§ DR. KENEALYasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If he will explain to the House the grounds on which he refuses to release the Reverend Mr. Dodwell, who has been reported to him on high medical authority as being of perfectly sound mind, since the murderer Broomfield has been discharged because he had become sane?
MR. ASSHETON CROSS,in reply, said, that Broadmoor Asylum, so far as insane male persons were concerned, was for those only who had been acquitted on the ground of insanity. That was the present rule. When the Rev. Mr. Dodwell was found to be insane by a verdict of his countrymen, he was sent in the ordinary course to Broad-moor. Some time ago, letters were received at the Home Office from Dr. Wynn and Dr. Forbes Winslow, as to the state of the prisoner. Those letters were sent on the 15th of April to the authorities of Broadmoor, with an intimation that when they were able to report that it would be consistent with the safety both of the public and of the prisoner himself that he should be either absolutely or conditionally discharged, his case would then be considered by the Secretary of State, and not till then. No Report had yet been received.