The “Pall Mall Gazette” on the Non-Restraint System

Abstract

In the number of this Journal for October, 1869, we noticed an article in the Pall Mall Gazette, the real, if not overt, aim of which appeared to be to throw discredit on the nonrestraint system. Moved to a righteous anger by the recent death from broken ribs of a patient at the Hanwell Asylum, of another at the Lancaster Asylum, and of another at the Joint Counties' Asylum, Carmarthen, the Gazette has returned to the subject, and seems now to make no concealment of its desire to see restored that system of mechanical restraint which it has been the honour of English asylums to have abolished. We deeply regret that the policy of so ably conducted a journal has not been inspired by better counsel and fuller knowledge than are evinced in the following article: —