In the extracts that I have given from prison officials’ reports we learn that a considerable number of epileptics are detained in prison as criminals. During 1910-11 the figures for three prisons were as follows: Liverpool 92; Wakefield 53; and Parkhurst 10. In three prisons only we had, then, during one year 155 proved epileptics undergoing imprisonment, ten of whom were sentenced to penal servitude. I call particular attention to this matter, for it demands attention; 155 unfortunates, for whom out of sheer pity we ought to provide loving care, were thrust into prison, tabulated as criminals, and compelled to undergo the wearying monotony of prison life.

Undoubtedly epilepsy produces many serious crimes. This dread affliction, half physical and half mental, can induce a state of mind from which not only crimes of violence and of homicidal tendency may be the result, but crimes of almost any character.

Mental stupor, and sometimes complete aberration, follows or precedes epileptic seizures. [49]Assaults, wilful damage, attempted murder, attempted suicide, thefts, indecency and criminal assaults, as well as murder itself, are quite likely to be committed. I have, in fact, personally known such crimes committed, some of them repeatedly, by well-known epileptics. I have been a frequent visitor in houses where some member of the family was an epileptic. I had, perhaps, met the sufferer in the cells, or the friends had been to consult the magistrate, and I had called upon them in consequence. The public generally have no idea of the extent to which epilepsy prevails. I have no figures or statistics to give; I do not know whether or not it is on the increase, though, if I had to give an opinion, I should say it was.

I know it is very common. I know an epileptic is one of the most woeful objects on earth; I know the anxiety and sorrow of families who have one such in their homes. I know that many, very many serious crimes and a world of suffering might be saved if we had registration of, and proper provision for epileptics.

The provision made for these unfortunates is miserably insufficient. Their neglect by the State is a national scandal, but it is also a public danger. People who can pay may have their epileptics cared for. But the epileptics of the poor are cared for by short periods of confinement in prison, workhouse or asylum. We have a right to ask for some large, considerate and humane method of treating epileptics, for a wise nation [50]would protect them against themselves, and would protect society against them; and would remove that dreadful anxiety that depresses so many people who have an epileptic among them: the fear of “something happening.”

One would think it impossible in these days for a man to be continually sentenced to imprisonment because he suffers from epilepsy, yet such is undoubtedly the case. I have no personal knowledge of the 155 epileptics detained in the three prisons I have quoted; but I have personal knowledge and prolonged experience of many sufferers whom I have seen sent to prison for offences committed in the throes of their frightful affliction.

One of the finest fellows, physically, I have ever known was a hopeless epileptic. He had served with distinction in a famous cavalry regiment in India; he suffered from sunstroke, and as the affects were serious and prolonged he was invalided from the Army. He recovered somewhat, and married, but when children were born to him epilepsy developed. I have seen the horror that ensued in his home: the fears of his wife, the terror of his children, but I realised most of all the pitiful condition of the man himself. Many times I have in his own home taken part, at some risk to myself, in restraining him from violence, and when sometimes our efforts have been unavailing, the police have been called in, and I have seen him conveyed to the police station, and from there to the police court. When [51]in the dock, standing charged with violence and assaults, I have seen a fit come upon him, when half a dozen policemen would be required to straighten him out upon the floor and to hold him till stupor supervened, when his spell of violence would give way to insensibility and heavy, stertorous breathing.

I have seen his wife and children standing weeping in the court. Out of sheer pity I have known a kind and wise magistrate sentence him to six months’ imprisonment without hard labour: for he felt that for six months at any rate the man, the wife and children would be protected.

None the less the poor fellow felt the indignity and cruelty of his position, and whenever committed to prison he never failed to communicate with the Home Secretary, and petition for release. In the pigeon-holes of the Home Office I have no doubt many of this man’s letters and appeals are carefully stored.

But unfortunately when epileptics marry the evil and suffering does not end with them, for when children are born, they often prove very strange beings.

