parochial Boards, by the inspectors of the at with regard to the Bill which my hon. poor, by the sheriffs, the clergy, the and learned Friend will propose to the justices of the peace, and the Commis- House. I trust the disgrace that now atsioners of Supply. One great defect, in- taches to Scotland in this matter will be deed, in the existing law is the imperfect thereby removed, and that this and the responsibility thrown upon these persons, other House of Parliament will cordially no one being called on to take on himself co-operate with the Government in the the undivided responsibility that is neces- adoption of those measures that are necessary to the due performance of duties of sary for the relief and protection of the this kind. I have also to state, that my unfortunate class of persons referred to in hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advo- this Report. cate has addressed a letter to the Sheriffs MR. DRUMMOND said, that he recolof counties, sending them a copy of the lected the measure to which the right hon. Report, and calling their attention to the Baronet had referred. It was from knowalleged cases of neglect of duty on the part ing something of that darker shade which, of sheriffs in the exercise of the visitorial as the Commissioner stated, remained bepowers given to them by law, and asking hind, that, when Lord Rutherfurd was in such cases for any explanation they may Lord Advocate, he (Mr. Drummond) enhave to offer. When these explanations deavoured to get some returns that would are given, my hon. and learned Friend give information to the House on this will know what course it will be proper to question. Everybody who knew Lord Rutake regarding that part of the subject. therfurd would say that a more humane With regard to individual cases of gross man never existed, and accordingly he cruelty, or illegal proceedings, I may ob- obtained from him every assistance in his serve that these particular cases are now power to procure the returns which he under the consideration of the Lord Advo- desired; but all his efforts were fruitless. cate. Time is, however, required, in order Both he and the Lord Advocate were to do full justice in these cases, and I beaten by the systematic opposition of hope the House will bear in mind that only every single person who was connected a fortnight has elapsed since a printed with the administration of the system in copy of the Report was put into my hands. Scotland. They would not give the reI trust it will be the opinion of the House, turns sought for. And he recollected the that the Government have lost no time in Lord Advocate taking him behind the taking those measures that were thought chair on one occasion and showing him necessary to correct what may be amiss some most defective and imperfect returns in the administration of the present law. which had been made, and saying to him, With regard to the steps hereafter to be" There is nothing for it but to abuse me taken, I may observe that we intend to and the Government. ask Parliament for leave to introduce a Bill calculated to remove those defects in the law that are proved to exist by the statements made in this Report. This is not the first time that a measure on this subject will have been laid before Parliament. The late Lord Rutherfurd, when Lord Advocate, brought in a Bill which, if passed, would, I believe, have remedied all the evils now complained of. That Bill was read a second time with the warm approbation of many Scotch Members on both sides of the House, and was by common consent referred to a Select Committee; but the opposition mised to it in Scotland on the miserable ground of the expense it would incur proved fatal to the measure, and the Lord Advocate found himself unable to carry it. It is deeply to be lamented that he was not able successfully to persevere with that measure; but I trust that a different result will be arrived

Accordingly he

agreed to do so, and did it; when the Lord Advocate stated in the House that all he had said was perfectly true; but it would not do. He was unable to procure the returns, and the ground of the opposition was the dread of the dirty expense which might be incurred. From one to the other it appeared that the object of care in Scotland was property, not persons. The way in which they treated the poor in Scotland was perfectly scandalous, and in nothing did the system appear so bad as in the treatment of pauper lunatics, the rich lunatics being sufficiently well taken care of. On reading the Report one could not help being struck, in the first place, with the neglect of duty by the Sheriffs, and, in the next, with the total neglect of duty exhibited by all the magistrates. How was it that throughout the whole of Scotland there was not one clergyman who could find time to visit these poor crea

share of the blame that attached to the House in reference to these Scotch asylums. In a Report issued by a Committee as long ago as the year 1844, it was recommended that more stringent provisions should be introduced into the law, but they

tures? True, there was one, but when he | As one of the Members for Scotland in went to the asylum he was refused admit- the last Parliament, he must take his tance; and why? Because he was a Papist. The poor law, as managed by the Board of Supervision, had been well defined to be a law for depriving the poor of their just rights. Three cases which he had taken at hazard well illustrated this. The relief amounted to something had not been attended to. Much evil like mockery:-A woman of sixty-four years of age, who had lost the use of her right arm, who had asthma and a cough, was allowed 2s. a month; one of which was deducted for some purpose or other. Another case was that of a poor woman, deserted by her husband, with three children under seven years of age. He did not know what they allowed her, but she lived all day on a turnip, which one of the children stole out of a garden. To an Irishman, a Roman Catholic, with an asthma and an ulcerated leg, they gave nominally 4s. a week, but the inspector kept back 3s. of it for rent. All these cases were brought before the Board of Supervision, but it refused to interfere until some person, with whom he was well acquainted, but whose name he would not mention, insisted upon having a row made about them. Now, that this Report was fresh in everybody's mind, was the time for doing something to remedy these evils; but he warned the Lord Advocate that unless he exerted himself to the utmost he would meet with the same discomfiture as Lord Rutherfurd.

MR. F. DUNDAS said, that he thanked the hon. Member for the forcible appeal he had made to the House, but in reference to a case mentioned by Mr. Ellice, he had a letter from Professor Aytoun, the Sheriff of the county in question, who assured him that, after instituting an inquiry, he was satisfied that the woman was labouring under a delusion. Still he (Mr. Dundas) was afraid that so good an answer could not be made to all the charges which had been brought forward; and he was glad, therefore, that an investigation had taken place which was likely to put an end to so serious and so grave an evil.

