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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    less such litigation may appear. An inquisition was held at Exeter in 1858, on a gentleman on whose lunacy I, as medical referee, had reported very decidedly. After evidence of the lunacy had been given, the leading counsel in opposition (Mr. Montague Smith, Q.C.) laid his brief upon the table declining to attempt a reply against such a weight of tes¬ timony. The expenses of the proceedings, however, amounted to d?2Q00. Now supposing that in this case the medical officer of the Court of Chancery (not a person casually employed in a difficulty, but one with the prestige of an important and responsible office) had been sent to examine the state of mind of this gentleman before any of the affidavits testifying to his sanity had been filed, is it not almost certain that the opposing parties would have refrained from proceedings obviously leading to an adverse issue, and thus needlessly incurring great loss of time and of money, to say nothing of reputation. It may be urged that the small proportion of inquisitions which are opposed, would scarcely justify the permanent increase of official salaries which the Bill of Mr. Cairns contemplated. The reply to this is two-fold. First, that if one such an opposed inquisition were prevented annually, the increase of salary would be more than saved. Secondly, that the great evils attending opposed inquisitions hinder the presentation of petitions in cases where the protection of the Court is most needed, and thus indirectly give rise to a denial of justice. Within a recent period I have myself been consulted on three cases in which there could be no doubt of the existence of insanity, and in which it was most desirable that the lunatics should be placed under the protection of the Court of Chancery ; but in each of these cases the prospective evils of an opposed inquisition were sufficient to prevent that protection from being claimed. In one of these cases, involving very large interests, the petition