The Sun.
London, England, 1849-03-01 00:00:00

case is free from the slightest d'Jubt, he ma '4
be fortunate enough to obtain his liberation
after a few additional weeks or months' im-
prisonment, during which his condition is by no
means ameliorated in consequence of his appeal—
s pretension to sanity being as high a crime and
misdemeanour in the eyes of the keeper of a lunatic
asylum as OLIVER TWIST'S application for more
than the prescribed dietary allowed appeared to the
horrified BUMBLE.

But even slight as is the protection afforded to the
alleged lunatic by the existing law, experience has
shown that the separate examinations are frequently
dispensed with, that parties are deprived of their
liberty before any examination whatsoever has
taken place, the certificates being obtained from
" skilful persons, " of convenient consci-
ences, who are called on "en route"
to the asylum, and who form their opinions partly
" from the accounts received respecting the patients
from the parties by whom they are called in." Such
are the meats by which a party may be deprived of
his liberty in this boasted land of freedom, in the
middle of the 19th century.

But reforms are required even in the cases of the
more fortunate minority, who have been found to be.
lunatic under commissions de lunatico inquire';ido,
issued from the High Court of Chancery. There
must, in these cases, be at least some foundation
for the charge. Each party must be examined
before a jury of his countrymen, and pronounced
not merely to be of unsound mind, but also to be in-
capable of managing his own affairs. It might be
supposed that no abuses could occur where so great a
guarantee existed. Many cases might, however, be
found in which doubts might well be entertained as to
the correctness of the verdict of the jury, and, conse-
quently, of all the subsequent proceedings.; for all
those proceedings must be erroneous if the jury were
mistaken in the opinion they had formed respecting the
state of the parties mind. It frequently happens
that the person chiefly interested, whose sanity and
competence to manage his own affairs is the question
at issue, is without professional assistance, that the
only legal practitioners engaged are those who have
been retained by the parties suing out the commis-
sion, and who are deeply interested in obtaining a
verdict of lunacy. The object of the inquiry,
strong in the belief of his own mental ability,
scarcely considers it necessary to take any trouble
to rebut what he himself regards as a most
absurd charge. Too late he may find that he
had formed an erroneous estimate, that trifling
matters are put forward in a new point of view, totally
different from anything that could have entered into
his conception, and he may in vain deplore the negli-
gence of which he had been guilty, and desire that
professional assistance which might have given a very
different complexion to the entire affair.

When found a lunatic, it is a matter of the utmost
difficulty to obtain a supersedeas of the commission.
The patient, supposing him to have been actually in-
sane at the time, when the verdict of the jury pro-
nounced him to be so, may subsequently be restored
to perfect sanity; but how is he to make that sanity
apparent. How can he be restored to the full pos-
session and enjoyment of his property, and placed in
the position of a free citizen, subject to no control or
annoyance of any description. Certificates of the
most eminent physicians may be obtained as to his
perfect recovery. His most intimate friends—men
cognisant of the customs and habits of his earliest
youth, by which apparent eccentricities may be ex-
plained and reconciled—men whose station in society
and unquestionable characters render their testimony
perfectly unexceptionab'e—may aver, their full belief
in his competence and still difficulties all but insu-
perable may interpose to prevent his full release.
Why, we ask, should not such a person have a right
to demand a new inquiry as to the state of his mind
before a jury of his countrymen, whenever a prima
facie case can be made out, and he can pro-
duce the evidence of unexceptionable witnesses
in his favour. Certificates of two medical practi-
tioners almost wholly unknown—who have ac-
quired no rank in their profession, who have had no
experience in lunacy cases, and whose evidence, con-
sequently, would not carry with it much weight be-
fore any jury—are sufficient to brand a person as a
lunatic, and to justify an imprisonment far more
stringent and less tolerable than any inflicted in our
gaols or houses of correction. The affidavits of six
of the most eminent medical men—second to none in
Great Britain or in any nation of the universe, whe
have had peculiar opportunities of acquiring know-
ledge respecting cerebral diseases, who, in fact,
possess European reputations—may be sworn re-
specting the perfect sanity of the party, his full com-
petence for the management of himself and of his
pecuniary affairs, and of the propriety of his being
restored to his property and liberty; and such evi-
dence, apparently so conclusive and overwhelming,
may possibly be rejected, and not considered suffi-
cient to entitle the party to a new investigation
before another jury, in which he might be assisted by
competent advisers. While such things are possible)
it cannot be said that the law of lunacy is in a satis-
factory state. Additional protection must be afforded
to the unfortunate persons suffering under, or rather
alleged to be suffering under, so grievous an affliction.
The rule, " a lunatic once, and a lunatic for ever,"
must be got rid of. It cannot be endured that a man
whose will would be established and considered of
full validity before any tribunal, who would he held
answerable, even with his life, for any criminal act
he should happen to commit, should for ever be de-
barred of his freedom, or compelled to remain an
exile from the country which he had selected as his
future home—a country which never denied hospi-
tality to any claimant, rich or poor, prosperous or
unfortunate.

