COLONEL NORTHsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Poor Law Board, If, by Article 115 of the General Consolidated Order of the Poor Law Board, dated 24th July, 1847, any Pauper suffering from Small Pox or other infectious disorders can insist upon leaving the workhouse, in opposition to the opinion of the doctor, upon giving to the master, or, during his absence or inability to act, to the matron, a reasonable notice of his or her wish to do so? He wished to ask this Question in consequence of two cases which had occurred in that part of the country with which he was connected. In one case a girl and her child had returned to her village and the child had died. In the other case a woman and her child were in the workhouse; the child died, and when it was going to be buried the mother claimed her clothes in order to go out. The master, 1534 however, did not give them; but she got them next day when she left.
§ VISCOUNT ENFIELDsaid, in reply, that neither master, matron, nor medical officer, had power to detain any person in the workhouse against his will, due notice being given of the intention of such inmate to depart. All that they could do was to warn the persons who wished to leave, and who were in the condition referred to, of the extreme danger of such proceeding to themselves and others, and that they were liable to be indicted for a misdemeanor. That warning had been given, he believed, in both the cases referred to.