I may add here, though anticipating the future course of events, that the General Board of Commissioners in Scotland was established by the Acts 20 and 21 Vict., c. 71, and 21 and 22 Vict., c. 54, both Acts being amended by 25 and 26 Vict., c. 54, and 27 and 28 Vict., c. 59, the latter continuing the appointment of Deputy Commissioners, and making provisions for salaries, etc. The statutes now in force in Scotland are the 20 and 21 Vict., c. 71; 21 and 22 Vict., c. 89; 25 and 26 Vict., c. 54; 27 and 28 Vict., c. 59; Act for the protection of property of persons under mental incapacity, 12 and 13 Vict., c. 51; Act providing for the custody of dangerous lunatics in Scotland, 4 and 5 Vict., c. 60 (repealed and other provisions made by fore-mentioned Acts); Act to amend the law relating to lunacy in Scotland and to make further provision for the care and treatment of lunatics, 29 and 30 Vict., c. 51; Act to amend the law relating to criminal and dangerous lunatics in Scotland, 34 and 35 Vict., c. 55 (1871). But we must retrace our steps to pursue the course of legislation a little more in detail. On the 3rd of February, 1818, a Bill for the erecting of district lunatic asylums in Scotland for the care and confinement of lunatics, brought in by Lord Binning and Mr. Brogden, was read the first time. A few days after, a petition of the noblemen, gentlemen, freeholders, justices for the peace, Commissioners of Supply, and other heritors of the county of Ayr was presented against it, setting forth that the petitioners, "from the first moment that they were made acquainted with the principle and provisions of the proposed Bill, were deeply alarmed for their own interests and those of Scotland in general, by the introduction of a measure uncalled for and inexpedient, novel in its application and arrangement, and substituting regulations of compulsion, to the exclusion of the more salutary exertions of spontaneous charity, and this, too, at a time when, by the gradual progress of enlightened philanthropy, so many admirable institutions have been so lately established in various parts of Scotland by voluntary contributions; and that the petitioners are most willing to pay every just tribute of respect to the humane views which may have dictated the proposed measure, but they are satisfied that it must have owed its origin to exaggerated and false representations of the state of the lunatics in Scotland, and an unjust and groundless assumption of a want of humanity in the people of Scotland toward objects afflicted with so severe a calamity. The House cannot fail to remark that the proposed Bill recognizes a systematic assessment, which it has been the wise policy of our forefathers to avoid in practice, and that, too, to an amount at the discretion of Commissioners ignorant of local circumstances, and perhaps the dupes of misinformation; entertaining, as the petitioners do, deep and well-grounded repugnance to the means proposed for carrying this