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cy Law, which is thus described in the Tenth Report;-"By sect. 7, 29 and 30 Vict. c. 51, it is enacted that the authority for detaining a patient in an asylum, conferred by the sheriff's order, shall expire on the 1st day of January first occurring after the expiry of three years from the date on which it was granted, unless the medical superintendent of the asylum shall then, and thereafter annually, certify, on soul and conscience, that the detention of the patient continues to be necessary, either for his own welfare or that of the public." This procedure, the Commissioners tell us, resembles that established in France by the law of 1838, which requires that twice a year, in the first month of each half year, the superintendent of the asylum shall furnish the Préfet of his department with a medical certificate of the condition of every patient in the asylum; from the tenor of which the latter determines whether the patient shall be discharged or be further detained."Similar provisions exist also in the Luuacy laws of other countries. In the Genevese law, for instance, art. 4, t. 1, is to this effect :—“L'autorisation ou l'ordre ne peuvent avoir d'effet pendant plus de six mois; ils peuvent être renouvelés. Après le troisième renouvellement, ils peuvent n'être renouvelés que d'année en année;" and it is further provided that on the expiry of the order, applications for renewal shall be accompanied with a certificate from the medical man in whose charge the patient has been. The law 14 and 15, enacts somewhat as follows:-"The physician of the asylum shall, during the first four weeks after the day of admission, make a daily record of the results of his observations; and be shall draw up a full report of these, and give his careful opinion thereon, stating whether the condition of the patient is such that his prolonged detention in the institution is desirable or

necessary, either for the purpose of cure, or in the interests of public order, or to prevent accident to the patient or the lieges. At the latest within six weeks after the date of the order the report referred to in the foregoing article shall, along with a new petition, be sent to the district bench, who, if there be no reason against it, shall issue an order to detain the patient in an asylum for a period which shall not exceed one year." on, from year to year, the renewal of the order is necessary, and is granted on satisfactory evidence that reasons exist, beyond mere unsoundness of mind, for warranting prolonged detention."

So

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All these enactments are designed to prevent the unnecessary detention of patients in asylums; and with the same object the

facilities for the withdrawal of unrecovered pauper patients have been increased, and have been made, in Scotland at least, almost equal to those for the withdrawal of private patients.

Provision has also been made for the dis charge of unrecovered patients on probation, and such discharges are encouraged both in England and Scotland. In their Ninth Report the Scotch Commissioners say, "It is frequently very desirable that before a patient is permanently discharged his powers of self-control and ability to be at large should be put to the test," and with this view they are empowered to authorize discharges on probation. In their opinion, too, such discharges "might be more frequently considered by superintendents in chronic cases, which manifest no strongly marked features of insanity, but which, nevertheless, are detained from year to year, more perhaps from habit than from any conviction of such a course being really necessary," and they give the following case in illustration of this:-" On the opening of the Fife District Asylum it became necessary to remove all the pauper lunatics of the district to that establishment. But it was then discovered that a patient who had been a long time in a Musselburg house no longer required asy lum treatment. Instead, therefore, of send ing her to the district asylum, she was allowed to go home, but with an intimation that if she did not find her position there comfortable, she would be received back as a paid servant. In a few days she returned to the asylum, where, instead of being sup ported by the parish, she is now in receipt of wages, although her mental condition is precisely the same as it has been for many years."

The total number of probationary dis charges, between their authorization in 1862 and the close of 1867, was 499-a number by no means inconsiderable. Of the results all we learn is this, that only 68 of the 499 patients were replaced in asylums before the expiry of the probationary period.

on trial are

So also in England, discharges encouraged by the Commissioners. We find them, for instance, in their last Report, re commending the superintendent of one of the large county asylums "to discharge upon trial to their friends such harmless and chronic cases as he may be able to select for this purpose, after satisfying himself that their friends would be willing to take charge of them."

