AN OFFICIAL HISDE3IEANOUR EXPOSED.
THE Chatham News has scarcely been established ere it proves its local value by exposing a systematic outrage officially inflicted upon the dis- trict in which the journal appears. Chatham, as everybody knows, is a military station, and it is provided with a hospital, to which invalided soldiers returning home and landing at the station are sent for treatment. Amongst the in-•alids are some lunatics, and it appears there is no perms-
m provision fo. -• • curable lunatics. The hospital only affords temporary residence, the men are pronounced beyond the reach medical art, it becomes _ 7 to discover how they can be disposed of ermanently. The authorities try to discover the parishes of the men ; and
n most cases they succeed, but in some they do not. What is the course taken in these exceptional cases ? The hospital authorities have no choice ; they cannot keep the man for the remainder of his life ; they cannot find his pariah ; so they take him into the streets, and desert him !
It is a mode of treating the lunatic which reminds us of the law before
amendment began, some forty years ago. The injury inflicted upon the parish is obvious. By this means Chatham, or Rochester, is made answer- able for all lunatics whose parishes cannot be found ; and the local paper reports the beginning of a litigation between the parish and the military authorities on the subject; the townspeople being thoroughly roused on the matter. And no wonder. The injury to the unhappy wretch is only ex- ceeded by the outrage on the society amongst whom he is turned loose, and the disgrace to the nation in which such things can be.
We are bound to presume, however, that the Horse Guards, or the War Department, will be grateful to the local paper for pointing out a duty so obvious and so easily met. If, as the Chatham News says, Mr. Sidney Herbert asked the means from the House of Commons to provide an asylum for these poor fellows, would he be refused ?
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