HC Deb 06 April 1881 vol 260 cc802-24

Order for Second Reading read.

MR. LITTON,

in rising to move that the Bill be now read a second time, said, its object was to improve the system under which lunatics, and especially neglected and pauper lunatics, were cared for in Ireland, by adopting certain portions of the English and Scotch system; and he would show that it was a question of great social importance throughout Ireland, for he proposed to improve the treatment of a class of persons, which, of all others, was entitled to the attention, the care, and the sympathy of the House and the country at large—he meant the class of unhappy persons who had once enjoyed the blessings of health and mental activity, and of that other class which was, perhaps, still more deserving of their pity—those who were idiots or imbecile, and who were not reached by the existing law. He would show that, under the present law in Ireland, a large proportion of this helpless and unfortunate class was either most inadequately or totally uncared for, suffering from a great amount of neglect, and, in some cases, of cruelty; and the object which he had in view in that Bill was to apply for their relief certain portions of the English law. The importance of the subject would at once appear from a few of the matters which he ventured to lay before the House in connection with the subject. In the year 1857 a Royal Commission inquired into this subject of neglected lunatics and "lunatics at large" in Ireland. By lunatics at large was meant those lunatics who were not in either private or district asylums. At that time the lunatics at large were no less than 3,352; of these 1,583 were returned as neglected lunatics, the residue being in some way provided for by residing with their friends or families. Nothing had been done to meet that serious and growing evil for a period of over 20 years, down to the time at which the Commission of 1879 made its Report—namely, in the month of February of that year, and, he might add, nothing had been since done. That Commission was entitled the Poor Law Union and Lunacy Inquiry Commission, and it was presided over by a gentleman of the highest authority in Ireland. According to that Report, it was stated that on the 31st of December, 1877, whilst the number of lunatics provided for in the district lunatic asylums, in the Criminal Lunatic Asylum at Dundrum, and in private asylums, was about 11,000, the number at large, either inadequately cared for or neglected, was 6,709. Out of this number of 6,709, it was stated that 1,243 were epileptic imbeciles, 4,479 idiots, and 987 lunatics. Of that total the asylums and workhouses afforded accommodation to 3,365, leaving over 3,000 as at large and neglected. These figures showed that there had been a great and very serious increase in this unfortunate class of persons since 1857, amounting to over 100 per cent increase in a period of 20 years, as would be seen from a comparison of the following figures—In 1857 the number at large was 3,352, of whom 1,583 were neglected; in 1877 it was 6,709, of whom 3,000 were neglected. So that, in addition to 11,600, for which accommodation was provided in the district lunatic asylums, there were no less than about 6,000 uncared for lunatics—that was, uncared for in the proper sense of the word; while there were 3,000 of these 6,000, speaking generally, in a state of neglect, as against 1,583 in 1857. Such was the present state of things in Ireland, and that remarkable increase was very striking, and showed that the lunacy administration in Ireland had not been such as it should have been. It would be instructive if he explained to the House how the law stood at present with respect to the treatment and custody of lunatics in Ireland. There were several Acts of Parliament under which the custody and care of lunatics were rather neglected than provided for. The first was the Act 1 & 2 Geo. IV., which established district lunatic asylums. By the 1 & 2 Vict. c. 47, dangerous lunatics might be committed to gaols, and under the 8 & 9 Vict. they might be transferred to the Central Criminal Asylum at Dundrum. In 1867, by 30 & 31 Vict., c. 118, the first provision for sending this class of lunatics to gaol was repealed; and in 1875, by 38 & 39 Vict., c. 67, it was provided that chronic lunatics, not being dangerous, might be consigned to the poorhouses. Where there was no attempt at classification these poorhouses only accommodate 3,365 persons, so that there were still, as he had already pointed out, over 3,000 of these helpless and unfortunate persons neglected and at large. The result of that Act was that overcrowding in lunatic asylums was to some extent relieved. He would next point out the evils of the present system. The asylums were now so overcrowded with chronic and incurable cases that the percentage of cures was very low, for it was obvious that if the asylums were filled with chronic incurable cases it was difficult to properly provide remedial treatment with respect to the cases not chronic but curable, and hence cure became hopeless, if not impossible. The asylums were blocked by cases which should be sent to incurable asylums. A further evil was the want of supervision of neglected lunatics throughout the country, there being no supervision or control exercised to show they were cared for, and the consequence was that they were generally utterly neglected, and in some cases subjected to cruel treatment. This state of things, which had existed so long in Ireland, would not be, and was not tolerated in England. He proposed, therefore, to extend to Ireland the provisions of Sections 66 to 68, Sections 70 to 72, and Sections 78 to 81 of the English Act, 16 & 17 Vict., c. 97— To consolidate and amend the laws for the provision and regulation of lunatic asylums for counties and boroughs, and for the maintenance and care of pauper lunatics, subject to certain changes, which were explained in Clause 