PART L As to persons imprisoned on attachment, &c $33. If a person imprisoned on attachment, or any civil process, or for the non-payment of a militia fine, becomes insane, one of the judges mentioned in the last preceding section of this act, shall institute like proceedings in his case as are required in the case provided for in said section; but notice shall in such case be given by mail or otherwise, to the plaintiff or his attorney, if in the state; and if it shall be proved to the satisfaction of said judge that the prisoner is insane, he may discharge him from imprisonment and order him into safe custody and to be sent to the asylum; nevertheless, the creditor may renew his process and arrest again his debtor when of sound mind. 4 N. Y., 300. $34. Persons charged with misdemeanors and acquitted on the ground of insanity, may be kept in custody and sent to the asylum, in the same way as persons charged with crime. Price for digent. $35. The price to be paid for keeping the poor, or any perpoor and in- sons, in indigent circumstances, in the asylum, until the first day of April, eighteen hundred and forty-three, shall be two dollars and fifty cents per week; thereafter it shall be annually fixed by the managers and shall not exceed the actual cost of support and attendance, exclusive of officer's salaries. But the managers may reduce the price if they think proper, in behalf of one indigent patient from each county, if admitted within six months of the first attack of the disease, for one year, unless sooner cured. The managers may, at their discretion, require payments after the first of December next, to be made quarterly or semi-annually, in advance. Persons charged with misdemeanor. remain until restored to his right mind; and then, if the said judge shall have so directed, the superintendent shall inform the said judge and the county clerk and district attorney thereof, so that the person so confined may within sixty days thereafter, be remanded to prison, and criminal proceedings be resumed, or otherwise discharged; or if the period of his imprisonment shall have expired he shall be discharged. The provisions of the last preceding section requiring the county to defray the expenses of a patient sent to the asylum, shall be equally applicable to similar expenses arising under this section and the one next following. Liability of $ 36. Every insane person supported in the asylum shall be supported. personally liable for his maintenance therein, and for all necessary expenses incurred by the institution in his behalf. And the committee, relative, town, city, or county that would have been bound by law to provide for and support him if he had not been sent to the asylum, shall be liable to pay the expenses of his clothing and maintenance in the asylum, and actual necessary expenses to and from the same. 7 H., 171. Certain pabe $37. The expenses of clothing and maintaining, in the supported asylum, a patient who has been received upon the order of CHAP. XX. any court, or officer, shall be paid by the county from which by counhe was sent to the asylum. The treasurer of said county is ties. authorized and directed to pay to the treasurer of the asylum, the bills for such clothing and maintenance, as they shall become due and payable, according to the by-laws of the asylum, upon the order of the steward; and the supervisors of said county shall annually levy and raise the amount of such bills, and such further sums as will probably cover all similar bills for one year in advance. Said county, however, shall have the right to require any individual, town, city, or county that is legally liable for the support of such patient, to reimburse the amount of said bills, with interest from the day of paying the same. 7 H., 171. removing tients how $38. Whenever the managers shall order a patient removed Expense of from the asylum to the poor house of the county whence he certain pacame, the superintendent of the poor of said county shall audit paid. and pay the actual and reasonable expenses of such removal as part of the contingent expenses of said poor house. But if any town or person be legally liable for the support of such patient, the amount of such expenses may be recovered for the use of the county, by such' superintendents. If such superintendents of the poor neglect or refuse to pay such expenses, on demand, the treasurer of the asylum may pay the same and charge the amount to the said county; and the treasurer of the said county is authorized to pay the same, with interest after thirty days; and the supervisors of the said county shall levy and raise the amount as other county charges. supporting how recov $ 39. Every town or county paying for the support of a Expense of lunatic in the asylum, or his expenses in going to or from the lunatics same, shall have the like rights and remedies to recover the ered. amount of such payments, with interest from the time of paying each bill, as if such expenses had been incurred for the support of the same, at other places, under existing laws. 7 H., 171. chancellor. $ 40. None of the provisions of this act shall restrain or Powers of abridge the power and authority of the chancellor of the state, over the persons and property of the insane. when to be 341. The managers, upon the superintendent's certificate Patients of complete recovery, may discharge any patient, except one discharged. under a criminal charge or liable to be remanded to prison; and they may discharge any patient admitted as "dangerous," or any patient sent to the asylum by the superintendent or overseers of the poor, or by the first judge of a county, upon the superintendent's certificate, that he or she is harmless and will probably continue so, and not likely to be improved by further treatment in the asylum, or where the asylum is full, upou a like certificate, that he or she is manifestly incurable, and can probably be rendered comfortable at PART L the poor-house; so that preference may be given, in the admission of patients, to recent cases, or cases of insanity of not over one year's duration. They may discharge and deliver any patient, except one under criminal charge as aforesaid, to his relatives or friends, who will undertake with good and approved sureties for his peaceable behavior, safe custody and comfortable maintenance, without further public charge. So amended by Laws of 1844, ch. 337. Patients of the criminal class. S 42. A patient of the criminal class may be discharged by order of one of the justices of the supreme court, or a circuit judge, if upon due investigation it shall appear safe, legal and right to make such order. Patients S 43. No patient shall be discharged without suitable clothto be suita- ing; and if it can not be otherwise obtained, the steward bly clothed. shall, upon the order of two managers, furnish it, also money not exceeding twenty dollars, to defray his necessary expenses until he reaches his friends, or can find a chance to earn his subsistence. $ 44. It shall be the duty of the assessors in each town and the number ward in the state, every year, to make diligent