joint lives with benefit of survivorship, or depending on the joint continuance of two lives, or a sum (not exceeding 1007.) to be paid on the death of any person,such powers being exercised, so far as regards insurances, solely through the medium of Post Office savings banks.

The Acts relating respectively to Trustee Savings Banks and to the Post Office Savings Bank have therefore much in common, and the regulations made or sanctioned by the treasury thereunder present also great similarity; and the necessity of distinguishing between the provisions and regulations respectively applicable to each has been reduced by the provision of the Savings Banks Act, 1887 (50 & 51 Vict. c. 40), ss. 1, 2, whereby certain regulations applicable to the Post Office Savings Bank may be made applicable to Trustee Savings Banks. Moreover, a Trustee Savings Bank is now placed (as regards the integrity of its management) practically as effectively under control as the Post Office Savings Bank necessarily is; provision having been made, by the Trustee Savings Banks Act, 1887 (50 & 51 Vict. c. 47), for the appointment by the High Court of Justice, on the application of the treasury, of a commissioner to examine into the state of the affairs of any Trustee Savings Bank, on any primâ facie case made for such an examination (i). And by the Savings Banks Act, 1891 (54 & 55 Vict. c. 21), s. 2, inspectors of savings banks have also been appointed. Also, in a proper case, such a savings bank may be ordered to be wound up, as an unregistered association, under the Companies Acts, 1862—1900 (k).

(i) Sect. 2.

(k) Trustee Savings Banks Acts, 1863, s. 3; 1891, s. 6.

CHAPTER XIII.

OF THE LAWS RELATING TO LUNATIC ASYLUMS,
AND THEIR MANAGEMENT.

WE have had occasion elsewhere to explain the general state of the law with reference to idiots and lunatics (a) ; we now proceed to consider more fully the numerous provisions made by the legislature for the reception, detention, and care of idiots and lunatics, in lunatic asylums or other institutions.

Houses established for the reception of insane persons are of various descriptions, some being established and maintained for the public benefit and at the public expense, others, like the Royal Hospital of Bethlehem (b), having been established and endowed for the public benefit by charitable donors, and others, again, being private houses kept by individuals for their own profit. But every house, of whatever kind or class, used for the reception of lunatics is subject in a greater or less degree to public control. For the purpose of exposition it will be convenient to divide the subject into three parts, and to treat (1) Of lunatic asylums in counties and boroughs; (2) Of criminal lunatics; and (3) Of the treatment of lunatics in general (including idiots). Habitual drunkenness, it should be observed, may now be treated much in the same manner as lunacy, under the provisions of the Inebriates Acts, 1879 to 1899 (42 & 43 Vict. c. 19; 51 & 52 Vict. c. 19; 61 & 62 Vict. c. 60; and 62 & 63 Vict. c. 35). Under those Acts "retreats' and "inebriate

(a) Vide sup. vol. 1. p. 278; vol. 11. pp. 507–511.

(b) Cf. 25 & 26 Vict. (1862), c. 104, s. 5.

"reformatories" (c) may be established for the reception of drunkards, dipsomaniacs, and the like.

I. Lunatic Asylums.-County lunatic asylums were first established in the year 1808, by the 48 Geo. III. c. 96; from 1853 to 1890 they were regulated by the Lunatic Asylums Act, 1853, and a number of amending statutes. But all these were repealed, and their provisions (with amendments) consolidated, by the Lunacy Act, 1890 (d), which, however, has also in its turn been amended, in some few particulars, by the Lunacy Act, 1891 (e).

By the provisions of the earlier Lunacy Acts, it was made incumbent on the justices of every county, to provide a sufficient asylum for its pauper lunatics, either separately or in union with other local authorities or voluntary bodies-the expenses of such an asylum, so far as they were not covered by voluntary contributions, being defrayed out of the county rates, and its management vested in a committee of visitors, elected yearly by the justices, or partly by the justices and partly by the subscribers. The provision, enlargement, maintenance, management, and visitation of those asylums was part of the business which, by the Local Government Act, 1888 (ƒ), was transferred to the administrative councils of counties and county boroughs created by that Act; and every county and county borough council is now a "local

authority" charged, by the Lunacy Act, 1890 (g), with the provision and maintenance of county and borough asylums (h).

These pauper lunatic asylums are supplementary, in a sense, to the administration of the poor law. They became necessary after the provision of the Poor Law Amendment Act, 1834 (4 & 5 Will. IV. c. 76), s. 45, whereby it was made penal to confine any insane person, having dangerous tendencies, for more than fourteen days, in any workhouse. By the Lunacy Act of 1862 (25 & 26 Vict. c. 111), s. 20, it was further provided, that no lunatic should be detained in the workhouse for more than that period, unless under a certificate from the proper medical officer. But, by sect. 25 of the Act of 1890, pauper lunatics discharged from asylums, hospitals, or licensed houses, may now, in proper cases, be detained as lunatics in workhouses for indefinite periods.

The provisions of the earlier Acts for the reception of pauper lunatics into asylums were briefly as follows:-Any relieving officer of a parish, and every overseer of a parish where there was no relieving officer, who had knowledge that any pauper resident in such parish was deemed to be a lunatic, might give notice thereof to some justice of the county, who thereupon made an order for the pauper to be brought before him or before some other justice of the county. The justice before whom the pauper was brought called in medical aid; and if, upon examination of the pauper, the medical man certified that the pauper was insane, the justice might make an order, directing the pauper to be received into the asylum of that county, or, under special circumstances, into some other asylum, or into a hospital or house for lunatics, such hospital or house being duly registered or licensed. Also, any justice, acting upon his own knowledge, and without any notice as above, might examine any pauper deemed (h) Sect. 238.

(g) Sect. 239.

to be a lunatic, at his own abode or elsewhere; and, after such examination, might proceed in all respects as if the pauper had been brought before him in a more formal way. Moreover, if a pauper deemed to be a lunatic could not, on account of his health, or other cause, be conveniently taken before any justice for examination, he might be examined by some clergyman officiating in the parish, in company with the relieving officer or overseer; and in such case, the order for his reception into an asylum might be made, conjointly, by such clergyman and relieving officer or overseer. These provisions are, in the main, adopted by the Act of 1890 (i); but, as the law now stands, pauper lunatics may no longer, apparently, under any circumstances, be received into any asylum, hospital, or licensed house, save on a "reception "order" or "summary reception order" of a justice (k), or of the chairman of the board of guardians, if duly authorized by the Lord Chancellor to sign such reception order (1). And a justice is now, in no case, to sign such reception order for an alleged pauper lunatic, without first satisfying himself, that the alleged pauper either is in receipt of relief, or is in such circumstances as to require relief (m).

Besides pauper lunatics, any lunatic (whether resident in the county or not) who, on examination by two justices assisted by a medical man, was found to be meditating crime, might be sent to and detained in the county (or borough) asylum. And now, under the provisions of the Lunacy Act, 1890, s. 13 (n), lunatics (not being pauper lunatics) who are not under proper care or control, or who are cruelly treated or neglected by the person having charge of them, may, on the sworn information of a constable, relieving officer, or parish overseer, he personally visited by a justice, who shall authorize and direct two

(i) Act of 1890, ss. 13-21.
(k) Ibid. ss. 13, 14, 16, 315.
(7) Act of 1891, s. 25.

(m) Act of 1890, s. 18.

(n) See also Act of 1891, s. 2 (2).