2 of the Bill. He doubted that powers to enlarge the existing asylums would meet the case, and the process would involve a large expenditure in costly buildings and would take years to complete. The Bill would provide that the system of boarding-out, which had worked so well in England and Scotland, should be adopted in Ireland, which was impossible under the present law; and powers would be given to the Governors of lunatic asylums, in order to relieve the present overcrowding, of placing lunatics in the care of their relatives, or other private persons, upon conditions as to their proper care and treatment. Due provision was also made for the inspection of lunatics so boarded out. Another provision, which was much wanted, was the power among Poor Law Guardians in Ireland to afford relief to the head of a family one of whose members was a lunatic or idiot, which at present could not be done unless the head of the family was the person afflicted. In England the Poor Law Guardians could afford out-door relief where any member of the family was an imbecile or subject to mental disease. In order to show the evils of overcrowding under present circumstances, the Report of the Commissioners to which he had referred afforded ample evidence. At page 62 it was stated that the asylums "were constantly overcrowded with chronic and incurable cases." In page 66 he found the following passage:— The annual Reports of the inspector contain abundant and striking evidence of the recent overcrowding of the asylums with incurable cases. Again— There is the same complaint—the monotonous repetition of overcrowding with incurable and unsuitable cases. These evils, although complained of by the Committee of 1843 and the Royal Commission of 1857, were still unredressed. One of the causes of overcrowding resulted from the fact of a difference in the law in Ireland and England. It was rather striking. It resulted from the fact that all committals of dangerous lunatics which took place throughout the country on the warrant of two magistrates were bound to be cases in which the magistrates were satisfied upon evidence that the person was dangerous, and had, in addition, shown an intent to commit an indictable crime. He would read the words of the clause. The 10th section of the Act, 30 & 31 Vict., c. 118, enacted that— The lunatic must be shown to have been apprehended under circumstances denoting a derangement of mind and a purpose of committing some crime for which he or she might be indicted. The result was that the magistrates would not commit either man, woman, or child, unless they were satisfied on this point; and although in many cases the disease might be curable, they could not be committed, so that they kept out until their disease became confirmed and their cure became impossible. The law in England, on the contrary, did not require that it should be shown to the magistrates that the person had the intention of committing a crime. The consequence of the present system was that a person suffering from mental disease in its earlier stages, and being in a harmless condition, was compelled to remain outside the asylum until the disease had been confirmed, at which time only it was in the power of the justices to commit him to a lunatic asylum, in which he ought to have been placed months before, and where, had he been so placed, he might have been cured and restored to his family, instead of being sent to the asylum in such a condition that the chances of his ever being sent out again were very greatly diminished. The Report of the Commissioners asserted that— The Superintendent of the Limerick Asylum attributed the small percentage of cures to the long duration of the disease before admission. In the Report for 1880 of Dr. Oscar Woods, the medical officer of the Killarney District Lunatic Asylum, it was stated that of the patients admitted into the Irish asylums in 1879, 1,277 were committed as dangerous lunatics. Dr. Hancock, in one of his Reports, stated that only three patients were committed as dangerous lunatics in England and Wales, as compared with 1,204 committed to asylums in Ireland, and that the reason for this was the great delay in making the applications rendered necessary by the state of the law in Ireland. There was further evidence of this state of things in the Report of the Irish criminal statistics, which set forth that of the entire number of lunatics in England and Wales in 1877 only three out of 889 were committed as dangerous; while, in Ireland, the number so committed was 1,204 out of 1,343, and that while 77 per cent of those committed to the asylums and treated within three months after the symptoms of disease had first shown themselves were returned from the asylums to their friends as recovered, only 20 per cent of those who were committed to asylums after a lapse of 12 months left the asylums as recovered patients. There were only two conclusions to be drawn from these facts; the first being that the system of waiting till the patients had got into the condition of incurability was most injurious to the patients themselves, and had the effect of blocking up the asylums with persons who, under a different system, might be speedily cured, while it consequently narrowed the circle of relief. The second conclusion to be drawn was as to the great importance of the boarding-out system. This system had been adopted both in Scotland and England, and had in both countries been found to work well. The measure he had brought before the House proposed to extend the powers at present in existence as to allowing lunatics to be taken out of asylums by their friends or relatives, with the approbation of the authorities, on satisfactory surety being given that they were able to look after the patients, and by enabling the Governors of asylums to board out patients with persons who might be selected by them on such terms and conditions as they might think desirable. The effect of this would