measure into execution, partly injudicious and partly degrading to the landholders of Scotland, for it does appear to be a humiliating and, the petitioners may venture to say, an unconstitutional Act, which would place the whole landholders in Scotland in the situation of being taxed for any object and to any amount at the discretion of any set of Commissioners whatever; the petitioners therefore, confiding in the wisdom of the House, humbly pray that the proposed Bill for providing places for the confinement of lunatics in Scotland may not pass into law." Another petition against the Bill, from the magistrates and council of the royal burgh of Ayr, was presented and read, praying that the same may not pass into a law; or that if the House should think proper to pass the said Bill, they would exempt the burgh and parish of Ayr from its enactments. Later on, another petition of the magistrates and town council of the royal burgh of Montrose was presented against the Bill; and subsequently one from Stirlingshire, Renfrew, Wigton, Edinburgh, Elgin, Glasgow, Perth, Dumfries, and many other places. The second reading was again and again deferred until the 1st of June, when it was ordered "that the Bill be read a second time upon this day three months." Thus persistent obstruction triumphed. Sir Andrew Halliday, who took from an early period a lively interest in the insane, writes in 1827: "I cannot but regret that the public refused the adoption of a law for erecting district or county establishments, proposed some years ago by that excellent nobleman, Lord Binning. The rejection of this Act arose, I believe, neither from the parsimony nor the poverty of the freeholders, but from a dread of introducing into the kingdom that system which has been denominated the nightmare of England, the poor's rates."[228]