Denton and Haughton Examiner, etc. — 1879-06-28 (Denton, Greater Manchester, England)

PERSONS WITH LIVES IN THEIR HANDS.— Attention is again painfully directed to the peril of life which results from the position of persons who are suspected of mind disorder, which may at any moment culminate in madness with outrage, taking a form which it is impossible to predict. It is not too much to my that these persons go about with their own and other lives in them hands. In a recent melancholy case of suicide —to which We will not more particularly allude—it was stated at the inquest that a doctor had pronounced the deceased I "to be suffering from a disease of the. brain." The precise nature of the opinion given may have been imperfectly rendered in this statement, but it is abundantly evident that eases of the kind must occur until the treatment of insanity in its various, and especially the earlier, forms is divested of its legal , aspect. It most happen to every practitioner to see cases which give him great anxiety, but which he is not prepared to certify. The pains and penalties of being branded as a lunatic are much too grave to be entailed on any except the actually insane. There is no chance of appealing to the prudence of the sufferer himself, and advising precautions, because the law will not permit a man to place himself under the protection of an asylum keeper unless he has previously been an inmate, and then the forms to be gone through to secure the " privilege " are irksome and involve delay. It clearly:ought to be possible to aivim a patient who is suffering from a malady which may at any instant render him dangerous to himself or others to take a refuge in a hospital for mental disease, with no worse consequences than the loss of a little time if recovery is speedy, and without , any of the publicity and legal disability entailed by certificates; in short, without the drawbacks of the state of lunacy as formulated by the law. It would ' not be difficult to secure the prevention of abuses, and the stigma of the " asylum " might be obviated by having a special ward for the temporary care and observation of doubtful and early cases of mind disease attached to Marry general hospital, so that when a patient went voluntarily, or was removed to a hospital, it might be for any of the maladies to which flesh is heir, and not necessarily for the cause which really prompted the retreat. As matters now stand, we are worse placed than in the days when retreat to a monastery or convent was possible. There is no refuge for the worried and weak, and no means of throwing protection around a mind diseased or distressed.—Lariect. Tine TOWER OF 11,araoirs. This was the audiencre-chamber and throne-room of the Moorish Kings, and wits appropriately and gorgeously decorated. ,A high dads of coloured tiles (aantejos) surrounds the wails, above which are an inextricable entanglement of ornament, flowers, leaves, and inscriptions, all executed its plaster, which the Moorish 'artists' employed with such consummate taste and skill. The ceiling is of costly wood, interspersed with squares of bright colours—white, blue, and gold—the whole intended to represent the vaulted sky. The windows of this thick-walled tower are deep recesses, and the views therefrom superb. It was from one of these .that Boabdil was let down by his mother, Ayeshale save him from death at the hands of a rival favourite, ' Zorayda.—Picturvsque Europe.