office of Lord Chancellor in Ireland. The this class of suffering humanity, he might noble Lord said "Solid objections exist state that he knew of a case in which a to criminal lunatics being received into dis- human being had been confined by his retrict asylums, which were never intended lation in a dark cell for ten years, chained, for prisons. The advantage of bringing and in a state of nudity. This was in all the criminal lunatics together under the Devonshire. A correspondence between eye of the governor is obvious." The the local committee and the Commissioners opinion the noble and learned Lord then of Lunacy led to a prosecution, and the pronounced had since been confirmed by offending party was tried and convicted. the admirable experience which had been Since the lunatic had been in the asylum, obtained of the manner in which the luna- a period of more than nine months, he had tic asylum at Dundrum, in Ireland, had been uniformly quiet and well-conducted. been conducted, and the beneficial effects But (said the noble Earl) there is no arguwhich had resulted from the system there. ment of greater weight that I can adduce Many questions would arise when such a than the assertion that the presence of measure was propounded in the shape of a these peculiarly afflicted persons nullifies, Bill, which it was not necessary he should or at least impedes, the operation of the now discuss. He was prepared to propose non-restraint system. This system-the such a measure himself, if the privileges great and blessed glory of modern science, of the House of Commons did not preclude having taken its rise in France—Oh, si him from doing so. He contented himself, therefore, with advocating the principle. In the first place, they would have to inquire at whose expense the lunatics were to be maintained, whether by the State or from local resources; and, secondly, what discretionary powers should be given as to the parties who should be liberated by the Secretary of State; and, thirdly, what effect was to be given to the plea of insanity which both Judges and juries now had evidently a tendency to allow, but which must be qualified by some such experimental statement as the following:"Parties have seen that men who have become homicides, it may be in an insane paroxysm, are comfortably housed, well clothed, and fed for life. May we not fear that, in the minds of many, the dread of punishment, which might deter them from violence, has been lessened by the experience we have taught them, and that, by our association of criminal lunatics with the unfortunate insane, we are breaking down a barrier which, to a large extent, avails to protect society from violence and wrong at the hands of a class of sons who know full well that they have the plea of previous insanity ready to save them from the punishment of the outraged law?"

per

But it was not necessary for him to discuss the question how far, and when, the plea of insanity should be allowed; his purpose was to show that the presence of those persons in asylums was subversive of all comfort and discipline. They sowed discontent, formed confederacies, and led disturbances. Madmen could not combine (that was the security of an asylum), but those men (criminal lunatics) gave head to, and power of uniting, which the others (the real lunatics) did not posAs a proof of the necessity for the attention of Parliament being directed to

sess.

sic omnia!-and introduced here by the Society of Friends, has become the espe cial pursuit of professors of this department of medicine in the three kingdoms. By the blessing of God it has achieved miracles. I have, perhaps, a right to say so, having officiated now as a Commissioner in Lunacy for more than twenty years, and having passed, as inspector, from the very depths of misery and neglect, to the present height of comfort and ease. The filthy and formidable prison is converted into the cleanly and cheerful abode; the damp and gloomy courtyard is exchanged for healthy exercise and labour in the field and garden. Visit the largest asylum, and you will no longer hear those frightful yells that at first terrified, and always depressed the boldest hearts. Mechanical restraint is almost unknown; houses, where many dreds, I will assert, during the night, have were chained during the day, and hunhardly a strait waistcoat or a manacle in the whole establishment; and, instead of the keeper, with his whip and his bunch of leglocks, you may see the clergyman or the schoolmaster engaged in their soothing and effective occupations. Add to this, my Lords, the kindred subject—the educa tion of idiots, now undertaken in these asylums, and you will see and sympathise with the alarm of those who tremble lest anything should mar so wholesome a work; for it is thus we gather up the fragments" of the human mind, so that nothing be lost;" and, viewing that which appears to us as the wreck of an immortal intellect" majestic, though in ruin," we endeavour to do what we should ourselves

require were it the will of Almighty God confessed, however, that he was somewhat to afflict us with a like calamity. These at a loss exactly to trace the connection are the reasons, my Lords, which have in- which his noble Friend appeared to find duced me to come forward on the present between the existence of that treatment so occasion; and I shall, I trust, be forgiven generally adopted. in all well-managed lufor having submitted the whole subject to natic asylums in this country, with the peyour deliberate and humane consideration. culiar Motion which the noble Earl had The noble Earl then movedbrought under the consideration of their Lordships.

"That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that Her Majesty will be graciously pleased to take into Her consideration the expediency of establishing a State Asylum for the care and custody of those who are denominated

Criminal Lunatics.'"

LORD BERNERS corroborated the statement made by the noble Earl, and made a few observations which were very indistictly heard.

