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THE CASE OF MARY ANN ANSELL.
THE RATING OF HOSPITALS.
hoods, and it would be to make
hospitals
a
a
sounder
one
solitary subject
to a large extent undertake2 The legislative machine does not move rapidly, but we hope that the fact that this matter is undcr the consideration of a Royal Oommission, combined with the manifest sympathy of the London County Council, points to a speedy release of the hospitals from a taxation which we cannot help regarding as being
if it were proposed of exemption where
they already
.none previously existed. With regard to existing exemptions the property of the Crown pays no rates by common law, and by statute churches and practically all chapels and also pay no rates. Lighthouses, moreover, societies instituted for the purposes of exempt science, literature, and the fine arts. Can it be said that
meeting-houses
-are
and
223
in their
so are
general grounds of public policy or abstract justice the great London hospitals should not as to local burdens be in an equally favourable position with the London Library ? It should be known that our hospitals were not always rated, but this was not on the ground of their being charitable
case
oppressive,
unnecessary, and
unjust.
on
institutions,
but because in
Lord MANSFIELD
1760, in
the
case
"Ne
similar institutions within the law as enunciated in the Mersey Docks case. What is now needed is a statu-
tory exemption of all charitable institutions coming rules
as to the raising and The principal one of these we conceive will be that those who contribute the funds ,shall derive no direct benefit, as by contract, from the institation. This is the case with all our voluntarily supported
administration of their funds.
,hospitals, the fact that in some cases subscribers have a 7-right to nominate patients for reception into the hospital constituting a benefit to the persons selected by them but not in any other sense being of advantage to the subscriber. This exemption of hospitals is claimed by those interested in their welfare, not only because it is anomalous that literary and artistic bodies should be untaxed on the ground of disinterested public benefit while hospitals are compelled to pay, but also because these institutions which now contribute directly to the rates do more than any other
institution to relieve those rates by the accommodation of the sick and injured poor who otherwise would be dependent on them. As far as it can be done the wards of hospitals are reserved for those who could not be treated
_properly in any other place at their disposal, a large proportion having no homes to go to and a still larger proportion having homes in which adequate treatment could not be carried out. All of these, were it not for the voluntary contributions which support the hospitals, would have to be treated in workhouse infirmaries supported by the rates. Or, to put the same point in another way, if the voluntary contributions of the charitable did not institute and support hospitals these would have to be built and maintained by means of largely increased local taxation. It is unjust that institutions already struggling for bare existence should be still further burdened to aid ratesupported workhouses, the liabilities and duties of which
quid nimis."
THE CASE OF MARY ANN ANSELL.
to the
"
within certain defined
"Ne quid nimis."
of St. Luke’s
ingenious conclusion that there was no occupier to pay the rate, the only persons who could be considered in any sense to occupy being the trustees, whom he did not regard as beneficial occupiers, and two other classes which obviously could not be made liablenamely, the paid servants of the institution and the patients, the objects of its charity. The principle, however, laid down in this decision exempted so many other places besides hospitals that it was naturally much questioned and many years later, in 1864, Lord MANSFIELD was overruled in a case -in which, on the grounds that there were no occupiers to be rated, the Mersey Docks claimed exemption, and shortly .afterwards the case of St. Thomas’s Hospital brought Hospital,
came
Annotations. I
ON
Wednesday morning, July 19th, Mary Ann
Ansell was for the murder of her sister Caroline, an inmate of the Leavesden Asylum. We need not comment here on the details of the case which are of no particular medical interest and are familiar to all our readers through the daily papers. But we think it right to record our belief in the righteousness of verdict, sentence, and execution. No one desires the death of a fellow creature and no one is quite free from the feeling that there is something particularly terrible in exacting the utmost penalty of the law from a young girl. But as long as the law of the land is what it is so long such crimes as Mary Ansell’s must be punished by death, and we fail to see that in her case there was a single mitigating circumstance. The Home Secretary is to be congratulated upon his firm decision to rely for guidance in the matter entirely upon the report of the medical experts properly commissioned to inquire into Mary Ansell’s mental condition and to pay no attention to the clamour-most of it well meant if hysterical, but part of it self-interestedwhich has been raised in certain quarters. We are forced to believe that some of those who have agitated with most licence of language for the reprieve of Mary Ansell have done so in ignorance. They do not know the pains which the Home Secretary takes in these sad cases and the enormous facilities which his department has for arriving at the truth. The Home Secretary in the exercise of his supreme responsibility obtains information of a character which cannot be put forward during a trial and every scrap of such information that bears upon the possibility of reprieving a prisoner is considered with exhaustive care. This was done in Mary Ansell’s case, for those who called for a reprieve are not the only compassionate and just folk in the world. As a result but one conclusion could be come to-namely, that the convict was a perfectly sane and responsible being who had committed a cold-blooded murder. To have accepted the suggestion of persons who were not in a position to know what they were talking about that Mary Ansell was an imbecile would have been a grave mistake on the part’ of the Home Secretary. Everyone knows that it would have been highly acceptable to Sir Matthew White Ridley to recommend a reprieve, but in the teeth of the facts of the case and the advice of psychological authority to have done so would have been a dereliction of duty. For the information of the Daily Mail we may state on our own responsibility that Dr. Nicolson, C.B., and Mr. Brayn were not anxious to hang Mary Ansell because Broadmoor Asylum was too full. It is pitiable that the Daily Mail should have made such an allegation. It is also laughable. ’
hanged
THE CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR. THE tremendous experiment"continues to provide difficulties for nearly everyone concerned in its administration. On July 12th at the Pontypridd Police Court a Unitarian
hoods, and it would be to make
hospitals
a
a
sounder
one
solitary subject
to a large extent undertake2 The legislative machine does not move rapidly, but we hope that the fact that this matter is undcr the consideration of a Royal Oommission, combined with the manifest sympathy of the London County Council, points to a speedy release of the hospitals from a taxation which we cannot help regarding as being
if it were proposed of exemption where
they already
.none previously existed. With regard to existing exemptions the property of the Crown pays no rates by common law, and by statute churches and practically all chapels and also pay no rates. Lighthouses, moreover, societies instituted for the purposes of exempt science, literature, and the fine arts. Can it be said that
meeting-houses
-are
and
223
in their
so are
general grounds of public policy or abstract justice the great London hospitals should not as to local burdens be in an equally favourable position with the London Library ? It should be known that our hospitals were not always rated, but this was not on the ground of their being charitable
case
oppressive,
unnecessary, and
unjust.
