The Sun.
London, England, 1827-11-03 00:00:00

the Bench, remain Quart) Until tihey have visited
and reported,. al the ;prieerie; the existence of
such a privilege ought to he at onee ascertained •
and probably the Judges have never inatle a de-
cision of more value to the country, or more
cteditable to themselves, than that by-which the
Grand Juries throughout England would be en-
couraged to exercise a duty of such high and sa-
lutary superintendence. The gentlemen who arc
inclined to try the question deserve public ap-
plause and gratitude.—/bid.
We have received the Nottingham Review of
Friday, containing a very full account of the pro-
ceedings under a Commission of Lunacy, relative
to an aged Clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Holmes,
and which, from, the great length of the whole,
we can give only a part to-day. The verdict de-
livered was, " that the Rev. Wm. Holmes, Rec-
tor of,Normanton, is not a lunatic; but partly
from paralysis, and partly from old .age, his me-
mory as so impaired, that he is incompetent to
the management of his affairs, and therefore is
of unsound mind." As usual, the medical evi-
dence was conflicting ; and here we are sorry to
observe, that it would seem as if medical men
considered themselves in similar cafes somewhat
like-lawyers, ready to advocate any side for which
they are sufficiently paid ; the consequence of'
which is, that the public place little, if any, con-
fidence in what they 'utter. Dr. Haslam gave a
very decided opinion that Mr. Holmes " was a
responsible being, completely so." " When
talking of walking; he said I employ a stick ; and
one of the legal gentlemen said, what sort of a
stick? He said he did not know ; somebody
replied, it was a 'bamboo, and I rejoined, take
-care these lawyers do not bamboozle you out of
your stick ; when he tapped me on the back, and
said, that is a good hit—l like that amazingly.
He said, what brings Kemp here ? and I said,
he comes as a winless on the Commission that i's
now sitting to inquire if you are a lunatic—you
have heard of such an instrument ? To this
he answered, I have heard of it, and lament it ;
it is cruel,' very cruel. I asked him if he knew
with whom it originated? and he said, my
daughter. I asked if she were married ? and he
said yes. I asked for the name of her husband ?
and at first he did not recollect ; but in a minute
and a half, he gel-Stevenson. He did not re-
collect he had any : grand-children.' -I did not
press the qUestion, for Mrs. Amor and the
grandchildren had not been there. I said,
am told . that you are incompetent to add
two figures together and tell the amount.' If a
emu: could not add two figures together, I should
stv.he was decidedly an idiot. I took a'pen and
put four figures down, 6,4, 3,2, and said, pray
cast them up for me. Fifteen, says he ; that's
easy enough, God knows. He put down the
total without hesitation. He is to be corrected
by reason. I have a father ninety-two years of
age, not so good as Mr. Holmes, but I do not
think he 'is a lunatic." Dr. Peach had known
heM thirteen years. " I save him Dec.2l, 1821 ;
I had no reason to consider his mind impaired ;
memory was then defective, and has been
ever since I knew him. Mrs,. Holmes was pee-
sent, and Miss Price, her sister. They appeared
in greet agitation, and Mr. H. told me that Mr.
Stevenson had just been there, behaving in a
very violent manlier; and that he would withdraw
the quarterly allowance if he continued to trouble
- him,' The -.Counsel for the defendant, Mr.
Wright, commenced with an absurdity, "He
cited, it is said, at great length, authorities to
prove the danger of changing the laws ; and ob-
served, that it was in adhering to the law that
people of England excelled all the nations of the
earth. By the stability of the , law, if you truly
stated. your case, a man could tell you
in his private chamber what would be the
result of any legal proceedings." This, too, in
a country inundated every leer
,with a',flood of
.
fresh laws repealing, altering, amending, modify-
ing former provisions, and adding fresh
what ones,th so
that no lawyer Thing can tell exactly
law actually is. Whea Mr. Peel wished to har-
nionize' the various provisions respecting Juries,
found his materials stuck into all manner of
acts, where no one would ever think .of looking
14 -them,. so that it was an indescribable lehour
to reduce the whole into one connected and
uniform body.' So mach for the stability and
certainty of English law. Mr. Wright gave
The this
account of the origin of the proceedings :—"
daughter wished to extort money from her aged
father, and when she could not succeed, she,
in a letter to. Mrs. Holmes, threatens to apply
for a Commission ; a proceeding which was
likely to bring him quickly to the grave. And
how had it been got, up ? Why, by promising,
as iii the letter to Hibbert, handsome ;awards
for. any evidence that could be sceaped up
and t,liev ]tad, indeed, scraped it together, or
they had brought before them diseardeservants,
persons working oi2 the roads, labourersd, andthe
very delvers in the ditch., " There was no pro-
eligality in' the case (he said, no pretence of a
waste of money, no evidence that a
single shil-
ling had been wasted." The term no. .7.2 Pompos
mentis was understood in Courts of LW) e'uld
Imputed - not weakness only but a total deprivae,
Lion of sense ; and, God forbid that Weakness of
mind only should be aubject to such a pro-
ceeding as this, . for' if so, a would take in the
drunkard, the careless, and the silly, The gist
- of his argument was, that as the lunacy.
flierat.i.
en
given up, they ought not .0 to return word—
. • re • elre
the only word of peed to lealinee the word
vicsound"—which would be travelling/0a of the
language ofelle Commission, and was eininMli-
esible. The ease. of an aged man, some of whose
Acuities may be more or less impaired, As his
:riernory for iusttoce, though he cannot be said
ee be destitute of yeasan, is one of considerable
difficulty.' If a inan'a.raegtoey be impaired, he
ie, more or less, in the power ,of all those who
may have Ex' alings with trance an, for
in ance nig tako
advantage of his de(ec,t to
'et -
make him pay more than his bilh—those who a:re
zthout him nig bereave bim of his property ; and
.a wife, for instance,' or the .cleild or other relation
• who mac be neat. him, 'may thus pntrive to in-
jure the interests of other children or, relations,
succession
to whom the would devolve, Ag{tp?
what a temptation . there is for a, child tired of
lbe property of a parent
being longer kept out
pert anent out
to form schemes for rtrnaviQg
of the way ? In the old, memory is Pa
more
or less defective a but even where .tt is corkside-
rahly defective, an old man may, by the kind,
attentions, of a wife or other relation, be secured
against suffeting frean it ; and the breaking up
hie habits, and depriving him of such kind ateen-
tions may in effect be sensibly fclt. So far from
thinking with the defendant's Couneel, that the
law is that it oughato he, we conceive it to be
exceedingly defective. The _Wrench have an
Institution which obviates many of the diffi-
culties which arise under the En lash Laew, t!te
4, Family Counsel" composed of a eaten' num-
.
the relatives,toresided over by 0, Juge de
who in ti te fist instance pronounces onmatters of this kind.
all We understand that in
• 'practice this institution has been productive of

