Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles Part 20

CHAPTER VI.

OUR CRIMINAL LUNATICS--BROADMOOR.

No one at the present day is likely to underrate the importance and interest of the subject of this chapter.

An Act was pa.s.sed in regard to criminal lunatics in the year 1800 (39 and 40 Geo. III., c. 94). It was partially repealed in 1838 (1 and 2 Vict., c. 14); that is to say, so far as the former authorized magistrates to commit to jails or houses of correction, persons apprehended under circ.u.mstances denoting derangement of mind and the purpose of committing a crime. The Act of 1838 made other provisions for the safe custody of such persons. Persons in custody under the repealed provision of the previous Act, or hereafter apprehended as insane or dangerous idiots, might be sent to a lunatic asylum, hospital, or licensed house; two justices of the place where such person is apprehended having called to their a.s.sistance a medical man, and having satisfied themselves that he is insane or a dangerous idiot; nothing, however, herein contained preventing the relations from taking lunatics under their own care.

This Act did not alter the laws relating to the discharge of persons ceasing to be insane, or dangerous idiots, from any county asylum, hospital, or licensed house.

In 1840 an Act was pa.s.sed (3 and 4 Vict., c. 54) "for making further Provision for the Confinement and Maintenance of Insane Prisoners."

It was enacted that if any person while in prison under sentence of death, transportation, or imprisonment, or under a charge of any offence, or for not finding bail, or in consequence of any summary conviction, or under any other civil process, shall appear to be insane, it shall be lawful for two justices to inquire, with the aid of two medical men, as to the insanity of such person; and if it be duly certified by such justices and medical men that he is insane, it shall be lawful for one of the princ.i.p.al Secretaries of State to direct his removal to such county asylum or other proper receptacle as the Secretary of State may judge proper, to remain under confinement until it shall be duly certified by two medical men to the Secretary of State that such person has become of sound mind; whereupon he is authorized, if such person remain subject to be continued in custody, to issue his warrant to the person in whose charge he may be, directing that he shall be removed to the prison from whence he has been taken, or if the period of imprisonment has expired, then he shall be discharged. It was also enacted that when a person charged with misdemeanors is acquitted on the plea of insanity, he shall be kept in strict custody during Her Majesty's pleasure, the jury being required to find specially whether such person was insane at the time of the commission of such offence, and to declare whether such person was acquitted by them on account of such insanity.

The Earl of Shaftesbury introduced the subject of the provision for criminal lunatics in the House of Lords in 1852, and moved for an Address to Her Majesty on the expediency of establis.h.i.+ng a State Asylum for the care and custody of those who are denominated criminal lunatics.

He said that the subject had been never propounded before to them in a specific form, and the custody of these criminals had been a great bar to the improvement of public and private asylums. The Commissioners had already reported on these evils in 1849, 1850, and 1851. The Government alone had refused a.s.sistance. Having pointed out the four cla.s.ses into which they are divided, he stated that the statutes by which they were confined were three in number, namely, 39 and 40 Geo. III., c. 94; 1 and 2 Vict., c. 14; 3 and 4 Vict., c. 54.

He directed attention to a fifth cla.s.s, those affected with some derangement of mind, who, unless restrained, were in danger of committing offences. Under the last-named Act, they were treated as criminals. Formerly any magistrate could commit them to jail, or other place for safe custody under 39 and 40 Geo. III.; but by the Act of 3 and 4 Vict. their condition had been somewhat alleviated, inasmuch as it required that two justices of the peace should commit the parties, under medical advice, and that they should not be sent to jail, but to an asylum or licensed house. None of these parties except those who had been committed by the justices could be again discharged unless by authority of the Secretary of State.

It appears that there were then 439 criminal lunatics in England and Wales (360 males, 79 females); 138 for offences against life, 188 for offences against property and person, short of attempts to murder, 40 for misdemeanor, 43 for want of sureties who had become afterwards insane, and 30 summarily convicted for minor offences. Of this number there were 103 in Bethlem Hospital, 59 in Fisherton House, Salisbury, and the remainder in various asylums. After adducing reasons for the non-a.s.sociation of criminal lunatics with ordinary patients, Lord Shaftesbury insisted that the most efficient remedy was a State asylum; and that this was confirmed by the success of Dundrum, Ireland.