be that, assuming this provision to be acted on to the same extent in Ireland as it was in England, taking the whole number of lunatics in asylums in Ireland at 11,616, which was the number returned for 1877, and taking the proportional average according to a similar number in England and Wales, it would be found that 9,236 would be in the asylums, 1,730 would be boarded out, and 650 would be in private asylums. So that there would be, under the boarding-out system, an amount of relief given to the accommodation provided for in asylums in Ireland to the extent of 1,730 patients, and there would be vacancies for the reception of a similar number. That, he thought, was an important argument in favour of the adoption of the boarding-out system; but the boarding-out system would not be adequate to meet all the cases of neglected lunatics, who were mostly of the imbecile class. He had stated that they were neglected in the sense that they were under no supervision or medical control. That was not the case in England. It was the duty of the medical officers in England, in their respective districts, to visit at stated intervals every lunatic or imbecile within their district; and therefore supervision was one of the matters for which, whether the asylum accommodation was increased or the boarding system adopted, the necessity remained as strongly as ever. On this part of the subject the Commissioners, at the conclusion of their Report, recommended that— The inspection of lunatics at large should be made one of the duties of the dispensing medical officer, who should be remunerated for his trouble, and whose certificate that anyone of this class is neglected or improperly treated should be made ground for action by the lunacy authorities. Although, generally speaking, there was a strong interest taken by the poor of Ireland in these afflicted persons, there were, nevertheless, cases in which they suffered great neglect and sometimes cruelty; and, therefore, it was a most necessary enlargement of the law that supervision should be exercised over them. At one time, though happily not in recent years, a mode of treating neglected lunatics was to dig a round hole in the cabin floor, sufficiently deep to just allow his head to appear above the level of the ground, and to cover the entire over with a large wicker basket. There was only one other point to which he would call attention, and that was with reference to the power proposed to be given to the Poor Law Guardians. In England the Order issued in the year 1844, regulating the administration of out-door relief, contained those words— When such person shall require relief on account of any sickness, accident, or bodily or mental infirmity affecting such person or any member of his family; whereas in Ireland the Act of Parliament limited the relief to Persons permanently disabled from labour through mental defect. Therefore, when one member of a family became afflicted with lunacy or imbecility—and it might be the principal bread earner—another member of the family was rendered non-earning in consequence of having to take charge of him or her; therefore, out-door relief under such circumstances was of the greatest importance and necessity. It would be advisable, therefore, to have some provision in the Bill giving power to the Poor Law Guardians to grant out-door relief in such cases of that description as they might think required it. He accordingly asked that the House should apply to Ireland those four provisions. First, the supervision of neglected lunatics; second, the boarding-out in suitable places, under the direction of the Governors of district asylums, of such patients as they might select for that purpose, in order to open the asylums to a greater number of cases requiring relief; thirdly, an alteration in the law of committal, so as to allow of patients being committed before they became incurable; and, fourthly, power to the Poor Law Guardians to give out-door relief under the circumstances he had stated. Those were the objects of the Bill which he had the honour of moving the second reading of. He should state that he claimed no credit whatever for the Bill, because it was not his. With the exception of one clause, it was identically as it was introduced in "another place" last year, on the Motion of his noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Lord O'Hagan had taken a very great and anxious interest in the matter of lunatics in Ireland, and some years ago he applied himself with great attention to the study of their case. He came to the conclusion that the provisions of the English system ought to be applied to Ireland; and he accordingly embodied them in a Bill which he introduced into the House of Lords, and which, as he (Mr. Litton) had said, was identical with the present Bill, with the exception of one clause with reference to the summary jurisdiction of County Courts in dealing with the property of lunatics. He would not have presumed to have brought the Bill before the House now, knowing the interest Lord O'Hagan took in the matter, had he not his full assent to do so, and an expression of his anxiety that the Bill should be accepted by the House. The Bill had also received the approval of the Social Science Congress Committee. Moreover, it had received the good wishes of several of the officers of the district lunatic asylums in Ireland; and Lord O'Hagan had promised to take charge of the measure should it be sent to the House of Lords. His Lordship had said, in speaking on this subject in August, 1879— The want of identical legislation, when the needs and conditions of England and Ireland require and justify it, is of incalculable mischief."—[3 Hansard, ccxlviii. 1824.] Fully indorsing that view, and putting the measure before the House on the ground of humanity to a class of persons whose condition required the greatest consideration, he trusted the House would assent to its being read a second time.

