South Canterbury Times. MONDAY, APRIL 18, 1881.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2519, 18 April 1881, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. MONDAY, APRIL 18, 1881.

It is usual, in connection with nautical!' enquiries, to produce a scapegoat. I e the first officer is unwilling then th second officer is tried, and if he too declines, the boatswain, man-at-the-wheel, or some meek submissive inhabitant of the forecastle is dragged forward for the purpose of admonition. The Courts that preside over shipping disasters are unable to perceive the blunders and responsibilities of commanders. This is quite natural seeing how unreasonable it is to ask old captains to condemn old captains, when the blame can be dexterously thrown on less experienced shoulders. There is every possibility, unless the popular eye is directed steadily towards the real source of the evil, of the Wellington Lunatic Asylum enquiry missing fire. The enquiry has terminated, the Commission have furnished an elaborate and apparently .exhaustive report, and the superintendent of the Asylum has been selected for immediate prosecution. Whitelaw being a subordinate officer is dragged to the front to appease the popular vengeance, while the captain —the real transgressor —is kept in the background. The Commissioners have performed their duty in so far as they have condemned the system under which the abuses, which it has been their disagreeable task to investigate, have grown. The question arises—who is responsible for the system ? How did it originate, and who is its accredited author ? We know no one so well able to answer these queries as the Colonial Treasurer. The condition of the Wellington Lunatic Asylum is the outcome of the new system of administration that superseded provincial abolition, and which was to work such wonderful results for New Zealand, Whitelaw, Dr Skae, Dr France, and the rest of the happy lunatic family are mere scapegoats. They form but a portion of the grand ccntralistic machinery which Major Atkinson and his colleagues designed a few years ago. Under local supervision, as it existed in bygone times, the cruelties perpetrated on the Wellington unfortunates —we will not call them lunatics for they seem to have been harmless in comparison with their keepers—would have been impossible. Dr Skae, Whitelaw, and the pugilistic warders are only the crew of the ccntralistic ship. They owe their appointments to the Government that passed the Abolition Act, The Captain—the real transgressor in this instance—is the financial Major.

The revelations of this lunatic hotbed are no isolated illustration of the breakdown of central ad ministration. When Dr Skae was introduced, with a flourish of trumpets, for the purpose of completely reforming the Lunatic Asylum of the colony, a few sagacious believers in local Government or provincialism predicted that the promised reforms would altogether vanish when the political idiotcy of the Major became apparent. The catastrophe foreshadowed has come to pass. The Mount View Asylum with its dishonest

machinery, its instruments of torture, and its same victims is a startling exemplification of Major Atkinson’s handiwork. It is a beautiful illustration of the results of centralism as applied to Lunatic Asylums, and the Major ought to be proud of it. It is to be regretted as the result of this enquiry, that only a subaltern has been marked for punishment. Poor Wbitelaw is, with all his faults, simply the victim of Major Atkinson's system. Like Dr Skae he was an exotic. He knew not the Colony and the Colony knew not him. He arrived here with his mother and an adopted cousin, in the condition of Holloway's ointment “ highly recommended.” He had a letter of introduction to the Edinburgh doctor and another to His Excellency the Governor. Captain Jackson Barry is the possessor of a letter from Her Majesty and he has endeavoured to make the most of it, hut he has not been nearly so successful as Wbitelaw with those letters from an obscure northern Duke. The only easy billets at the Edinburgh Doctor's disposal were to be found in Lunatic Asylums, and Wbitelaw was placed in charge of the Mount View institution. That he knew nothing whatever of lunatics was no disqualification ; he could sign vouchers for himself and others, and draw his salary regularly. That was quite sufficient.

The reign of the Wbitelaw family was merely that of a quiet despotism. As far as possible the inhabitants of the lunatic depot wore shut out from all communication with the outer world. But for intrusive carpenters and gymnastic inmates who would insist on climbing the walls and revisiting their friends, the public would never have been troubled with the doings of Wbitelaw and his attendants. Dr Skae and Dr France knew all about it, but they very properly considered that it concerned the prisoners and they had no interest in creating an uproar. Nor can Wbitelaw and his instruments of torture he greatly condemned. Had they not a direct interest in these maniacs. They breakfasted on lunatics, dined on lunatics, and—but we will not pursue the theme any farther. Every fresh caught lunatic was to them a morsel as delicious as a newly snared bird to a cat or a fly to a spider. Every new admission was a gain to the keepers, every departure a loss. Thus if the temporarily crazy recovered their wandering senses,instruments of torture were applied, and they were treated as dangerous cases. The inventive ingenuity of the staff was directed towards discovering the best means of producing insanity in healthy subjects and not in promoting recovery. Thus Macintosh was put under a freezing tap at midnight and Hall was kept night and day in a straight-jacket for seven months, till the fracture of his bones secured the unpinioning of his arms. As for the smashing of features by muscular attendants that was a mild form of treatment. Of course, in properly supervised Asylums, the management is understood to do everything possible to secure the recovery of patients, but Wbitelaw and his subordinates, believing evidently that their occupation depended on the numerical condition of the establishment, did all they could to keep it in a flourishing condition. The promotion of obscenity in the female wards was only a portion of the process which was intended to aggravate the prevailing dementia. White-law, like a modest student of nature, appears to have availed himself of the facilities for instructive experiment that providence and Dr Skae put in his way. He feasted on nudity, luxuriated on his mother’s income, and tried the effects of mechanical pressure under “ the camisole ” and refrigerating under the midnight tap. Not being a surgeon, vivisection never occurred to him, and as the Government only provided him with a drenching apparatus instead of a Bell-Coleman refrigerator his freezing experiments could not he carried to a successful issue.

Perhaps when Parliament meets some of the members will raise the question—who after all is the responsible lunatic ? Is it desirable that the testimonialed Whitelaw should be made a scape goat for political and administrative vices of which he is innocent ? If gross cruelty has been perpetrated in the Wellington Lunatic Asylum has it not been privileged ? If men have been dumped and pressed like bales of wool, and women converted into obscene exhibits, and if public delicacy and humanity have been shocked by the revelations, at whose door lies the sin ? Whitelaw is to be prosecuted, and we will not attempt to influence the judicial mind to the right or the left. What we contend is that neither Parliament nor the country should be contented with proceedings instituted against the mere instrument of a revolting and disgraceful system. If justice is to be appeased it must bo dealt out in an even handed manner to the authors of this system,—the hydra-headed monster that has destroyed the local supervision of gaols and asylums and left the door open for unheard-of barbarities and gross mismanagement. The centralists ring, to whom Inspector Skac and the recently-imported Inspector of Prisons owe their appointments, are the real Whitclaws with whom Parliament and the country ought to deal.