In the course of his speech he eulogized the system of treatment--"the great and blessed glory of modern science"--adopted by Pinel in France, and by the York Retreat in England, adding, "_Oh, si sic omnia!_ It has become the special pursuit of professors of this department of medicine in the three kingdoms. By the blessing of G.o.d it has achieved miracles.

I have, perhaps, a right to say so, having officiated now as a Commissioner in Lunacy for more than twenty years, and witnessed the transition from the very depth of misery and neglect to the present height of comfort and ease. The filthy and formidable prison is converted into the cleanly and cheerful abode; the damp and gloomy court-yard is exchanged for healthy exercise and labour in the field and garden. Visit the largest asylum, and you will no longer hear those frightful yells that at first terrified and always depressed the boldest hearts. Mechanical restraint is almost unknown; houses where many were chained during the day, and hundreds, I will a.s.sert, during the night, have hardly a strait waistcoat or a manacle in the whole establishment; and instead of the keeper with his whip and his bunch of leg-locks, you may see the clergyman or the schoolmaster engaged in their soothing and effective occupations."

The Earl of Derby promised the subject should not be lost sight of, and the motion was withdrawn. He said that our criminal lunatics were maintained at Bethlem at an annual cost of 34 per head, those at Fisherton House at 30, and throughout the country at 26 per head. A new asylum would cost 50,000, perhaps nearer 100,000, and he thought that the same discipline and separate treatment might be carried out just as well in a general as in a State asylum.

We pa.s.s on to the important Act of 1860 (23 and 24 Vict., c. 75), "to make Better Provision for the Custody and Care of Criminal Lunatics."

After citing the Acts 39 and 40 Geo. III., c. 94; 3 and 4 Vict., c. 54; 5 and 6 Vict., c. 29; 6 and 7 Vict., c. 26--by the last two Acts of which the Secretary of the State was empowered to order any convict in Pentonville or Millbank prison becoming or found insane during confinement to be removed to such lunatic asylum as he might think proper--and stating in the preamble the expediency of making provision for the custody and care of criminal lunatics in an asylum appropriated to that purpose, this statute enacted that it shall be lawful to provide an asylum for criminal lunatics, and for the Secretary of State to direct to be conveyed to such asylum any person for whose safe custody, during her pleasure Her Majesty is authorized to give order, or whom the Secretary of State might direct to be removed to a lunatic asylum under any of the before-mentioned Acts, or any person sentenced to be kept in penal servitude who may be shown to the satisfaction of the Secretary of State to be insane or unfit from imbecility of mind for penal discipline; the Secretary of State being empowered to direct to be removed to such asylum any person who, under any previous order of Her Majesty or warrant of the Secretary of State, may have been placed in any asylum.

It was enacted that nothing in this statute should affect the authority of the Crown as to making other provision for the custody of a criminal lunatic, as before the Act was pa.s.sed.

Other sections refer to the government and supervision of the asylum, the discharge of patients after their term of imprisonment has expired, and for the visitation of the asylum by the Commissioners in Lunacy.

From this Act sprang the asylum we proceed to describe.

Every one who reads the newspaper is familiar with the common expression occurring in the trials of prisoners who escape punishment on the ground of insanity, "To be detained during Her Majesty's pleasure;" but very few would be able to answer the question, What becomes of these persons?

Those who desire to know their destination may incline to accompany us to Broadmoor in Berks.h.i.+re, about four miles from the Bracknell station on the South Western Railway, and thirty miles from London. This is the State Criminal Asylum for England and Wales, and was erected nineteen years ago (1863), in conformity with the Act pa.s.sed in 1860, which, as we have seen, provided that criminal lunatics should be separately cared for by the State.

The site of the inst.i.tution is well chosen, covers three hundred acres, and commands an extensive and uninterrupted view. The building is of red brick, with a chapel in the centre, and consists of three stories, with distinct additional blocks at the extreme end. It is built on the corridor plan, with day-rooms, and single and a.s.sociated dormitories.

