A letter. Majesty's sheriffs-depute in Scotland, recommending the establishment of four national asylums for the reception of criminal and pauper lunatics / by Andrew Duncan.

Date:
1818
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter. Majesty's sheriffs-depute in Scotland, recommending the establishment of four national asylums for the reception of criminal and pauper lunatics / by Andrew Duncan. 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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    and undergoing a certain degree of punishment aS a warning to other Lunatics. In Scotland, however, the degree of punishment inflicted, on the one hand, on the Rich, and on the other, on the Pauper criminal LunUtic, is shock- ingly unequal. With regard to the Rich, all that is at present required is, that the relations shall find security, that the unfortunate Lunatic shall be restrained from doing farther mischief. They are allowed to place him where they please, and to supply him with every indulgence, with every luxury. Not many years have elapsed, since I have myself seen a male who shot his brother, and a female who poisoned her mother, living, I may say, at almost perfect freedom, and without any punishment, which might have a tendency to de- ter other maniacs from committing similar crimes; But if, in Scotland, the punishment of the Rich criminal Lunatic be too slight, that of Pauper criminals is often too severe. Where there are no funds to support them, and no relations to take charge of them, they are, in general, committed to the most dismal cells of a loathsome jail, where, deprived of the pure air and cleanliness necessa- ry for the support of human life, they must in general