inquiry, Assessors to ascertain of insane persons yearly. and ascertain with accuracy the number and names of all insane persons in said town or ward, and to make a list of the same with the best account they can get, in each case of the patient's age, general health, habits and occupation, kind, degree and duration of insanity, and pecuniary ability of self and relatives liable for his support. They shall send this list, with all the facts brought down to the latest period, to the clerk of the county, by the first day of August; who shall carefully condense the facts exhibited, and mail the same to the treasurer of the asylum at Utica, without delay. No county clerk shall receive any compensation for any services performed under this act. Expenses of [Section 45 temporary.] Meaning of terms $46. The terms "lunacy," "lunatic" and "insane," as used in this act. in this act, include every species of insanity, and extend to every deranged person, and to all of unsound mind other than idiots; the word "oath" includes "affirmation;" the words "justice" and "justices" mean "justice of the peace," "justices of the peace;" the word "overseer" means "overseer of the poor," and "county superintendent" means "superintendent of the poor;" the word "asylum" and "institution" means "State Lunatic Asylum;" a word denoting the singular number is to include one or many; and every word importing the masculine gender only may extend to, and include females. $47. The managers of the State Lunatic Asylum shall receive no compensation for their services, but shall receive their actual and reasonable travelling and other expenses, to be paid on the warrant of the comptroller, on the rendering of their accounts. CHAP. XX. All purcha made for $48. All purchases for the use of the asylum shall be made for cash, and not on credit, or time; every voucher shall be ses to be taken duly filled up at the time it is taken, with every abstract cash, of vouchers for money paid shall be proof on oath that the voucher was filled up and the money paid therefor at the time the voucher was taken; and the managers shall make all needful rules and regulations to enforce the provisions of this section. deficiency money may $ 49. If the managers shall find that the funds at their com- In case of mand will prove insufficient to carry on the asylum, they may of funds apply to the Governor, Secretary of State, Comptroller, and be advanced Attorney-General, specifying the purchases to be made, and if the Governor, Secretary of State, Comptroller and Attorney-General shall be of opinion that the purchases are necessary, they may make an order that a sum not exceeding five thousand dollars in any one year be advanced to the managers by the Comptroller out of any money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated. under act of $ 50. So much of the fourth section of the act to authorize Powers the establishment of the New York State Lunatic Asylum, 1836. passed March 30, 1836, as provides for the appointment of three commissioners, is hereby abolished; all the powers conferred upon said commissioners by said act, or any subsequent act of the legislature, are hereby conferred upon the managers appointed by this bill. to take $51. This act shall take effect immediately except its re- Act when quirements for sending the insane to the asylum, which shall effect. take effect as soon as the managers' notice of the asylum being ready as aforesaid, shall have been published for two weeks in the state paper. CHAP. 98. AN ACT in relation to the State Lunatic Asylum. The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows: [Sections 1, 2, 3, temporary.] sistant phy ed. $ 4. The managers of said asylum shall have the power, Second ason the nomination of the superintendent of said asylum, to sician may appoint a second assistant physician to said asylum, whose be appointsalary shall be fixed and paid in the same manner now provided by law in relation to the other resident officers of said asylum. ter of canal $5. The managers of the said asylum are authorized, under Surplus wa the direction and subject at all times to the control of the how to be acting canal commissioner, having charge of the Chenango canal, to use the surplus water, discharge around or through the fifth lock on said canal, to operate a pump, to supply said used. PART I. asylum with water, from said canal or from Nail creek, in case the said commissioner shall be of opinion that the same can be done without detriment to the navigation of said canal. Indigent persons, CHAP. 282. AN ACT in relation to the State Lunatic Asylum. PASSED April 10, 1850; "three-fifths being present." The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows: Third as $1. The managers of the State Lunatic Asylum are authosistant phy- rized in their discretion to appoint on the nomination of the sician. superintendent of said asylum, a third assistant physician, whose salary shall be fixed and paid in the same manner as those of the other resident officers of said asylum. $ 2. No person in indigent circumstances not a pauper, shall be admitted into the asylum on the certificate of a When to be county judge, made under and pursuant to the provisions of not pau pers, admitted. Judge to give notice tion to superintendent of poor. the twenty-sixth section of the act to organize the State Lunatic Asylum, and more effectually to provide for the care, maintenance, and recovery of the insane, passed April 7, 1842, unless such person has become insane within one year next prior to the granting of such certificate by the county judge, and it shall be the duty of said judge when an application is of applica- made to him pursuant to said twenty-sixth section of said act, to cause such reasonable notice thereof and of the time and place of hearing the same to be given to one of the superintendents of the poor of the county chargeable with the expense of supporting such person in the asylum if admitted, or if such expense is chargeable to a town, or city then to an overseer of the poor of such town or city as he may judge reasonable under the circumstances and he shall then proceed to enquire as to the time when such person became insane, and shall in addition to the requirements of said twenty-sixth section state in his certificate that satisfactory proof has been adduced before him, that such person became insane within a year next prior to the date of his certificate. On granting such certificate the judge may in his discretion, require the friends of the patient to give security to the superintendent of the poor of the county to remove the patient from the asylum at the end of two years, in case he does not sooner recover. When a patient who is admitted into the asylum on the certificate of a county judge, given pursuant to the twenty-sixth section of the aforesaid act, has remained in the asylum two years, and has not recovered, the superintendent of the asylum shall send notice by mail to the overseer of the poor of the town where the patient resided at the time of his admission into the asylum, or to the county judge of the county from which he |