THE WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS AND 
INSANE ASYLUMS. 
For tlie first time in the history of the State Lunatic 
Asylum at Utica, during the past year two patients 
have been released from the care and custody of the 
institution on the writ of habeas corpus. In the first 
case the application was made by friends or acquaint- 
ances not belonging to the family of the patient; and 
in the other case by the patient who was first released, 
and who had no other relation to it than the fact of 
having been confined in the same institution. The 
cases were of that character described in the Super- 
intendent’s Report for 1882, as specially “trouble- 
some cases,’’ with sense and judgment wholly perverted, 
while having sufficiently free use of their intellectual 
faculties to conceal their insane delusions, and to act a 
part in the presence of strangers: a small but trying 
class of patients, whom any superintendent would be 
only too glad to discharge, if he could in any way 
conscientiously make the certificates of “ recovery ” or 
“ harmlessness ” required by law. 
The writs were issued from and returnable to a city 
175 miles distant from the institution, on the ground 
alleged in the petition, that “ the petitioner is informed 
and believes that he can not get a hearing in the County 
of Oneida.” No attempt appears to have been made in 
the subsequent proceedings by the Judge, or any one 
else, to verify this extraordinary statement. 
The returns made by the superintendent to these 
writs simply recited the proceedings in the commitment 
of said cases, under the laws of the State, (Laws of 
1874, chap. 446), annexing copies of the physicians’ 
sworn certificates, and the orders of the County Judge, 2 
with the securities given in such circumstances as said 
law prescribes; also the fact that the superintendent, 
immediately upon said commitment, caused a careful 
inquiry to be instituted touching the alleged insanity 
of each of said patients so committed, and the facts 
elicited to be recorded in a case-book provided for the 
purpose in accordance with said law; whereupon said 
patients were duly admitted into the asylum for treat- 
ment: and the return in each case closed with the 
official certificate and declaration of the superintendent, 
as the chief medical officer of the institution, that each 
of the said patients “ was insane at the time of (his or 
her) admission into the asylum, and up to the 
authentication of this return remains and continues to 
be an insane person.” Of course, these returns were 
made under oath. 
We understand that these returns, though handed to 
the judge at the same time with the production of the 
persons, were not openly read in court, or rather in the 
room which the judge used for hearing motions “in 
chambers.” Apparently, all the contents of the 
u returns ” were passed over, and the hearing narrowed 
down to the question of the 'present insanity of the 
parties concerned. All that witnesses could testify of 
their history and behavior, while free from constraint 
and at large, was relegated to the category of “ hearsay ” 
evidence, and all that medical experts could give of 
their opinions from observation of the persons under 
their charge, had to yield to the simple impressions of 
the court itself, after personal examination of the 
patients, which were expressed in the laconic but 
decisive dictum, UI see no evidence of insanity in these 
persons.” 
In a subsequent case, indeed, a commission was applied 
for and obtained before the final adjourned hearing, for 3 
an inquisition before a jury at the place of the patient’s 
residence, which resulted, after a long and closely con- 
tested trial, in a verdict of the person’s insanity. 
Of course, it is not for us to criticise or pass upon 
the.manner or methods which a Judge of the Supreme 
Court may choose to employ in hearing or dealing with 
the legal processes that come before him; but our aim 
here is to inquire into the bearing which proceedings 
of this nature are likely to have upon the State’s 
administration of its institutions for the care and treat- 
ment of the insane. It is manifest that it there is 
virtually no such thing as “ expert testimony ” as 
against the so-called impressions of “common sense” 
in the lay mind—if the official qualifications required 
by law in a superintendent are to go tor nothing in 
determining a question of pure professional and 
-abstruse science—then any hospital for the helpless may 
become an object of endlessly vexatious proceedings, 
and no municipality can be sure ot its right even to 
protect itself against pestilence and contagious disease. 
In the Report of the Managers of the Lunatic Asylum 
at Utica for 1872, they offered the following suggestions 
on this subject, the propriety of which has only been 
vindicated by the recent proceedings: 
Much interruption of the necessary official duty of the medical 
officers also arises from the somewhat summary granting by the 
courts of writs of habeas corpus, requiring them to leave their 
proper duties as public officers and to make returns to such writs, 
by a personal attendance with those in their custody, before some 
judge or court distant from the proper place of their official duty. 
