HC Deb 19 July 1897 vol 51 cc404-5
MR. WEIR

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will state under what circumstances a person in a county asylum, who is classified as a pauper under Sec. 3 of the Lunacy Act, 1891, is entitled to be classified as a private patient?

SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY

As soon as the asylum authorities have reasonable grounds for believing either that the patient is entitled to property which will be available for his maintenance and sufficient to render him no longer even partly chargeable to a Union, county or borough, or that an undertaking has been given by a friend or relative to provide a sum sufficient for the purpose, he would no longer be classed as a pauper.