§ The House went into Committee on Lunatics Care and Treatment Bill, Lunatic Asylums Bill, and Lunacy Regulation Bill.
The LORD CHANCELLORconsidered that the measures would be productive of service, and that praise was due to the noble and learned Lord (Lord St. Leonards), by whom they were introduced.
LORD CAMPBELLwould take the opportunity of offering his tribute of praise to the noble and learned Lord opposite for the great pains he had bestowed on the subject, and of expressing his high approbation of the measures. There was a single point to which he desired to call attention, and it had reference to cases where there was an inquisition, on which a jury came to the decision that the allegation of lunacy was established. It had been hitherto strictly determined according to law, that the lunatic should have a right to traverse the inquisition; but he was anxious that the right should to some extent be qualified; because he apprehended that when a person had been found lunatic, if there was the smallest ground for testing the propriety of the verdict, there would be a traverse of the inquisition, although the finding was really satisfactory, and deprived the lunatic of the power of squandering his property, and when it was for the advantage of the individual himself that the verdict should be maintained. He could imagine a case where bad advisers, for the sake of costs, might urge a party to traverse the inquisition; and there 904 were cases, it should be recollected, where one of the symptoms of the disease was, that the person did not think he was insane. It would be desirable, therefore, to control the exercise of this power, and he proposed to add the qualification that the traverse should always be made with the sanction of the Lord Chancellor.
§ LORD ST. LEONARDSsaid, that in one of those Bills a power was given to the Lord Chancellor to make an order to meet the views of both sides, where it could be done properly without the expense of a traverse, and he trusted that would meet the views of his noble and learned Friend; but to say that no one should have the power to traverse without the leave of the Chancellor, would be going beyond what the law had hitherto allowed.
LORD CAMPBELLthought, that after a jury had found a party lunatic, the finding should not be traversed unnecessarily.
The LORD CHANCELLORwas of opinion, that the person claiming the right must be in such a state of mind as to satisfy the Chancellor that he had a wish on the subject.
§ Amendments made: the Report thereof to be received To-morrow.