This evil is double: 1. By requiring the frequent absence of the 
medical officer from his proper post. 2. By requiring the bodily 
presence of his ward, well or ill, at some distant or inconvenient 
place. Both evils are apparent on the mere statement of them ; 
and both my be remedied without any harm to public or private 
liberty or rights. 4 
As to the first, a sheriff or some other civil officer, or some 
deputed servant of the court or judge, might he required to serve 
the writ or process, and at the same time to take charge of and 
produce in person the subject of the writ, when that is deemed 
necessary for the ends of justice and liberty, with an explanatory 
sworn statement in writing of the superintendent or other medical 
officer of the asylum or hospital, specifying the original and 
present cause of detention; all wrhich would doubtless be a suf- 
ficient and satisfactory return under all ordinary circumstances. 
But it is a most reasonable presumption that a person in the charge 
of a State institution is already sufficiently in the charge and 
custody of the State itself, for all purposes of personal safety 
and protection; and therefore, particularly, if not a criminal, should 
not be forced from his seclusion, until sufficient cause be shown for 
a rude and summary interference upon the return of such a pre- 
liminary process as is suggested. The State should so far confide 
in the officers of its own public charitable institutions as to take 
their returns of facts on affidavit as presumptive evidence of the 
truth ; and should only put them to further question on good con- 
tradictory evidence impeaching the return. The result of such a 
proceeding would probably be, in nine cases out of ten, that no 
further return would be required by the court or judge, and that 
the patient himself would not be subject to personal disturbance, 
nor the medical officer to distraction or absence from his duties. 
It should be considered, also, that the forced personal appearance 
of a lunatic or imbecile on the usual process is often a serious and 
sometimes a fatal obstruction to his cure, or at least an impairment 
of his present health ; and even if the personal appearance of the 
medical officer in charge of him should be absolutely required for 
the purposes of the return, the personal appearance of the subject 
of the writ should not always be imperatively demanded. 
There should obviously be a discretion lodged somewhere, to 
meet the exigencies of special cases; and it would seem proper 
that the court or officer granting the writ should have that discre- 
tion, exclusive of the parties requiring its issue and enforcement. 
Whoever officially grants such a writ, on proper cause shown, 
should be required to make it returnable before some proper judge 
or officer in the immediate vicinity of the subject of it and his 
legal custodian, so that the return might be expeditiously made, 
with as little interference with the public duty of the custodian 
and the personal welfare of his ward as will fairly meet the 
exigency. Such a provision as this would prove very serviceable 5 
in a multitude of cases, without any perceivable detriment to pub- 
lic or private rights. 
The purpose of a writ of habeas corpus is to secure the liberty of 
every citizen from unlawful infringement. Although all confine- 
ment is an infraction of personal liberty, yet the State demands 
and authorizes confinement in particular cases, for the good of the 
community, for health, for safeguard, tor punishment of crime. 
The writ should not, however, be allowed to defeat the purpose of 
the State. In the case of a lunatic confined to an asylum established 
by the State, and under its special charge and control, the pre- 
sumption must necessarily be in favor of the State and its offi- 
cers, that the confinement is for proper cause. Unless it be first 
manifestly shown, by abundant positive proof, and not by mere 
suggestion, that the confinement is legally unwarranted, no sum- 
mary process should be suffered to break up the discipline of the 
State in its own institutions; nor especially, to carry away, on 
short notice and peremptorily, its own officers, charged by a sort of 
attorneyship, with the duties of the State, and for that purpose 
representing itself. Such a proceeding is stultifying : it is giving 
and revoking authority in the same breath. 