SIR EDWARD COLEBROOKE said, that there were others who had a greater share of responsibility than those who had the execution of the law as regarded these asylums. He did not so much allude to the Sheriffs as he did to the Imperial Parliament, to whose neglect in not having taken measures at an earlier period most of the existing evils must be attributed.

arose from the divided responsibility under the present system, and he was of opinion that a proper Central Board, provided with sufficient power, would tend to remedy the existing state of things most effectually. When the late Lord Rutherfurd endeavoured to remedy the law by the introduction of a Bill, the Bill was received with a profusion of compliments, but after its introduction they heard nothing more of it. The Home Secretary was quite correct in attributing the opposition which Lord Rutherfurd's Bill had met with to motives of economy; and a very mistaken economy it was, for it was a well-known fact that patients afflicted with this distressing malady, who might easily have been cured at first, became incurable for want of care and attention, and that a permanent charge was thrown on the ratepayers. He trusted that the Secretary for the Home Department would see that the officials of these asylums peformed their duties with more care.

MR. KINNAIRD said, that the Scotch Members owed a debt of gratitude to his hon. Friend for the very able manner in which he had laid this disgraceful feature in the administration of the Scotch Poor Law before the House. Some hon. Members, he believed, were under a misapprehension that one of the cases of gross cruelty described by his hon. Friend had occurred in the Perth Asylum, but that was not the fact. The case in question occurred elsewhere, but the patient was afterwards brought into the Perth Asylum, and there treated with great humanity and kindness. He had always been in the habit of visiting the asylum in the town which he represented (Perth), and he was glad to find that it was not one of those which had disgraced Scotland. Great praise was due to the Home Secretary for the vigour with which he had prosecuted this matter.

COLONEL SYKES said, that a remedy should be applied to this evil at the earliest possible period, and the Lunacy Commission of England afforded an example of one which could not fail to be successful.

Up

to a recent period, the condition of Lunatics in England was quite as bad as it had been described to be in Scotland, and in consequence, Mr. Robert Gordon and some other philanthropic gentlemen procured the establishment of the Lunacy Commission. That Commission, of which he (Colonel Sykes) was an unpaid member, from 1835 to 1845, found that even in respectable licensed establishments, in which £50, £60, and £100 per annum was paid by the friends of the inmates, the patients were chained to their chairs and their beds. The Commission had put an end to the existence of these and other atrocities in England, and he had no doubt that the extension of the Commission to Scotland, or the establishment of a similar body, consisting of stipendiaries and philanthropists there, would produce similar results in that country; but he would remind the Government that, if there were any divided authority, these results would not be accomplished.

Lord had, with all his powers, failed to carry, until circumstances had brought about a change of feeling in Scotland. He endeavoured in the first place to carry the Valuation Bill, in order to place the assessment for public objects on a satisfactory footing. That Bill was passed in 1854. In the year 1855 the noble-minded lady to whom his right hon. Friend had alluded, and who, greatly to her credit, had made so many exertions on behalf of this neglected class of the population, went to Edinburgh, and visited the asylums at Musselburgh. After seeing them, she said there was something wrong, and she wished to be allowed to visit them at the dead of night, when she would not be expected. He felt a difficulty about giving a permission of that kind to a non-official person, and accordingly she applied to his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. His right hon. Friend asked him (the Lord Advocate) his opinion upon the subject, and he at once stated that the whole system with regard to the treatment of lunacy in Scotland was utterly disgraceful, and that the evil could only be reached by a Commission of Inquiry. The result was the appointment of the Commission, to the Report of which attention had been called so ably that evening; and the facts were now so clearly proved that he believed, if he proposed the very remedy which was rejected in 1848, it would be adopted by both Houses of Parliament without any im

THE LORD ADVOCATE said, that so far from regretting the publication of this Report, or the statements made by his hon. Friend, he rejoiced at them from the bottom of his heart, because this state of things had for a long time been a disgrace and a scandal to Scotland. The people of that country had known that it was a disgrace and a scandal; and he regretted to add, that it was not the first time that statements had been made similar to those to which they had just listen-portant opposition. He would not, on this ed. An attempt had been made to remedy this state of things, but that attempt had failed. The Commissioners, in their Report, suggested certain matters as the groundwork of a remedy, and in referring to the measure introduced by his late much-lamented Friend, Lord Rutherfurd, he found that it included all these suggestions. Therefore, had that Bill been passed in the year 1848, this disgraceful state of things would have been put an end

to.

What was the fate of that measure? He found, on referring back to the Minutes of that date, that not a single petition was presented in its favour; while, on the other hand, twelve of the largest and most important counties of Scotland petitioned against it. Therefore, it was not the fault of the Government of that day that this state of things continued. He was in communication with Lord Rutherfurd upon this subject up to the day of his death, but he had not the courage to re-introduce the Bill which that learned

occasion, enter into a discussion of the merits of the Poor Law in Scotland, nor did he think it desirable to express any opinion as to the conduct of the officials, whether the Board of Supervision or the Sheriffs, and that for this simple reason, that the House had heard only one side and not the other. He would, however, assure hon. Gentlemen that all the matters in this Report which seemed to need further inquiry should receive his earnest attention.

COLONEL SYKES said, it must not be supposed that the censures in this Report were of universal application. The Aberdeen Asylum, for instance, was one of the best in Great Britain.

MR. HOPE JOHNSTONE said, he believed that public feeling in Scotland with regard to this subject had very much changed of late years. Information on the subject of lunacy was now much more complete than it was forty years ago, and the Government would find that the people

(1.) £251,238, Manufacturing Depart-in making this inquiry. It was quite true ments, &c.