Lucky James Beard!

Observer, Volume XV, Issue 821, 22 September 1894, Page 2

Lucky James Beard !

James Beard has every reason to thank his lucky stars that he escaped on the charge of manslaughter with a sentence of six months' imprisonment without hard labour. It was the popular opinion that he would get at least two or three years penal servitude, and some people even predicted as much as five years, but, in this instance, the public proposed and Mr Justice Conolly disposed. James Beard has reason to shake hands with himself that it was so. The punishment does not by any means seem to fit the crime, and when we think of the terrific sentences dealt out to Orchard, for forgery, and Powell, for an improper operation, it is difficult to understand the clemency of the judge to this man Beard. And yet Mr Justice Conolly was wonderfully fair and impartial throughout the whole trial, and there is no ground even for a suggestion that he showed a leaning to the accused either in the trial or in the matter of the sentence.

The case, however, serves to emphasize the fact that new laws should be framed to put an end to this quackery and medical imposture as a business. And a very profitable business it has become. Beard was making a pile of money from all classes and conditions of people when he put a check upon his prosperous career by prescribing the tobacco injection that caused young McCullough's death. But is it not possible that Beard, and others like him, have been and may be doing a great deal of harm by treating other people for diseases of which they have no knowledge by preparations whose properties they do not understand ? No question about it. Then, again, are they not defrauding the people whose fees they take in exchange for their own ignorance ?

It is incredible, moreover, that these charlatans should be allowed to play with human life as they unquestionably do.

What would be said of a Government that allowed an uncertificated or unqualified person to take command of a vessel going to sea with valuable human lives dependent upon his knowledge or skill. Such a thing would not be allowed. And yet mere quacks, impudent mountebanks, are. allowed to set up as medical men and experiment as they please npon human life, charging their deluded victims any fees they like to exact, and giving practically no value in return for the money paid to them. And this, too, without any medical knowledge or training. It is monstrous.

There are extraneous reasons why Beard was lucky in escaping so lightly as he did. This is not the first time he has been in the clutches of the law upon allegations of a somewhat similar nature. Charges were preferred against .him in Brisbane, and again in Sydney, and it is said that in one of these two places he was fined for practising without being duly qualified. These facts axe additional reasons why the law should be amended so as to make it penal for anyone not holding a diploma to undertake the treatment of diseases. One astonishing feature of this case is the amount of sympathy that has been aroused on Beard's behalf, and the implicit confidence reposed in him _by people in high places in Auckland. But it was precisely the same with that arrant knave and impostor Eugene, who predicted the destruction of New Zealand, and who was accompanied from Wellington several weeks ago by crowds of people, many of wjiom were well-known, en route for a high mountain in South Africa. Eugene was like Beard in this respect that he claimed to be able to see inside people and tell what diseases they were suffering from. There never yet was a crank starting a new gospel or cure who did not find at least some people foolish enough to follow him, and so it will be to the end of the chapter, unless the law steps in and interferes.