Scottish Lunacy Commission. 107 of private houses influencing their treatment of pauper patients, to the manifest detriment of the mental and physical health of the latter; and they have not hesitated to proclaim, directly or indirectly, the insane poor of Scotland to be, in many cases, the unfortunate victims of a selfish, inhuman, parsimonious economy. They have frankly confessed the errors or defects in construction or management under which our public asylums labour, and have been at great pains to indicate how these may be best remedied or supplied, in the erection of future hospitals for the treatment of the insane. They have dwelt especially on the overcrowded state of all our public asylums, from a desire, on the part of their managers to meet, so far as possible, the urgent wants of the community; and they have recommended the erection both of additions to existing asylums and of additional asylums, so as to accommodate patients who are at present mis-treated, or maltreated, in private homes, private asylums, poorhouses, and prisons, as well as to permit of a more satisfactory classification of the insane, than at present. They have urged on the attention of the proper legal authorities, their difficulties in the treatment of particular classes of cases, such as criminal lunatics-improperly so called-dipsomaniacs, and voluntary patients, and they have offered suggestions for improvements in the law regarding them; and lastly, by availing themselves diligently of every advance in science and art to ameliorate the condition of those committed to their charge, they have established for the chartered asylums of Scotland, a cosmopolitan reputation, a proud pre-eminence which has rendered them models-in regard especially to the rational treatment of the insane for the world to imitate. Let those who are inclined to doubt or deny the truth of the foregoing assertions, peruse the annual reports of the Scotch asylums during the last ten or fifteen years, and especially those of Dumfries, Edinburgh, and Glasgow; they will there find not only a mass of the most valuable information regarding the nature, causes, and treatment of insanity, but they will speedily discover that the principal evils and objections, as well as the suggestions-with the exception of those regarding central boards-described or made by the Scotch Commissioners in Lunacy, in their recent Report to Parliament, have been long since anticipated. Year after year the medical executive of our asylums has been perseveringly, unitedly, incessantly, endeavouring to force on the attention of the public and of the legislature, the defects and anomalies of our lunacy laws, their improper or imperfect administration, and the unsatisfactory mode of treatment of the insane, in certain respects, both within and without the chartered asylums. But so far as the introduction of remedial measures is concerned, these representations and 108 suggestions-these "labours of love "-have hitherto apparently gone for nothing. The Board of Supervision, during the ten years of its existence, in its annual reports, has likewise repeatedly and distinctly pointed out the difficulty of carrying into effect the lunacy laws of Scotland applicable to the poor, in consequence of defective asylum accommodation and other causes. the accomplished and energetic chairman of the Board just Sir John M'Neill, named, in his evidence before the Select Committee on Miscellaneous Expenditure in 1848, in answer to a question put by Sir George Clerk [6506], states explicitly, "I do not contemplate with satisfaction the placing of pauper lunatics in private madhouses at all. I have a very serious objection to placing them in private madhouses with people who have no interest in taking proper charge of them, but whose interest it is to feed them as cheaply, and cure them as slowly as possible." When, therefore, the Scotch, and especially the English, newspapers re-echo the self-condemnatory sentiments of a writer, who says in the Times, "I cannot but meanwhile accept it as a great discredit to my native country, not merely that such evils existed in it, but that their existence was overlooked by her clergy, her officials, and her philanthropists," we believe they are guilty of a glaring injustice to a people which has voluntarily done more for its insane, and to a country which possesses better public asylums, in certain respects, than any people or country in the world. It is quite a mistake to suppose that the Report of the Scotch Lunacy Commission contains novel disclosures, reveals a state of affairs which has been hitherto sedulously concealed, or brings to light a new national grievance of many years' growth. The Report in question will doubtless furnish powerful and valuable corroborative evidence; it will bring more fully under the notice of the legislature, evils to which it had long shown a wonderful apathy and indifference. The mode in which the evils connected with the treatment of lunatics, especially in cases beyond the reach of any present legal interference, have been brought out by the Scottish Commissioners, has at last fairly roused Parliament out of this state of indifference, and the Lord Advocate's bill, now before Parliament, is the result. But, as it is manifestly the intention of his Lordship to introduce some of the features of the English lunacy laws into the management of lunatics in Scotland, we would strongly recommend that the M.P.'s and journalists who have devoted so much attention to the Scottish Lunacy Commission and its Report, should study carefully the ten Annual Reports of the English Lunacy Commissioners. They will there find that the administrative agency of a Royal Commission, after ten years Scottish Lunacy Commission. 109 hard work, has not been so successful as is desirable, in remedying the evils of the English lunacy laws and of the treatment of the insane in England. We do not here enter into the questions of why or how such a state of things comes to pass, but we call attention to the fact, that there is abundant evidence in the pages of the English reports to the Lord Chancellor after the expenditure by the country of some L.160,000 for administering the law-of the existence of cases of neglect and abuse, nearly as glaring, if not more so, than those now revealed in the Report of the Scotch Lunacy Commission. In their Seventh Annual Report [p. 27], the English Commissioners state regarding Amroth Castle, Pembrokeshire, "as in the case of Vernon House, it was found that the stables had been converted by whitewashing and boarding, into wards for pauper patients,... that the single bedrooms were formed out of the old stalls for horses," and that the male dormitories were in a loft over the stables! Their latest Report [Tenth, 1856, p. 20], contains the following instructive paragraph, regarding Kingsdown House, Box :-"We are informed by Dr Nash, that he pays about L.150 per annum for the goodwill of the house, and that a valuation of the patients admitted during the existence of the lease, is to be made at its expiration, when a proportionate sum of money is to be paid to Dr Nash for the cases so admitted. The amount