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twelve, as in English companies. In this engagement he has the power of compulsion, for no Life Insurance Association will exchange a reputable physician for one of even doubtful character. There can then be no reasonable excuse for this humiliation of the profession at the hands of the older members. There is, however, still another method in which the profession are induced to serve these wealthy corporations, and in this instance they render their services gratuitously. To insure itself against all possible risks the Association requires the applicant to obtain from his regular medical attendant a lengthy certificate as to his predisposition to disease, etc., etc. This certificate is generally made out by the physician as a favor to his patient, when in reality it is a gratuitous service rendered to the insuring company. They require it as an additional safeguard. The physician acts the part of a consultant, and receives nothing for his trouble and information. View this act in whatever light we may it can but be regarded as a gross imposition upon the profession, and should be resolutely resisted. The medical attendant of the applicant is entitled to his fee as a consulting physician, and should demand it without reserve. In this case, also, he has the power to demand that justice be done him, and to compel the performance of the act. His information is absolutely essential to the complete medical examination of the insured, and the

Company will not proceed without it.

The duty of
By concert

the profession seems to us apparent. of action individual members engaged in Life Insurance Companies should demand an adequate remuneration for their services. The question is not whether A or B can afford to leave his business, and attend at the office of the Company an hour or two daily for three or five dollars; it is rather a question which concerns the honor and dignity of the whole profession, and which no individual has the right to settle according to his own necessities. In this matter he is bound to consult the interests of his calling, and this calling demands of every member that he sustain in his own person its claims as an exalted scientific pursuit. It is equally clear that every physician should positively refuse to make out a certificate for insurance for his patient unless he is paid by the Company a full consultation fee. By declining this gratuitous service he does no violence to his relations with his patient, and will demand only what is just and right. If the profession will unite, these most desirable objects can readily be obtained. In England a noble stand has been made against the system of gratuitous services to these monopolies, and the result has been most favorable; after a feeble resistance, the value of the services of physicians to the success of the business of insurance was conceded by the allowance of ample remuneration to every one who serves them.

XLVII.

ALLEGED CRIMINALS.

TH

HE frequent instances of attempts at suicide by persons detained in confinement deserves serious consideration. These occurrences would not be worthy of remark if they were limited to prisoners awaiting the execution of the death-penalty, or even condemned to a long period of imprisonment. We should then have an adequate cause for the attempted self-destruction, for in all periods of history, criminals have been guilty of this crime. But in this instance the crime is more frequently attempted by quite another class of prisoners: they are those persons who are awaiting their trial, and who have been charged with grave offences. In nearly every case the victim of self-destruction has left behind him an explanation of his last criminal act. The exciting cause, if it may be so designated, is confinement in the dreary, noisome cells of prisons. No sane person can be taken from the fresh air and sunlight, and be immured in these gloomy recesses, more dreary than the niches of a catacomb, for any considerable period, without coming to prefer death to life. Shut out from even a ray of sunlight, stifled by the dead and fetid

atmosphere of a living tomb, permitted no other liberty than to pace the length of his own body, the mind of the prisoner gradually loses its susceptibilities; the past with its pleasant memories aggravates the miseries of the passing hour, and the future takes coloring from the gloom and melancholy of the present. He implores to be put on trial, and either by acquittal or condemnation be relieved from the horrors of a living death. But courts do not hear his petition, and his case is adjourned for long weary months. Meanwhile the prisoner is gradually approaching suicidal mania or melancholy, and suddenly, and often unexpectedly, he takes the fatal step. As yet his guilt or innocence is unproven. This violent termination of his life is, however, in the public estimation, sufficient evidence of his guiltiness, and upon the poor man's memory is stamped the ineffaceable stigma of crime. It is a well established maxim of criminal law, that the accused shall be regarded as innocent until he is proven to be guilty. In this recorded decision of our courts we have a beautiful illustration of justice leaning to the side of mercy. For, the mere arrest of a person charged with the commission of crime might be taken as presumptive evidence of his guilt; and for the general good, as well as protection of society, he might, with the greatest propriety, have been treated as a criminal until proven to be innocent. But mercy has so far tempered the decrees of

justice that the humanitarian view has been universally adopted, and the accused stands before the court an innocent person until proven to be guilty. It would seem to follow, as a natural sequence from this maxim, that persons arrested for crimes should be treated as if innocent; that they should be placed under such restraints, or bonds, as will simply insure their appearance in courts, and that they be not otherwise deprived of their liberty. It is but right that a person who is believed to be innocent, and who in the eye of the law is innocent, should have all the privileges of one who is innocent. There would seem to be a manifest injustice in removing such persons from their ordinary duties, and much more in subjecting them to confinement. It might with great propriety be added, that the citizen who allows himself to be accused of crime, and to be put on trial, yields sufficiently to the necessities of society without being subjected to any further humiliation until he is proved to be guilty. But practically the law reverses its own wise and humane maxim. It not only demands the arrest of the accused but condemns him, before trial, to a felon's or a murderer's cell. In close and solitary confinement, deprived of every social, domestic, and political privilege, he remains for months, and often for years, before the question of guilt is determined. Our criminal jurisprudence should be radically changed. Either the accused should be immediately put on trial

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