms as
battering rams to beat away the bars of the win-
dows, and so succeeded in escaping into the court
below. Over the walls of this, however, they could
not pass, and there, with characteristic imbecility,
they submitted at once to the captivity which one or
two warders re-imposed upon them. Into the refrac-
tory wards of this " strong block" never less than
three warders enter, so that in case of any attack
by which one should be struck down there are
always two left to grapple with the maniac. As an
instance of the vigilance which has to be exercised
over these, the most dangerous of the dangerous
class of criminal lunatics, we may mention one
story about the man P., whom we have already al-
luded to as giving a bloody nose to the murderer
of his mother and sister. P., though generally
amenable enough, is on the whole a very dange

rous man, and one subject to frequent and uncer-
tain fits of homicidal madness. One day when
Dr. Meyer was going his rounds a patient told
him, as they all will tell like children upon
one another, that P. had got a knife. He
had not seen it, but he was sure from his mutterings
and other signs that P. had got it and was likely to
use it. This was alarming news of such a lunatic as
P., so Dr. Meyer with the warders went at once to
his cell. " Mr. P.," said Dr. Meyer, "I am told_
you have got a knife." P., of course, was utterly
surprised at this intimation. Where could he get a
knife? It was against the rules to have a knife, and
he of course would never break them—not he. This
was part of the prosecution he had been subjected
to, throughout life. These lies come of being locked
up with madmen, &c. " Very well," said Dr. Meyer,
" but at least you must let me search you ; so come
with me." Away went P. with the doctor and war-
ders to a refractory cell, where P. was stripped of
all his clothes, a new suit given him, and the old
ones searched. No knife was found. A fresh in-
quiry was made, and the information as to a knife
in P.'s possession became clearer and more explicit
still. So Dr. Meyer returned to P.'s cell and told
him that after his examination of his clothes he felt
quite sure that he had not a knife. " But still,
Mr. P.," he added, as every one reports to me that
you have a knife, and as that is quite against the
rules of the establishment, here, in this refractory
cell, you will have to stay, without tobacco, until you
find a knife. Think about it, therefore, if you know
of any place where a knife may be found, and then
let me know, for here you must remain until you do."
Of course, P. protested. It was very hard to be
made answerable for the falsehoods of lunatics.
How was it possible that, shut up there, he could
find a knife ? If Dr. Meyer would only tell him
where they were kept he would find a dozen cheer-
fully, but otherwise how could he ? and so on day
by day as Dr. Meyer came to see him. A week thus
passed away, and then P., becoming tired of his
confinement, began to relax a little, and at last told
Dr. Meyer that if he would come alone to his
cell, he would show him something—not a knife
of course—that they knew he had not got, but
still there was something to be seen. To this most
uninviting proposition Dr. Meyer of course declined
to assent. Whatever Mr. P. had to show in his
cell must be shown to Dr. Meyer accompanied by
his warders. Upon this the negotiation again
fell through, till nearly a fortnight elapsed, when
at last P. sullenly gave in, and went with the war-
ders and Dr. Meyer to his cell. Arrived here P.
'removed his bed, and, kneeling down, took out care-
tally one of the pine knots in the boards which
fitted into its hole like a cork, and which when re-
moved gave a little spot of access to the space be-
tween the floor and ceiling beneath. P. then pro-
duced from an obscure corner of his cell a piece of
cotton, to which was attached a pin bent like a hook,
and dropping this into the hole he began a long and
weary fishing to catch something, while Dr. Meyer
and the warders stood patiently watching. At last
P.'s efforts were successful, and he hooked up a
thread of worsted through the hole, and then sat
sullenly down upon the floor. That was all he, had
to show. Dr. Meyer, however, thought differently,
and lifted out the thread through the hole, and, 10,
attached to it was a knife pointed and sharpened to
the keenness of a razor !
This, however, though a most characteristic story,
is only one of the many which the annals of
Broadmoor, brief as they still are, already furnish.
With very rare exceptions, the minds of nearly all
the men at least are bent on one object, and one
object only—how to get away. Whether through
the interest of friends, by lamentably insane memo-
rials to the Home Secretary, by fraud or violence,
this is the one unchanging end which nearly all pur-
sue. It is some comfort, therefore, to find that these
incessant efforts are always unavailing. One would
hear with less alarm that all the menagerie of
Regent's Park was thrown open than that there was
even the slightest chance of these men being again
turned free to prey upon society. Of the two, we
honestly believe that the inmates of the menagerie
would be less ruthless and less dangerous to human
life than the liberated patients of Broadmoor. One
thing the public may be pleased to learn, which is,
that Victor Townley is not among the inmates of
this great asylum. The intrigue which saved him
from the gallows failed to secure him the easy life he
might have passed here. The final examination
which established his sanity, though too late to remit
him to the hangman's hands, was early enough to
consign him to penal servitude for life. In his case
the work will be harder and the indefinite term of
his dread sentence as inexorably carried out as it is
among those mad criminals who are now and for
ever enclosed within the walls of Broadmoor.—
Times.

RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE.

----~ --

GLASGOW AND SOUTH-WESTERN.
A special general meeting of this company was held on
Tuesday, at Glasgow ; Mr. J. Lumsden in the chair.
The CHAIRMAN stated that in the Session of 1863 the
company obtained an Act for the purpose of raising addi-
tional capital, to the extent of 286,0001., for general pur-
poses, the extension of stations, and for the increase of roll-
ing stock. They also obtained last Session, in conjunction
with the Caledonian Company, an Act for making a branch
line to Govan, and for that purpose they were authorised
to raise 35,0001., making a total of 321,0001., and it was to
exercise those powers that the directors asked the concur-
rence of th 6 shareholders. About 125,000/. of that sum had
already been expended, and the interest upon it had been
charged against revenue. The directors proposed that the
new stock should be issued under a 5 per cent. guarantee,
and be allotted to the shareholders at the rate of 1081. per
100/. stock, which would yield a dividencrof fully 4/. 128.6 d.
per cent. in perpetuity. He concludedler Moving a resolu-
tion authorising the creation of 821,0001. of 5 per cent.
perpetual guaranteed stock, to be allotted in the proportion
of 101. for each 1001. of capital held by the shareholders,
and so soon as one-half the total amount was paid up the
directors be authorised to exercise the borrowing powers
in respect thereof.
Mr. GALBRAI TH seconded the motion, and it was agreed
to unanimously:

during The reporta
sot f
six h edirectorse
eomf tphni. sa
nc o mg
MELBOURNE AND HOBSON'S BAY.
s nt at
et er s
ht
ah
lia
_t
theijan .Tvi
year, only a small quantity of wool had been shipped, the
revenue from the merchandise traffic had, therefore, been
dependent upon the amount of foreign imports, the inter-
colonial, and the coal trade ; the latter, as a permanent
source of revenue, was rapidly progressing, 31 vessels hav-
ing discharged their cargoes at the pier during the last six
months, as compared with 12 vessels during the correspond-
ing period of 1863. The directors felt confident that when
the junction of this company's line with that of the Mel-
bourne Railway Company was effected a great impetus
would be given to it by the opening out of coal depots at the
various suburban stations. Nearly 8,000 tons of coal had
passed over the line during the past half-year. The agree-
ment entered into by the directors for the amalgamation of
the undertakings of the Melbourne Railway Company and
the Melbourne and Hobson's Bay Railway Company was
approved unanimously by the shareholders present at the
extraordinary general meeting, held on the Bth of November