The Sun.
London, England, 1849-02-12 00:00:00

0

LONDON, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1849.

German patriotism cannot make up its mind as to
who shall be crowned with the Imperial diadem at
Frankfort. Nor, considering the magnitude of the
responsibility imposed on those who have to make the
selection, can the delay be any matter of amazement.
Even the miraculous skill of Vox GAGERN has
failed to elicit anything like a rational unanimity
from the representatives. The numbers which he
has hitherto reduced to an orderly and symmetrical
Opposition are jumbled into a chaotic confusion.
They refuse to settle down in harmonious masses like
the precipitate of the ballot-box. On the contrary, one
flies off at a tangent here, another there, one in this
direction, another in that; and the consequence is that
the. Assembly is at last altogether at fault ; its
machinery won't work, but has become afflicted with
a dead-lock. How long this state of legislative stag-
nation will continue it is absolutely impossible to
conjecture ; the phlegmatic characteristic of the
German race still predominates over the momentary
activity produced by revolutionary ideas. So long
as the elect of the people continue to permit them-
selves to dwindle into the mere dupes of the intrigues
of the different Sovereigns, so long will the antici-
pated nationality of Fatherland be an unattainable
mirage useful only to the imagination of UHLAED.
In commenting upon the difficult and bewildering
problem as to who would be the fittest personage to
invest with the imperial dignity, we have already
declared that to ourselves the choice between the two
present candidates, the Prussian KING and the Aus-
trian EMPEROR, would render the acceptance of the
latter preferable, The youth, and consequently the
untarnished reputation of FRANCIS JOSEPH, would
afford that potentate an opportunity of taking the
initiative as Emperor of Germany without any
glaring and damaging inconsistency, such as might
tend to impart to his acts an appearance of insincerity
and mere time-serving. With FREDERIOK WILLIAM
It would necessarily be different. The reiterated perfidies
of that Monarch, the fickleness of his attachment to
the popular cause, his tarnished and saturnine
celebrity,all unite in rendering him about the most unfit
recipient of the sceptre of the German Caesars. Be-
yond which, his sudden elevation to the rank and
state of an emperor, and of an emperor, too, over the
vast confederation of the forty Germanic States, would
give him an undue and pernicious preponderance over
those territories which are more populous and gigantic
than his own. While, nevertheless, we would decide
thus summarily in the preference of the im-
perial successor of PERDINAND, we must
acknowledge that neither the Austrian nor the
Prussian has those qualifications which should be re-
garded as essential to the regal aild imperial repre-
presentative of the Germanic nationality. The policy
of the one would tend too exclusively towards Berlin,
and the policy of the other towards Vienna. There
would not be that abstraction from what may be
called the provincialism of German sentiments ; there
would not be that isolation from the prejudices of
country, which abstraction and isolation would be
imperatively required in the person of the Supreme
Emperor. There would, moreover, be a
Perpetual source of jealousies and recrimi-

nations in the conduct pursued by either.
They would be taxed by the millions of
Fatherland with a too exclusive devotion to Prussia
or to Austria as the -case may be ; while, on the
other hand, Prussia or Austria might charge them
with an undue subjection of their own interests to
the interest of the great Commonwealth of King-
doms. In either event there would be the germ of
estrangement; and to guard against this is one of the
most solemn duties imposed upon the National Par-
liament assembled to decide upon the destinies of the
German people in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul's,
in the imperial city of Frankfort-on-the-Maine.
All things considered, therefore, the recant pause
in the deliberations of the Representatives as to the
nomination of the first Emperor, is matter rather for
commendation than for condemnation. It betrays
in them a profound solicitude to proceed with exqui-
site caution in the task of selecting a proper centre,
round which the patriotism of their fellow-country-
men, whether of Austria, or Prussia, or Bavaria, or
Saxony, or Hanover, or of any of the subordinate
principalities, may concentrate, without any
injury to themselves, individually or collectively.
It must be confessed that the problem is
very nearly as inscrutable as it is un-
questionably momentous. It discloses an abyss of
such appalling depth as to baffle the gaze of the most
far-seeing. If such likewise is the difficulty of the
question to the German statesmen, it surely must be
no subject for astonishment that the most enlightened
foreigners hesitate in arriving at anything like a
satisfactory conclusion. Time must yet elapse before
the power of the National Assembly can be resigned
into the hands of the future Emperor without an ex-
traordinary degree of rashness. Meanwhile the
legislators assembled in the imperial city are not frit-
tering away the period of their political existence
solely in prolonged and stormy discussions. They
still keep in view the exalted labours expected from
them prior to the dissolution ; and, in part
_fulfilment,
of those requirements they have only, within the last
few days, passed one of their noblest enactments—
the law for the protection of personal liberty. While
they continue thus to struggle towards the goal of
confederative union and national happiness, they will
secure to themseves the cordial sympathies of the mul-
titude, and will prepare the general mind by the
worthiest means—that of moral and intellectual ex-
ample—for the submission to any determination at
which they may ultimately arrive, in regard to the
individual selected for the office of the Emperor of
Germany.

