(_By our Medical Correspondent._)
The newspapers have recently devoted a certain amount of space to the
American millionaire who, while confined in a psychopathic ward of a
private lunatic asylum, by his clever financial manipulations added
in the course of six weeks five hundred thousand pounds to a fortune
"conservatively estimated at three million pounds." In spite of
this achievement the misguided millionaire pleaded earnestly for his
release. But the verdict of the New York Sheriffs' Court was adverse.
The expert "alienists" admitted that he possessed an extraordinary
memory and undoubted genius, but held that he was none the less
insane. Accordingly he is to remain in the psychopathic ward to which
he was consigned "at the request of his aged mother." A simple sum
in addition establishes the fact that, if the patient maintains his
present average, he will considerably more than double his fortune
in a year. Yet none of the newspaper commentators have realised the
tremendous possibilities underlying this achievement.
We are threatened with national insolvency, and here is an infallible
remedy ready to hand. Lord FISHER'S panacea for our discontents was to
"sack the lot"--to dismiss all our rulers and administrators. But he
had only a glimmering of the truth. Our cry should rather be, "Lock up
the lot." Experience has taught us that if complete latitude is given
to eccentrics and incompetents, if, in the words of Professor SODDY,
F.R.S., the destinies of the country are entrusted to people of
archaic mental outlook, the result is bound to be disastrous and
chaotic. But if you treat them as lunatics, there is a strong
presumption of their mending their ways and proving valuable factors
in the economic reconstruction of the Empire and the world.
Grave evils call for drastic treatment, and in view of the hectic
condition of the Stock Exchange and the "vicious circle" round which
industrialism is now unhappily revolving I cannot but think that the
temporary seclusion of the Ministry in a psychopathic ward might be
fraught with economic consequences of the utmost importance. Even if
they were only able to reduce our indebtedness at the same rate as
that attained by the American millionaire, their combined efforts
would represent a magnificent total.
Perhaps it would be wiser to proceed tentatively and not commit
ourselves for more than six weeks to start with. It is just
conceivable that the treatment might stimulate extravagance instead
of economy. Financial thrombosis is not unknown as one of the obscurer
forms of megalomania. Still, as I have said, the experiment is worth
making.
In other spheres of activity the results achieved are most
encouraging. For example, an extremely _outre_ Cubist who was
recently consigned to a psychopathic ward at the instigation of his
grandmother, developed a remarkable talent for painting in the manner
of MARCUS STONE; while a neo-Georgian composer under similar
treatment has produced a series of _etudes_ indistinguishable from the
pianoforte music of STERNDALE BENNETT, though he had previously
far outstripped the most unbridled and exacerbated aberrations of
SCRIABINE in his latest phase.
* * * * *
Commercial Candour.
"YE OLDE TEA HOUSE
(Opposite the Church).