DURING HER MAJESTY'S PLEASURE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 11339, 4 October 1898, Page 1

DURING HER MAJESTY'S PLEASURE.

ANOTHER PEtP INTO BROADMOOR.

Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic asylum, as was shown in our (Lloyds Weekly) recent article, is a pace of peculiar organisation, and with customs stranger than any that appear in ordinary official records. The plea of madness has been shown to be one capable of being used in ways not always consistent with common ideas of justice. It i 3 one thing to be gentle with the me»tally afflicted, but ordinary people are prone to revolt at the idea of turning a phce of imprisonment into a paradise for murderers. To some of its inmates Broadmoor is certainly a place of terrible punishment. These are persons detained for very slight offences, who, by an anomalous law that ignores in a criminal lunatic asylum any such thing A3 degree in crime, suffer in lifelong imprisonment exactly the same punishment as is meted out to the most atrocious murderer. The term " During her Majesty's pleasure means practically a life sentence. As a judge pointed out only a week or two ago when a jury, in the case of a woman who had committed a violent assault under provocation, gave a verdict to the effect that she was not responsible for her actions, it left him no option but to commit her '•Daring her Majesty's pleasure." His' lordship said he did not think the jury I knew what they wpre doing, and it is not at all probable that they did. They meant to be merciful, whereas they were condemning the woman to life-long imprisonment for an offence that in the ordinary course would have been fully punished by six months' hard labour. There are many such cases in Broadmoor, notably two where persons who wrote threatening letters in moments of passion were sentenced as irresponsible for their actions, and have been in the asylum one upwards of fourteen years, and the other ne irly ten years. They have no powerful or jaoneyed friends to offer to take charge of them, and though to all intents and purposes sane must remain incarcerated as criminal lunatics on a par with the worst murderers. Another equally objectionable phase of the criminal lunatic system is the manner in which ii is made U3e of to escape woll-deservjjd punishment. A man is sent to penal servitude, and a ; few months later feigns madness, refuses

his food, tears up his clothes, snl!en?y refuaes <o sppak or work. He is eventually pronounced insane and sect to Broadmoor, and here it is astonishing that often as not he immediately gets better and behaves like a rational being. Fifty-six cases last year so drafted from prisons wens improved in three months, ami of these thirty-six were quite rational in a month. Surely these figures are significant. That Broadmoor should be preferred to prison is not wonilei Ful when wo look at the treatment of the inmates. The dieta'y is most liberal. Breakfast consists ot two big slices of bread aad butter. They can have as much dry bread afterwards as they like, with tea, coffee, or cocoa, according to choice, and practically unstinted in quantity. For dinner there is roast or boiled meat, usually three, but always two, vegetables, and unstinted bread. Beer is allowed to most ot the prisoners, each getting three-quarters of a pint daily. In the fruit season there are fruit tarts twice a week ; and supper, otherwise the same tare a 9 breakfast, has usually an addition of stewed fruit, Strangely enongb, too, these lunatics are trusted with knives, as illustrated by the Commissioners' report for 1897, which says :— " We saw a good dinner rf boiled mutton, two vegetables, arH 1 «t neatly served to the patients, but we thought some of the table-knives were dangerous and in need of renewal.'' The ordinary prisoner, who Is not insane, is only allowed a wooden spoon, hai the most meagre of diet, and the hardest of work. The in mat j of B oidmoor does no work unless he chooses, but may ' lounge, smoke, and read allday; Four daiiy papers are supplied' to each block, several weekly papers, including most of the illustrated ones, magazines, and plenty of books. Who can wonder that a convict will sham his utmost to escape the pains of penal servitude for the pleasant life of this comparative paradise ? Another point, however, and a most serious one, is that for some prisoners Broadmoor is merely the half-way house on the read tv complete freedom. Such prisoners are those whose friends have influence and money, and who will undertake to send the so-called criminal lunatic out of the country, or keep him under special care and look after him, if he is allowed a di-charge, which on these terms is called " conditional." Examples of such " conditional discharges " may be cited :—: — W. 8.,, sent to Broadmoor in October, 1894, was released in February, 1896, certified as suffering from " senile debility." J.C., released September 4, 1895, certified as having " cerebral degeneration." H.A.S., released September 25th, 1895, as " morbid." J. J.D.OF., released October 2, 1895, certified as having " mental deterioration." M.L., released October 21, 1896, suffering from " nervous irritability and depression." The eviJent farce of this "conditional release" is that these liberated patients, although they may have been abroad or kept out of Fight for a time, have been met with and spoken to in England going about their ordinary business and seemingly as sane as other folks. The case of J.J D. OF. is particularly noticeable. He was a well-known Lancashire lawyer sentenced to a terra of penal servitude for gross offences. After his release on "conditional discharge,' from Brcadmoor he disappeared for a time. But he has since been heard of as having drawn up the agreements in a notorious money lending case. So mrch for the "Mental deterioration" in his case. Certain patients at Broadmoor — namely, those who have never been bronght to trial, but as "unable to plead" haVe been sent to the asylum "during Her Majesty's pleasure" — number amongst them cases of peculiar hardship. Several insist that they are perfectly sane, and to all intents and purposes are so, and they bemoan the fact that they w ■ re denied a trial which might have proved them innocent, and that they have been practically condemned to life imprisonment without getting a hearing. One such case is typical of the rest. It is thatof the Eev. H. JID., who has been in Broadmoor upwards of twenty years. His friends believe him to be perfectly sane. The plea of insanity was set up in direct opposition to his own desire, and had he been convicted of the crime he was charged with he would have been out of prison years ago. There lies a hardship that is only one amongst ' the ' many anomalies of Bioadmoor, which coddles the murderer on one hand, and on the other keeps in perpetual imprisonment offenders who, if duly tried and convicted, would at the outside have merited only a few months in gaol.