SIR THOMAS M'CLURE,

in seconding the Motion, observed that there was an urgent necessity for a change in the Lunacy Law in Ireland such as that proposed by the Bill of his hon. Friend the Member for Tyrone (Mr. Litton). The consequence of the existing state of the law was that the asylums which should be open at all times for the reception of patients attacked with mental disease were overcrowded, and the mingling of curable and incurable lunatics greatly lessened the chance of recovery of the former. That was very different from the Scotch system. He had carefully examined that system, and found that, whenever the relieving officer became cognizant of any person being attacked with lunacy within his district, he had to give immediate notice to the Commissioners, who at once caused the case to be inquired into, and took charge of the lunatic, and the utmost was done that could be effected to secure his recovery. The lunatics in that country were divided into different classes, and there were the curable, and what might be called the chronic cases, the latter being kept apart from cases in which recovery was thought likely or possible. Their object was to place certain cases in separate institutions, where they could be maintained at a less cost than in the asylums, and kept under restraint; and when these institutions were not to be had they selected the workhouses. That was a system which ought to be adopted in Ireland, as well as the boarding-out system, which had been successful, and to which his hon. Friend had referred. It had been found that the Scotch system was far more efficient than that of Ireland, and that the patients had a better chance of being cured, and so kept off the rates; while, on the whole, the system adopted in Scotland was also more economical than that which prevailed in Ireland. For the sake of humanity and economy he thought the Bill ought to be carried.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Litton.)

SIR HERVEY BRUCE

said, that as a Governor of the Asylum at Londonderry, he thought the House and all Governors of lunatic asylums, and friends of the lunatic class in Ireland, had reason to be grateful to the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. Litton) for the anxiety he had shown in behalf of that class; but, at the same time, he could not concur in the necessity for the Bill the hon. Gentleman had brought in, not on account of the quarter of the House from which it proceeded, because if he (Sir Hervey Bruce) believed the Bill would really benefit the lunatics of Ireland, he should support it, no matter from what quarter it came, but because he objected to some of its leading provisions. He agreed with the hon. Gentleman in regarding the mingling of curable and incurable patients as bad; but the Bill contained no provision for the separation of these cases, except those of boarding-out, and the power to grant out-door relief. As to the alleged difficulty of admission to lunatic asylums in Ireland, he could not agree with the remarks which had been made on that point, for he had not, as Governor for many years' standing of one of those asylums, found any such difficulty. On the contrary, speaking from personal experience and not from theory, he had found it very easy and simple. He objected decidedly to the power given by sub-section 5 of Clause 2 to Governors, on the representation of two visitors who were not required to be medical men, to order the discharge of patients as a provision fraught with great danger. He also thought it would be a dangerous thing, as proposed by Clause 4, to board-out patients in private houses. Such a power must be accompanied by regular medical supervision, and the cost of this would throw an enormous extra expense upon the rates. Besides, it was not said whether they were curable or incurable. It was a dangerous extension of what was a bad principle. The food provided in the asylums was better than the patients would generally receive outside; and he held it was better for the patients themselves, and better on every ground, that the lunatics should be kept in asylums where they wore properly attended to, and where they were sure of good and sufficient food and maintenance. As it was, the Governors had the power of sending to workhouses those lunatics who were not dangerous; and, in his district, many lunatics were so sent. But, on the whole, this system had not proved satisfactory, and he had known cases where the lunatics had been obliged to be sent back to the asylums. He was sorry to have to object to the main provisions of the Bill; but the hon. Member had simply left the curable and incurable lunatics as they were, and had made no provision for supervision. He believed the Bill, so far from bettering the condition of lunatics in Ireland, would injuriously affect them.

COLONEL COLTHURST

thought the last speaker (Sir Hervey Bruce) had entirely misconstrued the raison d'être of the Bill. The boarding-out provisions were only part of the principle of the Bill, the justification of which was mainly that there were at that moment about 6,000 lunatics at large in Ireland, of whom 3,000 were of the class termed neglected, and, consequently, under no supervision. There was no provision made for their support, or for their being looked after. He argued that the admission of lunatics to asylums in Ireland ought to be altered, and made comformable to the system prevalent in England. It should not be dependent on their being dangerous, and he knew a case in which a female patient was rendered a lunatic for life entirely in consequence of her having to be taken before the magistrates and committed as a dangerous lunatic when she was not in reality dangerous; but that was the only means by which she could be sent to an asylum. Many such cases happened thoughout the country. Of course, there were private asylums; but the friends of the patients could not afford the expense. He quite concurred in the view that lunatics should, if possible, be separated; and the Commission appointed by the late Government had recommended that asylums should be set aside for dangerous patients, others for curable patients, and others for those who were hopeless and incurable, and that, to save the expense of boarding out, workhouses should be utilized. He also thought every possible step should be taken to assimilate the Poor Law in Ireland to that in England, as regarded out-door relief; for wherever the former differed from the latter it differed in point of rigour and in elasticity. He thought they were entitled to ask for the powers contained in the measure, and hoped the House would accept the Bill.