The windows alone indicate, from outside, the character of the building, being protected by strong vertical iron bars. In some parts of the building, for the females, these bars do not extend to the whole height of the window, and escape would in such cases not be difficult. In other parts of this division, and throughout the male division, the windows are securely protected. In this and other ways the house is more secure than it was formerly. I find in regard to escapes that, from the opening of the asylum in 1863 up to the end of 1877, there have been not more than twenty-three. During the last three years there have been none. The majority were recaptured on the next or following day; one not till three months; and four were never discovered. Four escaped from the airing-court; three while out with a walking party; and four from breaking the window-guard; while one escaped from his bedroom by making an aperture in the wall. An attendant connived at one patient's escape, was prosecuted, and convicted. I may add that prior to the opening of Broadmoor, the proportion of escapes of criminal lunatics detained in England elsewhere was much greater. The opening of Broadmoor has also affected the mortality of this cla.s.s, having reduced it materially. Some probably regard this as an actual disadvantage; but whatever political economists may say, medical science only sanctions, as yet at least, the adoption of that course of hygiene and treatment which most conduces to the prolongation of human life.

There were, when I visited Broadmoor, 500 inmates--400 men and 100 women, or thereabouts. When we consider that of these unfortunate people, more than 300 have either murdered some one, or attempted to murder or maim some one, it may well cause reflection, alike sad and philosophical, on what a disordered brain may lead its possessor to do, what acts to commit. Ninety had killed their own children as well as, in some instances, the wife or husband; upwards of twenty, their wives; eight, their mothers; four, their fathers; and one, both parents. And another reflection may be made, to the credit of the inst.i.tution, that no case of actual murder has occurred since it was opened, and that, taking the year before we write, good order was maintained, no premeditated act of violence was committed, and there was no suicide.

And yet no mechanical restraint was resorted to, no fetters, no strait waistcoats, no leg-locks or straps. Some patients are, of course, secluded in a single room in which a bed made on the floor is the only furniture allowed, and in which the window is protected by a shutter if the patient breaks gla.s.s. The room is, when the shutter is closed, only partially dark, as there are two small windows near the ceiling, out of the patient's reach. By the side of the door is an inspection plate, or narrow slit in the wall, with a movable glazed frame, opening outwards, through which the occupant of the room can be observed when necessary.

These rooms are well ventilated, and are warmed by means of hot water. I should not proceed further without stating that, in addition to the cla.s.s of cases to which I referred in the beginning of this paper--those, viz., detained during Her Majesty's pleasure, including those certified to be insane while awaiting their trial, or found insane on arraignment, or acquitted on the ground of insanity, or reprieved on this ground immediately after their sentence--besides these there are convicts who become insane while undergoing their penal servitude. As a rule, however, male convicts of this cla.s.s are no longer sent to Broadmoor; the superintendent[210] having discovered that it was necessary to keep insane convicts distinct from the other cla.s.s, to secure their safe detention more completely and certainly; that is to say, to separate lunatic criminals from criminal lunatics, or, as they are usually called, "Queen's pleasure men"--a distinction sometimes really as important as that which exists between a horse-chestnut and a chestnut horse. It will be readily understood that the convicts--really criminals, and often desperate criminals, they are--may differ widely from those who in an access of insanity have committed a crime, and that men who leave prison discipline at Pentonville, or elsewhere, to enjoy the comparative comfort of asylum life at Broadmoor, are very likely either to sham madness in order to stay there, or escape in order to avoid having to complete, on recovery, their term of servitude. Anything better than _that_. In insisting on this distinct cla.s.sification and accommodation, Dr. Orange did not, in the first instance, intend, I suppose, to prevent the convict cla.s.s being provided for at Broadmoor; but having set the ball in motion, it went on and on; and instead of an additional building being erected for the convict men, a regulation was made in 1874 preventing their being sent in future to Broadmoor. For the women of this cla.s.s there was and is ample room, an additional wing having been erected fifteen years ago.

Again, there is a reason, on the side of the prison authorities, why convicts when insane should not be sent to Broadmoor. They are naturally unwilling that the history of their previous treatment should be known and scrutinized at another place. Hence they greatly prefer retaining them in the prisons, or sending them to one in which provision has been specially made for insane convict men.

