The Sun.
London, England, 1847-07-01 00:00:00

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LONDON, THURSDAY. JULY 1, 1847.

The Lunatics Bill has been withdrawn, and as
strenuous advocates of a reform in the laws regulating
the treatment of lunatics we are rather pleased than

otherwise that it is withdrawn. The provision
which gave to the bishops and clergy in every
diocese the supervision of the lunatic asylums therein
situated ought alone to have been sufficient to secure

he rejection of the Bill. As was well observed by

Mr. WAKLEY, " it would be an arrangement most

disagreeable to the bishops and most unfortunate for
the patients." Most unfortunate, indeed ! What

chance of recovery would a mad Calvinist have who
should be subjected to the superintendence of the
Bishop of EXETER ? When would a lunatic Roman
Catholic recover his reason, if at all times, under all

circumstances, a STOWELL, a M'NEIL, or a
M'GnEE, were to be permitted to have access
to him? "The framers of this Bill," continued Mr.
WAKLEY, "seemed to forget that some of the worst

cases of lunacy arose out of excitement on the subject
of religion," and they seem also to have forgotten
that in many instances in which sane persons have
been unjustly incarcerated, the clergyman of the
parish has been the person through whose active but

unauthorised interference such incarceration has
taken place. There are instances on record in which
the clergyman has gone out of his way to "instruct,"
as the lawyers phrase it, the medical men upon
whose certificate the unfortunate alleged lunatic has
been incarcerated. As a proof of the impropriety
of permitting clergymen to interfere in the manage-
ment of :lunatics we will suppose a case. When
JonN WESLEY founded the society of Methodists his
college companions considered him a lunatic. Had
they, instead of merely considering him a harmless
lunatic, considered him a dangerous one, and de-
nounced him as such to the authorities—had he been
a rich man and worth incarcerating, no doubt he
would have been incarcerated, and had the bishops
and clergy then possessed the power which this Bill
proposed to give them, that incarceration would
have been an incarceration for life. Any difference
of opinion from the superintending clergyman on
theological points will be considered by such clergy-
man (if a bigot) as proof sufficient of madness, while,
on the other hand, if he should be a liberal minded,
unbigotted man, the very fear of having such an
imputation cast on him might induce him to set
at liberty certain religious monomaniacs, the re-

lease of whom from all restraint would be dan
gerous to society. In the opinion expressed by
Mr. Thomas DUNCOMBE, of the manner in which
the Lunacy Commissioners perform their duties, we
entirely concur; of the necessity of great and sweep-
ing changes in the law relating to the management
of lunatics we have long been convinced ; but we are
equally convinced that the Bill in question would
tend rather to aggravate than to mitigate those evils,
and therefore we do not regret that, yielding to the
judicious suggestion of the Home Secretary, Mr. T.
DUNCOMBE has withdrawn the measure. We are,
however, rejoiced to find that Mr. T. DUNCOMBE is
determined to watch the proceedings of the Commis-
sioners narrowly, and we would beg respectfully to
suggest to him that in the next session, instead of in-
troducing a Bill similar to the one he has withdrawn,
it would be more advisable that he should move for a
Select Committee to inquire into the laws relating
to lunacy and the management of lunatic
asylums. The public are not aware of the atrocities
practised in many of those asylums—.of the manner
in which the present state of the law favours the
plots of unscrupulous relations to coerce aged or
timid,. but perfectly sane persons, into a disposition
or cneir property contrary to their wishes—of the
practical repeal of the Habeas Corpus (by the recent
decision of Lord DENMAN) as far as persons accused
of lunacy are concerned. These and many other
evils would be brought to light by the ap-
pointment of such a Committee, and then we
should be in a position to devise a measure
which, by rendering absolutely necessary a pub-
lic inquiry into the sanity or insanity of any
alleged lunatic, before authorising the detention of
such alleged lunatic in any asylum, would afford a
sufficient safeguard to the liberty of the subject;
while, by abolishing all private asylums, it would
secure for those who were really lunatic a humane
and judicious course of treatment so long as the
disease should last, and a certainty of their restora-
tion to liberty immediately on their recovery.

Another of those important measures affecting in
the highest degree the safety of a very considerable
number of our countrymen was yesterday brought
under the consideration of the House of Commons,
and necessarily postponed, in consequence of the ad-
vanced state of the session, and of the impossibility of
any Bill brought forward by a private Member un-
connected with the Government successfully encoun-
tering the determined opposition to which it would
be subjected by interested parties. The Hon•
Member fur Finsbury had, however, good reason to
be satisfied with the impression he made, and
the acknowledgments elicited from the Home
Secretary as to the necessity for some legislation
with a view to the adoption of precautions cal-

culated to reduce the number of accidents which
have lately taken place in mines and collieries
with such appalling frequency and such heart-
rending fatality. Experience has proved that even
motives of self- interest are not sufficient to induce the
parties conducting these gigantic establishments
to adopt the regulations necessary for the
protection of the lives of those employed
under their superintendence ; an unaccountable
apathy appears to be manifested by all, as
well overseers as workmen the latter will

daily incur risks of the most serious character, they
will subject themselves to the chances of a lingering
and painful death, rather than adhere strictly to the
simple rules prescribed for their governance, and by
which these shocking catastrophes might be averted.
True it is that the proprietors may lose thousands of
pounds sterling by each accident. Their machinery
may be damaged, their works stopped. They may,
under the Act of last session, be called upon to make
pecuniary compensation—so far as any amount of
money can be a compensation—to the widows and
orphans, or other surviving relatives, of those who
have prematurely perished, when the loss of their
lives can be in any manner ascribed to negligence or
carelessness on their part, or those of their servants.
They may thus be reduced from affluence and inde-
vendence to comparative indigence and penury in one
single moment ; and yet, so strangely constituted is
the human mind„ that they will prefer the pos-
sibility of such occurrences to submitting them-
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We are convinced that no pecuniary penalties, no
civil or criminal consequences, however serious they
may be, will ever be sufficient in themselves, to lead
to the necessary remedies for the acknowledged evil.
In such case, then, it becomes the duty of the nation
t 0 interfere, and to insist that everything which may
be deemed necessary, or even useful, should be had
recourse to. We admit, as a general rule, the im-
policy of any needless interposition between the em-
ployers and their workmen, that persons will regulate
their own affairs, if left to themselves, far better and
in a more eligible manner than if continually inter-
fered with by Government inspectors ; but there is a
point beyond which this argument cannot be carried
—a limit within which it must be restrained. In
anything relating to the health, the morals, or the
lives of the people, there is a paramount claim on
• the authorities which cannot be evaded or neglected