Item 8 - Letter from James Crichton-Browne to Lord Houghton

2 ff., with two enclosures, 4 ff. and 2 ff.

On embossed notepaper, West Riding Asylum, Wakefield. - Encloses the sketch by [Richard] Dadd, also encloses a letter from Dr [William] Orange, a letter from Carr who murdered a girl near Gateshead in 1865 [the preceding enclosures are all now missing] and a letter from Hughes who killed Dr Meyer in the Asylum Chapel. End of letter missing.

Enclosed, John Hughes 'To the Council of Supervision': 'New Moon' [Broadmoor?]. - doctors, judges and the Royal Family are madder than himself; describes murder of Dr Meyer; 'he was Insane, like the spooney Mad Parson also, and not fit to Judge my stout heart & sound mind'; incarceration here; fellow inmates include a mad American doctor and 'Dalmas, the Frenchman... whose life the Government spared, on condition, that, he revealed a Scientific secret, which he kept possession of'; Hughes has own secret method of ensuring safety in coalmines but those in power are too busy pursuing their own interests to care; personal campaign against insane establisment; religious justification; will sell secret; concludes 'I remain a Prisoner still at a German bred Lunatic's pleasure'.

Enclosed, 'John Petrie alias Hughes... To the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Read & Understand'. Describes detention in 1859 'for destroying a Lunatic King's Picture in a Place of Worship'; rails against the establishment and the monarchy.