the same office at Colney Hatch asylum) was
prepared to state that the largest shower-
bath at Bedlam contains sixteen gallons.
That this is enough water to let fall on sane
or insane. That it is his firm belief that he
never saw a shower-bath given for more
than three minutes, and his strong impression
that he never knew one given for so long
a period; that, in his opinion, Dolley died from
the effect of the long-continued cold water
shower-bath, followed by the dose of tartar
emetic. The resident medical superintendent
of St. Luke's Hospital for Lunatics was there
to state that the shower-baths at St. Luke's
contain thirteen or fourteen gallons each;
that he had never given a shower-bath for
longer time than from thirty to forty-five
seconds; that he would expect the subjecting
of a patient of sixty-five years of age to a
cold water shower-bath for twenty-eight
minutes would terminate fatally. Mr.
Lawrence, the surgeon of St. Bartholomew's, who
was for many years surgeon to Bethlehem,
thought "the shower-bath in this case
was quite enough to kill the man, and
that the dose of tartar emetic was needless."
Dr. Forbes Winslow, was of opinion "that
the treatment used towards the patient Dolley
was, in every view of it, unjustifiable, and
caused his death." Dr. Conolly, visitors'
physician at the Hanwell Asylum, known for
thirty years by his successful labour on
behalf of lunatics, and the highest authority
on the subject of their treatment, had " never
given a shower-bath of more than one minute
flow; would highly disapprove  of a cold
shower-bath of even ten minutes' duration,
and would not order such a bath; would not
regard the administration of a shower-bath
of twenty-eight minutes' duration to any
person, whether sane or insane, or under
circumstances of excitement, as medical
treatment, and would not consider such a
practice as either useful or justifiable; in his
opinion, a cold water shower-bath of twenty-
eight minutes' duration, followed by a dose of
tartar emetic, would be so likely to be
attended with fatal results, that he would not
take the responsibility of ordering it."

There was more evidence to a like effect,
but this will suffice to show the grounds on
which the Commissioners in Lunacy were
advised by counsel that it was their duty, by
instituting a prosecution, to procure for the
case a full and public trial. A sitting magistrate
decided that it was a fit case to be
tried: the question being whether Mr. Snape,
in using a severity of treatment not
warranted by medical knowledge, designed thereby
rather to inflict a punishment than to
administer a remedy, had not been to a
criminal degree inconsiderate; and although,
of course, not for a moment having it in his
mind to kill the patient.

We have thus far been telling the case for
the prosecution only: all that was before the
grand jury: all that was before the public
when the grand jury threw out the bill of
indictment, and therefore virtually suppressed
the defence of the accused gentleman. If the
grand jury came to a right decision, reporters
present at its deliberation on it, could have
shown by what steps it was reached, and could
have put an end to all uncertainty. The
tribunal, however, being a secret one, nobody
can tell why the bill of indictment was
thrown out; and it inevitably happens that
if it were thrown out on insufficient grounds,
the public interests are damaged; and if it
were thrown out on sufficient grounds, the
private interests of Mr. Snape are damaged
not less seriously; for, by the intervention of
the grand jury at a time when—his defence
having been reserved—only the case against
him was known to the public, he was left in
the position of a man acquitted but not
cleared, when he had a right to be acquitted
and cleared. His defence is now to be read
only in a parliamentary document, where it
stands side by side with the accusation.
Wherever the two cases contradict or clash,
even the few readers of the document are
left to guess their way into the truth; for, of
course, no testimony is qualified by any test
of cross-examination; and contradictions as
to fact arise without exciting closer scrutiny.

To this defence we now turn. The
committee of visitors to the Surrey Lunatic
Asylum object to the manner in which
the Commissioners in Lunacy conducted
the inquiry that led to their prosecution.
They would have had it conducted openly at
the Asylum, or some other place, in presence
of some of the committee of visitors, of Mr.
Snape, and of the friends of all parties
concerned. They point out that the
Commissioners rejected the testimony of Dr. Todd
and of Mr. Caesar Hawkins, from whom they
had asked for a report, because they had
urged many hypothetically possible causes
of death after reporting that they were
"unable to discover any cause likely to have
occasioned the death of the patient, besides
the use of the shower-bath prolonged for
twenty-eight minutes, rendered more
dangerous by the existence of disease (unknown
at the time) in both the heart and brain;
and we do not find evidence that the
mixture believed to contain tartar emetic had
been taken long enough to add much, if
anything, to the effect of the bath." Upon the
sentence last cited the committee of visitors
lay stress. Whatever might have been the
action of the tartar emetic if the patient had
lived another hour or two, he died too soon
after the administration of the bath, for the
medicine to have had part in the fatal issue.
The committee of visitors complain that the
Commissioners in Lunacy paid no attention to
that passage in the report of Dr. Todd and
Mr. Caesar Hawkins which said that the
post mortem examination "had been
conducted very inadequately, as regards the
facts which were looked at, when the subject