§ MR. BUTTrose to call attention to the last Report of the Inspectors of Prisons in Ireland, and the expediency of adopting early next Session such measures as may be necessary to prevent the detention of persons committed as dangerous lunatics in the common gaols in Ireland—a system which, he said, led to the most frightful consequences, preventing all chance of the recovery of the lunatics themselves, and destroying the discipline of the prisons.
§ SIR ROBERT PEELsaid, he was quite aware that the House was impatient to proceed with the Night Poaching Bill, and with the Courts of the Church of Scotland 1093 Bill, and therefore he would not now enter into this question at any length. He admitted that very great inconvenience resulted from the practice of confining lunatics in gaols in Ireland. Recent legislation had tended to alleviate that state of things, and the Lord Lieutenant in Council had ordered the construction of seven new lunatic asylums, which were now in course of erection. He had been obliged to the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. Blake) for calling his attention last year to this subject, but he could not admit that the lunatic asylums in Ireland were not well managed. The new rules, he believed, were working admirably, and he had received the thanks of the College of Surgeons for the improvements that had been effected. He could not but deprecate any attempt to place pauper lunatics in gaols where the treatment could not be adapted to their wants; but he could assure the House that the Government would not fail to devote the closest attention to the care and well-being of the unfortunate inmates of pauper lunatic asylums.