I have watched the growth of such children; I have seen their strange whims and their oft-times irresponsibility. I have known the girls become hopelessly immoral and cleverly dishonest even at their school age. One of the cleverest thieves I ever knew was a girl of fourteen, whose father was an epileptic. She looked the picture [52]of confiding innocence, but she robbed and cheated all sorts of people: doctors and clergymen were her special prey.

She was charged repeatedly; no reformatory would receive her, for she was flagrantly immoral. At sixteen she was a drab and a sleeper-out; at eighteen she became an inmate of a lunatic asylum, but at twenty her life came mercifully to an end.

I have watched the progress of boys born to an epileptic mother or father, and again, they are strange beings. I have not found them to be the equal of girls in lying or dishonesty, but I have found them to be idle and shiftless; incapable of giving sustained attention to study or work; sometimes becoming drunkards and vagrants before the days of full manhood were reached.

So far as my experience goes, I have not found that the children of an epileptic suffer from “fits” or manifest seizures. They do not bear on their bodies the cuts, wounds and bruises that are often found on the bodies of those who do suffer, but I have found, and certainly my experience does not stand alone, that they are often irresponsible creatures possessing strange minds, clever in certain directions and those directions not for good; capable of serious crime, but never exhibiting any sorrow, fear or remorse when convicted of any offence. They generally insist upon their absolute innocence, but go to prison just as unconcernedly as they would go elsewhere.

Not very long ago a wealthy gentleman wrote [53]to me about his daughter, a beautiful and accomplished woman of twenty-two. He told me that she had been in prison and was again in the hands of the police, charged with fraud. His letter led to an interview; he candidly told me that his daughter had been untruthful and dishonest for many years, but now he was ashamed to say that she was grossly immoral.

He had been compelled to remove her from every educational establishment in which she had been placed, for her lies and dishonesty could not be tolerated. He had placed her with more than one private governess, but while she made excellent progress with her studies, and especially with music, even for liberal payment no one could be found to give her a home and supervision beyond a very short period.

The grief and shame of both father and mother were apparent; their daughter being in the hands of the police, they knew that I could not save her; but they wanted some hope and some guidance for the future. “Can nothing be done?” they repeatedly asked. I could give them but little comfort; I dared not create hope, for I had learned during our conversation that the mother herself suffered at intervals, sometimes longer and sometimes shorter, from epileptic “fits.” In my heart I felt sure that this was the real cause of the daughter’s strange behaviour; I did not, however, add to their sorrow by telling them what I thought.

My experience of epileptics has been much [54]larger than the ordinary run of my life would lead any one to imagine, for outside my police court and prison experience I have had frequent opportunities for gaining knowledge and forming judgment. Probably few men have a more varied post-bag than myself; rightly or wrongly, large numbers of people believe that I can give them advice or help in family and other matters.

So all sorts of difficulties and sorrows are placed before me. But most of my correspondents consult me about some member of their family who is at once their despair and shame. Under such circumstances, I have always been ready to give such guidance and comfort as was possible. But being of inquiring mind, I always wanted to know the cause of the evil and sorrow. So I made inquiries regarding family history, etc., and was often brought face to face with the fact that father or mother, sometimes grandfather or grandmother, suffered from “fits.”

Some years ago, after writing in the daily press upon the dangers of epilepsy, I received a large number of letters from friends of epileptics. Every post brought me letters which came from various parts of the country.

Most of my correspondents were in good financial positions, but their letters formed pitiful reading. A more dolorous collection it would be impossible to imagine. But they taught me a great deal, for I realised that this terrible affliction prevailed to a greater extent than I had dreamt of. I realised how respectable people cover and [55]hide the fact of epilepsy as long as possible, and that when the fact can be no longer hidden they cower with shame, as if their sorrow was in itself a disgrace and a scandal. I had ample confirmation in those dolorous letters that not only pain, suffering, injury and hopelessness dwelt in the home of an epileptic; but also that shame, crime, imprisonment, strange actions and more than strange minds were some of the resultant effects. I need not dilate upon the danger to the public when large numbers of persons suffering from this malady are at liberty amongst............