Such, then, are some of the recent provisions of the law, tending to keep down un due accumulation of chronic pauper patients in establishments. All recent enactments,

however, have not that tendency. The "Metropolitan Poor Act, 1867," for instance, will practically have the opposite effect; so also will the act 24 and 25 Vict. c. 55, which relates to England, and throws the maintenance of pauper patients in asylums on unions instead of parishes. In many respects this provision of the law is a humane one; but its operation tends to increase and not to diminish the number of the chronic and harmless patients in asylums, by removing a main inducement to keep them out and get them out. The English Commissioners approve of this enactment, and point out that it will remove improper motives for keeping back patients; and they add that it may even do more, and give rise to an opposite desire, "as by placing them in an asylum the expense of maintenance will be at once removed from the parochial to the common fund of the union."

In France the maintenance of the insane poor is borne by the Departments, but the law requires the communes and hospices to share the cost; and in order to check in some measure the too frequent sending of harmless and incurable patients to the Departmental asylums, the contingent imposed on the communes is higher for that class than for the curable or dangerous.

We have heard it remarked that experience shows it to be almost impossible, in the present day, to overbuild for the accommodation of pauper lunatics, so rapid and steady is the growth of their number: We have shown how this growth takes place, and we have dwelt much, as all the documents before us do, on the fact that it consists mainly of an accumulation of incurable pauper patients, a large proportion of whom are quiet and harmless, and it is desirable to check and reduce this accumulation by a withdrawal of some of the patients. We have shown what proposals have been made with this object, and that it is an essential feature of all schemes that the withdrawal of such patients from asylums should not also be a withdrawal from the protection and care of the law. We have shown further what recent enactments tend to foster and what to repress this increase in number of pauper patients in asylums.

There are still, however, other considerations not yet alluded to, which affect the question.

It is said, for instance, that the better treatment of the patients prolongs life, and so tends to a storing up of incurables; and we cannot but believe that better treatment must to some extent operate in this way. We should most unwillingly accept an assertion that all the skill, care, kindliness, and N-6

VOL. L.

money so liberally expended on these poor sufferers had been productive of no greater average length of life than they enjoyed under a treatment which was harsh, and which had but little regard to the comfort and happiness of its subjects. The reduced mortality in the lunatic wards of the poorhouses of Scotland seems fairly to be referable to the better diet prescribed, and the general improvement in the surroundings of the patients; and what has taken place there must, we think, have taken place in establishments generally.

What this better treatment of the insane really consists in, and how very great it is, but few among us now-a-days rightly understand. The distance between the present and the old state of things is the distance between humanity and cruelty, between knowledge and ignorance, between civilisation and barbarism. Asylums in former times were madhouses; chains and dungeons and tortures filled them; and their inmates were treated like wild beasts, and were objects of pity, less for the terrible malady which affected them, for the savage and brutal treatment to which they were subjected. It is difficult to believe that this describes, without exaggeration, what, half a century ago, was general in this country, and what existed in some parts to a much later time. The evidence as to the state of asylums before the Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1815 is a book of horrors-a revelation of almost incredible ignorance and inhumanity. For a long time reformation was slow in its progress,-unaccountably slow as it appears to us now; and it was not till nearly a quarter of a century after that evidence was taken that it could be said of any of the asylums of England that mechanical restraint had been abolished in them. With this reform in England the name of Dr. Conolly will be honourably associated for ever; but there were others, and not a few, who were early and earnest workers in the same direction. Among the valuable asylum reports of the time, there is no more remarkable one than that for the Lancaster Asylum in 1845. The details of the reform, so quickly effected there, are narrated as if nothing strange were being told: and its startling magnitude is left to reveal itself from the facts. One sentence we often remember, in which, without a word of comment, it is recorded that, "in the summer of 1842, upwards of nineteen tons weight of iron bars and gates were completely removed, and at the same time the small windows were enlarged and lowered."

