The Board of Supervision had absolute powers to dismiss any inspectors of the poor neglecting their duty to pauper lunatics. They acknowledged their obligation. In their first Report (1847) they, among other positive statements, affirm that they, in all cases in which they dispensed with the removal of pauper lunatics to asylums, were careful to preserve the necessary safeguards against abuse, by requiring a satisfactory medical certificate as to treatment, and so on. Mr. Ellice then showed that "these statements had no foundation in fact; that they were positively untruths, and entirely deceptive, year after year, as to the real state of the lunatics in Scotland." In subsequent Reports the Board boasted that it had endeavoured, not unsuccessfully, to improve the condition of the insane, but Mr. Ellice showed that "the condition and treatment of the pauper lunatics was diametrically opposite to what was there stated." He knew that more legislation would be promised by the Government, but the thing was to see that the law was enforced, and that due notice should be taken of the conduct of the authorities who had neglected their duties. He asked that a direct condemnation should be passed upon them, and that they should be compelled, as in duty bound, to protect pauper lunatics from continued neglect and abuse. The member for Aberdeen characterized the Report of Commissioners regarding the state of the insane in his county as "one of the most horrifying documents he had ever seen."[233] It was "a state of things which they could not before have believed to prevail in any civilized country, much less in this country, which laid peculiar claims to civilization, and boasted of its religious and humane principles."[234] "Distressing as were the cases which he had mentioned, there were others ten times worse remaining behind--so horrible, indeed, that he durst not venture to shock the feelings of the House by relating them."[235] Sir George Grey, after saying that the Report on the treatment of lunatics in Scotland contained statements of facts calculated to cast very great discredit upon that portion of the United Kingdom, admitted that the Board of Supervision was not free from blame, but thought the Report proved that the guilt must be shared by the parochial boards, the inspectors of the poor, the sheriffs, the clergy, the justices of the peace, and by the Commissioners of Supply. By this ingenious homoeopathic dilution of the blame, it was easy to show that individual responsibility was infinitesimal, and could not, therefore, be detected and punished in the way it so richly merited. Sir George Grey promised to introduce a Bill calculated to remove the defects in the law established by the Reports, and deplored the fate of the Bill brought in by Lord Rutherfurd,[236] when Lord Advocate, which would, in his opinion, have remedied all the evils now complained of. It was "referred to a Select Committee, but the opposition roused to it in Scotland, on the miserable ground of the expense it would incur, proved fatal to the measure. I trust the disgrace that now attaches to Scotland in this matter will be removed, and that this and the other House of Parliament will cordially co-operate with the Government in the adoption of those measures that are necessary for the relief and protection of the unfortunate class of persons referred to in the Report."[237] Mr. H. Drummond, who said he had assisted Lord Rutherfurd to pass his Bill, also deplored its rejection. "Both he and the Lord Advocate were beaten by the systematic opposition of every single person who was connected with the administration of the system in Scotland. They would not give the returns sought for ... 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." Mr. Drummond asked how it was "that throughout the whole of Scotland there was not one clergyman who could find time to visit these poor creatures? True, there was one, but when he went to the asylum he was refused admittance; 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.'"[238] Sir Edward Colebrooke, as one of the members for Scotland in the previous Parliament, took his share of the blame that attached to the House in reference to Scotch asylums.