On the 29th of May, 1857, Mr. Ellice,[232] the member for St. Andrew's, asked the Government what steps they intended to take for securing to pauper lunatics in Scotland proper protection and maintenance, in order to alleviate the sufferings of the persons to whom the recent Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the state of Lunatics in Scotland related. He was ashamed to have to admit that in that country, unfortunately, the state of things had been lamentably different from England and Ireland, where boards had been appointed under which, generally speaking, the law for the protection of lunatics had been satisfactorily administered. In Scotland, instead of a Board of Commissioners specially appointed to take care of lunatics, the charge had devolved upon the sheriffs of counties and the Board of Supervision, which latter body stood in the place of the Poor Law Board in this country. He charged the Scotch authorities with an almost total neglect of the duties which were incumbent upon them under the law, which "in a great measure was very ample for the protection of the great proportion of the pauper lunatics in Scotland, if it were properly administered." The powers and duties of the sheriffs, as laid down in the Act, were amply sufficient. Yet the granting of licences, which was their duty, formed the exception, and, in fact, houses were opened generally without any licence whatever; the patients were detained without any order, or without even any medical certificate; if they died, their friends were not informed of their deaths, which were not reported to any constituted authority, "the unfortunate persons disappearing in that mass of misery and filth which he should shortly depict." The pauper lunatics were under the charge of the parochial boards. These were under the control of the Board of Supervision, sitting in Edinburgh, and similar to the Poor Law Board in London. The statute enacted that whenever any poor person chargeable on the parish should become insane, the parochial board should, within fourteen days of his being certified, take care that he was properly lodged in an asylum. The Board of Supervision had, under the same Act, peculiar power with respect to lunatics, and it was competent for them to dispense with an asylum, and allow the patient to remain with his friends under due inspection.