§ MR. RAMSAYasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the evidence (as reported in the "Scotsman" newspaper of 9th June) given by the proprietor of a private lunatic asylum in Musselburgh, when he was examined as a witness in an action in the Court of Session, and stated that business men had been put into his asylum to avoid the Bankruptcy Court, and ministers to avoid trial by their Presbyteries; and, if so, whether he can give any information regarding such statement, or the grounds on which it was made?
§ THE LORD ADVOCATESir, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has requested me to answer this Question, because the inquiries were made under my direction. The statements made by the witness referred to in the Question have been the subject of a very thorough investigation by the Commissioners of Lunacy in Scotland. On being referred to for the cases to which he had alluded, Chalmers, the proprietor of the private lunatic asylum, gave to the Commissioners two cases, one that of a tailor in Edinburgh, and the other that of a former minister of the Established Church of Scotland. The names are at the service of my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk if he wishes for them. The first case occurred in December 1863, and the person concerned was admitted to the asylum on certificates of insanity granted by Dr. John Smith and the late Mr. Charles Sidey, both of Edinburgh. Dr. Smith has long enjoyed the reputation of being one of the highest authorities in matters of lunacy in Scotland. Mr. Sidey was a well-known 1135 and most respectable practitioner in Edinburgh. Dr. Sanderson, the medical attendant of Mr. Chalmers' private asylum, in answer to the Lunacy Commissioners, has emphatically declared that he never had the least suspicion that the person referred to was improperly admitted. He was detained till May, 1864. The proceedings in the Bankruptcy Court have been searched, and they contain no allusion whatever to anything discreditable on the part of the bankrupt, or anything to justify the statement that he had been put into the asylum to avoid the Bankruptcy Court. In regard to the case of the minister, the order for his detention was made in April, 1871, on certificates of insanity granted by two medical gentlemen, one of whom was Dr. W. A. E. Browne, who was formerly one of the Commissioners of Lunacy in Scotland, and whose opinion on a question of insanity is entitled to the greatest respect. The minister still remains in an asylum, and the Commissioners of Lunacy, who are well acquainted with his case, have no doubt that he was properly placed under restraint. The Report of the Commissioners concluded thus—
The Commissioners themselves have never had the smallest reason to suspect the good faith of any medical man in granting certificates of insanity, and the evidence given by Mr. Chalmers can only be accounted for as due to the imperfect acquaintance of a man untrained in medicine with the manifold aspects which the malady presents itself.