The best records show, quite conclusively, that the commitments, 
to State hospitals and asylums for the insane, of persons who are 
not insane when committed, or who are detained after recovery, 
having been insane when committed, or who are not at once dis- 
charged when discovered to be sane, are so uncommon that not a 
case can be fairly vouched; and the final judgments in cases of 
habeas corpus affecting lunatics confined in State hospitals almost 
invariably result in returning the subjects of the writ into the same 
custody, often with an aggravation, temporary or permanent, of 
their malady, caused by their summary removal from the asylum 
and their forced appearance before the officer or court requiring 
their presence. There is a manifest inhumanity in thus publicly 
exposing human wretchedness so real as that of insanity. There 
should therefore be some modification of the proceedings in the 
case of the State institutions of a charitable purpose, so that a cer- 
tificate or an affidavit of the chief officer or of his assistants, or a 
personal examination by some competent judicial officer in the 
vicinage, should prima facie be a sufficient legal return ; and that 
before any personal appearance, either of a superintendent or of 
his ward, be positively demanded, the court or judicial officer 
should be abundantly satisfied by rebutting evidence that such a 
personal appearance is absolutely necessary for the ends of justice 
and right. 6 
A modification adapted to such peculiar circumstances does not 
seem in any way to conflict with the purpose or principle of this 
humane writ. A strict compliance with its customary technical 
exigencies may often defeat its proper end. It should be made to 
subserve the purposes of both justice and humanity, if it can. In 
the case of many lunatics, death may release the victim of disease 
and interference before the most summary law would do so. The 
quiet and seclusion so essential in such cases is abruptly disturbed, 
and the patient is prematurely sacrificed to an untoward techni- 
cality which, in such extreme cases, ought to lose its rigidness in 
favor of a crazed brain and insuperable weakness. 
Here, it seems to us that special attention should be 
given to the point, that courts should so far confide in 
the officers of the State as to take their returns on 
affidavit as presumptive evidence of the truth, until the 
return has been actually impeached. Were this the 
case, in 99 cases out of the 100, probably no further 
return would ever be required, and the danger arising 
from the frequent removals of patients would be pre- 
vented. No legal technicalities should be allowed to 
defeat the humane purposes of the State, or to injure 
the sanitary care and treatment of the unfortunate. In 
the rare cases of unjust or illegal confinement, if 
such should ever be found, the full extent of legal pro- 
cedure could without difficulty be obtained; but the 
provision made for exceptional cases should not be 
suffered to jeopardise the interests of the large majority 
as to whom there could be no dispute whatever. 
We are not willing, however, to leave the subject 
here. We believe the law has invested medical super- 
intendents with a quasi judicial authority as respects 
their functions; and on that ground also we are pre- 
pared to claim recognition of this authority at the 
bands of our civil magistrates. 
The habeas corpus is a prerogative writ that is 
designed for the protection of personal liberty. It was 7 
a principle of Magna Charta that no person should be 
deprived of his liberty except by due process of law 
and the judgment of his peers. The writ of habeas 
corpus, therefore, seeks to have it ascertained and under- 
stood that if any person anywhere is held in durance, 
it is in consequence of some decision or judgment had 
by a lawful court, or other authority of the State or of 
certain processes of law intended for the investigation 
and punishment of crime. It does not lie therefore in 
any case where the proper remedy is an appeal from the 
lower to the higher tribunal, nor is it available against 
the final decisions of the regularly constituted courts. 
When, therefore, it is found on the return to such a writ 
that “the prisoner” is held by virtue of certain legal 
proceedings authorized by the laws of the State, and 
that those laws invest his custodian with a quasi 
judicial authority of determining whether it is safe for 
society for said prisoner to be at large—whether under 
those laws he is entitled to his liberty—will not the 
judge recognize those legal proceedings and the require- 
ments of the law, so far at least as to throw upon the peti- 
tioners the burden of proof, to show and prove the facts 
upon which such person is entitled to his liberty ? Can it 
be properly held that the facts and proceedings under the 
law which are embodied in the return are all to be disre- 
garded and passed over as mere history and “hearsay,” 
not germane to the present question whether the person 
held is now entitled to his liberty? Supposing that to 
be the case, which we do not admit; and supposing 
that the respondent is obliged de novo to show cause 
for further detention, without any cause shown by 
petitioner for release, is that official character with 
which the law invests the superintendant of an insane 
asylum to be utterly ignored, and the unprofessional lay 
opinion of a judge as to the question of sanity to 8 
supersede that certificate of a superintendent which the 
law itself requires for the discharge? Under this 
assumption the question is narrowed down to the 
point, not merely of expert testimony, but to the legal 
force and weight of a judicial decision given by an officer 
