Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/71

 THE RELIEF AND CARE OF DEPENDENTS 55

of England were ordered to be confined as a dangerous class of vagrants. This legislation was copied by the colonies, and even now, when insapity is recognized and dealt with as a disease, traces of the old treatment are found. These are to be seen in the commitment laws of several of the states.

The states may be thrown into four groups, according as the insane (l) are arraigned or tried in the county or the justice court, and committed to the hospital without a medical examina- tion or the testimony of a medical authority ; or (2) are tried in the county or justice court and committed, an examination and certificate of insanity by one or more physicians being required ; or (3) are examined by, and committed upon the certificate of, one or more physicians, the function of the court being reduced to registering their finding; or (4) are arraigned, and an inquisi- tion made, by a regularly constituted commission.'

In the first group are Colorado, Louisiana, Maryland, New Mexico, Texas, Virginia, and Wyoming. In Virginia a person suspected of being insane is ordered by a justice to be brought before him and two other justices for examination. Witnesses (including a physician, if one is attending the case) are subpce- naed to appear. If committed, the patient is reexamined and received or dismissed by the board of trustees of the asylum.° Upon petition to the effect that a person is insane and dangerous to the community, the county or probate judge in Colorado, Maryland, Texas, and Wyoming impanels a jury (in Colorado and Texas of six, in the others of twelve), which decides as to the insanity of the person in question. ^ However, in Texas trial by jury applies only to the pauper insane. Other patients are committed by the court upon the certificate of insanity made, upon examination, by a physician. In Louisiana and New

'The commitment laws of the several commonwealths were treated at length in a committee report, made by Stephen Smith at the National Conference of Charities and Corrections in 1892. The report was based upon Mr. Harrison's A Collection of the Lunacy Laws of the Unitet/ States, compiled in 1884. While a few states have amended their law for the better since this report was made, its statements in most cases still hold true. The report referred to will be found in the Report of the N. C. C. C. for 1892, pp. 94-124.

'1669. '2935; I, art. 59; 96; 2391.