The law provides for the occasional visitation of pauper lunatics in asylums chargeable to parishes, by a certain number of the officers, and among them the medical officer of the parish to which, as paupers, they are chargeable; and something, by way of remuneration for their trouble, is allowed out of the funds of the union or parish. This arrangement keeps up a connexion between a parish and the lunatics chargeable to it in the county asylum, which in various respects is desirable, and probably satisfactory to the ratepayers. But the lunatic inmates of an asylum chargeable to the county do not receive the benefit of any such wise provision: when once in the asylum, they find none interested in their condition save the staff of the asylum, its visitors, and the Commissioners. The last-named, in their annual visit, can have no time to consider them apart,--not even to discover and distinguish them from the rest. Very many of them are foreigners, and their condition is consequently more deserving commiseration, as being, most likely, without friends, to interest themselves in their behalf. If the inquiry were made of the superintendents of county asylums, we believe it would be found that the omission of the law in providing for the more immediate watching of these poor lunatics is attended with disadvantages and injuries to them. To supply this want, we are disposed to recommend the district medical inspector as their special visitor; for he would be identified, on the one hand, with the county in which his duties lie, and, on the other, with the Lunacy Board, in such a manner as to be able to lay before it, in the readiest and best manner, any circumstances respecting these county pauper lunatics which it might seem desirable to report, and, when they were foreigners, to bring about a communication with the Foreign Office, and secure their removal to their own country.
The visitation of these lunatics would rightly entitle the district officer to remuneration, which might be the same as that now paid per head for the visitation of out-door pauper lunatics, viz. half-a-crown per quarter. This amount would be payable by the county to which the patients were chargeable, and would add to the fund applicable for the general purposes of the Lunacy Board.