§ Mr. PICKERSGILLasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the action of Fowler v. Grant, tried at the Manchester Assizes last week, in which it appeared that a person now admitted to have been perfectly sane was committed to a lunatic asylum, and there treated as a lunatic for upwards of a year; and especially to the observations of Mr. Justice Walton that a man or woman, not a pauper, might be taken to the workhouse, shut up in an imbecile ward, and then declared to be a lunatic and placed in a lunatic asylum, without any public inquiry, any hearing before a magistrate, or any notice of what was going on; and whether he will consider the advisability of making inquiry, by means of a Select Committee or otherwise, into the working of the Lunacy Act, 1890?
§ Mr. CHURCHILLI am making inquiries about this matter, which I heard of for the first time from my hon. Friend's question. I will let him know the result.