TO RID THE WORLD OF INSANITY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2715, 21 January 1910, Page 2

TO RID THE WORLD OF INSANITY.

THE LETHAL CHAMBER

Mr. A. E. Spender, the Mayor of Plymouth, has made the startling suggestion that the insane should be exterminated by means of the lethal chamber. Writing to Sir C. Radford, chairman of a meeting in Plymouth for the care of the feeble-minded. Mr. Spender said: —We are wasting millions on the creation of expensive buildings in the- most! salubrious neighborhoods and the maintenance of an enormous official staff, and the providing of good food, for wliat purpose P To help to live those who have not, and never, will have, one gleam of intelligence. This is called humanity. Medical science has made such strides that it is possible to submit these idiots 1 to a painless death, and release- them from the purgatory of non-intelligence. Spend, rather, the money, now) wasted in svich profligacy on schemes such as maternity institutions and creches, and a different dawn wild arise I know I lay mysolf open to criticism, so do all men who make bold to express themselves upon subjects which strike at the root, of archaic practices. Mr. Spender adds, states a London journal, that he is prepared to be riddled with the shot of abuse because lie- believes that with strict safeguards the course he qdvooates would be the most humane, as it certainly is, in his opinion, the most sane.