§ DR. FITZGERALD (Longford, S.)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with regard to the seizure of Mrs. Mary Cathcart, if he will state the name of the doctor who signed the certificate previous to her seizure under an urgency order; if the doctor examined her by addressing the lady without her consent in one of the Courts in which she was defending an action; if the doctor was employed by the plaintiff in the said action; if the doctor is one of the medical men who afterwards signed a certificate for Mrs. Cathcart's detention in a private lunatic asylum; if the plaintiff in the action referred to is the person who procured the urgency order; and is he aware that Mrs. Cathcart has made several applications to see her friends, and that all access to her has been refused by the Lunacy Commissioners, acting under the authority of the plaintiff in the action which Mrs. Cathcart was engaged in defending at the time of her seizure?
§ MR. MATTHEWSThe Commissioners of Lunacy inform me that Dr. Thomas Bond signed the certificate upon which the urgency order was founded; and they believe that he addressed Mrs. Cathcart in one of the Courts, where she was (as they are informed) for the purpose of a Divorce Court motion. The Commissioners have no information as to the third paragraph. The answer to the fourth paragraph is, Yes. The urgency order was signed by Mrs. Cathcart's husband. The Commissioners have refused two applications to see Mrs. Cathcart. They have done so in the interest of the patient, and wholly without reference to any other interest or person. Mrs. Cathcart has had several interviews with a solicitor selected by herself.