We have, indeed, in previous pages (p. 91, _et seq._), shown that unfit and occasionally non-lunatic patients are sent to asylums; but, even did such an event never happen, we should still hold that the protection to the alleged lunatic intended by the requirement of an order signed by the officials designated, is very little worth, and would be advantageously replaced by the order of a district medical officer appointed and authorized by the scheme we propose. It is also worthy of note, that patients sent to asylums under the order of the chaplain and relieving officer feel themselves sometimes much aggrieved that no magistrate or other independent authority has had a voice in the matter. They regard the relieving officer or the overseer, as the case may be, to be directly interested in their committal to the asylum, and only look upon the chaplain of the union as a paid officer, almost bound to append his signature to any document matured at the Board of Guardians, when called upon to do so. Moreover, they can recognise in him, in his professional capacity as a clergyman, no especial qualifications for deciding on the question whether they are proper persons to be confined on the ground of their insanity. This remark, too, extends to every other clergyman called upon to act in the matter. Nay, more, there is another more potent objection at times to a clergyman signing the order; viz. when the patient is of a different faith, or when perhaps animated by strong prejudices against the clergy of the English Church, and when, consequently, it is possible for him to imagine himself the victim of religious persecution or of intolerance.
Even Lord Shaftesbury, who is so identified with the interests of religion and of its ministers, manifests no disposition to entrust to the clergy the interests of the insane. In reply to the query (No. 838, Evid. Com.), whether he would desire ministers of religion to pronounce on the fitness or unfitness of persons for confinement as of unsound mind, he replies, "I should have more distrust of the religious gentleman than I should have of the medical man; and I say that with the deepest respect for the ministers of religion. The difficulty of it would be incalculable, if you were to throw the duty on the parochial clergy in the neighbourhood, who are already overburdened."