MR. BLAKE

said, he thought that there were many cases in which lunatics could be far better treated by private persons than in lunatic asylums; and he therefore supported the Bill, and particularly that clause which provided that lunatics, under certain conditions, might be placed under the care of their friends. In Ireland, persons mentally afflicted were regarded with great commiseration. One who would be called a "fool" in this country would be termed an "innocent" in Ireland; and lunatics, under such circumstances, were likely to gain more sympathy, and to have their individual wants and peculiarities attended to. As an instance of the sort, he would refer to the case of the lunatic colony, which had existed for 200 years at Ghel, in Belgium, where the lunatics were kept in a number of farmhouses, under a system of supervision which had answered admirably, the number of cures being far greater than in most of the asylums in that country. Why not use some of the smaller poorhouses, which were at present useless, for the purpose of chronic cases? He had for a very long time observed the defects of a part of the system in Ireland, and that something of the same description as existed in Belgium and Scotland was wanted in that country. He was therefore exceedingly glad the Bill had been brought forward, for the changes proposed tended, in his opinion, in the right direction. With regard to cost, he believed the average cost of the lunatics in the Richmond Asylum at Dublin was £24 per head. ["Oh, oh!"] He spoke of some years ago, and the cost might be a little more now. He was sure there was a vast number of people in Ireland capable of efficiently looking after lunatics, in whom they were interested, for less than the cost at the Richmond Asylum, which might now be £30 per head. He approved of the suggestion that the lunatics so boarded out should be periodically visited by medical officers or inspectors of asylums. He certainly would not leave it to the discretion of the Governors altogether as to what kind of lunatics they would send out either to board or discharged as cured, because they might, with the best intentions, discharge patients whom it would be better to retain. With the general principle of the Bill, however, he perfectly agreed.

