FEEBLE MINDED

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 75, 29 March 1930, Page 9

FEEBLE MINDED

''GRAVE NATIONAL CURSE"

SUGGESTED REMEDIES

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 13ti. February. ~For the third time within a few weeks, .Mr. Justice M'Cardie has uttered warnings to tho nation respecting the peril of tho feeble-minded. Iv his charge to the grand jury at Chelmsford (Essex Asizos) this week ho said: —

"As I go through the counties on circuit I am deeply struck by ono essential cause of serious-crime. I refer to the existence and the freedom of tho feeble-minded or mentally defective. "In my opinion they constituto a grave national peril and curse. There are ov,cr 300,000 feeble-minded pcoplo in this country, and day by day the hideous process goes on by the multiplication of the mentally defective.

"In ono case which I had to deal with recently ono woman hud nine illegitimate children, all of whom wero mentally defective. What is the remedy?"

"First, I suggest tho segregation of the urifit, an efficient and often costly remedy, and, second, sterilisation, which in many cases is practicable and often much less expensive. Very careful attention should be paid to this problem." •

Mr. Justice Roche-, at Liverpool Assizes, recently observed that there Beemed very little to bo said for not sterilising or shutting U p fooble-niindod people who wero prone- to certain offences.