Crime -- Great Britain; Criminals -- Great Britain; Psychology, Pathological
“He had examined Kramer several times since, and had applied a test as
to his sensibility, but the results were entirely negative. He formed
the opinion that the prisoner was quite incapable of exercising his
mental faculties in any way.
“Dr. Smith, medical officer at Stafford Prison, confirmed Sir Richard
Brayn’s evidence.
“The Judge: ‘I suppose you both looked carefully to see if the
prisoner was shamming?’ ‘Oh, yes, I am entirely of the opinion that he
was not shamming.’
“Kramer was found to be insane, and was ordered to be detained during
his Majesty’s Pleasure.”
In addition to epileptics and the insane there exists a number
of people, male and female, who present to those who know them a
more pitiful and hopeless problem than the altogether mad, for the
altogether mad are at any rate restrained and protected.
The men and women of whom I now speak suffer from some kind of mental
disease that has not yet been classified, but which prevails to a much
larger extent than the public is aware.
This disease does not prevent them following their ordinary
occupations. Indeed, many of them are regular and indomitable
workers, and it is probable that the great interest they have in
their occupations prevents them becoming certifiably insane. Such men
and women continue for years at their places of business or in their
situations, conducting their affairs in an efficient manner; to their
companions they appear quiet and decent people, though a little sombre.
But very different is the impression produced on those who
unfortunately know them at home! Released from the engrossing interest
of business, their mental and moral condition becomes apparent. Of all
the sorrow and misery that I have seen in the sorrowful world in which
I have lived and moved, I have seen no more woeful spectacle than the
sight they present—objects at once pathetic, terrifying and hopeless.
While all sorts of imaginings occupy their minds, some great delusion
seems to dominate them and to destroy every atom of home comfort. Place
them under authority, surround them with medical officers, question
them and cross-question them, examine them and re-examine them, watch
them unceasingly and they defy every member of the faculty to find
traces of insanity.
Under such circumstances they can control their thoughts and speech; to
a certain extent they can make the worst appear the better reason.
Only at liberty, when free of all control, is their condition made
manifest. Sometimes they appear to have a feeling that mentally all
is not quite right with them, but this feeling is but momentary, and
soon disappears in the overmastering belief in the altogether imaginary
wrongs they suffer at the hands of their friends.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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