The Sun.
London, England, 1845-07-21 00:00:00

THE I.IJIACY LAWS.

A lecture on this importanti, but,. unfortiniately, Mitch
slighted subject, was delivered on ThUtsday by Mr. Perceval, at
the British CoNe.hoUse, Coekspur-street. Mr. Perceval
briefly referred to the laws which have been made frori the pai
1774 with regard to lunatic asSitimi, and the iti,tillicient means
taken to prevent cruelty to the patients in such institutions.
These laws, like the Bill now before Parliament, are all mo-
delled upon the original plan of a Board of Metropolitan Com-
missioners. This plan had failed, and he adduced rr cent facts
which proved that no Board ha t failed more signally than the
present one. Yet the same defective system was to be per-
petuated by the new Bill. He also quoted several cases of ill
treatment of patients in asylums, aria of the confinement of
sonic persons tor sinister purposes. In support of his assertions
he read a letter to the Lunatics' Friend Society, frem a per-
son who had been employed as a keeper in a private mad-
house, from which we will make a few extracts:—

" Gentlemen,- -1 beg to state that I have had many years ex-
perience with the insane, and have seen much cruelty prac-
tised by men called keepers.'
" I have seen a man strapped down on a bed and beaten with a
chair, because he was not quiet,--I mean beaten with conti-
nued blows till wounds have been inflicted which he will carry
to his grave. I h tve also known a man knocked down by the
keeper when he has attempted to move when the keeper has
been reading the paper, but, I must say, for these acts, in both
instances, the keepers were discharged ; but it was by mere
chance it was found out.

" I also know a gentleman farmer who was put in an asylum
on the pretence of insanity, and, lake all others, because he had
property, and he told me himself that if he had continued there,
the thoughts of the place and the confinement would have
driven him mad. His friends interfered, and he was got
out after a great rIsAl of trouble. I mean by the word
'friends,' hit acquaintances, for those who ought to be his
friends were the persons who put him there. Gentlemen—
tire conclusion I have come to, for many years, is, that there
is wanted a society for the protection of the supposed insane.
Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to subscribe my
mi'e to such an Institution. In fact, I have often wished to
have an opportunity of suggesting the usefulness of such a
Society. " Gentlemen, I remain, &e.

“-ROBERT DIVELY.”

Mr. PERCEVAL pointed out several reasons why, he con-
tended, that the proposed Bill for the regulation of the care of
Lunatics, was insufficient for its purpose, and would not pre-
vent the repetition of the cruelties practised in madhouses.
1 hese abuses might be prevented, or at least mitigated, if
the matter were less in the hands of the medical men than at
present. There ought to be a clergyman appointed to visit
every private mad-house at least once in every week, with
power to visit as often as he pleased. Mr. Perceval gave
several reasons for this; not the least striking of which was,
that a large class of the really insane persons confined in
madhouses are mad from religion, either sinking into
a state of melancholy, or exhibiting their insanity in
fanaticism. The reasoning of a sensible clergyman might
in either case restore the patient to reason. There was one
provision required in the new lunacy Bill which would cause
a great imprOvement ; it was a clause to the effect—that every
certificate of insanity made out by a medical man should state
the grounds on which he believed the patient to be insane. Mr.
Perceval concluded his address by calling the attention of the
audience to a petition which lay on the table for signature, and
which was to the following effect :
" To the HONOURABLE the COM:MONS of the UNITED
KINGDGM of GREAT BRITAIN and IRELAND, in
PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED.
" The humble Petition tsf the undersigned Inhabitants of the
City of Westminster (and other places)—
" Humbly showeth—That a Bill is now before yout Honour-
able House, entituled, ' A Bill for the Regulation of the Care
and Treatment of Lunatics in England and Wales.'
" That your petitioners, whilst they freely admit that a spirit
of improved legislation pervades the Bill now before your
Honourable House, nevertheless, with great respect and defe-
rence beg to assert there are many deficiencies therein, and
to which your petitioners are most desirous to call the atten-
tion of your Honourable House, but which the lateness of the
present session of Parliament prevents them doing, either with
justice to the important subject or to your Honourable House.
" Your Petitioners therefore humbly pray, that this most im-
portant subject (including points in which the dignity of our
common nature as well as that of your Honourable House be-
come involved if legislation is not effective) may be altogether
postponed until next session of Parliament ; and
" That a Committee of your Honourable House may he ap-
pointed to inquire into past legislation and the present condition,
care, and treatment of lunatics in England and Wales, whether
paupers or othet wise.
" And your petitioners. as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c."
Mr. Bailey and Captain Digby, R.N., two gentlemen, who
had been confined as lunatics, even after the soundness of their
minds had been admitted by medical men, came forward after
the lecture and detailed their cases, and complained heavily of
the contumelious and inefficient manner in which the Commis-
sioners performed their duties, which was a matter of notoriety
to those who had been unhappily placed in Lunatic Asylums.

AoDRESS B Y ROBERT OWEN,
ON LEAVING THE UNITED STATES FOR EU-
ROPE, JUNE 1, 1845.
( From the New York Herald.)
Americans,—After an absence of fifteen years-I have again
spent nine months in your States, and nearly four months of
that period in the city of Washington, during the last session
of Congress. I have seen in my travels through New England
and the middle States, and presume the same has occurred in
the south and west, a great increase to your cities, to your
population, and in the extended cultivation of the soil. I have
a!so ascertained that your means to increase wealth and power,
for good or evil, are illimitable for many hundreds or thousand
nt years, and you could now beneficially absorb into your
Union the present population of Europe.
You have also progressed in a most extraordinary manner in
new discoveries in science, and in mechanical inventions, to
render manual labour of diminished value, and to open the path
to a new state of things, which will make labour of little or no
commercial value, or unsaleable, for the rightful support of the
industrious.

