§ MR. W. J. CORBETasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If his attention has been called to the decision of the Court of Appeal, in the Lewes lunacy case just concluded, in which, owing to a difference of opinion among the Judges on the Law, Mr. Hill-man, who was unlawfully placed in an asylum, has to pay all the costs; whether it is true that the Lord Chief Justice of England decided in favour of Mr. Hillman, while two other Judges held opposite views; and, whether he will cause the Law regarding the confinement of persons alleged to be insane to be so altered as to be intelligible to those who have to administer it?
§ MR. GRANTHAMasked, Whether it was not a fact that Sir James Hannen and Lord Justice Lindley held in the Court of Appeal that Mr. Hillman had been lawfully placed in an asylum, and that there was no justification for the suggestion that the magistrates had acted in the slightest degree in any improper manner, or had not made a proper examination of Mr. Hillman before signing their certificate?
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT, in reply, said, that considering that the Court of Appeal had decided that Mr. Hillman was not unlawfully placed in an asylum, he did not see how he could interfere- It was, however, to be borne in mind that the judgment of the Court was not unanimous, and no doubt the Lord Chancellor would keep this case in view when dealing by legislation with the whole subject.