§ Mr. Barneby moved the third reading of the Custody of Insane Persons Bill.
§ Mr. Warburtonhad strong objections to the clauses in the Bill by which property could be taken from an insane person, and by which the restoration of that property was not enforced when the person was declared of sane mind, and dismissed from the 1001 asylum. He trusted the projector of the measure would postpone the third reading, in order that the House might consider the objectionable clauses. [Mr. Barneby intimated a refusal.] He would then move as an amendment, that the Bill be read a third time that day six months.
§ Mr. Wakley, in seconding the motion, said that the clauses which enabled magistrates, after having taken the opinion of one medical man, to sell the goods and chattels of a poor person declared to be insane, was harsh and cruel in the extreme. Insanity was a temporary affliction, and might in many cases be cured in three months, and it might so happen by this Bill, that when the unfortunate individual was set at liberty, he would find the whole of his goods and chattels gone for ever. But there was another objection to this Bill—namely, a medical objection; and unless the hon. Member consented to alter the Bill so as to obviate that objection, he would not consent to the third reading, and would persist in taking the sense of the House upon the subject. By this Bill a power was given to any magistrate to summon before him any physician, surgeon, or apothecary, to examine any person supposed to be insane. That duty was at all times a most dangerous one, and nothing was more against the feelings of medical men than to be called upon to investigate the condition of persons supposed to be insane. There had, too, been instances of medical men, who had been called on to make such investigations, having suffered severely from the hostile feelings created in the minds of insane persons who had undergone their examination; and notwithstanding all this, by the measure before the House, any medical man was to be compelled to give an opinion on cases of suppositious insanity, and that, too, without any remuneration whatever. On these two grounds, therefore, he opposed the third reading of the Bill, and gladly seconded the motion of his hon. Friend.
§ Mr. Barnebywould not object to postpone the third reading, but he wished to say a few words in regard to what had fallen from the hon. Member for Finsbury. The word "summon" was not in the Bill; nor by the clause, as framed, could any medical man be obliged to attend on the call of a magistrate to investigate the condition of persons supposed to be insane. He might further state, that he had no objection to leave out the words "goods and chattels", so as to adapt the clause 1002 to the views of the hon. Member for Bridport.
§ Question deferred.