Only thirty years ago, then, can reform be said to have fairly started. From that time

down to the present it has gone steadily on, till restraint in the treatment of the insane may be said to be unknown in the land. The most humane views now regulate the treatment of such persons. They are regarded as sufferers, having a strong claim on our pity and help. Everything which skill can suggest and money can buy is provided for their comfort and wellbeing. They are treated with gentleness, and the universal desire is to lessen their calamity. They have good food, warm clothing, and comfortable beds. Facilities for exercise, occupation, and amusement are abundantly supplied. Life in short, is made as pleasant to them, as it can be in their sad circumstances.

houses, are now sent to our asylums, and kept there. As it is not felt to be an addition to a poor lunatic's misfortune that he must be sent to an asylum, certificates are more easily obtained; and medical men and the public have thus become habituated, in dealing with lunacy, to include more than in practice was formerly included. Thus gradually what is meant by lunacy has become wider, and has been made to approach more closely to the teachings of science.

The tendency of this change of opinion is to increase the number of the pauper insane in asylums. It is possible that the presence of an insare member in a family is a greater inconvenience now than it was thirty or fifty years ago, when there was not so much bustle in life, and when social arrangements were simpler and more primitive; and the Poor Law and Lunacy Law give facilities for the gratuitous support of the insane in asylums. Application accordingly is often made for the removal of a patient to an asylum, as much for the comfort of the family as for his own welfare. He may not be dangerous, nor may his condition be such as to give any hope of improvement, but it is an advantage to his friends to be relieved of his support; and this advantage of course is the more readily sought that it is known he will be well treated in the asylum. The same knowledge leads also to a willingness on the part of friends to allow patients to remain in asylums, after they are known to have passed from active disease into a chronic and harmless condition. Overseers or inspectors of the poor, and parochial medical officers, again, have more anxiety about the insane who are out of asylums; and they are relieved of all responsibility and trouble by the removal of the patients to asylums. It is probable too, that persons who would formerly have been dealt with as vicious and criminal are now certified as insane and sent to asylums, making these institutions substitutes for prisons,-as prisons long were and perhaps still are for them, judging by the accounts we receive of the mental condition of many within their walls.

The influence of this happy change on the number of lunatics in asylums cannot fail to be great. It was a grievous necessity only which could have been held to justify the placing of a patient in one of these old madhouses. The furious and dangerous would be those chiefly sent into them. They existed, indeed, rather for the protection of the lieges, than for the cure and treatment of the insane. They were strong places for the safe custody of furious madinen. The notion of a lunatic, in fact, in those times almost involved furiosity and danger, and there was a general and profound dread of any one who went by the name. Unhappily the public is not yet wholly disabused of this feeling a senseless and groundless one as regards the great bulk of those who are now called lunatics. Who are now called lunatics, we say, because practically the class has been greatly widened. In a more especial sense this is true of lunatics in asylums. Lawyers, indeed, still adhere to the old notions of what constitutes lunacy, and resist the change which they are asked to make, and which must soon come to them as it has come to others. At present, however, we have only to do with the change which has taken place in the opinions of medical men and of the public, and which has indirectly resulted from the introduction of humane treatment of the insane. Asylums are no longer regarded with horror, and as dismal abodes of cruelty. There is no hesitation now in sending patients Everywhere we find the authorities urg. to them, from the fear of harsh usage and ing the propriety of placing patients in asy neglect. It is everywhere known that noth-lums soon after the invasion of the disease, ing but kindly intentions guide their man- and all seem to agree in thinking that this agement, and to none is this better known would considerably increase the number of than to those who deal with the poor, for no cures, and so lessen the number of those class of the insane is more certain of good whose condition is rendered incurable by treatment than the pauper class. There is neglect of proper treatment when treatment no such aversion to asylums therefore as to is of most importance. It has even been interfere with the placing of the insane poor proposed that gratuitous treatment in a wellin them. Persons labouring under the less appointed public asylum should be given for marked forms of mental unsoundness, who would never have been sent to the old mad-it within three months after the appearance one or two years, to any one who applies for

of the disease. The wealthy and well-to-do would not probably abuse this privilege; and it might be a benefit to many, who would not be able to establish, or willing to make a claim on public aid at the time when the disease first shows itself; but who, under a continuance of the disease, sink into pau. perism, and eventually obtain assistance, when it is comparatively a small benefit, their disease being confirmed.

