SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAG-GREEI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if lie is aware that the managers of the Metropolitan Asylums Board have recently reduced the normal accommodation for patients at Caterham and Leavesden Asylums; that in consequence of this reduction, and owing to the Metropolitan Asylums Board having otherwise failed to make adequate provision for the reception of imbeciles, many such cases in Bethnal Green have been detained in the workhouse there; and that such cases include a number of boys and girls to whose interests detention in the workhouse is injurious; and whether, under these circumstances, he proposes to take any steps to remedy this state of things.
§ MR. CHAPLINPerhaps my hon. friend will allow me to answer this question. The reply to the first paragraph is in the affirmative. I am informed that there are six children in the Bethnal Green workhouse who should be removed to an imbecile asylum if there were vacancies for them. The asylum managers are alive to the necessity of further provision being made for imbeciles, and pending 937 the acquisition of the Sutton schools they are making temporary provision for imbecile children.