The Sun.
London, England, 1829-08-20 00:00:00

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.

MANSION-HOUSE.
Yesterday some gentlemen, the friends of a
citizen of respectability and affluence, waited upon
the LORD MAYOR, accompanied by Mr. Holder, jun.,
for the purpose of requesting his Lordship's inter-
ference in a case which appeared to them one of

great hardship and injustice.
From the statement made to his Lordship, the
following particulars have been extracted :
The gentleman alluded to as the person on whose
behalf the application was made, had, in conse-
quence of some disagreement with part of his
family, left his house in the city in which his mer-
cantile business was carried on, and taken apart-
ments in a hotel in Holborn. He had not, however,

been long absent from home when two mad-house
porters seized him, and by force conveyed him to a
private lunatic asylum in the neighbourhood of the
Regent's-park, where he was kept under restraint.
lie, however, had opportunities of communicating
to his friends, and he wrote to Mr. nobler, jun.,

requesting that gentleman would act as a solicitor,
and endea►•our to get him out of the dilemma in
which he was placed, his property being now in the
hands and under the complete control of other

persons, and his own person being under a sort of
interdict which he could not by his own unassisted

powers remove.
The LORD MAYOR asked whether in this case
the Act of Parliament had not been regularly ob-
served ? It was well known that there were certain

regulations with respect to the confinement of per-
sons alleged to be lunatic, which, if they were not
observed most strictly, those who caused the con-
finement of individuals on the ground of lunacy
were liable to most heavy penalties.
Mr. Hobler, jun., said that the whole proceeding
appeared to be a most extraordinary one. The only
document producible at the house in which his client
was confined was, a mere note from a physician,
authorizing (if a note of the kind was an authority)
certain persons to take care of the person of the gen-
tleman. He (Mr. Hobler, jun.) had visited him,
and he was astonished at the charge of insanity

against a man who was able to transact the busi-
ness to which he hal been brought up, even by the
acknowledgment of those who thought him deranged
as well as ever.

The friends of the man said to labour under the
mental malady, then stood forward to add their tes-
timony to that of his solicitor.
One of them said the accused of insanity was
now as well able as ever he had been of conducting
the extensive business of the house. It had, in
fact, been found necessary to send him, two or three
days ago, to make out some particular accounts,
which no other individual was able to accomplish,
and he performed the duty with as great facility as
usual. There was, in fact, no difference between
his former and his present conduct, except that his
mind was now in an irritable state. The witness
had known him for some years, and observed that
there was no difference except what he had described.
Mr. nobler, jun. put before the Lord Mayor a

letter which he had received from his client that
morning. It was written in such a manner as would
prevent any man who knew how to write, from form-
ing a very high opinion of the pen of tie writer; but
there was a consistency in it all through which it
would be well to see in the effusions of gentlemen
who contrive to get a livelihood by literature. The
unfortunate man was most anxious that a commis-
sion should be called to decide at once upon the
state of his mind.

Mr. Holler, the chief clerk, said that the Lord
Mayor could not interfere on this occasion. If those
by whom the gentleman was confined had been

guilty of assault and false imprisonment, the most
heavy punishment would await them if an investiga-
tion took place.
The LORD MAYOR advised that application should
he made to the Lord Chancellor.