prudent to abolish altogether the grand jury,
we are certainly disposed to wish that its
deliberations should take place always in the
presence of reporters. When a case which a
qualified magistrate has heard and decided to
be one requiring a full trial is dismissed
untried by the grand jury, the country has
a right to know after what sort of inquiry,
and upon what grounds, the solemn investigation
is quashed. It does not suit the
spirit of openness which is the truest
safeguard of our public rights, that the path
of justice should in any part of its course be
hidden amidst the darkness of a secret,
irresponsible tribunal. It is not permitted to
lord chancellor or lord chief-justice to give
an opinion or pronounce a sentence without
setting forth sufficient reasons for it; why,
then, should we be called upon to puzzle
in vain over the inexplicable mystery of a
grand jury presentment for which there are
no grounds apparent, and by which—as in
the case to which we now proceed to call
attention—it happens that, if there be ground
for it, the accused person is seriously injured;
but, if there be no ground for it, the public.

A parliamentary document lately issued
contains, as fully as they are to be had, both
sides of the untried case to which we shall
refer for one proof of the inconvenience of
secresy in the deliberations of grand juries.
It is the case of Mr. Snape, Medical Superintendent
of the Surrey Lunatic Asylum; who
was charged last year, on the prosecution of
the Commissioners in Lunacy, with the
manslaughter of a pauper lunatic. Let it be
understood that we by no means undertake to
judge the case. While following the evidence
detailed in the indictment, the reader will
remember that we are telling the tale as it
would be told by counsel for the prosecution,
and sworn to by witnesses for the prosecution;
but that upon this there is to follow a
defence which, even as it stands, will affect
the opinion of very many men, and which, if
it be a true defence, could, by examinations
and by cross-examinations have been so
established, as to free the accused from all that
was most serious in the accusation.

The case as made out by the indictment
was as follows: On the ninth of April last
year, in the Surrey Lunatic Asylum, Daniel
Dolley, a pauper inmate sixty-five years of
age and rather thin, became violent in the day-
room. This fact was reported to Mr. Snape,
the resident surgeon. Dolley had been walking
rapidly up and down, singing and stamping,
had been very talkative, and had kicked
another patient. In cases of excitement it was
customary at the Surrey Lunatic Asylum, to
administer a shower-bath, and Dolley had
been treated with shower-baths on previous
occasions. Only a week before he had had one
which lasted half-an-hour. When, therefore,
Mr. Snape, walking in the direction of the
shower-bath, said, "Come this way, Dolley,"
the old man knew what was intended, and,
as one of the keepers tells the tale, he "up
with his fist, and struck Mr. Snape on the
side of the head, and gave him a very violent
blow, and then he went to run through Number
two ward, and I went after him, and he
turned round and kicked me in a dangerous
place, and Davis, the attendant of Number
two, closed in behind him, and secured him.
I blew my whistle, and Ibberson came to our
assistance." Mr. Snape said, "Get him
undressed, and put him into the bath." When
he was undressed, he said, " Now, Dolley,
walk into the bath." Dolley quietly obeyed.
Mr. Snape then said, " Now, pull the string,
Barnett."

When the string was pulled, there fell over
the patient, according to the testimony of
two eminent engineers, by whom the bath
and cistern were examined, nearly twenty
gallons of water in the first half-minute, sixty
in the first two minutes, less after the depth
of water in the cistern had fallen; but, on the
whole, an average of nineteen and a half
gallons per minute. This water, Mr. Glaisher,
of the Greenwich Observatory, states would
have been of the low temperature of forty-
five degrees on that April morning.

The string having been pulled, the evidence
of Barnett is that, "then Mr. Snape said
to me, 'Barnett, I never was struck by
a patient before, since I have been in the
institution.' He stayed for a moment or two
—perhaps a minute—and said, 'Keep him in
half-an-hour,' and I said I had not my watch
in my pocket; if you will tell Davis when
the time is expired, I will thank you. Mr.
Snape said, 'Look in upon him several
times.' " Mr. Snape then left the bath-room.
Before leaving the room, Mr. Snape said also,
that when Dolley came out, Barnett was to
"Give him a good dose of the light-coloured
mixture." That is the name of an antimonial
emetic which it was usual to give to patients
after they had come out of the shower-bath.

Evidence on the part of the prosecution
further proved, that no patient had ever before
been kept in a shower-bath so long as thirty
minutes. The attendant in the bath-room
said, "I have generally given five minutes
and ten minutes, some of twenty minutes, but
of those, very few." The "good dose" was
interpreted to mean four tablespoonfuls
instead of three. In passing through the
adjoining ward, after he had given his
orders in the bath-room, Mr. Snape observed
again to the attendant there, that "he had
never been struck by a patient in that
establishment before; " and that, "it was a
violent blow." He did not return to observe
the effect produced by adding one-third more
to what had been his utmost prescription
(and one used in few cases) before that time.
He did not see Dolley again until the moment
when he died.

Dolley remained in the bath twenty-eight
minutes, during which he was looked in upon
four or five times, and seen to be standing