It will probably occur to some to ask whether many or any of those who are "Queen's pleasure men" (or women) are found to have been improperly acquitted when subjected to the careful and prolonged medical scrutiny which a residence at Broadmoor allows of; whether, in short, mercy, based on medical knowledge, has mistakenly interfered with the proper action of justice and law? In this matter the doctors and the lawyers are frequently on opposite sides, and the former often find it hard work to rescue an insane prisoner from the clutches of the law. On the other hand, it may be admitted that, as regards some physicians at least, a juster view is sometimes as necessary as it is on the part of the lawyers. When absurd reasons are given in the witness-box for a prisoner's insanity--reasons which would equally establish the madness of many persons in society whom no one regards as insane--it is not surprising that the judges are cautious in admitting the plea of insanity on medical evidence. In seeking a reply to the above question, it is satisfactory to find that if the evidence of medical experts tends to induce juries to acquit on the ground of insanity those who are responsible agents and ought to be punished, there have only been a few scattered cases admitted which were "doubtful"--whether at Bethlem, when criminal lunatics were sent there, before Broadmoor existed, or at the latter, since it was opened. It is also a satisfaction to know that cases of this kind have not been more frequent of late than formerly; and this, although there has been in the present generation a marked increase in the number acquitted on the ground of insanity. Thus from 1836 to 1848, the ratio of the insane to the prisoners tried was only one in thirty-two; between 1848 and 1862 it was one in seventeen; and between 1862 and 1874 as many as one in fourteen.[211] It is surely much better that a man should occasionally escape the punishment he deserves, than that any should be punished who labour under mental disease. To show the difficulty of arriving at a conclusion as to the mental responsibility of persons charged with crime, I may mention the case of a schoolmaster who, not many years ago, used his cane on a boy in a very savage manner, pursued him under the table, and destroyed the sight of one eye. This man was sentenced to five years' penal servitude. He was, of course, under the notice of the surgeon of the prison to which he was sent, and was regarded by him as sane. The schoolmasters and pupil-teachers, however, took the case up, and agitated for further examination into the state of the man's mind. Dr. Orange was employed to examine him, and, thoroughly familiar with criminal lunatics, succeeded in discovering unmistakable proofs of insanity. In fact, he was so poorly the morning of the day he committed this a.s.sault, so uncomfortable in his head, and so irritable in mind, that he sent word to the school to say that he was too ill to attend to his duties. It was a school examination, however, and the authorities insisted upon his going. They therefore were mainly to blame for the circ.u.mstance which followed. This man was saved from punishment by Dr. Orange's representations, and subsequent observation confirmed the opinion he formed at the time, that he was not only irritable and suspicious, but was labouring under a delusion. He was a dangerous lunatic, in short, when he committed the offence.

In going through the wards I conversed with the superintendent on the main points of interest in connection with the management of the inst.i.tution, and on some of the characteristics presented by those who are admitted.

I remarked on the low mortality which I knew obtained there. "Ah," said the doctor, laughing, "that goes against us, rather than for us. We are blamed for keeping the patients too well!" Since the opening of the asylum, the yearly average of death has been at the rate of 2.97 per cent. of the number resident. As to diet it is no doubt difficult to understand why this cla.s.s should fare better, as they seem to do, than ordinary patients in the county asylums. In one particular, indeed, a change in the direction of economy has been made, and a very reasonable change it is. It is connected with an important question which arises, How far can the system of rewards for work be beneficially carried out?

It appears that until some ten years ago, the main reward for useful work was a luncheon of bread-and-cheese and beer in the forenoon, with another, though smaller, allowance of beer in the afternoon. Both these allowances of beer (which were additional to the dinner supply) were discontinued in 1875, and in lieu of them a small portion of the money value of the work done was credited to the workers, with permission to spend it on any trifling luxury they might desire. It was found that the executed value of the work in the shoemakers' shop in 1876 was more than that done in 1873 (the year before this experiment was tried), by 160 per cent., whilst in the tailors' shop the increase was 120 per cent.; corresponding results being obtained in other departments. Hence, in spite of the gratuities to the patients so employed, the yearly cost has been considerably reduced. During one year the saving _in beer alone_ amounted to 165, whilst the saving in paid labour was very much greater.