on
institutions,
but because in
Lord MANSFIELD
1760, in
the
case
"Ne
similar institutions within the law as enunciated in the Mersey Docks case. What is now needed is a statu-
tory exemption of all charitable institutions coming rules
as to the raising and The principal one of these we conceive will be that those who contribute the funds ,shall derive no direct benefit, as by contract, from the institation. This is the case with all our voluntarily supported
administration of their funds.
,hospitals, the fact that in some cases subscribers have a 7-right to nominate patients for reception into the hospital constituting a benefit to the persons selected by them but not in any other sense being of advantage to the subscriber. This exemption of hospitals is claimed by those interested in their welfare, not only because it is anomalous that literary and artistic bodies should be untaxed on the ground of disinterested public benefit while hospitals are compelled to pay, but also because these institutions which now contribute directly to the rates do more than any other
institution to relieve those rates by the accommodation of the sick and injured poor who otherwise would be dependent on them. As far as it can be done the wards of hospitals are reserved for those who could not be treated
_properly in any other place at their disposal, a large proportion having no homes to go to and a still larger proportion having homes in which adequate treatment could not be carried out. All of these, were it not for the voluntary contributions which support the hospitals, would have to be treated in workhouse infirmaries supported by the rates. Or, to put the same point in another way, if the voluntary contributions of the charitable did not institute and support hospitals these would have to be built and maintained by means of largely increased local taxation. It is unjust that institutions already struggling for bare existence should be still further burdened to aid ratesupported workhouses, the liabilities and duties of which
quid nimis."
THE CASE OF MARY ANN ANSELL.
to the
"
within certain defined
"Ne quid nimis."
of St. Luke’s
ingenious conclusion that there was no occupier to pay the rate, the only persons who could be considered in any sense to occupy being the trustees, whom he did not regard as beneficial occupiers, and two other classes which obviously could not be made liablenamely, the paid servants of the institution and the patients, the objects of its charity. The principle, however, laid down in this decision exempted so many other places besides hospitals that it was naturally much questioned and many years later, in 1864, Lord MANSFIELD was overruled in a case -in which, on the grounds that there were no occupiers to be rated, the Mersey Docks claimed exemption, and shortly .afterwards the case of St. Thomas’s Hospital brought Hospital,
came
Annotations. I
ON
Wednesday morning, July 19th, Mary Ann
Ansell was for the murder of her sister Caroline, an inmate of the Leavesden Asylum. We need not comment here on the details of the case which are of no particular medical interest and are familiar to all our readers through the daily papers. But we think it right to record our belief in the righteousness of verdict, sentence, and execution. No one desires the death of a fellow creature and no one is quite free from the feeling that there is something particularly terrible in exacting the utmost penalty of the law from a young girl. But as long as the law of the land is what it is so long such crimes as Mary Ansell’s must be punished by death, and we fail to see that in her case there was a single mitigating circumstance. The Home Secretary is to be congratulated upon his firm decision to rely for guidance in the matter entirely upon the report of the medical experts properly commissioned to inquire into Mary Ansell’s mental condition and to pay no attention to the clamour-most of it well meant if hysterical, but part of it self-interestedwhich has been raised in certain quarters. We are forced to believe that some of those who have agitated with most licence of language for the reprieve of Mary Ansell have done so in ignorance. They do not know the pains which the Home Secretary takes in these sad cases and the enormous facilities which his department has for arriving at the truth. The Home Secretary in the exercise of his supreme responsibility obtains information of a character which cannot be put forward during a trial and every scrap of such information that bears upon the possibility of reprieving a prisoner is considered with exhaustive care. This was done in Mary Ansell’s case, for those who called for a reprieve are not the only compassionate and just folk in the world. As a result but one conclusion could be come to-namely, that the convict was a perfectly sane and responsible being who had committed a cold-blooded murder. To have accepted the suggestion of persons who were not in a position to know what they were talking about that Mary Ansell was an imbecile would have been a grave mistake on the part’ of the Home Secretary. Everyone knows that it would have been highly acceptable to Sir Matthew White Ridley to recommend a reprieve, but in the teeth of the facts of the case and the advice of psychological authority to have done so would have been a dereliction of duty. For the information of the Daily Mail we may state on our own responsibility that Dr. Nicolson, C.B., and Mr. Brayn were not anxious to hang Mary Ansell because Broadmoor Asylum was too full. It is pitiable that the Daily Mail should have made such an allegation. It is also laughable. ’
hanged
THE CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR. THE tremendous experiment"continues to provide difficulties for nearly everyone concerned in its administration. On July 12th at the Pontypridd Police Court a Unitarian