CONFINING- SUSPECTED LUNATICS IN PRISON CELLS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9257, 20 July 1893, Page 3

CONFINING- SUSPECTED LUNATICS IN PRISON CELLS.

TO TIIK IiDITOK. Sir,—ln the whirl of political and financial excitement I was glad to see Dr. Bakevvell could lind time to write on this subject, and that you could find syace for his letter in your valuable paper. Years ago I repeatedly drew attention to it in the daily press, and when editing the Leader I wrote " a dream," being a series of articles entitled " Put Into a Mail-house." I pourtrayed what might happen to any man or woman from the earliest suspicion of one's insanity to the first night's experience in the Asylum. My object was to point out needful lunacy reform, and as you have ever been ready to open your columns in the interests of the insane, I venture to ask you to give insertion to (lie following extract from my article dated 17th .January, 1890. It is as follows:— " There being only one doctor at Helensvillo, I was led ofl to the station, and put into the train for Auckland for medical examination. We arrived in the city at about 8 p.m., and, to my delight, it was dark when I was marched up the streets: but, Oil! how bitterly I felt being shut up in a cold, cheerless, be'dless cell all night. No one who has not gone through it cau conceive what it is. It lias to be felt to be appreciated. That upset me immensely; it seemed so utterly wrong, and unreasonable that in a city like Auckland, any person, lady or gentleman, boy or girl, being arrested as a lunatic, must be put into a felon's miserable cell because there is no proper reception place for such unfortunates. It seemed monstrous, and enough to send a person mad. Certainly it is enough to give death of cold to a lady or gentleman who has always been accustomed to domestic comforts. The lock-up keeper threw two blankets to me, it is true, but they were infested with fleas, and smelt as if they had never been washed since the days of Adam. The bowlings, too, of a drunken man in the next cell completed my misery. The sliding of the great bolt, and the locking of the massive door, seemed like the dropping of earth to earth on a eotlin lid; and the very idea of fire, and of one's being burnt like a rat in a hole, was intolerable. >1 felt dazed, and afterwards almost frantic. Placing my face as close to the hole in the cell door as I could to get a little fresh air, I vowed that if ever I got my liberty again I would try to get such a miserable . arrangement improved out of existence." Now that has reference to confinement in a cell in one of the chief cities in the colony, but what are the cells like in country dis- . riots? ]sad as things are in the great centres, what we have most to fear is the incarcera- • tiou of lunatics in out-of-the-way country i prison cells, where poor creatures may be . confined for a lengthy period, waiting for a . steamer or other means of conveyance to the I Asylum. This is a tiling not merely for Aueklanders, but for New Zealanders. It is a colonial, not a parochial question, and the 1 prison authorities ought to be urged to con- ' sider the matter. At least, they might give ' fixed seats even for prisoners. During IS9O, 1891, and 1892, no less than ) 100 lunatics passed through the Auckland lock-up, and when the IS!)'! returns come to . band, there will be about GO more to add to these figures. One hundred and ten were , males and 59 females, some of them being ' ladies and gentlemen. The police are utii- , formly kind, but prison is not the j place for lunatics or suspected lunatics.^ 1 It is important that persons who are insane t should as soon as possible get Asylum treat--3 ment, because their chance of cure is then i better. When I visited the Oladesville Asyt, lum, New South Wales, the superintendent . told me that the authorities found many , people had such an aversion to their relatives passing through the prison cells that they fie* ' quently failed to report eases of lunacy, I greatly to the injury of the patients ; and at , last the evil became so grave that going first 1 to the police oiiiee was in most cases dis--3 pensed with. • s The object in requiring patients to be sent 0 to the lock-up is a good one. It is to secure a a public examination, and prevent secret or 1 private committals to the Asylums, which in , former years led to great abuses. I think that if the Government would appoint an unpaid commission of about eight gentlemen 0 in each of the great centres, including the '• Judge, Resident Magistrate, the Othcial 1 Visitors of the Asylum, and the Deputy- • Inspector, two lawyers and two doctors, ? reforms could be devised which would benefit e patients and guard civil liberty.—l am, etc., B ' F. O. EWINCTON.