of the State whom the law authorizes to make such a 
decision. However an asylum superintendent may act 
in a ministerial capacity in simply receiving patients 
into the institution, the commitment being made by 
other authorities, from the moment of their entrance, 
he is made by law the sole judicial authority to deter- 
mine both the fact of sanity or insanity, upon admission, 
the kind of treatment to which the patient shall be 
subjected, and the time when recovery takes place, or 
the other conditions upon which by law the patient 
may be discharged. The law requires him at the 
moment of commitment to cause a “careful inquiry” 
into the fact of insanity, and to make record of the 
same, before he can be admitted to the treatment of the 
asylum. If the judge or justice of a court of record 
acts in a judicial capacity when in his discretion, over and 
above the sworn certificates of the two physicians, he 
decides, for his own better satisfaction, or to protect an 
alleged lunatic against any possible collusion or con- 
spiracy, to call a jury to take proofs of the alleged 
insanity, then surely the law must contemplate at least 
a quasi judicial character in the superintendent of the 
asylum, based on his professional knowledge and skill, 
when it entrusts him, as it were, with a virtual review 
of all the previous legal proceedings, and leaves the 
question of actual insanity, as well as its proper treat- 
ment and the length of its continuance to his sole judg- 
ment and authority: and that, too, because in a matter 
of science, the law can find no better authority to 
determine it, than such authority as may properly be 9 
called scientific. This is the very reason why the law 
requires and expects a well educated and experienced 
(i. e. expert in the legal sense,) physician to take charge 
of these institutions, established and supported by the 
State. And whether in private life or in public, there 
can be, in the nature of the case, no appeal from medi- 
cal judgment in a medical question of fact. 
Some may be inclined to regard as preposterous this 
predication of a character in superin- 
tendents of insane asylums. But the point has been 
before the courts, and in some measure recognized by 
them. In the pivotal case of Newcomer vs. Van Deusen, 
sent down by the Supreme Court of Michigan to be re- 
tried in the Circuit Court, where the main question 
was on the responsibility of a superintendent for errors 
in judgment, after hearing the testimony for the plain- 
tiff, the Circuit Judge took the case from the jury, no 
mala jides having been shown, and decided that the 
superintendent, as an officer of the State acting in a 
quasi judicial capacity, could not be held for error of 
judgment. We have printed this admirable decision 
in full, as given by Judge Shipman, in a previous num- 
ber of this Journal, (January, 1880); but we venture 
to make a few extracts in this place as fairly bearing 
on the subject we are discussing in connection with the 
proceedings under writs of habeas corpus. 
Judge Shipman declared: 
As a rule,"courts can not write a record that will bind an insane 
person [at all. It is only when a man is sane that it can enter a 
judgment that he is insane, which will establish the fact against 
him conclusively. Proceedings in regard to this class can not be 
conducted as in other cases where wrongs are righted or punished. 
They are necessarily out of the usual course of things. The 
emergency is too urgent, the necessity for action too immediate 
and pressing to admit of notice being given, and the delays conse- 
quent upon judicial proceedings. If the patient is to be treated 10 
at all successfully, it must be done promptly; the earlier the 
better. The progress of the disease can not be stayed by an order 
of court to await its conclusion as to whether he is mentally dis- 
ordered. Nor can a court weigh the best evidence of the fact 
sought to be proven, viz.: the person himself. It can take the 
opinions of others about him and weigh those opinions, but the 
verification of the fact under investigation, although before its 
bar, it can neither understand nor judge of. The matter to be 
determined is not a legal, but a medical question. It is not 
whether the person is a law-breaker, but whether he is a fit patient 
to be treated in the asylum. It is admitted that the asylum is not 
in any sense a prison or bedlam, but a the proper 
instruction and treatment, and if a court can in advance determine 
whether this part of the treatment is proper, it can as well pre- 
scribe whether and what other treatment is necessary, and the 
medicines the patient shall be given while there. * * * 
The fact is, all power is dangerous, and were we to take counsel 
of our fears alone, none would ever be exercised which, by any 
possibility, could interfere with our liberty or property. But the 
safety of the State, the peace of communities, the welfare of 
society, and the protection of private rights demand that these 
risks be taken. Without its exercise society, in an organized 
form, can not exist. When, under what circumstances, and to 
what extent it shall be used, must be left, in a measure, to the 
erring judgment of the officers who are to administer it. Under 
the laws of this State, the power and duty to restrain and care for 
the insane is conferred upon the medical superintendent of the 
asylum, and in its performance he can not be held to a higher or 
different degree of responsibility than other officers exercising 
like powers. Nearly, if not all, the reasons urged against this 
position apply with equal, and some with added force to the other 
officers designated by the law to perform similar or analogous 
duties over other classes of citizens. 
