LUNACY LAW REFORM.
Jr the three Lunacy Bills brought in by Lord St. Leonards were at this moment law, a great amount of risk, expense, trouble and pain would be saved to numbers of people. On a first perusal of the three bills, they appear to us to meet most of the demands for improvement which recent experience has suggested. The smallest one, which is the most urgent, relates to the care and treatment of lunatics; the second, to the management of luna- tic asylums ; the third, to the regulation of lunacy business in Chancery. The first and second have a very essential connexion, al- though it was as well perhaps to separate them ; since their pro- visions ought to be brought under the notice of totally distinct classes of people.
By the Lunatics Care and Treatment Bill, new securities are given to the subject against being arrested on the pretext of lu- nacy, without the necessary checks in the way of medical examina- tion, authorized certificates, visitation by public functionaries, and stated revision by the highest authorities. New forms are given, to be filled up by asylum-keepers visitors, and medical practi- tioners: it is a valuable provision that the facts indicating insanity are required to be set forth in the medical certificate. In short, such complete provisions are made for securing a practical knowledge respecting the lunatic, at every stage in his transfer from one hand to another, and during his residence in the asylum, that the abuses which have been notorious since the question was first in- vestigated in 1816 would under this bill become nearly impossible. The Lunatic Asylums Bill comprises one hundred and thirty- one clauses, arranged in groups,—as to the providing of asylums and the appointment of local functionaries ; as to the raising of monies ; as to the regulation and management of asylums; as to the visitation, confinement, removal, and charges of lunatics as to the expenses of maintenance, &e. of pauper lunatics, with some others. Every county and borough is required to provide a pro- per asylum for lunatics ; unions for the purpose, as in the existing case of Bedford, and of neighbouring counties, being permitted ; boroughs below a certain size are to be considered merged in the county ; and the Secretary of State is authorized to require the Justices of any place to provide a proper asylum, with powers for taking land, &c., and raising money. The asylum is to be visited once in every three months at least. Lunatics are to be sent to asylums in all but specified necessary cases ; a provision which will abolish the abuse of detaining them in workhouses, or places even less fitted for the purpose. Ample provisions are made for appeal against detention of lunatics, and a considerable portion of the bill is devoted to provisions for checking needless expenses either to the lunatic or to his friends. A very important clause is the sixty- eighth, which empowers certain parish-officers, upon information, to take any person who is said to be a lunatic, whether destitute or not, before the Justices of the Peace, and to pursue other steps for his proper examination, in order, should he prove lunatic, that he may be kept in proper custody ; the friends being permitted to pro- vide for his safe keeping, if they satisfy the Justices that they have the power and the intention so to do. The parish-officers are
required to take these steps under a heavy penalty for neglect. If this provision had been in force, it is probable that Pate would not have committed the outrage on the Queen which shocked the country some years ago. The Lunacy Regulation Bill is not less important, although it may be less urgently needed. Its general character is, to consoli- date the jurisdiction of lunacy business, for the management of pro- perty, in two Masters, under whom there are to be a Registrar, and also two medical Visitors, and one legal Visitor appointed by the Lord Chancellor ; the Master, the Registrar, and the Visitors, to form a Lunacy "Board." In most cases, we infer, the business of inquisition will be carried on by one of the Masters ; the luna- tic having the power, if the Lord-Chancellor be satisfied of his possessing sufficient mental intelligence for holding an opinion, to demand an inquiry before a Jury. The Lord Chancellor is also empowered to order the appointment of a Jury. As in the pre- vious bill, considerable pains are bestowed upon checking expense, by transacting a portion of the business in chambers, by disallow- ing useless objections, by discouraging useless citations or diffuse- ness in documents, and by other means. In this, as well as in the previous bills, much consideration is shown for the poorer class of lunatics : for instance, where the property is small, it is exempted more or less, if not entirely, from expenses ; and it may be applied to the lunatic's maintenance. Upon the whole, the character of the measure may be described as one for consolidating the law and regulations upon the subject ; bringing them all under the direct supervision of the Lord Chancellor ; introducing uniformity into the practice ; with checks against abuse, and very great checks against needless expense and waste of property. The bills would effect such valuable and extensive improve- ments, that we could almost desire to see them passed exactly as they are, even upon the understanding that new steps must immediately be taken to secure further improvements. Valuable as the bills are, they do not include all that is wanted, nor even all that is urgently wanted; yet we mistrust the dilatory and mutilating process of any Select Committee. Not that the further improve- ments do not suggest themselves readily. We have the very greatest doubts, for example, whether the amount of visiting re- quired by any one of these bills is sufficient. Once in three months is not enough to secure the individual lunatic against an intolerable amount of suffering. Nay, three months is sufficient time to manufacture a lunatic out of an excitable man unjustly imprisoned. We might dismiss the doubt, whether the custody of lunatics ought under any circumstances to be licensed as a matter of pro- fit. Although to first-rate minds a truly humane system is the one' dictated by self-interest as well as duty—although we are convinced that the most perfect plan of treatment will be that se- cured in the very best private asylums—yet we are equally sure, that below that topmost grade, the temptations which make the interest of the keeper adverse to the interest of the lunatic begin to prevail in an accelerating ratio. It is clear from disclosures which have been made quite recently, that there is a class of minds naturally inclined to an ugly profession, which can only be kept in order by unexpected visits and the force of penalties ; and to such minds we do not believe that the helpless can be safely intrusted. We admit, however, that a very law-reformer would naturally hesi- tate to take a step to abolish the existing interests in private asy- lums; and we recognize the force of the provisions in the Lunatic Asylums Bill imposing very severe penalties, to be recovered sum- marily, for the offence of striking or ill-treating a lunatic.
There are other questions also of first-rate importance which lie between the measures now before Parliament. For example, there is a class of persons in this country suffering under a kind of grievance which falsifies the maxim Of English law "that there is no wrong without redress." According to the general acceptation of law, the lunatic is civilly dead : he can contract no obligations ; can perform no civil act; cannot present himself in any capacity ; is dead, in short, to all persons except to one—his consort. The in- curable lunatic maintains the semblance of a conjugal relation only to prevent the reality. Even to the consort, in all but a few very peculiar and exceptional cases, the incurable lunatic is dead in everything except a mockery of union. It is needless to point out the evil consequences flowing from bondage to a con- sort who has no practical existence in the world : it is a species of celibacy recognized by our system in no other form. The objection against the dissolution of a marriage, that the lunatic might recover, is one which applies to very few of the cases, and that only in a very doubtful degree. It is to be met also by this remark, that after a consort has been in keeping for a lengthened period, with all but the certainty of hopeless insanity, a renewal of the union can only be effected at the risk of the most calamitous results to the subsequent progeny. On every ground, therefore, a motion for a dissolution of the marriage, when sought, ought to be granted on proof of the incurable lunacy. The want of that release imposes upon numbers in this country the cruelty which renders proverb- ially infamous the name of Mezentius. We believe that this just principle is recognized by more than one of the United States of America • certainly it is so in the State of New York. But the Lunacy Bills of Lord St. Leonards do not enter into this branch of the question ; and we see no intimation that the Divorce Com- missioners have yet entered upon the subject of lunacy. If, how- ever, the lunacy laws are to be thoroughly revised, glaring wrongs of this kind would not be suffered to remain ; and therefore is it that, while we desire the prompt enactment of the bills as a whole, we anticipate a sequel to supply omissions.
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