Trials at Derby
Anon
Genre: | News-Commentary |
Subjects: | Hospitals, Mental Illness, Crime, |
Reports on the recent trials in Derby of a 'rebel army', in which a verdict of high treason was reached. Whilst arguing that the defendants were 'madmen', suggests that '[t]he cells of New Bethlem will next be searched by the spies [... and] should any poor lunatic be found wielding a sceptre of straw, or wearing a crown of paper, he will be arrested forthwith as "levying war against his majesty in his realm"'. Asserts: 'A jury of mad prime ministers picked out of the other cells would think such conduct proof of a most horrible treason; and if an insane judge could be found, he might pronounce sentence of hanging drawing and quartering upon the lunatic' (655). |
© Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical Project, Universities of Leeds and Sheffield, 2005 - 2020
Printed from Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical: An Electronic Index, v. 4.0, The Digital Humanities Institute <http://www.sciper.org> [accessed ]