justified in retaining in the workhouse any lunatics whom their own medical officer did not consider "proper to be confined" in a lunatic asylum.[405] In 1849 it expressly laid it down that a weak-minded pauper or, as we now say, a mentally defective, must either be a lunatic, and be certified and treated as such, or not a lunatic, in which case no special treatment could be provided for him or her in the one general workhouse to which the Central Authority still adhered.[406] We can find no indication of policy as to whether it was recommended that such mentally defectives should be granted outdoor relief, or (as one can scarcely believe) required to inhabit a workhouse which made no provision for them.[407] [398] Fifth Annual Report, 1852, pp. 7, 152. [399] Twelfth Annual Report, 1859-60, p. 17. [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).