We must not look, however, to any of the measures discussed in this article for a real reduction in the occurrence and amount of lunacy in the country. That must come chiefly of a better and sounder cducation. Men must know more than they do of the relations between mental and bodily health, and of the duty which lies on them to act on such knowledge. They must be made, in short, "the intelligent guardians of their own health, both of mind and body."

the difficulties which surround its practical solution. We think, however, that the direction in which the solution must be looked for, has been indicated. It appears to us that the pressure for asylum accommodation could be relieved by the withdrawal of some of the numerous inmates who are declared to be incurable and harmless. The withdrawal of such patients from asylums, however, should not also be a withdrawal from the humane protection and care of the Lunacy laws. This benefit should be extended to the insane poor in all conditions and circumstances, and should follow patients so removed from asylums, whatever provision is made for them. That provision may take various forms. Some of these patients, for instance, may be removed to the auxiliary asylums for chronic cases, which were recommended a quarter of a cen tury ago and are still recommended by the EnIn the meantime, we must make the best glish Commissioners, and which would unprovision we can for the greatest possible doubtedly prove useful institutions in many number of those who are hereft of reason, districts, especially in those which are popuand unfit to care for themselves. The num-lous. Others, again, of these harmless and ber of these is already very large, and there is every reason to believe that it will yet be much larger. For this increase preparation must be made; and we are thus forced to inquire what scheme of further provision should be encouraged or adopted. The total number of insane persons officially known to exist in England, Scotland, and Ireland, may be roughly stated at upwards of 73,000. In England their number has risen from nearly 21,000 in 1844 to more than 50,000 in 1868. Between 1847 and 1867 the pauper lunatics in establishments in England rose from about 13,000 to about 86,000. In Scotland and Ireland our figures refer to shorter periods,-from 1858 in the one and 1857 in the other. During these periods the increase in the total number of the insane in Scotland was from 5774 to 6807; and in Ireland from about 9000 to 15,000. In Scotland also, the increase related chiefly to paupers in establishments, whose number rose from about 2900 to about 4000; and the same thing is probably true of Ireland, though, as regards it, the distinc. tion between pauper and private patients is not so clearly drawn.

In view of such figures as these, there will be a ready and general assent to the state ment of the English Commissioners, that "the subject of the continued and marked increase in the number of the insane poor is one of much importance." We have en deavoured to pass it in review in such a way as to make the whole state of the case appar ent, and to show that while the importance of the question involved is great, so also are

incurable pauper patients might be transfer-
red to lunatic wards in workhouses or poor.
houses, providing such wards were brought
under control and supervision. It would
thus be possible, we think, to make these in-
institutions serve a useful public purpose, if
power to direct their management were
placed in the proper hands. A further num-
ber of the harmless patients withdrawn from
asylums might be disposed of in private
dwellings. As in the case of workhouses,
however, this method of providing for some
of the insane poor can only be encouraged
when the control over it is made sufficient.
All these forms of provision might
properly be in operation together.
would be supplementary, and usefully so,
to the county asylum; and would give a di-
versity of accommodation for a class in
whose condition there is no such uniformity
as to make a uniform mode of provision
either necessary or desirable.

They

ART. VI. THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY,

LAST year a cry for help reached this country from the suffering inhabitants of the Red River Settlement. The response was immediate and gratifying. A like appeal made to Canada was answered with equal promptitude, the government immediately supplying the funds wherewith to relieve existing distress and avert impending calamities. Excepting the fact that the crops at the Red

River had failed, the public here cannot be assumed to have had much acquaintance either with that locality, or with the people towards whom their sympathies were tangibly manifested. Fortunately, general ignorance does not harden the hearts of the charitable. It is possible that a similar application for relief, if made on behalf of the dwellers on the shores of the Albert Nyanza, or of the Esquimaux who haunt the Frozen Ocean, would have been entertained by the tender-hearted with equal readiness, and responded to with equal cordiality.

in order to restore the King, granted an illdefined and indefensible charter to a body of "Adventurers" in 1670.

