452. Pauper Lunatics. [Nov. 



managed by persons whose interests will not be advanced by oppression, 

 and whose activity will be kept awake by inspection. 



We have heard it asserted that Mr. W. has been unjustly and hardly 

 dealt with by the Committee. His establishment has been ferretted out 

 and out; every hole and corner exposed to open day; no secret suffered 

 to lurk undetected; no malversation to be extenuated. The private 

 recesses of his retirement have been invaded : the whole economy of his 

 domestic management sifted and censured ; his larder has beeen overhauled, 

 and his very servants examined ; the amounts of his bills for medical 

 assistance have been demanded for wine and delicacies for sugar and 

 spices : in short, the poor man, it has been said and that by rational 

 people too has been treated as if his house was not his own. Nor is it, 

 nor ought it to be, his own, in the common-sense of the term. So far as 

 he and his management are concerned, the establishment should be a glass- 

 house, and all the workings within visible to every passer-by. Every soul 

 of man has an interest and an undoubted right in exploring the secrets of 

 such a prison-house. 



But others there arc, who will not abstractedly deny that his house, as 

 a mad-house, ought to be made the subject of public inquiry but who 

 seem inclined to side with the injured Mr. Warburton, on the general 

 ground that all parliamentary reports of this kind are justly liable to sus- 

 picion, and, in the eyes of every man who can keep them open, ought to 

 be distrusted. Two or three persons, it is said, thirsting for notoriety, seize 

 upon some exciting occasion, and resolve forthwith to get up a committee. 

 It is the easiest thing in the world to accomplish such a matter. Nobody 

 opposes private committees. The proposers name their own colleagues 

 send for what witnesses they please give the evidence what colouring they 

 please draw up the report to suit their own purposes and thus are the 

 public mocked and betrayed, and private interests sacrificed to personal 

 ambition, and passion for distinction. 



We have scarcely patience to repeat these calumnies these wicked, but 

 perhaps sometimes only thoughtless representations, though more generally 

 the vile promptings of faction and party. Any part of them is rarely applica- 

 ble to the reports of late years, which are in reality a mine and mint of 

 the most valuable information taken, as every thing else must be, with 

 some grains of allowance, and not received with a credulous indiscrimina- 

 tion. The interrogations are no doubt frequently put expressly to elicit the 

 facts, which the witness is known to possess, and which he comes expressly 

 to state ; but every body must surely be gratified by thus gaining evidence 

 at the first hand, from men of the highest eminence and the best means of 

 information, and which could never otherwise be got at and, occasionally, 

 by the felicitous results of cross and close questioning. But the evidence is 

 not given upon oath. What then ? Have not the House power to punish 

 prevaricating witnesses ? 



But, with respect to the report before us, there is no ground whatever 

 for distrust. Evidence, for and against Mr. Warburton's institution, has 

 been received not only the evidence of those who were led to complain 

 not only the evidence of recovered lunatics not only that of the overseers 

 and the medical men of the parishes not only that of the Commissioners 

 of the College of Physicians, but all who are immediately connected with 

 the institution from Mr. Warburton himself, and the doctor, his son 

 from his own medical attendants, and the superintendant of the establish- 

 ment, down to the keepers, all have had their "say;" and not one of 



