A STRANGE STORY.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLIX, Issue 12634, 23 October 1905, Page 8

A STRANGE STORY.

ADVENTURES OF A BACK-BLOCKS SETTLER. A PROLONGED""SPREE." AND A YEAR IN A LUNATIC ASYLUM. PETITIONS FOR COMPENSATION. ("New Zealand Times.") Early in the Parliamentary sessidii of 1904 Mr. Hogg, M.H.R., received a brief letter from an inmate of the Wellington Lunatic Asylum, saying he would like to see him. On the Sunday following, in company with Mr. E. Arnold, visiting Justice, he went t<j Mount View and had an interview with the writer of the letter. He found th<j mean dressed in moleskins, among a group of others in a yard. "What's the matter?" asked the M.H.R. "I want to get out of here," was the reply. "How did you get here?" pursued the questioner, to whom the man was. a stranger. ""Well, I got on the spree; that was the reason!" Then the man, told his story. He was a back-blocks settler. Some nine monthi previously he raised £69 from the Advances to Settlers Office on the improvements on his section. He went to Pahiatua, about forty miles over ,bad roads, to get his money, and then he fot on a prolonged spree. ; Feeling bad _ c went home, but as-- he grew worse instead of better he returned to Pahiatua and tried to get into the hospital. He fell into the hands of the police, and finally found himself in the asylum, ■where he had been evar since J < Then, you reckon you are quite' sane and yoa want to get out? What haA become of your section?—l don't really know. I suppore the Public-Trustee is looking after it. * There will be a difficulty about get' ting you away from here unless someone applies for you and undertakes to look after you. Have you "a wife or family?—No, I've never been married. Then you're an old bachelor? Any relatives?—No; I've no relatives, either. That's bad. Is there nobody you know? . The man named a publican and d road overseer. At this moment a patient stepped tip and whispered to the member— "Get him away, from here, sir, get him away—he's going back." Reckoning that the poor fellow would have the strongest claim on the publican, the member wrote to Mr. Boniface, who by this time had removed from his sylvan retreat in the bush to a hotel not far from Wellington. . A ■ further' effort to obtain the'man's iv>« lease through the Minister resulted irj a report being furnished to the effect -that the man suffered from dementia and could not be entrusted with hi* liberty. Mr. Hogg, feeling • assured that the man was wrongly confined in the asylum, next made a stir in the House of Representatives, declaring that at least one of the alleged luna* j tics at Mount View was just as sane as any member of the House. Shortly afterwards the man was set at liberty "on probation." He made his way to Masterton, wher-a he found a former employer and secured the services of a solicitor, with the result that a petition was prepared and presented to Parliament, in which compensation was claimed i'qr illega) detention and "suffering in mind, body and estate." When the man went back to his section he found everything in ruin. Macrocarpa trees had been uprooted and had disappeared; timber and fencing wire had vanished; three months' stores had gone; his horse was dead, and pack and riding saddles, saws, axes, picks, shovels, and tools generally were missing. His losses he estiir.ated at £60. Worse than all, although he had worked hard—one of the lunatics at the asylum in a fit of frenzy broke one or two of his ribs ha was billed for £46, or £1 a week, for maintenance. This session the petition came befor© the Mto Z Petitions Committee. Mr.Hogg, having warned the petitioner not to take any trouble, as he was unlikely to get much redress 2 attended the committee, and explained the circumstances, expressing his conviction that the case was one of a man suffering temporarily from the "horrors" from drink getting transported into a lunatic asylum, where he was detained ai> work while his bush section was going to wreck and ruin. The story narrated to the committee by the responsible authorities as the result of their inquiries was that on the 6th October, 1903, a man named Newman met the petitioner between Ra j kaunui and Waiowaka, and believing from his actions that he was insane, took him to Makuri, and handed him over to District Constable Murphy,

v/ho took oharge of him, and on the following day conveyed him to Pahiatua, and handed him over to Constable Hastie. Both constables believed the man was insane or suffering from delirium tremens. They called in a doctor, who pronounced him insane. Ho was then charged with being a lunatic at large, taken before ihe Bench at Pahiatya, and a second doctor was called in with the object of getting the rr.an committed to a lunatic asylum. The second doctor, however., would not certify to the man's insanity, and he was thereupon committed to the hospital to see if his condition would improve. Owing to his refractory behaviour, tho hospital authorities declined to keep him. The police again took him in hand, and, after consulting certain Justio^s, they applied to a third doctor, with the result that he Avas sent to the Wellington Lunatic Asylum. There he remained from the 10th October, 1903. till the 27th August, 1904, oc nearly eleven months, Avhen he was allowed to leave on a month's probation, and as he did not return he was treated as an escaped patient, being believed to be insane. The Commissioner of Police in hi 3 report says: "The petitioner appears to have been living a somewhat lonely and dissipated life for years, and them seems every reason to believe that hii mind became unhinged, and that the action taken was justifiable under the circumstances." The Petitions Committee reports that it has no recommendation to make.