BEHIND THE SHUT DOOR.
FOR the moral and physical welfare of three classes of people .the State makes itself wholly responsible, and it is now some time since we had a full inquiry into the manner in which this responsibility is dis- charged. A detached observer would have supposed ',that it would have been a matter of course, where departmental routine concerned the intimate and vital details of the lives of .a number of more or less helpless people, that an inquiry by an entirely unbiased body of people should be instituted every ten or fifteen years into the working of State guardianship. But it is thirty years since a full inquiry was made into our treatment of luna- tics, delinquents, and the helpless innocent old people and children who are supported in our workhouses. That this should be so is made yet stranger by the fact that for the last ten years at least plenty of people have openly said that the State was far from discharging its functions properly. A considerable body of people are of the opinion that our prisons, for example, neither cure criminals nor prevent crime. Other people say that the State, which should be one of the safest guardians that a child can have, looks neither after the needs of his body nor the needs of his soul and brings up, not useful citizens, but men and women only half fit to live in the world.
But it is, perhaps, against the State's treatment of the lunatic that the .most damaging allegations are made. Accusations, for instance, are made in Mrs. Grant Smith's book, which we review on page 146, not merely of failure to cure cases of incipient lunacy, but of fraud and brutal ill-treatment. Mrs. Grant Smith was an inmate of two private and several public asylums. As to her treatment in private asylums, it may be thought that the State has incurred no responsibility, but actually this is not the case. As the law stands at present, the State practically constitutes itself the guardian of all insane persons. Directly anyone is certified as mad, his interests are supposed to be safeguarded by the State. This is a humane and excellent theory, for a moment's thought will show that the lunatic is the most helpless creature in the world, more helpless than a child, because his acts and words are generally such as to alienate the ordinary human sympathy which generally helps the child.
Mrs. Grant Smith's evidence does not, of course, stand alone. Dr. Lomax, who contributes a preface to her book, is the author of a book, entitled Experiences of an Asylum Doctor (Allen and Unwin), which we re- viewed some time ago, and in which a great deal of evidence was brought forward. Again, we print attached to .our review the evidence of a man who has absolutely no connexion with, and had never heard of, Dr. Lomax or of his books.
Mr. Charles Robinson (under this name we propose to veil the identity of our correspondent) had a nervous breakdown following on a period of acute anxiety and a bad attack of influenza. His chief symptom was extreme depression and melancholy, the melancholy deepening and becoming by turns suicidal and religious, and in- volving itself, as is usual in such cases, with ideas, now of persecution, and again of personal unworthiness and compunction for imagined misdeeds. It may, perhaps, be thought that Mr. Charles Robinson's allegations arc not after all so very dreadful. We all of us have to put up with a good many things in this world, and no doubt asylum life was not very cheerful nor very clean. There was nothing to do, he says ; the food and the attendance were bad, the company depressing—a description, we might think, of a third-rate seaside hotel rather than of an inferno. But we must remember the scenes in the sick wards and the fact that we all expeat a rather different standard of comfort when we are ill. In the ordinary hospital and nursing home we often get something a little beyond comfort. We get attempts at definite curative treatment. Or, if our disease should happen to be one for which medical science has not yet evolved even an experimental cure, the patient at least expects to be put into the best possible position for getting well. Perhaps, then. if we use a little imagination and bear these things in mind we shall see that Mrs. Grant Smith's allegations and those of our correspondent's are actually of the very gravest sort. In conclusion, if the allegations that have been made against the State's guardianship of lunatics and delin- quents .and of pauper children had been made against any business undertaking, that firm would have been obliged by public opinion to clear itself of the charges by proper trial in a Court of Law.
Departments are paid for carrying out certain work care of children, the stopping of crime, the cure or w.fe keeping of lunatics. The allegation is that the State, while using the taxpayers' money, yet carries out none of these duties, that the de- partments are, in fact, a swindle. It is not for us to say whether these allegations are true or false. The facts may not be as stated. The departments may have a perfectly good answer to all these allegations or, if they have not, all the officials may be willing and eager to institute reforms but may be hampered by obsolete legislation. We have only heard the case against the departments. But if we were the grand jury of the nation we should most emphatically on all these counts bring in a true bill. There is enough evidence for a proper inquiry, and we cannot help thinking that if the departments concerned realized how strong is public opinion (misguided public opinion, perhaps) against what is done in our prisons and asylums, they would be quite as eager as the public that the very fullest inquiry should be made, and not merely into the good intentions, but also into the efficiency of the departments concerned.
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