Financial considerations must be a very important practical point in the existence of Broadmoor. The State pays for it; an annual grant from the House of Commons must be asked for, and the Government must be prepared to show that the amount is not unreasonable. Now the weekly cost of the inmates is eighteen s.h.i.+llings each. That of the inmates of our county asylums averages about half a guinea. It may therefore not unreasonably be asked, Why is this? What have the criminal lunatics done to deserve so much more money being lavished upon them? The chief reason is, that a greater proportion of attendants must be provided for this cla.s.s, and that is costly. At Broadmoor the proportion of attendants to patients is one in five; in asylums generally, much less liberal, say one in eleven; besides which, they are paid better (as they ought to be), at Broadmoor.

Ten years ago the cost per head was as high as twenty-three s.h.i.+llings a week.

A considerable number of the inmates are, as has been intimated, usefully employed. Thus, during the year, 167 men and women were occupied in one way or other, in addition to reading and writing, music, etc. Eighty-six were employed in making and repairing clothing for patients, and bed and house linen for patients and attendants; 144 in cleaning the wards; 40 in the garden and on the farm; 29 in the laundry; 26 in making or repairing uniform clothing, boots and shoes, etc.; 17 in making and repairing furniture, mattresses, mats, carpets, etc. I went into one room where there was a printing-press, and a printer handed me the printed programme of a concert shortly to be held in the asylum. The total value of the labour of patients alone amounted, in 1881, to 2835.

In the carrying out of a system of labour so beneficial to the patient, and so useful to the inst.i.tution, relaxation and amus.e.m.e.nt are not forgotten. The patients play at chess, draughts, billiards, bagatelle, etc.; and out-of-door games comprise bowls, cricket, and croquet. There is a library well supplied with papers and journals; and one patient was pointed out who himself contributes to a magazine. There is a band which includes seventeen patients, as well as some attendants, and enlivens the inmates twice in the course of the week.

This sounds very pleasant, but honesty requires us to give the other side of the picture, as portrayed in the words of Mr. Burt, the chaplain; and perhaps nothing serves better to show how much credit is due to the superintendent for the admirable management of an inst.i.tution containing such elements as these. He said (some years ago) that although he had laboured in asylums and prisons for a long period, it had never fallen to his lot before to witness depravity and unhappiness in such aggravated forms. "In other asylums, when the mind resumes anything like healthy action, there is hope of discharge; in prisons, the period of detention, however long, has some definite duration; but here the fear of relapse, and the terrible acts to which relapse may lead, render the condition of release rarely attainable; for many the period of detention is indefinite, and hope is almost excluded. In prison, whatever may be the depravity, it is kept under some restraint by reason and by fear of consequences; but here there are patients with pa.s.sions depraved to the utmost, upon whom neither reason, nor shame, nor fear impose any restraint."

One Sunday, about fifteen years ago, during the Communion, and when the chaplain was in the middle of the Collect for the Queen, an event took place, the account of which I take from his own description. A patient with a sudden yell rushed at Dr. Meyer (then the superintendent), who was kneeling, surrounded by his family, close to the altar, and a deadly blow was struck at his head with a large stone slung in a handkerchief.

The stone inflicted a serious injury, and the blow would have been fatal, if it had not been somewhat turned aside by the promptness with which the arm of the patient was seized by an attendant. A scene of so dreadful a character has very rarely been witnessed in a Christian church. Is it surprising that Mr. Burt cannot look back upon this occurrence without horror, and that he has never felt able to say the particular collect which was interrupted in so awful a manner?

Many are the moral lessons which might be enforced from a knowledge of the cases admitted at Broadmoor, and their previous history. Among these the evil of gross ignorance might well be ill.u.s.trated by such an example as this. Six years ago a farm labourer was tried in Warwicks.h.i.+re, for murdering a woman eighty years of age.

He believed in witches and laboured under the delusion that this poor old creature, with others in the village, held him under the spell of witchcraft. Returning from his work one day, and carrying a pitchfork in his hand, he saw this woman. He immediately ran at her, struck her on the legs thrice, and then on the temple, till he knocked her down. From these injuries she died. Well, it was found that he had the delusion that he was tormented by witches, to which he attributed his bodily ailments, and was ever ready with Scripture quotations in favour of witchcraft. His mind, apart from delusions, was weak. The jury acquitted him on the ground of insanity, and he was admitted at Broadmoor in January, 1876.

