The record-union., 1893-02-25
A VERY BAD BILL.

A bill that is in danger of passing is
the substitute of the Committee on Edu-
cation and Public Morals for Senate
Bill No. All. 1t ought to be de-
feated for very many reasons. 1t pro-
vides that any court, from that of JUS
tice of the Peace upwards, though the
victim may be the resident of distant
Jurisdiction, may commit any insane
person, inebriate or opium victim, to any
public or any o1lUate asylum for treat
ment of such persons, provided the VIC
TINS friends (and we call attention to the
vagueness of that term), the medical ex-
aminers, or any fraternal or benevolent
organization Gt seems to cut no figure
whether the victim is member or not
requests the commitment. Where sent to
private institution there is to be no pub
lie charge for treatment.
Verify here is means provided for
railroading people into obscurity that
surpasses any invention of modern times
for disposing of the disagreeable. In
sanity, observe, is to secure incarcera-
ton of the unhappy wretch in a public or
private asylum, if any benevolent So
ciety requests it. No affidavit is required.
no proofs, no publicity, no notice to ones
relatives, no information to the world.
All that is needed is to secure two busy
doctors, salve or deceive their conscience,
talk with tears in the eye to complacent
Judge or weak Justice of the Peace, and
thus put away troublesome wife or
relative, whom sorrows may have
brought into mere condition of melan-
choiia.
Mark this. The Act provides that if a
friend does not wish to move, if ones
kin is content to see him free, any benev-
| olent society in the State may proceed to
clap one into jug upon its mere request.
But we mistake as to the need under the
bill for even taking the trouble to placate
the doctors; the sentence is distinctive,
for the miserable victim may, as stated,
be sent up by either of three speedy
routes-the request of a friend, or the re-
quest of medical examiners, or the re-
quest of any fraternal or benevolent
society. Conjunction of any of these is
not required by the Act.
This diarrheal looseness of the bill
ought to be enough to carry it to the
boneyard with galloping cholera; but it
has other ills that are in the nature of
jokers-jokers that tap the taxpayers
pockets most effectually, with dex-
terity that excites admiration. For it
provides that the Supervisors, or the City
Council, may, for not greater expenditure
than $1,000, buy the pateut-right to any
proprietary medicine, any clap-trap COM
pound that fakirs may foist Upon the
local government, that the same may be
used in institutions under their control,
presumably city or county hospitals. 1t
does not say what the wise men of the
city or the county are to do with the
''right' after they have bought it, it does
not disclose how they can possibly "use''
it, nor indeed is it contemplated by the
bill that this right shall serve any pur-
pose except to plump taxpayers gold
into taxeaters' pockets. For after paying
81, 600 for the fright" to use certain patent
shortcuts to cure drunkenness, insanity
and the opium habit, or ''other drug
habits,'' there is to be further levy upon
the purse OF the people OF $40 gross fol
the bottle cor prescription or order' fol
the medicine for every patient.
/ If this bill passes and becomes4a o Law