Mr. C. Wynnemoved for leave to bring in a bill for the better care and maintenance of Pauper and Criminal Lunatics. The hon. gent expatiated with much feeling on the misery to which these unfortunate beings were at present exposed. It appeared by the returns on the table, that there were at the present moment, above 1800 pauper and criminal lunatics, confined in places where they were precluded from all possible chance of recovery. When it was known, that of the lunatics in Bedlam, St. Luke's, &c. about half were annually restored to a sane state of mind, the consideration that so many unhappy wretches as the criminal and pauper lunatics should be doomed to irremediable misery was a 1320 most melancholy one. He meant to propose in the bill, that they should be properly taken care of by the respective parishes to which they belonged. The propriety of extending the bill to Ireland and Scotland had been suggested to him; but as in those parts of the empire parochial relief was not afforded to the lower classes, some measure of a different description must be devised to meliorate the condition of these unhappy wretches in those countries.
§ Sir J. Newportperfectly agreed with his hon. friend that some measure was loudly called for in Ireland, to relieve the distress of the pauper and criminal lunatics, the imprisonment and treatment of whom, in that country, afforded a most disgraceful spectacle. He could never be reconciled to the grounds on which the bill that he had, himself, submitted to the house on this subject, had been rejected.—Leave was granted to bring in the bill.