A letter to ... the Committee of the House of Lords, on the Administration of Justice Bill / [Richard Saumarez].

  • Saumarez, Richard, Vice-Admiral, 1791-1866.
Date:
[1840]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to ... the Committee of the House of Lords, on the Administration of Justice Bill / [Richard Saumarez]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    1/8
    A LETTER TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS, ON THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE BILL. Hans Place, June 15th, 1840. My Lords,— Under a hope that the respectful communication of my experience as a suitor in the Court of Chancery during the last five years, may assist the Committee of the House of Lords in the present enquiry on the Administration of Justice Bill, I am induced, for the better protection of my afflicted brother, and other Lunatic Wards of Chancery, to break from a retirement more congenial to my own feelings, and give the utmost publicity in my power to the practice regarding that branch of the administration of the Court of Chancery, which is connected with the Lunatics under its immediate jurisdic¬ tion. The consideration of this branch of its proceedings, is daily grow¬ ing into more importance, not only because, “it is now known that Insanity is as curable as any disease to which mankind are subject; that it arises from deranged bodily functions, not mental affections— and that by kindness and proper medicine, there is less difficulty in removing this malady, than many others, of which juster notions have long been entertained by the faculty,”* but also because when once an individual is made a Chancery Lunatic, experience shows that the hope of recovery, and restoration to the exercise of his civil rights, even ever again to attend of his own free will the public worship of his Maker; which comes to all, comes not to him: for out of the re¬ turns which have been made of Chancery Lunatics, I am informed, not five of the whole number within the last seven years have re¬ covered, while the restoration of pauper Lunatics averages annually forty in one hundred, and of persons in Lunatic Asylums not paupers or Wards of Chancery, fourteen in a hundred. Since such a discrepancy arises, an inference cannot but be drawn that many of our fellow Christians of the noblest families of the land, are drawing out from the inadequate protection afforded to them by the guardianship of the Lord Chancellor, an unnecessarily pro¬ crastinated imprisonment of the most frightful and revolting nature; for there is in the sufferings of Invalids of this description, and their connection with a Lunatic Asylum, enough to lower the pride of the * Shelford, on the Law concerning Lunacy, p. lxxiii.