His noble Friend had advert

ed, but very briefly, to that which was, indeed, an anomaly in expression, and almost a contradiction in terms-the familiar expression criminal lunatics." The word "criminal" implied a knowledge of guilt, and the word "lunatic" the absence of the knowledge and the power of distinguishing between good and evil; and it was certainly a contradiction in terms to say that a man could at the same time be a " criminal," that was, responsible for his actions, and also a lunatic," that was, a man irresponsible for his actions, and incapable of distinguishing between good and evil. He confessed, therefore, that he felt some difficulty in drawing the line which the noble Earl seemed disposed to draw between

66

The EARL of DERBY said, that he was sure that his noble Friend who had introduced the subject with as much ability as good feeling, had no necessity for making any apology to their Lordships for directing their attention to a matter which was one of deep and great importance, and one which the noble Earl was peculiarly qualified to bring under their notice. The noble" criminal lunatics" and "lunatics" of a Earl had for the last twenty years devoted different description. If the noble Earl his unremitting and humane attention to were to carry into effect his principle, he this subject, as he had also directed his at- would find it necessary to extend it much tention to almost every other form of human further, and apply the same principle which misery and suffering, even of the most re- he sought to apply to the criminal lunatic, pulsive character, and had with the most to all who were violent or dangerous lunalaudable of Christian motives given up his tics. For the only difference between them time, talents, and means to the alleviation was this, that one of them was in that state of these distresses and misery. He trust- of mind in which he had actually commited that neither himself nor any of their ted that act which, in a sane condition of Lordships could be supposed to undervalue mind, would render him liable to punishthe immense improvements which had been ment; while the other was in the same introduced by the altered system adopted condition of mind, but had not as yet comin the treatment of lunatics generally. He mitted that which at the same time would believed that, within the last few years, no render him subject to a criminal prosecugreater improvement had taken place in tion. He was far from saying that the any branch of science, at least in that par- existing law with respect to criminal lunaticular branch devoted to the alleviation of tics-to adopt the familiar expression-was suffering humanity, than that which dealt in a satisfactory position. He was at a with the case of persons afflicted with men- loss to understand upon what principle the tal disease. He was of opinion, moreover, law had been framed with respect to the that, as science had advanced, not only the two classes of criminal lunatics. The 39 & sufferings of the people so unhappily afflict- 40 Geo. III. applied to persons who had ed had been most materially diminished, actually been found not guilty of the offence but that there had also been great and es- with which they had been charged, upon the sential advantages gained in the propor- ground of insanity, comprising not only tionate number of patients cured. He felt felonious offences, but also misdemeanours, certain, therefore, that neither upon his which were similarly dealt with under part nor upon that of their Lordships could the 3 & 4 Vict., which also dealt with there be any desire to interfere in the those who had not been brought to trial; smallest degree with that most humane but who, upon investigation, and after and beneficial alteration which had been committal, had been found to be lunatic, made in the treatment of lunatics. He and were not consequently brought to trial

or sent before a jury, and were, by the | consideration how difficult it was to stop
authority of two magistrates and two there, and to draw a line of distinction
medical officers, transferred to a county or between criminal lunatics and dangerous
district lunatic asylum. He confessed,
that with respect to these two classes of
persons, he was unable to account for the
distinction which prevailed in the mode in
which they were treated. There was, he
believed, in England at this moment be-
tween 450 and 470 of all descriptions of
criminal lunatics; of which number about
100 were maintained in the two wings of
Bethlehem Hospital, which were specially
built for the reception of criminal lunatics,
and it was at the expense of the country
that they were maintained. As a general
rule, he believed that of all those guilty of
offences, and who were acquitted upon the
ground of insanity, the practice had been
to transfer to Bethlehem Hospital the most
violent and most dangerous characters.
The consequence had been, that there had
been assigned a separate asylum in the
neighbourhood of Salisbury, where the
patients or prisoners, just as the noble
Lord chose to call them, were maintained
and kept at the expense of the Govern-
ment, though the asylum itself was a
private one. It appeared that in the
Bethlehem Asylum the cost of the main-
tenance of lunatics per head per annum
was 347., and in that at Fisherton, near
Salisbury, it was 301. per head per
annum. There remained somewhere be-
tween 250 and 300 other lunatics under
precisely the same circumstances and of
precisely the same class, but who were
distributed through the different asylums
and prisons of the kingdom; and because
they were so distributed, the expense of
their maintenance fell, not upon the public
at large, but upon the different parishes or
unions from which the lunatics came.
Clearly there could be no ground for that
distinction; and he was of opinion that
the custody of criminal lunatics was not a
charge which ought to be thrown on the
county, but was one which ought to be
borne by the country at large, seeing the
object was one of national importance, in
which all classes and all denominations
without exception were concerned, inas-
much as all might be alike subject to the
same unhappy casualty. He did not,
therefore, say that the existing law did
not stand in need of some amendment.
He repeated, that he thought the expense
of maintaining criminal lunatics was one
which ought to fall on the public funds.
But then the House must also take into

