ISSUE:
Whether the justices had a jurisdiction to remove a lunatic pauper (Harriet Ellis) to a licensed asylum in Surrey instead of the Middlesex County asylum, which was full?
Whether the relocation to a different county for treatment was lawful under statute 9 G. 4, c. 40, s. 38?
RULE:
Statutes are not to be expounded according to strict propriety of construction, or even in the usual grammatical sense, if that mode of interpreting would lead to manifest inconvenience, and be inconsistent with the subject and occasion, and the object contemplated by the Legislature.
Justices must act within the limits of their statutory authority and cannot extend powers beyond what is explicitly stated in the law.