There is every probability that the present session
of Parliament will not , pass away without, at least,
an effort to obtain an amendment in the state of the
law respecting the confinement of persons alleged to
be lunatic. Thanks to the visiting magistrates of
Gloucestershire, to whom the gratitude of every
friend of humanity is due for the firm, and, at the
same time, courteous manner in which they performed
their duty during the whole course of the investiga-
tion into the management of the Fishponds Asylum,
the attention of the public has been at length
awakened to ,the importance of the subject;
and the Society for Promoting the Improvement of
the Law, acting in this, as in many other instances,
as the interpreters of public opinion, have exposed
the defects of the law as it at present stands, and have
pointed out a remedy. The following was the
reference made by the Society to the Committee on
Equity :—" To consider the state of the law respect-
ing the confinement of persons alleged to be lunatics ;"
and their amended report, which appears in the
Law Magasine for February, has the " unanimous
approval of the Committee." After stating that, in
their opinion, " the public, and more especially the
unfortunate class of lunatics and persons of un-
sound mind, are exceedingly indebted to the indi-
viduals who have lately paid so much attention to
the subject of this reference, and whose efforts have
led to the recent legislation respecting it, the Corn -
mittee proceed to consider the state of the law as
regards persons, not paupers, nor found lunatics
under a commission from the Court of Chancery,
but who are placed under the restraint of a lunatic
asylum. After giving a history of the various Acts
of Parliament, 'which at different times have been
passed for the regulation of private lunatic asylums,
the Committee give the following oterwsei of the exist-
ing state of the law :
"Under the present Acts, then, it comes practically to
this, that a person may be placed in a lunatic asylum on
producing a written order, which may be signed by any
person, and two certificates, each signed by a medical
man, that they consider him insane, and may be lawfully
detained in such asylum, without any further opinion
being taken as to the fact of the lunacy, and subject
only to the visits of the Commissioners in Lunacy before
mentioned, and in the country, of the visiting justices in
addition. It is to be remarked that all the persons who
thus concur in depriving the alleged lunatic of his liberty
(except the Commissioners and visitors) may have an
interest in representing him to be a lunatic and keeping
him confined. In the person signing the order already
mentioned there may be an interest the most direct. The
person who arrests him, and takes him by force, if neces-
sary, to the asylum, is subject to no regulation; he is not
a person in any way recognised by the law ; he is ap•
pointed by no person directly reoponsible. The occu-
pation, though a necessary one, can only be endurable
by a particular class of persons ; and we thus find
that those who are so employed are sometimes persons
of bad character. The medical men who sign a certi-
ficate, are not any body of that profession resident in
the several counties selected for their peculiar skill in
this department of medical knowledge, or their especial
standing or respectability; they may be any members of
that profession wherever resident, with some unimpor-
tant qualifications, whom the parties interested choose
to select; and it may be that in a particular case appli-
cations may be made to many medical men previous to
the necessary certificates being procured; and of course
if any misconduct is required, those members only will
be chosen who are capable of it, and such will find
their way into the most honourable professions. It is
also to be observed, that even in the most upright mem-
bers of any profession there is a natural sympathy with
those who employ them, from which it is difficult for
the mind to divest itself. Thus any person whoever,
sane or insane, may possibly be immured for life in an
asylum on false or erroneous certificates, which have
been procured from medical men of very questionable
character."

After alluding to the appointment of the
Commissioners in Lunacy as "a very con-
siderable check upon the abuses of the system,"
the report proceeds to show that the check can not be
very considerable, inasmuch as "it seems impossible
that the visiting Commissioners can make a special
examination of each of the persons confined ;" and as
"it is certain that in many cases a considerable in-
terval must take place between the date of the first
confinement of the lunatic and his examination by the
Commissioners ;" in fact, to use the words of Mr.
PURNELL, the able and energetic Chairman of the
Gloucester Quarter Sessions, " there is time to MAR E
a man mad if he be put under restraint until the visit
is made." The physical impossibility of the Com-
missioners acting as any " very considerable check
upon the abuses of the system " becomes
self-evident when we recollect, that " there are eix
visiting Commissioners, whose duty it is to visit and
exercise control over the lunatic asylums of the whole
country," the number of patients confined in such
asylums being estimated by the Commissioners them-
selves at 26,416.

The Committee consider that " there is a sufficient
evil existing under the present system to warrant the
interference of the Legislature," and they propose
the following remedies for that evil. Leaving un-
touched that point of the law which requires medical
men to give certificates of lunacy, but not desiring that
such certificates should have the effect of authorising
perpetual confinement, the Committee " are of opinion
that, before the liberty of a person is taken away on
the ground of his being a lunatic, there should be a
further inquiry by some person having a judicial
character, within a reasonable period, to be determined
by law, after the first confiner wmenhtioh w
in the avehasyelum.
This is the great principle fo
con-
tended for the last five
d.he years,
c certainly
oamndmitteeo
o E
ttqlositmy ofost
gratifying to find that
the Society for the Improvement of the Law have
been thus unanimous in bearing testimony to
soundness. The Committee suggest that the " Masters
in Lunacy," where practicable, and, in other
cases, that the Judge of the County Court
or the Magistrates at the Petty Sessions would
be Ithe most proper persons to be employed to
conduct the investigation, or "it might be thought
more advisable at the option of the alleged
lunatic, if he were capable of exercising it, to call in
a jury of five or seven to decide on this fact; but the
Committee are on the whole inclined to prefer leaving
the matter to be decided by some judicial person on
whom the responsibility of the confinement should
entirely rest." This is a mere point of detail which it
will be quite time enough to consider when the great

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