great benefit, having contributed much to the 1
peace and welfare of families, leading to natural
and proper arrangements, and preserving pro-
perty from being wasted by Lawyers. The idea
is very prevalent in this country, that great
I wrong and great cruelty are not unfi•equently per-
petrated through the working of Lunatic Com-
missions. That the Juries 'are somehow or
other occasionally packed, has been stated to us
on the best authority. The worst part of the
matter is,' that the person interested in stripping
the subject of the inquiry of his property, has the
power of conducting the business in a Manner
subservient to his own views. We know a case
in a neighbouring county, where an able and in-
dependent gentleman found himself summoned
on an accommodation Jury, and when it was
found by the rest that he was disposed to sift
the matter to the bottom, he was civilly informed
that there was a sufficient number to do without
him. The letter detailing the affair was two or
three years ago inserted in the Chronicle, and
never contradicted. Commissions are sometimes
got up, as it is phrased, to cheat creditors, when
it is found convenient to get rid of engagements
entered into by the party whom it-is wished to
prove lunatic; and on these occasions very strange
• evidence is raked together. When we consider
what the state of Private. Mad-houses in this
country is,—the restless speculative habits of
the people,—the eagerness to obtain money for
the indulgence of luxurious habits and what not,
We certainly think that it is highly expedient that
more guards should be thrown around indivi-
duals accused of lunacy or mental infirmity, in
order that they may not,-through the working of
• packed Juries, and worthless keepers of Asylums,
be sacrificed to the avarice of interested indi-
viduals.—Morning Chronicle.
In this age of Constitution-making, we ob-
serve that the Cherokees are framing a Consti-

tution for themselves. Some persons may be
inclined to smile at this proof of the " March of
Intellect," but they should remember it is not the
first time that legislators have arisen in the wil-
derness. IVlontesquieu says,ctlie elements of the
English Constitution may be traced into the
forests of Saxony, and certainly some of its
earliest maxims breathe more of the spirit of
justice and wisdom, _than many volumes of the
legislation of subsequent ages. • We imagine
the Cherokees have, at least, as much learning
among them as could he found with our Saxon
forefathers; who though not a philosophical
people, had a great deal of that useful quality.
called common-sense—a quality that all " philo-
sophers" do not pOssess, and that some of the
tribe in modern times seem very well disposed to
exterminate. Though we do not expect the
Cherokees will throw much light upon the sci-
ence of government, yet we will venture to say,
that their code, if founded upon any principles of
reason and natural justice at all, cannot fail to be
better than some modern Constitutions, of what
are called civilised people. ' The late Spanish
" patriotic" Constitution, for instance, denounced
the punishment of Death against every man who
should preach any doctrine-differenefrom that of
the " Holy Roman and Apostolic" faith ! This
one example, we trust, is sufficient to show that
it is easy fora Cherokee. Solon or Lycurgus, by
consulting common-sense and natural justice, to
beat the whole body of Spanish " patriots" at
the work of Constitation-making. A Cherokee
has not in his native woods been so reared up
under the refined barbarities of priestcraft,, as to
understand why a man is to be put to death' for
an opinion as to how the Supreme Being thinks
fit to govern the universe. He must study the
" Apostolic" volumes of Spanish or Roman
theology to become so far enlightened as to
comprehend why it is a virtue to shed. human
blood for the dissemination of a religion of
mercy ! Such a specimen of legislative ethics
argues an zulvancernent in artificial morality to
which na..,ral reason never could,retend. But
whatever the Cherokee Constitution may be, as
it is not forced upon them by any other people,
we suppose it will answer their own purposes,
and that it is better adapted to their situation
,an any that could be sent them of foreign ma,
Ifaettire.—Morning Herald.