One lesson there is which ought to be learnt from the history of many of the cases sent to Broadmoor, and that is the extreme importance of not disregarding the early symptoms of insanity. Had these been promptly recognized, and those who suffered from them been subjected to medical care and treatment, the acts they committed, the suffering they caused, the odium they brought upon themselves and their families, would alike have been prevented. The diffusion of a knowledge of the first indications of this insidious disease, and of what it may culminate in, is the only safeguard against the terrible acts which from time to time startle the community, and which are found, when too late, to have been perpetrated by those who ought to have been under medical restraint.

Bearing immediately upon this, is the fact that there were recently, out of the cases of murder in Broadmoor, twenty-nine cases in which insanity had been recognized before the act was committed, but the persons were regarded as harmless, and thirty-three in which it was not regarded as harmless, but insufficient precautions were taken. In seventy-five cases no one had possessed sufficient knowledge to recognize it at all.

It must not be supposed that although the utility and success of Broadmoor are so great, all has been done in the way of protecting society which the necessity of the case requires. Far from it. There are a vast number of weak-minded persons at large, most dangerous to the community, some of whom have not yet been in prison, while others have.

In 1869 there were in Millbank one hundred and forty weak-minded, and also twenty-five of an allied type, the "half sharp." Whether they have been imprisoned or not, they ought to be placed under supervision of some kind.

Two other practical suggestions: The number of instances in which life is sacrificed, and the still larger number of instances in which threats of injury or damage short of homicide, destroy family happiness, through the lunacy of one of its members, renders it highly desirable that greater facilities should exist for placing such persons under restraint (we do not refer now to imbeciles) before a dreadful act is committed, to say nothing of terminating the frightful domestic unhappiness. In most of these cases there is but slight apparent intellectual disorder, although careful investigation would frequently discover a concealed delusion, and the greatest difficulty exists in obtaining a certificate of lunacy from two medical men. They shrink from the responsibility.

Nothing is done. Prolonged misery or a terrible catastrophe is the result. To avoid this, there might be a power vested in the Commissioners in Lunacy to appoint, on application, two medical men, familiar with insanity, to examine a person under such circ.u.mstances.

Their certificate that he or she ought to be placed under care should be a sufficient warrant for admission into an asylum, and they should not be liable to any legal consequences. It should not be necessary for the signers of the certificate to comply with the usual formalities. The Commissioners should have power to grant an application of this kind, whether made by a member of the family or by a respectable inhabitant of the place in which the alleged lunatic resides; his respectability, if necessary, being attested by the mayor.

The other suggestion has reference to the strange and clumsy way in which the English law goes to work to discover whether a man charged with crime and suspected to be insane is so in reality. It is a chance in the first place whether he is examined by a medical man at all. If he can afford counsel, and the plea of insanity is set up, medical testimony is adduced of a one-sided character, and, more likely than not, counter medical evidence is brought forward by the prosecution.

Thus physicians enter the court as partisans, and being in a false position, often present an unfortunate spectacle; while, worst of all, the truth is not elicited.

Then, it not unfrequently happens that after the trial the thing is done which should have been done previously; experts in insanity are employed to decide upon the prisoner's state of mind. The court should call such experts to their a.s.sistance at the trial, and, what is most important, ample time should be allowed to examine the suspected lunatic. In France the "Juge d'instruction" requests neutral experts to examine and report upon the accused, and I have recently been a.s.sured by physicians in Paris, with whom I have discussed this point, that the plan, on the whole, works well. Is it too much to hope that common sense will guide our own law-makers to introduce a similar practice?[212]

During the meeting of the International Medical Congress, 1881, a party of distinguished men from other lands visited Broadmoor, including MM.

Foville and Motet, Professors. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k, Ball, Tamburini, Dr. Muller, and Dr. Whitmer. We shall always remember the day with pleasure. One result was an interesting narrative of the visit by M. Motet of Paris.

We met at "Waterloo," and it was gratifying to think of the different feelings under which representatives of the French and English a.s.sembled, from those experienced on the battle-field to which the station owes its name.

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