Mad doctors, mad houses, and mad laws : in a series of three letters addressed to the editor of the "Scotsman." / by Angus Mackintosh.

Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mad doctors, mad houses, and mad laws : in a series of three letters addressed to the editor of the "Scotsman." / by Angus Mackintosh. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    c to the words of the original charter of the Court of Session pro- curators,) for his wages, hut I looked for some friendship and sympathy. Instead of instituting proceedings for me, or handing me over, as lie was hound to do, to tell my tale to the Procurator- Fiscal, he found some ridiculous excuse upon which to hang a disagreement, cpiitted and locked up his chambers in high dudgeon, and at his street door we walked away in different directions. Shortly afterwards, I consulted our family solicitor, Mr Mackay, on my arrival at Inverness, he being also Procurator-Fiscal for the county, and who must, therefore, have been well up in the duties of such functionaries. He would do nothing for me, and for that reason I left him and put my affairs into the hands of Mr Charles Stewart, solicitor in Inverness. Neither by him could I get any definite action taken. I may here state I was nothing of a lawyer myself; and my ideas at that time were influenced by my having met with a copy of “Erskine’s Institutes” while in the asylum. I found that three years were allowed for prosecution under the statute for wrongous imprisonment. Having no copy of the statute, I naturally conceived that my own case fell under it; and as my health, both mental and bodily, had much suffered from the rigour of my confinement in the asylum—-for the iron had indeed entered into my soul—I did not put myself about to urge on proceedings, as I really required rest and relaxation for a considerable period subsequent to my leaving Sauglitonhall. At the same time, when I again began to look into my affairs, I found them in a condition of great confusion, having been so left by my mother, my uncle, and the factor who had taken charge of them up to the period of my escape from the asylum. My mother had been appointed to administer my estate by the wisdom of the Senators of the College of Justice—the learned and illustrious thirteen “lords” of Session, who had become my guardians upon the death of my father intestate, when I was ten years of age. That administration had virtually not been put an end to up to the period of my escape from Saughtonhall in 1852; and, as I have said, when I then came to take up the thread of the manage- ment of my affairs, I found them in the greatest possible confusion; and in the autumn of 1853 I found it necessary, or, at all events, was over-advised, in order to their extrication, to execute a trust- deed in favour of Mr Dean of London. By this deed I reserved to myself a limited income, and assigned to my trustee the duty of prosecuting for me all actions necessary for the due conduct of my