Only under very peculiar circumstances indeed would we tolerate the boarding of pauper lunatics with strangers; when, for instance, their comforts and safety are hedged round by legal provisions sufficiently ample, and by systematized arrangements to secure them. These ends are to be attained by taking the selection of the abode and the pecuniary details from the hands of parochial officers, and by entrusting them to some competent medical man, who should be responsible that the patients are properly cared for and treated. It should be for him to select the residence, and in so doing to seek out those who by character and condition are best fitted for the charge. If the law were so amended that asylum relief should be afforded to all on the appearance of their malady, the majority of those to be provided for in lodgings would come from the class of chronic, imbecile patients, accounted harmless, whose discharge from the asylum under proper surveillance might be recommended. Hence it would render the scheme more perfect and satisfactory, to retain these chronic lunatics in homes within a moderate distance of the County Asylum they were previously placed in, so that they might be under the supervision of the medical staff of that institution, and that the propriety of their prolonged absence from it, or of their return to it, might be therefore determinable by those best qualified to judge from past experience of their case.
Yet, in all probability, this restriction as to the district for receiving patients as boarders, would not always be practicable; and frequently, where the insane poor had near relatives capable and willing to receive them under their care, though at a distance from the asylum, it would not be desirable to sacrifice the advantages of the guardianship of friends to those obtainable by vicinity to the asylum; and, from these or other causes, many poor insane people would be found distributed here and there throughout a county under the charge of cottagers and others. In their cases we would make the District Medical Inspector the special protector and guardian of their interests and well-being provided by law, and require him to visit them at least twice a quarter, report on their condition, and on the fitness or unfitness of the persons boarding them. In all cases, he should as a preliminary proceeding inquire into the accommodation and general circumstances of the persons proposing to receive an individual of unsound mind into their family, and should reject the application of those who are unable to afford suitable conveniences and adequate management.