Further, the law distinguishes, by implication, a class of lunatics as specially standing in need of Asylum care, and as distinct from others. By the Poor-Law Amendment Act (4 & 5 Will. IV. cap. 76. sect. 45), it is ordered that nothing in that Act "shall authorize the detention in any workhouse of any dangerous lunatic, insane person, or idiot for any longer period than fourteen days; and every person wilfully detaining in any workhouse any such lunatic, insane person, or idiot for more than fourteen days, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanour." This section is still in force, is constantly acted upon by the Poor-Law Board, and is legally so read as if the word 'dangerous' were repeated before the three divisions of mentally-disordered persons referred to, viz. lunatics, insane persons, and idiots. So, likewise, by _sect._ lxvii. (16 & 17 Vict. cap. 97)--the "Lunatic Asylums' Act, 1853," now in operation,--the transmission of an insane individual to an asylum is contingent on the declaration that he is "a lunatic and a _proper person to be sent to an asylum_."
Moreover, by _sect._ lxxix. of the same Act, it is competent to any three Visitors of an asylum, or to any two in conjunction with the Medical Officer of the asylum, to discharge on trial for a specified time "any person detained in such asylum, whether such person be recovered or not;" and by the following section (lxxx.) it is ordered, that, upon receipt of the notice of such discharge, "the Overseers or Relieving Officers respectively shall cause such lunatic to be forthwith _removed to_ their parish, or to the _workhouse of the Union_." By the 79th section it is further provided, that "in case any person so allowed to be absent on trial for any period do not return at the expiration of such period, and a medical certificate as to his state of mind, certifying that his detention in an Asylum is no longer necessary, be not sent to the Visitors, he may, at any time, within fourteen days after the expiration of such period, be retaken, as herein provided in the case of an escape."
On the other hand, simple removal from an asylum is by the 77th section, curiously enough interdicted except to another asylum, a Registered Hospital, or a Licensed House. This intent, too, of the section is not changed by the amendment, _sect._ viii. 18 & 19 Vict. cap. 105. Lastly, no other place than an Asylum, Registered Hospital, or Licensed House, is constituted lawful by _sect._ lxxii. for the reception of any person found lunatic and under "order by a Justice or Justices, or by a Clergyman and Overseer or Relieving Officer, to be dealt with as such." But this section has to be read in connexion with preceding ones, for instance, with _sect._ lvii., by which it is laid down that the Justices or other legal authority must satisfy themselves not only that the individual is a lunatic, but also that he is "a proper person to be sent to an asylum."