[140] Edinburgh Review, vol. xxviii. p. 433.
[141] The "Private Mad-house Bill" of 1814 was introduced, April 5th, "to repeal and render more effectual the provisions of the Act of the 14th of the King." Mr. Rose said there were actually cases in which it was found that the medical certificate was signed by the keeper of the house. His Bill provided for the periodical visitation of private mad-houses by magistrates. The Bill passed the Commons July 11, 1814. Its author stated that it had been introduced the year before and amply considered by a Committee of the House, who were unanimous for its adoption, but I find no reference whatever in Hansard in 1813 to any Bill or Committee (see Hansard, vol. xxvii.).
[142] The chief members of the Committee were Lord R. Seymour, Lord Binning, the Right Hon. G. Rose, the Hon. H. G. Bennet, Mr. Western, Mr. W. Smith, and the Hon. W. H. Lyttleton.
[143] Hansard, vol. xxx. p. 954.
[144] Edinburgh Review, vol. xxviii. p. 435.
[145] Op. cit., p. 441. "Even after the publication of the evidence, it was not until the enormity of retaining the offending parties had been expressly condemned in Parliament that Mr. Haslam, the apothecary, was dismissed" (p. 443).
[146] Minutes, Select Committee of the House of Commons, 1815, pp. 43 and 44. See also Mr. J. B. Sharpe's edition of this Report, each subject arranged under its distinct head, 8vo, pp. 411. London.
[147] Ibid., pp. 167, 168. In the Minutes of the Committee of 1816, it is stated that in the same asylum the inmates were subjected to brutal cruelties from the attendants; that they suffered very much from cold, and were infested with vermin (p. 2, et seq.).
It may be added, as showing the slowness of reform, that even when, in 1828, two medical superintendents were appointed at Bethnal Green, no less than seventy, out of four hundred patients, were in irons; there was no bath, no book or newspaper, and little or no employment.
[148] Minutes of Evidence, Select Committee on Mad-houses, 1815, p. 43.