lunatics, In fact, there was no other dis-
tinction between them except that the one
had actually committed an offence, and
the other might commit one; consequently
they stood in precisely the same position.
The case to which his noble Friend had
alluded, where a person was confined for
the space of ten years, was probably that
of a dangerous lunatic, of a person who
had exhibited dangerous propensities, and
who, perhaps, had been in the care of
persons of moderate means; for their
Lordships would know that in the minds
of the common people an exceedingly
strong disinclination existed against send-
ing to a lunatic asylum any of their rela-
tives who might become afflicted with
insanity, and that, rather than do an act
which was so repugnant to their feelings,
they would undergo the most grievous
hardships to maintain their insane relations
under their own eye in preference to send-
ing them to a lunatic asylum, where they
had a notion-though a mistaken one-
that they would not be well cared for.
Then his noble Friend said the association
of those criminal lunatics-whose lunacy
might have been induced by the depravity
of their previous habits, and the debauched
lives they had led-with persons labouring
under mental though harmless delusions,
was an injury and an evil to both par-
ties, but particularly to the harmless pa-
tients. But he (the Earl of Derby) would
ask where was the county or district
lunatic asylum in which those two classes
were SO mixed up together? If there
were any such cases, then he could only
say that such a practice was contrary to
all the rules and regulations laid down
for the management of those establish-
ments. He believed the practice was not
to draw a distinction between the crimi-
nal lunatic and the violent lunatic, but to
effect that which ought to be effected-
the separation between the dangerous lu
natic and the lunatic who was not danger-
ous, but was labouring only under harmless
delusion. Some few years ago he had
visited the lunatic asylum in Lancaster,
and he was struck with the exceeding
order, regularity, and admirable manage
ment which prevailed there.
majority of the unfortunate inmates were
engaged in the industrial occupations of
the house; some working in the garden,
others performing all the menial offices in

The great

the establishment, and all regularly and the different county lunatic asylums the usefully employed. Undoubtedly it was same distinction and discipline might not necessary to make a distinction between be effected and preserved as that which those who could be so trusted in the per- his noble Friend had in view in the proformance of those duties, and those who posed State Asylum. But his noble Friend could not; but, as he said before, the diffi- said the adoption of that principle would culty was to draw a line of distinction be- necessarily lead to ulterior operations and tween criminal aad dangerous lunatics. further legislative measures, which would Then, with regard to the question of ex- require great consideration. Then he (the pense, his noble Friend said he moved for Earl of Derby) said it would be better to this Address to the Queen because he saw consider what amendments might be made all the difficulties in the way of legislating in the existing law before their Lordships on the subject. But he (the Earl of Derby) pledged themselves to an Address to the knew if he were to bring in a Bill in this Crown, simply with the view of building a House for the purpose of carrying out the State Asylum for the reception of criminal views of his noble Friend, it would be con- lunatics, for the regulation and managesidered an infringement of the privileges ment of which it would hereafter be necesof the House of Commons, because it would sary to legislate. The whole of this quesinvolve the expenditure of a considerable tion, though it had not been fully consum of money for the building of a State sidered by a former Government, was one Asylumthat should be taken into deliberate consideration by the present Government, though rather with the view of dealing with the existing law as a whole than any single portion of it, which his noble Friend opposite had with such ability and good judgment brought under the consideration of the House; and with that assurance on the part of the Government, that the question should not be lost sight of, he hoped his noble Friend (the Earl of Shaftesbury) would be satisfied.

The EARL of SHAFTESBURY said, the terms of his Motion were, that Her Majesty should be pleased to take into Her consideration the expediency of establishing a State Asylum.

The EARL of DERBY: Well, to consider the expediency-but he said, unless they had fully considered all the consequences to which the distinction for which his noble Friend contended would necessarily lead, and all the expenses to which they were about to subject the countrywhile he quite agreed with him that it was expedient and desirable to amend the law relating to the custody and maintenance of lunatics-a subject which he would assure the House should not be lost sight of by Her Majesty's Government-he thought it would not be desirable to pledge their Lordships to address the Crown with reference to an alteration of the existing law, and that, after all, not of a material point. The expense of building Bethlehem Hospital or rather the two wings of that structure which are assigned to the residence of criminal lunatics-must have been very large. The annual cost of the maintenance of patients, there was, he thought, 341. a head, and at Fisherton 30%. a head; while in the various lunatic asylums throughout the country, the average annual cost was about 261. a head. Their Lordships had also to consider that the expense of building such an establishment as his noble Friend contemplated, to say the least would probably exceed 50,000., and perhaps would be nearer 100,000l. Besides, he (the Earl of Derby) did not see why in