MR. GIBSON

said, everyone knew the warm interest the hon. Member for Waterford County (Mr. Blake) took in the subject, and they were all obliged to him for the benefit of his experience. He (Mr. Gibson) was also sure the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. Litton), who introduced the Bill, would not misconstrue any criticism he might offer on the proposal. Everyone must sympathize with the object in view, and appreciate the clear and sympathetic way in which it had been presented to the House; but it was to be regretted that the hon. Member had found himself unable—and perhaps, as a private Member, it was not in his power—to present to the consideration of the House any of those, important and valuable proposals con- tained in the Report of that Royal Commission to which he had referred. That Commission went into the question exhaustively, and examined a vast amount of evidence in every part of Ireland; and their proposals, whether they commanded unanimous approval or not, at all events contained many suggestions of a valuable nature, and as to which there ought to be no difference of opinion whatever. But in the Bill—and he (Mr. Gibson) very much regretted the fact—there was not a single clause carrying out, or attempting to give effect to, the recommendations of that Commission. The most important of these recommendations was that one laid down as a vital necessity in all legislation dealing with lunatics, and regarded by the Commissioners as a cardinal matter—the principle of classification. But the Bill, which was entitled to be spoken of with much respect, as being so well meant, did not propose one single step towards classification. On the contrary, it would render the absence of classification more glaring than it was at present. His hon. Friend (Mr. Litton) said the Bill was not his own, but a kind of bantling adopted from "another place." Everyone must respect the philanthropy of Lord O'Hagan in introducing the Bill; but, after all, the noble and learned Lord had only introduced it into the House of Lords as a protest that something should be done, and pending an authoritative dealing with the proposals of the Royal Commission, and not exactly as proposals he was prepared to recommend for the adoption of Parliament. The hon. Member for Tyrone also said that the Bill came commended with the approval of several superintendents of lunatic asylums in Ireland. The opinion of those superintendents, many of whom he (Mr. Gibson) knew, was entitled to a good deal of weight; but on this subject so largely affecting their own duties, it should, of course, be regarded as not exactly decisive. He would not say anything about the Social Science Congress, which had been rather hesitatingly mentioned by the hon. Member for Tyrone. That was a body which was coming to Ireland next October; and, in view of that fact, he (Mr. Gibson) should be sorry to say anything that would arouse even a momentary feeling of hostility. There were two proposals in the Bill about which he wished to say a word or two. The first was as to the boarding-out of patients. That was a matter requiring immense caution. It was obviously susceptible of the greatest abuses. He was not against boarding-out per se; but it was a question that required to be considered with the greatest care, for it might lead to the greatest abuse as against the lunatics. That was a point of view from which they must all view the question. The figure of £24, which the hon. Member (Mr. Blake) had mentioned as the nominal expense of maintaining a lunatic at the asylums, was, he believed, under the mark; £26 or £27 was nearer the correct figure. Now, a lunatic could be maintained as a pauper at a workhouse for less than half that sum; and there would be great temptation for the Governors, who were allowed great discretion in the matter, to make a contract to board out, by which they might be substantial gainers, though it might be rather against the interest of the lunatic. That was a circumstance to be strongly borne in mind. Again, it was hardly enough to say that the poor boarded-out pauper lunatics would be sufficiently protected by an occasional visit from the dispensary doctor, unless they provided that the houses where they were to be boarded out must be licensed, and have a recognized status. He was not at all opposed to the proposal to give legitimate aid and assistance to those who, by temporary infirmity, were unable to work. Indeed, he thought the Poor Law might well be more generous in that respect than it was. But these provisions were not really the principle of the Bill. The more important clauses were those contained in the earlier part of the Bill; and if the Bill was to be read a second time, and afterwards considered in Committee, it would be necessary to have an understanding of what was the proposal contained in those earlier clauses. For his part, he thought they were of a very sweeping character. They would work a very great change in the existing lunatic arrangements in Ireland, and they ought to be examined with the greatest caution. The drafting of the Bill was open to the objection that, in adopting several sections from an English Act, it did not show at a glance what the meaning of those sections was; and, moreover, no changes were made to adapt them to the Irish system. It was necessary that the House, referring to those sections, should know exactly what they had to consider, and whether they were suitable for immediate adoption in Ireland. Immense powers would be given by the Bill to a series of classes—magistrates, relieving officers, and clergy—to make orders for admission into lunatic asylums. That was an immense power to give, and the House ought to reflect seriously on the consequences it might entail on the rates, the Treasury, and the discipline of the establishment that might be affected. He did not propose to make any criticism on those clauses; but he thought it right, if the House adopted that legislation, that it should know clearly that it was giving a power which was practically without restraint to a great many classes in Ireland to send people to district asylums. It also gave them the power to send to hospitals and licensed houses. The English Act of Parliament, the sections of which wore adopted in the Bill, alluded, over and over again, to the existence of places called, not district asylums or asylums, but hospitals and licensed houses, and the hon. Member proposed to keep these terms in the present Bill. But where was the machinery to erect these hospitals or licensed houses? He (Mr. Gibson) could not find it; but if it was there, at whose expense were they to be erected? Were they to be erected at the expense of the ratepayers, or the long-suffering Treasury? These were matters of great importance, and showed the inconvenience of presenting a Bill to the House which did not contain on the face of the clauses their full intent and meaning. There was another point to which he should like to direct attention. He agreed that the present state of the law was not satisfactory; but, on the other hand, he did not think that the Bill dealt with the subject in a satisfactory manner. The way in which it proposed to deal with the Medical Profession was such that, if it had been known, they would have heard something from that quarter. The unfortunate dispensary doctor in Ireland was not at present very well paid; but the Bill would require him to visit the pauper lunatics in the district for the handsome remuneration of 2s. 6d., and for that sum, in addition to the visit, he was to send a list reporting the name, and, he (Mr. Gibson) supposed, some par- ticulars in reference to the case. The mere statement of this unfair mode of treating the Medical Profession was enough to command the attention of the House. There was another matter which required attention. At present the Treasury gave a subvention of 4s. per head per week on each lunatic kept in these asylums. It was very proper that such a payment should be made; but if the Bill became law, and the check of requiring two doctors to give a certificate was removed, and if the magistrates, the relieving officers, and the clergy were to have the power of sending people to district lunatic asylums in Ireland, that was a circumstance that would have to be taken into account in the reduction of any surplus there might be next year. He personally approved of subventions in Ireland, and he should be glad if the 4s. was made 5s.; but it was a circumstance to be borne in mind. He did not know what course the Government intended to take in reference to the Bill; but he was disposed to think that the question was one which ought to be dealt with by the Government on the lines of the more important proposals of the Royal Commission. If the Bill was to be read a second time, with a view to its being referred to a Committee, he would not oppose that course; but he hoped the Committee would be appointed at a time when the question could be thoroughly sifted, so that Amendments might be proposed which would remove some of the objections he had referred to. One very small matter he would be glad to have considered in reference to criminal lunatics. At present, if a lunatic was arrested for a murder in Ireland, and was committed for trial, he was bound to be committed under a warrant of the Lord Lieutenant to a district lunatic asylum in the place where the crime was committed, until he was discharged in due course of law to be brought up for trial. That form of bringing him up had to be gone through, although he would be immediately acquitted, on the ground that he was not answerable for his actions, and would be ordered to be detained during the Lord Lieutenant's pleasure. He thought it would be desirable in any new legislation to provide that that painful form should be abolished in cases where there could be no question about the man's lunacy, proper safeguards being always insisted upon.