It is said, however, that the laws have given to the asylum 
authorities no jurisdiction over sane persons. Almost in the same 
sense it might be said that criminal courts have no jurisdiction 
over persons who are not criminals, but they assume it, and with 
impunity condemn and imprison innocent people. It is also 
admitted that where a sane person is sent to the asylum by the 
judge of probate, the superintendent may receive and detain him 
without subjecting himselt to an action for damages; and it will not 
be claimed that the probate judge, in arriving at this erroneous 11 
conclusion, although in one sense it cost the person his liberty, 
rendered himself liable to an action for the injury inflicted. His 
judicial mantle protects him. Where the medical superintendent 
of the asylum, under the command of the law, performs these 
duties, he may justly ask that the courts hold the same shield over 
him, for courts may not extend immunity to members of their 
own tribunals, which they deny to other officers acting under the 
same circumstances. Like reason makes like law. * * * 
The law then commands the superintendent to at once pass 
upon the patient’s condition, on his arrival at the asylum, whether 
sent by his friends, the probate judge, or otherwise, as well as 
daily thereafter, so long as he remains in the institution. This 
ought to settle the question in dispute, for all appear to concede 
that if this be a duty enjoined upon the medical superintendent by 
law, he can not be held liable for a mere error in judgment in 
performing it. Indeed, the bare fact that the superintendent is to 
treat the person, and that he is brought there solely for treatment* 
and to the end that he may be healed, necessarily implies that 
this officer must exercise his judgment, and determine what is the 
matter with him, for otherwise how can he know what to do with 
the patient? If he finds him insane, that determination makes it 
his duty to receive him into the asylum, the detention there 
being only a part of his treatment. If he decides this at his 
peril, then he is equally as liable for refusing admission to an 
insane patient as for receiving one who is sane. No law ever 
applied such a superhuman standard of ability to an officer as 
this proposition implies. ******* 
That a sane person, by an error of judgment of the medical 
superintendent, may be confined in the asylum, is perhaps within 
the range of possibilities, but when the fact that it contains so 
many officers, assistants and attendants, with more or less of whom 
the patient comes in daily contact, and the daily test he is subjected 
to, are considered, the possibility of such an occurrence becomes 
too remote and shadowy to be made the basis of a rule of law, ex- 
cept upon the theory that these officers, assistants and attendants 
are conspirators, banded together for the purpose of shutting up 
within the asylum cells, secretly, and beyond the reach of friends, 
all people whom they can get hold of, merely to gratify a cruel 
and wicked disposition—that, in short, the institution is a place 
where those who enter leave hope behind. Unless some such ex- 
travagant view as this be taken of the situation, it is incredible 
that a sane person need remain there any particular length of time 12 
against his will. But courts have no more right to assume that 
the officers of the asylum will act in bad laith than will the judges 
of courts. Whenever such a case arises it will be time enough to 
deal with it. No rule of responsibility can be founded upon such 
a theory. * * ******** 
The superintendent of the asylum has jurisdiction over the sub- 
ject matter of insanity, and, under the statute and laws ol the 
State, authority and power to decide prima facie what persons 
come within that class when presented to him lor that purpose, in 
either of the methods provided by law, and when so called upon, 
it is his duty to decide the fact, and this determination will pro- 
tect him while acting under it, until reversed by a proper tribunal. 
In exercising this power he performs a duty ol a quasi judicial 
nature, and is entitled to the same protection as other officers exer- 
cising like powers. Like them in its performance he must be left 
free to act upon his own unbiased convictions, uninfluenced by 
fear of consequences. 
Considerations like these, it appears to us, ought to 
enter into the mind of any judge sitting in a case of 
habeas corpus, to determine the fact of sanity or 
insanity. The officers of these institutions are not 
mere jailers or custodians, but, in a sense, judicial 
officers of the State also, entrusted with the hnal 
decisive determination of that medical question on 
which the detention or release must depend. And, as 
Judge Shipman implies in another part of his judg- 
ment, to subject the carefully considered and intelligent 
conclusions of medical men in a matter ot this kind to 
the usual tests of a court room in ordinary questions ot 
fact is like appealing from a superior to an inferior 
tribunal. How far a personal examination of a patient 
by the judge himself, for a brief space in his chambers 
or in the court, can really go to settle the question ot 
insanity, may be seen from such a statement as was 
made by Sir James Coxe before the celebrated Parlia- 
mentary Commission of 1877, appointed for the very 
purpose of devising measures of perfect security against 13 
wrongful commitment or detention at insane asylums. 