In proportion as your scientific power to create wealth has
increased, individual competition has increased ignorant selfish-
ness, vice, crime, and misery among the masses, so as to make
all parties blind to their present position of high capabilities and
to their interests as individuals and members of society.
Your statesmen are occupied in unprofitable and nationally
injurious polities.
Your politicians in petty local party contests, useless for the
attainment of great results.

Your capitalists and extensivediperchants are overwhelmed
in speculations, hazardous to themselves, and of little compara-
tive benefit to their country or to the world. There is no
foresight, wisdom, or order—no permanent, prosperous fu.ure
in any of their proceedings.
Your traders, wholesale and retail, are wasting, most in-
juriously, much of the capital, talent, and industry of your
country, and at the same time keeping the mind and morals
of the Union upon a low level, most disadvantageous to every
class.

Your most industrious classes are kept unnecessarily in toil,
ignorance, and consequent degradation.
Senseless superstitions pervade the land without a particle of
real charity being created between any of the classes, sects, or
parties, possessing any one of these monster obstacles to human
progress, for any who have been made to differ from them ; and
religion is perverted to worldly purposes.
Your prisons and punishments increase, and the necessity for
more, while the present state of things continues, will daily be-
come stronger.
You have already, to a great extent, throughout the Union,
ignorance, poverty, division, and misery. And yet, as the
causes of these evils have been discovered, they may be now
easily removed.
For you are in secure possession of a most magnificent
country ; of a territory, even now, more than sufficient to
amply supply the population of the world ; more than sufficient
to ensure high comfort and elevation of mind and feeling for all.
You have all the materials to effect these results in illimita-
ble masses, and surplus power to obtain and apply them.
There is nothing in your position deficient but the know.
ledge how, peaceably and beneficially for all, to apply the means
to accomplish these glorious results.
How important is it then that this knowledge should be at-
ta►ned in the shortest time in order that the incalculable evils
which necesstaily arise from ignorance, poverty, division, crime
and misery should be made to terminate. _ _

But how; can this change be speedily effected?
It is now ascertained that public opinion governs the world.
This change then may be effected by speedily creating a new
pubiic opinion is its savour.
But how is new public opinion to be created?
The answer is obvious.

All gre:st improvements commence with one or a few, and
these, by judicious measures, interest more and more, until a
sufficient number unite to accomplish the object.
There is an admirable spirit abroad anxiously looking out for
the right commencement of this change, and bold truths an-
nounced in the pure spirit of charity will now accomplish that
object. _ _

Let then the proper measures to create this public opinion
be now adopted, and let all good men of every class, sect, party,
and state, unite for this God-like purpose.
To this end let a Convention be called of delegates from
every State and territory in the Union, to consider what prac-
tic4l measures can be immediately carried into execution to
apply the enormous means to secure prosperity for all the
people of these States, that they may become an example to the
world of what, with sound judgment, in peace, with order, and
the least injury and the most benefit to every one, from the
highest to the lowest, may be done.
But what is every one's business is no one's in particular,
and is too often neglected by all. I, therefore, feeling a deep
interest in the immediate improvement of our race, recommend
such Convention to be called the " World's Convention," to
consider what measures of a practical character can be
adopted to ensure the immediate benefit of every class,
without violence, contest, or competition, and especially
what can be done to well educate and employ the unedu-
cated and unemployed, to fit them for the superior state of
society, to create which, for all the means are new so super-
abundant, net only in these States, but wherever men need to
live; or it may be called " The World's Convention" to
emancipate the human race from ignorance, poverty, division,
sin, and misery. _ _

Ihe chief bUsiness of my life has been, so far, to prepare all
classes, from the highest to the lowest, for this great change in
the condition of humanity in this world, and thus, in the best
manner to prepare it for all future changes, whatever they may
be, after we shall have done all in our power to insure
knowledge, goodness, and happiness in our present mode of
existence.

I live but to put into activity the means to accomplish this
change for my suffering fellow-men; and to see in progress
the necessary measures to effect this object I leave your
country on the let of June for Europe, intending to return
here about the middle of September.
!king of no class, or sect, or party in any country, but a
sincere friend and being most desirous to abolish all
to all,
party distinctions, I recommend that the
," World's Conven-
tion," previously mentioned, be held in the City of New York,
to commence on the first day of October next, and to continue
until the great and good. work of establishing equal and just
rights among men, and insuring the progressive improvement
and happiness of all, shall be well understood.
It will be found on full investigation that there is but one
interest amongst all the human race, and that is, that each
one should be the best taught from birth, the best employed
through life, and that the inferior circumstances of man's crea-
tion should be replaced from around all by those only of a
superior and permanent character, whether animate or inani-
mate ; for as these are, so will man become.
These measures have no individual interest or object in view ;
it is, therefore, earnestly requested, for the good of humanity,
that the press will advocate t he call and object of this Convention,
and prepare the minds of the public for the great and glorious re-
sults which may, by these measures, be speedily obtained for all
of every disc in every country. ROBERT OWEN.
New York, 24th May, 1845.

THE LATE THOMAS HOOD.—We are glad to learn
that the subscription for the family of this distinguished writer
already exceeds 1,0001., and is still making progress. We have
observed also with satisfaction, durirg the last few days, the in-
fluential names of Mr. Charles Dickens and Mr. Thomas Carlyle
added to the committee list. Sanctioned by such eminent ex-
amples, and hitherto so liberally supported by the public, this ex-
cellent object can hardly fail to meet with a complete success—such
a success as will fitly express the public recognition of the poet's
genius, and ensure to those whom he held dear an ample provision
against future want. We call attention once more to the subject,
as we understand that the subscription-lists are to be closed of the
Ind of the current month. .