2-888-618 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Right Hon. Andrew Rutherfurd, M.P. (for the Leith District), Lord Advocate of Scotland, 1850. 'The then condition of the gaols would now scarce gain belief. There was no classification; no separation of the convicted from those waiting trial; no attention to cleanliness, morality, or health; the prisons were damp, dark, filthy, crowded; certain moral destruction to all who were sent, even for a brief period, within their walls; and, in short, an abomination and disgrace to any civilised country. Mr. Rutherfurd...brought in and carried an Act effecting an entire reform in the supervision, management, and discipline of the prisons...Mr. Rutherfurd has also devoted no small attention to the condition of pauper lunatics in Scotland, who are now left wholly unprovided and uncared for, and last year brought in a bill for the establishment of proper asylums for their protection and treatment'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.