After stating that “he had never known of a case 
wrongfully committed, or detained after recovery,” he 
gave the following answers to the questions as sub- 
joined : 
Q. With reference to the protection by visits of the commis- 
sioners, or medical men, I suppose there are many cases where a 
man might be insane, although upon a visit and conversation with 
him, no symptom of insanity would appear? A. Yes. 
Q. Therefore, to some extent, persons paying such visits are 
guided, I presume, by the statements they receive from the super- 
intendents of the asylum? A. Yes, they must be, to a certain 
extent. When avc send medical men, we often get a reply to say, 
“We had a long conversation. We observed no symptoms of 
insanity, but from Avhat Ave were told by the superintendent, and 
Avhat we saAV in the case-books, Ave are of opinion that the patient 
is still insane, and therefore Ave decline to grant certificates of 
sanity.” 
Q. So that if you had a case of an unscrupulous superintendent 
who, for his own purposes, Avas seeking to detain a sane man, it 
would be possible for him to do so, notwithstanding the visits of 
the commissioners, or the visitors? A. I think the commission- 
ers would satisfy themselves, without difficulty, in such a case as 
that. If such a man came up and appealed, I do not think they 
would be readily convinced that he was insane. We have no power 
of liberation ourselves, and if we send medical men, and the medi- 
cal men choose to take that view, and to be guided by the super- 
intendent, then the patient can not get out. 
Q. I am not saying what alteration could or should be made, 
but the visits which are made from time to time are not a complete 
protection against a person being improperly detained if the super- 
intendent of the asylum Avere unscrupulously intending to detain 
him ? A. No, but practically, I think it is. I do not think there 
is any great risk. 
Judge Shipman says in liis opinion, quoted above, 
that society lias to take the risk even of ignorant and in- 
competent judges as well as other civil officers, since 
“ the law throws wide open its doors to all aspirants to 
judicial positions;” but that in requiring medical 14 
superintendents of insane asylums to be well educated 
physicians, “the law requires a higher and more severe 
standard of ability and fitness for the place in this than 
in any other State office.” We can produce scores of 
lunatics who would very easily impose on even a 
learned judge, if he will visit them while on their good 
behavior, in the wards of an asylum, without oppor- 
tunity to follow the bent of their delusions. It would 
be quite otherwise were he to meet them suddenly at 
their homes or in public previous to their commitment. 
In either case we apprehend he would be willing to 
inquire into their “ history,” and not treat it as 
irrelevant “hearsay.” We do not know of any so 
gifted in these days with the “discerning of spirits,” as 
to be able without “ history ” or previous acquaintance, 
to discover at once the thief or the burglar in the garb 
ot a “perfect gentleman.” Experience would show 
that it is not much more easy to detect in the lively, 
affable and plausible patient, perhaps “very slightly 
exalted,” the access of that subtle disease of insanity 
which may have only its course to run to startle the 
community with some heart-rending tragedy'. 
We would earnestly recommend any one to give 
these suggestions their due consideration, if he has in 
any way been influenced or misled by the sole rep- 
resentations of some inmate of an insane asvlum, 
who has been duly and officially certified as insane. 
The medical profession can not administer the law; they 
can not either claim to be infallible; but they can give 
their best knowledge and skill to the decision of 
questions which the law itself submits to their jurisdic- 
tion ; and they do not ask too much when they ask to 
have such decision respected. If it be professional * 
integrity that is called in question, that is another 
matter. There are other remedies and other proceed- 
ings proper for charges of that sort. 15 
But if we are to believe that personal integrity is a 
vanished element of our public life, one thing is certain, 
no effectual substitute can be devised for it by the 
utmost ingenuity of statutory legislation; and this 
difficulty would not be confined to the medical pro- 
fession, which has in the higher walks a reputation for 
purity of conduct not behind that of any of the other 
learned professions. 