Let, then, the protection afforded by trial by jury,
that protection
which is said to be the birthright
of every British subject, be extended to alleged
lunatics, whether certified to be such by " skilful
persons," or found to be so under commissions de
lunatico inquirendo ; and let new trials be granted as
a matter of right, ex debito justitim, whenever
reasonable grounds can be brought forward to show
has
been restored to the full possession
that the party
of his senses, and is now of sound mind, competent to
manage his own property.

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We have received the Paris papers of yesterday.
The whole of the articles of the Electoral Law were
yesterday passed by the National Assembly.
The Patrie, the organ of M. DROVIN DE L'Hurs,
the Minister for Foreign Affairs, declares that the
movement operated by the Austrians, at Ferrara,
makes it necessary for France to move in the affairs
of Italy, and to assume an attitude on that question
worthy of the place which she occupies in the front
ranks of Catholic nations. The hydra of demagogic,
it says, has raised its heads in Italy, and threatens
Europe. The Austrian movement makes it necessary
that France should at once resolve to inter-
fere in favour of the POPE : and it calls on the
PRESIDENT of the Republic to imitate General CA-
VAIGNAC, who immediately prepared to fly to the as-
sistance of the Pops, when his personal safety was
threatened. _

It was expected that M. DxovlN DE L'llu-rs would
yesterday announce to the Assembly that the Aus-
trians had evacuated the town of Ferrara, and had
confined themselves to the citadel.
The National, in commenting on the Austrian
invasion of the Roman territories, declares that the
time has arrived when intervention in the affairs of
Italy has become a duty on the part of France ; not
intervention in favour of the POPE and in concert
with Austria, which would be for France a disgrace-
ful abdication of the leading position which she holds
among the powers of Europe, but intervention against
Austria, who has violated a friendly State by her
iniquitous occupation of Ferrara, from which, if she
does not immediately retire, she must be driven at
the point of the French bayonets.
The Presse has the following " communication "
(which may be considered as a semi-official declara-
tion of the intentions of Austria) on the subject of
the occupation of Ferrara by the Austrian troops :--
" The Cabinet of Vienna has in several occasions ex-
pressed its determination not to intervene in the affairs
of Italy, unless conjointly with France. The military
occupation of Ferrara is an isolated fact, which does not
imply the project of intervention. It may Joe remem-
bered that in spring, 1847, a grave discusaidh arose bc-
tween Austria and the Holy See, on the question of
deciding whether, in virtue of the treaties of 1815, the
Imperial troops had a right to occupy the town of
Ferrara, or ought to confine themselves merely to
Lao occupation of the citadel, thanks to the me-
diation of France, an arrangement was come to
in the month of August following between the two con-
tracting parties, in this sense, that Austria, under all
reservation of her rights for the future, consented to