is to be determined by arbitration. . . . They [the patients] are by this arrangement made a source of traffic and profit by two parties!" It is not a little instructive that, a few nights after the tragical effect in the House of Commons, produced by the speech of Mr Ellice in regard to the condition of the insane in Scotlandafter the English members had turned up the whites of their eyes in devout horror at the revelations made, and the London press had called upon the English nation to blush for the inhumanity, the ignorance, the superstition, of poor, "religious Scotland" attention should have been called in Parliament to the disgraceful state of the insane inmates of the Marylebone Workhouse-an establishment under the very eye of all the enlightened model boards of the southern metropolis! Last year, also, one of the Commissioners in Lunacy [Times, March 6, 1856] found the wards for insane paupers in St Pancras' Workhouse, London, in a "lamentable state of disorder and neglect," and reported that previous suggestions of the Commissioners had been totally disregarded! Turn we now more particularly to the Report before us. Were we desirous of criticising the manner in which the literary department of the Report has been executed-the perspicuity with which statistics have been arranged, so as to bear on the elucidation of interesting topics—or the opinions in regard to the nature and treatment of insanity, and the proper constitution of hospitals for the insane, in the abstract, we might doubtless discover grounds of objection or complaint. But we have no desire to be hypercritical; we shall rather look to the spirit, tendency, or scope of the Report, than to the manner in which the details have been worked out and thrown together. The Commissioners have undoubtedly been at immense pains to discharge their laborious duties faithfully and fully; and the result of their investigations, extending over a period of upwards of two years, constitutes a most valuable contribution to the literature, or history of the treatment of the insane in Scotland. The bulkiness of the Report, however, detracts materially from its usefulness; and, from the mode in which the matter has been arranged, there is considerable repetition and confusion. We are compelled to admit further, that there appear to be just grounds for opinions and objections which we have, on all hands, heard urged against it of the following nature:-That there pervades the Report a decided bias towards particular opinions, these opinions being such as are enunciated in the Reports of the English Lunacy Commissioners, and that the English influence and ideas unduly predominate over the Scotch; that there is an evident anxiety to make out a bad case-a strong tendency to paint in the darkest colours the gloomy side of the picture-an ungenerous disposition to depreciate all existing arrangements, especially as being essentially Scotch in their character; and that many of the statements are open to the charge of inaccuracy, unfairness or partiality, and exaggeration! As public reviewers we cannot, in equity, shut our eyes and ears to the complaints which we have almost daily read or heard, since the publication of the Report, in regard to its inaccuracies and exaggerations; the press, in every part of Scotland, teems with such accusations, coming from asylums, public and private, and from all grades of officials connected with the administration of the Lunacy Laws, or with the treatment of the insane. Some of these parties or persons use the strongest language, imputing to the Commissioners all manner of unworthy motives. From some quarters such accusations and imputations must be received with caution, if not with suspicion; they look too like recrimination from parties who smart under the official scourge of the Commissioners. It does not surprise us that such persons or parties should endeavour to defend themselves as best they can against the statements of the Commissioners; and failing in a valid defence, it is very natural they should attack the Commissioners with any weapons at their command. But these charges of exaggeration, unfairness, and inaccuracy, are so common throughout Scotland, and they originate, in many instances, in quarters so unexceptionable, that we must be led to the conclu Scottish Lunacy Commission. 111 sion that there is good ground for a certain proportion of them at least. Since the publication of the Report, it is understood that a correspondence has taken place between the Sheriffs and the Lord-Advocate, or Secretary of State; and that investigations have been made regarding many of the special cases mentioned by the Commissioners. Neither this correspondence nor the results of these investigations have been given to the public. But, it has been stated, by those who are entitled to speak with authority, that, "up to this time, not one case had been found fully confirmed."-[Perthshire Courier, July 9, 1857.] It is most unfortunate that the Report was so long in its birth. We can only account for this on the ground of the " tedious labour" necessary safely to bring it forth. It is apt to give a false impression of things as they are; for asylums, like many other institutions of the time, are progressive in their nature, and, in some of them, both public and private, many and most important changes, in their constitution and government, have occurred during the last two years. We could point to certain public asylums which are complained of by the Commissioners as lacking a due supply of books and objects to amuse and occupy the patients, which now possess their libraries, museums, bazaars-their classes, lectures, and concerts-their picnics, walks, and games-in addition to gardens, grounds, and workshops, for ordinary or routine labour. We could instance further, the old Montrose asylum, the parent of all the Scotch and perhaps of all the British asylums, whose arrangements are not such as are now approved of by architects and medical superintendents, and to whose deficiencies its directors have been long so fully alive, that they sometime ago voted a sum of L.30,000 for the construction of a new and commodious asylum at a short distance from Montrose, on a salubrious and unexceptionable site, and which is rapidly progressing towards completion. Of this we feel assured, that the condition of the insane in Scotland is far from being so bad as is represented by the Commissioners, who might, consistently with truth, have expressed themselves in much more favourable and encouraging terms, of the existing machinery for their comfort and cure. It is impossible for us to give any resumé of the many interesting points discussed in the elaborate Report before us. This, however, has been done to such an extent in the public newspapers, that it is here less necessary. What concerns us more intimately and immediately, is the tendency and character of the legislation which is likely to be founded on the suggestions contained in the Report. In connection with the expected legislative measure, we shall briefly review the alterations which it is desirable to introduce in regard to the treatment of the insane gene |