MR. SHAW

thought the subject was too wide to be dealt with by a private Member, and he hoped the Government might take it up. He agreed with the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) that if the boarding-out system were adopted it should be surrounded with complete and perfect safeguards. He had seen unfortunate people of this class, who had been at large, made subjects of great persecution and annoyance every time they went out of the house. The part of the Bill relating to that subject he regarded as very imperfect indeed. There were other points referred to by the Royal Commission, the most important among which was classification. In the Cork poorhouses there were between 3,000 and 4,000, and there were hundreds of lunatics who could not be admitted into the workhouse lunatic asylum, and he believed they were not cared for at all in any proper manner. There was no classification, and it was hardly possible to have even separation; and it was seldom that the medical officer had a special faculty for treating this particular malady—in fact, the medical officers of the workhouses, as a general rule, were overworked, and in large and small poorhouses, the latter especially, lunatics were allowed to mix generally with the paupers. He believed the state of the lunatics in these workhouse asylums was deplorable, and required immediate attention; but he hoped the Government would not hesitate to deal with it, because they had ample materials before them already in the Evidence and Report of the Commission. If they would bring in a Bill dealing with the whole subject, or, at any rate, with the material parts of the Report, they would get support from hon. Members on both sides of the House, and the measure would be a real benefit to Ireland. The subject of granting out-door relief was one which must commend itself to the mind of every right-minded person. The cases might be few; but the real object they should have in view was classification. They had in Ireland a large number of poorhouses which were perfectly useless. Why not use some of those poorhouses as schools, such as had been referred to by the hon. Member for Waterford County (Mr. Blake)? They were generally in healthy country places, where all the surrounding country would tend to the cure of the patients, instead. of cooping them up in immense establishments where cure was almost impossible. He hoped the Government would take up the measure, and if they did so; he was sure the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. Litton) would withdraw his Bill and allow them to deal with the matter.

MR. MACARTNEY

said, he perfectly agreed with the last speaker (Mr. Shaw) that a Bill dealing with such a subject was for the Government to take up. As to the Bill now before the House, he strongly objected to sub-section 5 of Clause 2, by which any two Governors of a district asylum, if they agreed, would have the power to discharge a lunatic from the asylum on the understanding that his friends would take care of him. By that provision any two of the Governors might discharge a patient, although all the other Governors were against such a course. The usual course, when it was proposed to discharge a lunatic, was to have the case brought before the Board of Governors, who investigated the facts and consulted the medical officers. But although the Board might in this way decide not to discharge a particular lunatic, it would be possible for any two Governors, out of perhaps 16 or 17, to contravene the decision of the Board and allow the discharge. He also objected to Clause 4, on the ground that it was not desirable to multiply private lunatic asylums in Ireland; but, under the clause, it would be competent for the Governors to hand back a lunatic to the care of his relatives, paying the latter for his maintenance, so that it might happen that a lunatic who would not now be sent from home would be sent to an asylum for a short time, in order that application might afterwards be made by his relatives for his return and the allowance for his keep. Then, again, Clause 5, he observed, provided for the maintenance in the workhouse of those mentally unfit for work, by which was meant, he supposed, harmless idiots; but there were already quite a sufficient number of those in the workhouses, and, as the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cork (Mr. Shaw) suggested, they should be supported in some of the superabundant Irish workhouses. In the last Parliament, he obtained a Royal Commission to investigate the subject of workhouses, with a view to the division of the lunatic classes into dangerous, curable, and incurable. If the Government would take up the subject with the evidence then collected before them, and legislate on the lines suggested by that evidence, they might effect a material improvement in the administration of the Irish Lunacy Laws, and to such a proposal he hoped his hon. Colleague (Mr. Litton) would agree.

MR. FINDLATER,

said, he was afraid that the desire expressed by the Opposition, that the Government should take the question up, really arose from a wish to delay legislation altogether. The boarding-out system, which had been so much objected to, had proved highly successful in Scotland. Out of a total of 11,535 pauper lunatics in that country, 2,097 were harmless, and were boarded out. The provisions of the present Bill were intended only for harmless lunatics. As to the objection made to boarding-out, he pointed to the success of the system in Scotland. Dr. Mitchell, who had devoted much attention to the subject, and was an acknowledged authority upon it, did not approve of large asylums, and pronounced in favour of institutions of a moderate size. Of course, he admitted the necessity of classification, and the separation of the dangerous from the harmless class of lunatics; but why, then, did not the Government take it up, and why should the Bill be thrown out because it did not provide all that was required? Why on earth they in Ireland should be in a worse position than the people of England he could not conceive. He thought that hon. Members would admit that a real and substantial Irish grievance had been brought before them on the present occasion, and he trusted they would assist in every possible way his hon. Friend (Mr. Litton) in carrying the Bill through the House. He deserved credit for the efforts he had made, and Ireland would be grateful to him. If the Government did not see their way to dealing with the whole question at once, they might accept the present measure, which would deal, as he thought effectively, with some branches of the question which were crying evils in the country, and demanded immediate attention. He therefore hoped the Bill would be read the second time and allowed to go to a Committee.