LORD CRANWORTH said, probably on the assurance given by the noble Earl who had just sat down, that this subject would speedily engage the attention of the Government, his noble Friend (the Earl of Shaftesbury) would not now object to withdraw his Motion. He (Lord Cranworth) rejoiced to hear that the noble Earl at the head of the Government was ready to enter upon the consideration of this subject, and that it was his opinion that the whole bearing of this question should be looked into. His noble Friend (the Earl of Shaftesbury) stated some doubts, in which he (Lord Cranworth) entirely participated, whether the whole law with reference to the plea of insanity was not framed altogether on an erroneous principle. It had been said in the course of discussion, that it was too much the habit of the Judges, in cases where the plea of insanity was set up, to cast all responsibility from themselves on the jury; and for the juries, on the other hand, to yield at once to that plea to avoid a result which was painful to their feelings. Having, whilst he had the honour to occupy a seat on the Common

Law Bench, been concerned in adminis- | genus between violent criminal lunatics and tering the Criminal Law for a consider- other violent lunatics, but he believed that the feeling among ordinary lunatics that they were mixed up with those whom they considered criminals, had often an injurious tendency on the inmates of an asylum where the association was permitted. The noble Earl at the head of the Government had objected to the strict accuracy of the term "criminal lunatics,' as employed by his noble Friend, and said he should like to know how many persons so designated were criminals, and how many were lunatics. He (Lord Cranworth) believed the error too often committed was in adding the word "lunatic," and not in adding the word "criminal.'

able time, he (Lord Cranworth) might be
supposed to speak with some prejudice on
this subject; but he believed his noble
Friend was wrong in saying there was the
least bias in the minds of the Judges on
this question in the direction in which he
supposed them to lean. On the contrary, he
(Lord Cranworth) knew there was a desire
prevalent among the Judges to stand be-
tween the jury and their inclinations in
cases where they thought they saw any at-
tempt to shrink from responsibility. He did
not hesitate to say that the question "sane
or insane
was not a question safely to be
committed to the determination of the jury
which had to try whether a person was
guilty or not guilty of the offence charged.
He had known cases within his experience
where there had not been the semblance or
the least ground of insanity, but in which
juries had given a verdict of "Not guilty,
on the ground of insanity.' What, then,
was to be done? Suppose a man had
committed murder, or that which would be
murder in the case of a sane person, and it
was suspected he was insane; what was the
course to be pursued? It might perhaps
be idle for him to hazard at the present|
moment an opinion as to what alteration
should be made in the law upon this sub-
ject; but he (Lord Cranworth) thought that
the question as to the lunacy of a criminal
when on trial for killing another under such
circumstances as would amount to murder
if he were not insane, ought not to be
left to the jury by whom the general
charge is tried; the man ought to be found
guilty, and the question of insanity should
be the foundation for an inquiry by another
tribunal, which might be presumed not to
be acting exactly under the influence of
the same feelings as that jury. What that
tribunal should be, or of whom it should be
constituted, he did not pretend to have con-
sidered; but that it should not be fully the
same jury was a matter of which he had no
doubt whatever. The privilege which was
given them of deciding in such cases, he
feared, led them into the continual violation
of their oaths, and to the escape of persons
who had perpetrated serious crimes from
the punishment which the law attached to
their commission. With regard to the ne-
cessity for something like the distinction
proposed by his noble Friend (the Earl of
Shaftesbury), he (Lord Cranworth) thought
there was not altogether a distinction in

The EARL of SHAFTESBURY briefly replied. He was understood to defend the use of the expression "criminal lunatics," as signifying a class of lunatics who were not strangers to crime, but were distinguished from others by their cunning and dexterity. He expressed the gratification he had experienced from the manner in which the Motion had been received by the noble Lord at the head of the Government; and, with the permission of the House, begged to withdraw it.

Motion, by leave of the House, with drawn.

House adjourned till To-morrow.

HOUSE OF COMMONS,

Thursday, March 18, 1852. MINUTES.] NEW MEMBER SWORN. - For Kil

-

dare, William Henry Ford Cogan, Esq. PUBLIC BILL.-1° Property Qualification.

OUTRAGE ON A BRITISH SUBJECT AT

LEGHORN.

COLONEL RAWDON wished to call the attention of the Government to a matter of ssme importance. He had seen a letter, dated from Florence, on the 11th of this month, in which it was stated that a British officer, in the full uniform of the Royal Marines, had been cut down in the streets of Leghorn by the Austrian authorities. He wished to know whether Her Majesty's Government had received any information on the subject of this transaction, and, if so, whether any measures had been taken to obtain redress?

The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I believe it to be quite incorrect that a British officer, in the uniform of