an asylum for the lunatics of such county were authorized to appoint a committee of visiting justices to provide the requisite asylum. Those visitors were to purchase land, contract for and superintend the erection of the building, to appoint the officers, and generally to superintend the wanagement of it, some general regulations being given by way of recommendation in the statute as to the situation and construction of the building.

The amount to be expended in the provision of the asylum was raiseable by charges on the county rate.

So soon as the asylum was completed it was to be open for the reception of every lunatic, insane person, or dangerous idiot who, having become chargeable to any parish, was brought thither upon a warrant of two justices granted upon the application of the overseers of a parish contributing to the asylum, which warrant, it may be remarked, the justices could not under that statute refuse to issue.

Such mad persons as were apprehended under the Vagrant Act above cited were to be removed to such asylum, or if there were no such asylum to a licensed house.

The overseers were by order of the justices to pay a weekly sum for the maintenance of the pauper settled in their parish; but if the settlement could not be ascertained, the treasurer of the county was to pay the charges of such maintenance. The lunatic having been removed to the asylum under the authority of the justices, could not be discharged without the order of the visiting justices.

The statute enabled counties to unite in providing an asylum, or one county to unite with the subscribers to an asylum erected by voluntary subscription, upon such terms as should be mutually agreed upon.

This Act was amended by four statutes, the 51 G. 3, c. 79, the 55 G. 3, c. 46, the 59 G. 3, c. 127, and the 5 G. 4, c. 71.

The 51 G. 3, c. 79, enabled the justices to refuse to issue the warrant of removal to the asylum, but required him to give his reasons for his refusal. It also rendered it incumbent upon the overseers to produce a medical certificate of the insanity of the pauper, and enabled the justices to cause the alleged lunatic to be examined by a medical officer before the warrant was issued.

This statute also required the medical superintendent of the asylum to make annual returns of the lunatics therein to the quarter sessions.

It provided that the settlement of a bastard born in the asylum should be that of its mother, a provision which has been universally established by the 4 & 5 W. 4, c. 76, and consequently has not been introduced into the statute of the last session.

The 55 G. 3, c. 46, made some regulations for the annual election of visiting justices and their number, enabled the justices at their quarter sessions to limit the cost of the erection, and provided for the admission into the asylum of other lunatics when the asylum could accommodate them.

As the previous statute enabled the visiting justices to fix the rate of weekly charge within the sum of 14s., this statute enabled the quarter sessions to increase that rate.

By this statute the overseers of every parish were required to make returns of lunatics within their parishes when called upon by the justices at their petty sessions.

The 59 G. 3, c. 127, enabled two justices to cause the

lunatic to be removed to an asylum or a licensed house of their own motion, without a previous application from the overseers, and to make an order on the overseers of the place to which the lunatic was chargeable.

A penalty was imposed upon the overseer of any parish who wilfully neglected for seven days to give notice of the state of any lunatic chargeable to such parish to some justice of the peace.

The 5 G. 4, c. 71, after making some amendments relative to the proceedings and number of the visiting justices, enabled two justices to adjudge the settlement of the lunatic, and to make orders to pay a weekly sum to the treasurer of the asylum for the maintenance, and of recovering the amounts ordered to be paid for the maintenance of lunatic paupers by distress on the goods of the

Overseers.

In 1827 a committee of the House of Commons again sat to inquire into the state of pauper lunatics; and in the following year the 9 G. 4, c. 40, was passed which repealed all the foregoing statutes, consolidated the different enactments, and introduced some few additional provisions, according to the preamble, "to facilitate the erection of county lunatic asylums, and to improve the treatment of lunatics."

The principal of the new provisions consisted in the enabling of persons generally incapacitated to convey sites for the asylum, and in directing the appointment of a chaplain to every asylum, and enabling parishes to send medical practitioners to visit and examine the pauper patients belonging to the parish in any public hospital, county asylum, or licensed house-and the Secretary of State

was empowered to cause any such county asylum to be inspected.

The overseers were required to make their returns of lunatics after the 15th of August in every year, and the visitors of every asylum to make an annual report of the patients to the Secretary of State, and to the Commissioners of Lunacy.

It is proper to notice that, by means of interpretation clauses, the powers given to the justices in counties were extended by the 48 G. 3, c. 96, s. 28, and the 9 G. 4, c. 40, s. 61, to towns corporate; but it does not appear that any corporate towns have availed themselves of them, though Bristol, Haverfordwest, and Hull have established asylums under particular local Acts.

At the time when the statute 9 G. 4, c. 40 was passed, the whole administration of the relief of the poor was entrusted to the overseers; but as this was taken away from them in the greater part of the country by the Poor Law Amendment Act, some inconvenience was felt in reference to the relief of lunatic paupers, inasmuch as the overseers had little or no opportunity of carrying out the provisions of the statute applicable to them. Hence the 5 & 6 Vict. c. 57, s. 6, without repealing the provisions relating to the overseers in this statute, gave to boards of guardians and their relieving officers all the powers which were possessed by overseers under that statute, enabled the guardians to pay the charges for the overseers, and imposed upon the relieving officer the same duty as had been cast upon the overseers, to give due notice of all lunatic paupers in his district. At the same time the overseers were relieved from the necessity of making the annual

return of lunatics, which was thenceforth required from the clerk of the guardians.

The proceedings for providing asylums under these statutes were purely voluntary, and the justices of the different counties, alarmed at the expense or indifferent to the subject, have so far neglected to adopt them, that up to the commencement of last year there were only twelve county asylums, and five county and subscription asylums. One additional asylum has been opened in Devonshire this year. Hence the regulations of these statutes for the removal of pauper lunatics to county asylums have been to a great extent impracticable. At the same time the number of houses licensed for the reception of lunatics was too limited to supply the deficiency.

Nevertheless, the legislature passed a stringent enactment with reference to pauper lunatics in the Poor Law Amendment Act, which in sect. 45 prohibits the detaining of a dangerous lunatic or idiot in a workhouse for more than fourteen days. Difficulty has constantly arisen to boards of guardians and overseers in obeying this law, from the inability to find accommodation for their dangerous lunatics out of the workhouse, except with the relatives or friends of the paupers, whose custody is oftentimes the most inefficient and unsatisfactory.

The present measures are proposed to remedy these evils, and are contained in the 8 & 9 Vict. c. 126.

The providing of the asylum is now positively enjoined upon counties and boroughs of a certain extent by express command of the legislature. A term of three years is given to the justices of counties and boroughs to provide the asylum; but if at the expiration of that time no step