A letter to the Right Honorable Spencer H. Walpole, M.P., &c., &c. Chairman of the Select Committee on Lunatics / [John Charles Bucknill].

Bucknill, John Charles, 1817-1897.

Date:: [1860]

Credit: A letter to the Right Honorable Spencer H. Walpole, M.P., &c., &c. Chairman of the Select Committee on Lunatics / [John Charles Bucknill]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$\ 12 by the Master, in the presence of the jury, if there is one, at the commencement of the proceedings, and again, if in the discretion of the Court it is thought desirable, at their termination. Such preliminary examination would often go far to facilitate and shorten the enquiry; while-the contrary course sometimes gives occasion to a tedious and painful investigation of a matter which might perhaps be determined in a few minutes. The Master could find little difficulty in conducting this preliminary examination before evidenoe has been taken, in such a manner as would tend solely and fairly to promote the object of the enquiry, namely, to ascertain the existing state of mind. Tice Visitation of Chancery Lunatics. The efficient visitation of asylums by the Commissioners in Lunacy which has of late been established, together with the waste of labour in sending two sets of visitors over the same ground, appear to have led the Committee to the opinion that it may be advisable altogether to transfer the visitation of Chancery Lunatics to the Commissioners in Lunacy. But the duties of the latter are already so onerous that this transference could only be effected by relieving the Com¬ missioners from the duty of visiting the 7000 insane persons confined contrary to law, justice, and humanity in workhouses. The loss of time and labour consequent upon the Commission¬ ers in Lunacy and the Medical Visitors of the Court of Chancery, passing over the same ground in the discharge of duties nearly equivalent, is in reality not so great as it would at first appear to be. In regard to Chancery patients residing in asylums, this loss of labour does no doubt exist, since an asylum may be visited on the same day, by the Commissioners and the Visitors ; but in visiting single patients, the track of the Visitors will be quite different from that of the Commissioners, and it must be borne in mind, that in these journeyings, it is in the short divergencies from the main lines of travel, to visit single patients on the one hand, or to visit union houses on the other, that the greater part of time and labour is ex¬ pended. A journey of fifteen miles to and fro in a cab, con-$