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 the Home Secretary. When asked by him his opinion of the subject, 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 facts were now so clearly proved that if he proposed the very remedy which was rejected in 1848, it would be adopted by both Houses of Parliament without any important opposition." A Government Bill was brought in by the Lord Advocate, June 9, 1857, "to alter and amend the laws respecting lunatics in Scotland." In introducing it, he summarized the then law as follows:--The sheriffs of the counties, the justices, and some other parties had the power and duty of inspection once or twice a year; certain registers were ordered to be kept and certain regulations made. But there was no uniformity; every sheriff might interpret the Act as he pleased, and there was no obligation to erect asylums for the maintenance of lunatics. The duty was thrown on the Procurator Fiscal of seeing the Act executed, but no power was given him to ascertain whether it was executed or not, and there was no power of visitation. He need not say that these safeguards entirely failed, and the remedy he now proposed was that there should be appointed a Commission, an inspector-general who should be a medical man, a secretary, and a clerk; and that these should constitute the Lunacy Board for Scotland, though not under that name. They would have the power of granting and refusing licences for asylums. The sheriffs and the justices would retain the powers conferred on them already. Scotland would be divided into districts, in which asylums would be erected by an assessment laid on for the purpose. The Lord Advocate made a sort of formal defence of the Board of Supervision, of which he himself had been a member, and pointed out that in their first Report they had stated that the accommodation in the asylums was not equal to that required for one-tenth of the number of pauper lunatics. Sir John McNeill, who presided over the Board, when examined before the Select Committee on Miscellaneous Expenditure in 1848, stated this fact strongly. Mr. Ellice, however, adhered to the remarks he had previously made, reasserted his accusations, and repeated that if the question were put to a jury, they would come to no other decision than that gross culpability existed on the part of the authorities, and he only regretted that the Government had not had the courage to say that the Board of Supervision had deserved the condemnation of the House. Leave was given to bring in the Bill.[240]