§ MR. SCULLYsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (with reference to certain Official Correspondence as to the Irish nun Miss Mary Ryan, called Sister Theresa), Whether it is intended on the part of the Government to require that lady to be delivered up by the Belgian authorities, and to be removed from the "very well conducted Asylum at Bruges, where she is treated with great kindness and consideration;" as stated by Lord Howard de Walden, Mr. Consul Curry, and Mr. Commissioner Wilkes; and further to require that, "if she is still insane when she arrives in this country, she must be taken before a Magistrate and dealt with as a Pauper Lunatic," as stated in a communication from the Secretary of State for the Home Department to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; whether all British and Irish subjects, who are insane, must be dealt with as Pauper Lunatics, if their relatives and friends cannot take proper care of them in these countries, though able and willing to do so in a good foreign asylum; and whether he will lay before this House the case as to Miss Mary Ryan, submitted by his desire, in the month of October last, to the Attorney and Solicitor Generals for England, along with their opinion on it. The hon. Gentleman said he would more particularly ask, whether there is any Treaty of Extradition between this country and Belgium, that applies to lunatics as well as to criminals; and, if so, whether the Home Secretary intends to enforce it at the instance of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate), the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Whalley), and the Protestant Alliance?
§ SIR GEORGE GREYSir, it is not intended to enforce any law upon the subject, at the suggestion of the hon. Member for Forth Warwickshire, or of the hon. Member for Peterborough, or of the Protestant Alliance. But I take it to be clear that it is illegal to remove by force any lunatic from our shores and de- 1536 prive him of the protection of the laws of this country. Mary Ryan having been illegally removed, Her Majesty's Government, although there was no law to enable them to require it, requested the Belgian Government to send her back if her condition were such as to render that step judicious; and the Belgian Government have intimated their readiness to accede to that request. But her state was such that we thought it would be dangerous to herself that she should be brought back at present to this country. The case submitted to the Law Officers of the Crown, was already before the House as it consisted of the correspondence contained in the papers presented to Parliament, their opinion was that the removal had been illegally effected from this country, and that the parties engaged in it might be prosecuted, but that under all the circumstances of the case, they did not consider it expedient to institute such a prosecution.