ened, humane, practical twentieth century,
when the liberty of the individual was never so jealously safe-guarded,
it would be impossible for any unscrupulous person, actuated by
interested motives of his own, to "railroad" a perfectly sane relative
to an institution, and retain him there indefinitely against his or her
will. The startling truth, however, is that, under our present lunacy
system, nothing is easier.

The infamous madhouses of half a century ago, with their secret
dungeons, their living skeletons rattling in chains, their brutal
keepers who tickled the soles of hapless inmates' feet to drive them
into hysterics in anticipation of the annual perfunctory visit of the
State examiners in lunacy, have, it is true been driven out of business;
the existing sanitariums are now more or less under rigid State control,
yet this official supervision is not always adequate protection against
misrepresentation and fraud. By the free expenditure of money and with
the cooeperation of unscrupulous physicians, foul wrongs are frequently
inflicted on the most innocent and unoffensive people. At the present
moment it is not only possible for scheming persons, interested in
getting a relative safely out of the way, to accomplish their sinister
purpose, but each year in the United States dozens of perfectly sane
persons are actually incarcerated in private asylums scattered over the
country.

The medical superintendent of a prominent State hospital, in a paper
read recently before the Bar Association practically admitted the truth
of this. At the same time, reviewing the laws bearing upon the
commitment and discharge of the criminally insane, he proposed certain
changes suggested by the actual operation of the present laws. He also
drew attention to a statement made by the _Medical Record_ to the effect
that, only a short time since, no fewer than fourteen persons were
committed to one small institution by juries in a single year and every
one of them was found later to be sane, and had to be discharged. The
superintendent very properly insisted that there should be some
modification of the present law whereby lunatics, accused of serious
crimes against the person and especially those committing murder, should
be dealt with by a tribunal having fixed, continuous responsibility, and
that a jury of laymen should not be allowed to decide regarding the
mental condition of any person with a view to his commitment to an
asylum for