No land has been more jealous for the “liberty of the 
subject” than England, where the writ of habeas corpus 
and the right of trial by jury may be said to have origin- 
ated : and no movement has ever obtained a readier sym- 
pathy from the public than any one that raised this ques- 
tion of the “liberty of the subject” in connection with 
this matter of the commitment and detention of patients 
in insane hospitals. Accordingly, from time to time, 
under stress of temporary excitement arising in indi- 
vidual cases, Parliamentary Commissions have been ap- 
pointed to investigate the actual operation of the Lunacy 
Laws, as bearing upon the question of the liberty of the 
subject. These commissions have left no stone un- 
turned to provide against the very possibility of abuse; 
and every precaution has been adopted that is found 
compatible with the great desideratum of inducing the 
people to place their insane friends under treatment at 
as early a stage of the disease as possible, when they 
can be induced to place them under treatment at all. 
No evil can be conceived greater to society than the 
roaming at large of persons utterly irresponsible, de- 
structively and homicidally disposed, a terror to friends 
and neighborhoods, who yet could not be held amenable 
by any court or jury in the land, on account of their 
manifest insanity. Casualties enough of a most fearful 
kind are continually occurring from this cause, notwith- 
standing all the present safeguards which the law has 16 
provided. And if it be made a question whether a per- 
fect stranger, as is the ease in England, may consign a 
person to an asylum on a physician’s certificate, ought 
it to be less of a question whether a perfect stranger 
should be able to drag a patient from an asylum against, 
not only the professional judgment of its officers, but 
the protest of the patient’s friends and relatives, and 
drop him (or her) hundreds of miles from home, among 
strangers and without resources? Of course, the public 
mind is easily open to considerations of greater security 
against abuse. It ought to demand, however, irrefrag- 
able proof of the abuses that have been alleged and 
charged. The actual truth is generally covered up in 
an unscrupulous war of words. The public should not 
be deceived by vague and general denunciations. Spe- 
cific charges should be insisted upon, and the actual 
facts under such charges should be brought to light. 
When that is done, it is time enough to judge how far 
the lunacy system may need reconstruction or modifica- 
tion. But even if it be thought by some that ‘‘improve- 
ments” can be introduced in our system, there are one 
or two things that should be steadily borne in mind in 
all attempts to deal with this subject. 
The first is, that early treatment—the speediest possi- 
ble attention to the case—is the paramount necessity 
of insanity—if it is not to become inveterate and life- 
long. As things are now, it is hard enough to get 
friends to acknowledge such ‘‘a skeleton in the house,” 
or to get physicians to commit themselves by certificate 
in the earliest attacks of the disease, or to face the pos- 
sible criticisms of the community, so that a very large 
proportion of the cases now sent to our hospitals are 
already in the chronic stage when received. The more 
difficult we make the process of commitment the more 
we aggravate this evil: the percentage of cures will 17 
still further diminish, and the already burdensome ac- 
cumulation of incurable insanity will increase to a 
frightful, perhaps intolerable extent. A vast majority 
of the cases of insanity occurring among us are suf- 
ficiently patent even for unprofessional detection; the 
more obscure cases are provided for by the discretion 
now permitted to our judges, which perhaps, might be 
allowed to be set in motion on the application of any 
person whatever. But if all cases indiscriminately are 
to be brought before juries, there are, indeed, few fami- 
lies of any refinement or sensibilities that will volun- 
tarily seek to have the minutiae of family life thus spread 
out before the prurient curiosity of an indifferent pub- 
lic. It will compel decent people to seek some other 
refuge for their afflicted friends than the public insti- 
tutions of the State. 
The other consideration is the matter of expense to 
the lunatic or Ids estate, or to his friends. We hope 
that nobody will listen to those who are suggesting 
relays of doctors at every stage of the process for com- 
mitting insane patients to an asylum. Not an iota of 
additional security can be obtained by this means, 
although it might be a sovereign specific for depleting 
the patient’s pecuniary resources. Every person, 
entitled to the benefits of our public institutions, is so 
entitled without being put to unnecessary expense. 
We know of many cases in which conflicting medical 
opinions, at most exorbitant rates, were taken in the 
way of preliminary steps, without *a particle of ad- 
vantage over the ordinary process, prescribed by the 
law. It is one of the misfortunes of public life in 
our day, the pressure exerted to benefit class and 
business interests under the guise of public good,—a 
tendency against which legislators do well to be on 
their guard. * * *