MR. FITZPATRICK

said, that, in his experience, during the last 10 years there had been three dangerous lunatics at large in the district in which he lived. They had to be looked for; and, when found, were in a most destitute and frightful condition, but were brought back by the police. He was of opinion that unless a very careful classification was made dangerous lunatics must often break loose. In the wild country districts of Ireland it was impossible for the police to watch every case; and surely it would be better to place these lunatics in asylums where they would be carefully guarded and properly attended to. He approved of the principles of the Bill; but he considered that the subject involved was one which ought to be dealt with by Her Majesty's Government. It was altogether too large a subject to be dealt with in such a harum-scarum and cursory manner. The hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Findlater) had imputed to those on the Conservative side of the House motives which he had no right to impute. They were just as anxious as he was to have the question settled, but they wanted it settled on a good and permanent basis. Immense interests were involved. A great outlay of money was involved, and the necessary machinery under a Bill of that kind must be very great. He would, therefore, respectfully ask the Government to bring in a Bill themselves—to bring it in as soon as possible—and to take into consideration what had been gathered together by all the Commissions there had been on the subject.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)

said, it was not his intention to oppose the Bill going into Committee; but it must be distinctly understood that he offered no approval whatever of the principle involved in the measure. He felt, however, bound to express the opinion that it would require very large amendment in Committee to make it workable; and he must reserve on the part of the Government the power, which, of course, the Government would possess, to oppose it, in case they thought it necessary to bring in a Bill themselves on the subject. He was informed by those in charge of the Department that there were several matters not merely of administration, but of great importance, going to the root of the system, which ought and must be dealt with, and which it was impossible in the present state of the law to deal with. He regretted that the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. Litton) had not drafted the Bill himself, because he was convinced that, from the hon. Gentleman's accuracy and professional ability, he would have been able to have framed a better Bill than by adopting parts of other Acts. It was an inconvenient mode to take out parts of Acts relating to another country, and worked on a different principle and by an entirely different class of people, and set about making a patch-work Bill. The English Act which was proposed to be incorporated by the referential section was an Act grounded on the English Poor Law which was wholly different from the Poor Law in Ireland; and he thought the result of the present Bill would be to increase the charge to the amount of £50,000 per year, of which the local rates would have to bear £28,000, and the Treasury the difference between that and £50,000. At present, from whatever cause he was unable to say, he was assured that the lunatics in Ireland in these lunatic asylums had increased during the last six years at the rate of 2,000 in number. That was an alarming state of things; but he could not accept the explanation of the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Findlater), that because he found a large number of figures in one county and a small number in another, that necessarily all the large number of figures were those of lunatics who ought to be admitted into asylums. He was afraid that those lunatics, whose friends found it inconvenient to keep them, were becoming to be considered dangerous; but what would go to the root of the system was really the classification of the lunatics under the head of dangerous or incurable or curable. It appeared to him that, in any amendment of the Lunacy Laws, they ought to keep that fundamental condition in view as the groundwork of amendment. The present Bill failed in that respect, because it dealt more with matters of detail than with fundamental principles. With regard to the supervision which the Bill suggested, he felt bound to point out that the medical men were excessively hard worked and notoriously under-paid, and he did not think that the Bill was upon this point so satisfactory as it might be. With reference to the boarding-out system, he thought the matter was one which ought to be very carefully considered by the House. He did not propose to offer any opinion on the part of the Government; but, generally speaking, he was afraid the system would be open to very grave abuse. He really believed that many of those persons who now had the means of keeping their relatives affected mentally, but nevertheless harmless, would put them on the country and still maintain them at home. The ratepayer was a very heavily burdened person in Ireland. Whether it was that money was scarce or rates were heavy he did not know; but the fact remained that they were heavily burdened, and while everyone would desire that those who were mentally unable to take care of themselves should be taken care of by society, it would be rather a dangerous measure to put the power of boarding-out in the hands of the Governors of lunatic asylums. In England the power was worked by the Guardians. The Guardians were persons who were locally acquainted with all the requirements of lunatics; but the Governors of district asylums were totally different. A district asylum was a building erected and maintained to supply the wants not merely of a county, but of a combination of counties, and Governors were appointed by the Lord Lieutenant; and, therefore, although those Governors in some instances came possibly from the localities, they would not have as intimate an acquaintance with the wants of the individual lunatics as the Guardians would locally have. He would repeat, in conclusion, that he would not oppose the Bill going into Committee. It would require very large amendment; but he hoped it would be in the power of the Government to introduce a Bill themselves of larger scope, and supplying not only the fundamental wants, but the administrative improvements, which it was found were necessary to the fair working of the system.

MR. LITTON

thanked hon. Members on the opposite side of the House for the manner in which they had received the Bill, and said he would name a distant day for the Committee stage.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read a second time, and committed for Wednesday 1st June.