The discoverer of Hudson's Bay has never been ascertained. That Sebastian Cabot was the man, and 1512 the date of the dis covery, appears to be the best-founded con jecture. In 1610 a navigator named Hudson visited the Bay, gave his name to it, and lost his life either in its waters or on its shores. His crew having mutinied, they placed him in a boat; thus left to his fate, he was never heard of again. Fifty-eight years after wards, Prince Rupert and others equipped an expedition thither. A fort was built on the Bay, and named after the reigning sove reign. In 1670 application was made by the promoters of this enterprise for a charter of incorporation. Their professed designs were the discovery of a passage into the South Sea, the prosecution of trade in furs, and the search after valuable minerals. The prayer of the petitioners was granted, and

Several things connected with the origin, history, and present condition of the Red River Settlement are as worthy of being brought to the knowledge of the public as the bare fact of its inhabitants having recently had a narrow escape from falling into the jaws of famine. The circumstances which require explanation and merit attention are diverse and complicated. They are interwoven with the history of England. They embrace such topics as the good faith" The Governor and Company of Adventu of our monarchs, the statesmanship of renowned ministers, the principles by which free trade and commerce are regulated, the propriety of acts done in the name of Royal prerogative and unsanctioned by the representatives of the people. We have not simply to deal, then, with the deplorable accident of a bad harvest, or matters of local interest and fleeting importance. In giving some account of the Red River Settlement, we but write the preface to a larger subject, and prepare the way for the proper understanding of a momentous theme. For the Red River Settlement forms but one of the series of questions which group themselves about the Hudson's Bay Company whenever the constitution of that Company is impeached and the validity of its charter considered. It is the last of the great companies subsisting by virtue of a charter of incorporation granted at a time when the Crown exercised prerogatives since admitted to be untenable and now happily abandoned, and encouraged exclusive systems of commercial dealings which are no longer possible. In order to explain why our fellow-subjects at the Red River are dissatisfied with their lot, we must cast a retrospect over bygone centuries, and trace the series of blameworthy deeds, of which the first and most fatal was committed by the Monarch who never uttered anything foolish or did anything that was wise. The settlers who were the recipients of our chari ty in 1868 might then have been the objects of our envy, had not Charles the Second, acceding to the petition of Prince Rupert, the enemy of the Puritans, and the Duke of Albemarle, who betrayed the Commonwealth

rers trading into Hudson's Bay" took rank
among chartered companies. The pith of
the grant is contained in the words, that the
"Adventurers ""
were to enjoy "the sole
trade and commerce of all those seas, straits,
bays, rivers, lakes, creeks, and sounds, in
whatsoever latitude they shall be, that lie
within the entrance of the straits commonly
called Hudson's Straits, together with all the
lands, countries, and territories upon
the
coasts and confines of the seas, straits, bays,
lakes, rivers, creeks, and sounds aforesaid,
which are not now actually possessed by any
of our subjects, or by the subjects of any
other Christian Prince or State."
This has
been styled an indefinite grant; we might
call it one which, if not illegal, was null and
void. If the lands in question were under
the dominion of the English Crown, the
grant cannot be defended on constitutional
grounds. The right of the Crown to alien-
ate territory without the assent of Parlia
ment is a right of which the existence is
very questionable. There is no evidence,
however, to support any claim on the part of
the Crown to the lands of which, in 1670,
it made so liberal a gift. Consequently,
such a grant is as truly void as the donation
of the New World which the Pope awarded
to the Portuguese.
Moreover, Hudson's

Bay and the surrounding territories were
then in the actual possession of another
Christian Prince. Canada was first occu
pied by the French. In their eyes it was a
country which would prove another France.
By the name of La Nouvelle France it was
long known and much beloved by them.
They perceived not only the fitness of the

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