[400] Twenty-third Annual Report, 1870-71, p. xxiii.
[401] 25 & 26 Vic. c. 111, secs. 8, 20, 31 (Lunacy Acts Amendment Act, 1862).
[402] Sixteenth Annual Report, 1863-4, pp. 21, 38-9.
[403] Circular of 15th December 1862, in Fifteenth Annual Report, 1862-3, pp. 35-7.
[404] On 1st January 1859, the number of persons of unsound mind in the workhouses was 7963 (Twelfth Annual Report, 1859-60, p. 17). This had risen by 1870 to 11,243 (Twenty-third Annual Report, 1870-71, p. xxiii).
[405] Poor Law Commissioners, 24th December 1845; in MS. records, Manchester Board of Guardians.
[406] Official Circular, No. 25, N.S., May 1849, pp. 70-1.
[407] In 1868 visiting committees were recommended to see that weak-minded inmates were not entrusted with the care of young children (Circular of 6th July 1868 in Twenty-first Annual Report, 1868-9, p. 53).
[408] MS. Minutes, Plymouth Board of Guardians, 28th January 1846.
[409] Ibid. 5th November 1847. Some of the rooms were only 3-1/4 feet long and 7 feet wide, in fact, mere cupboards, which the Lunacy Commissioners said were unfit for any one. Yet nothing was done, and the "rooms" were still occupied in 1854 when the district auditor mildly commented on the fact (Letter Book, Plymouth Board of Guardians, August 1854).