§ MR. WILLIAM CORBETI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether all persons having charge of single patients alleged to be mentally affected are bound by the Act of 1889 to transmit all letters of such patients to the Home Office unopened; and whether it is the custom to reply to or acknowledge the receipt of such letters; and, if not, what guarantee have the writers that the requirements of the Act are observed or how are they to know whether their communications have or have not been forwarded?
§ *MR. MATTHEWSThe duty of forwarding such letters unopened to a Secretary of State is laid down by Section 41 of the Lunacy Act, 1890. It is not the custom for the Secretary of State to reply officially to such letters. When a letter is received from any lunatic which is tolerably coherent it is at once referred to the Commissioners in Lunacy for special inquiry and report, and the action which is taken thereupon by the Commissioners is held to be a sufficient answer to the letter of the patient and a sufficient guarantee that his complaints have been attended to.