A letter to the Right Honorable Spencer H. Walpole, M.P., &c., &c. Chairman of the Select Committee on Lunatics / [John Charles Bucknill].

  • Bucknill, John Charles, 1817-1897.
Date:
[1860]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to the Right Honorable Spencer H. Walpole, M.P., &c., &c. Chairman of the Select Committee on Lunatics / [John Charles Bucknill]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ostensibly doing business the nature of which they are ut¬ terly incapable of appreciating. Consider how small a pro** portion of the insane are placed under the Court of Chan¬ cery, and it must be obvious to what an extent this is done. What is the cause of this except the expense and the painful nature of the proceedings in opposed petitions ? Only think of the dreadful exposure of all one would wish to keep from the eye of the world, which an opposed petition involves ; and the reason will be evident why so few petitions are pre¬ sented, and that with few exceptions, those that are presented are unopposed. The presentation of a petition, indeed, may be held to indicate, either that the members of the family of the lunatic are unanimous as to the desirability of the petition, or that need of the protection of the Court is so urgent, that it must be obtained at all risks. The family, of course, frequently are unanimous, and every thing goes on smoothly and well ; the powers of the Court to protect the lunatic’s person and property are sought, and, in spite of the law which still gives to every lunatic the option of a jury, matters are so managed that this right is very rarely exercised, and inquisitions are held with as much privacy and economy as can be desired. But, the cases in which the in¬ tervention of the Court is most desirable, are precisely those in which the family of the lunatic are not of one accord, in which, perhaps some one relative or other person is making undue use of his influence over the lunatic, either as to the present direction or the future disposition of the property. It is in such cases that the proposal to present a petition is met with the threat to oppose, which, if carried into execution, vrould entail all the evils of a public trial of a most painful nature, and the expenditure of a sum of money in law costs which might alone be sufficient to make the heirs of the luna¬ tic hesitate. In two cases, within my own recent knowledge, the sums of two and of three thousand pounds were respec¬ tively expended in the proceedings of contested petitions, and this for moderate properties. In one of these cases, the