§ The Marquess of Lansdownesaid, that he had a petition to present which had been sent to him from a remote part of Ireland, and which was rather curious in its nature. It was signed by all the medical practitioners of the county of Galway, and he was glad that it had been intrusted to him, as it gave him an opportunity of making known, that Ireland was included in the bill for the extension of vaccination introduced by the noble Lord opposite. He was happy to say so, because the necessity for it was far greater in Ireland than in England. He was informed, by a letter received from a magistrate of the county of Galway, that persons of notoriously bad character had been going about the country bribing the inhabitants of some small village, perhaps, to allow themselves to be inoculated with the small-pox, and then going about telling all the people roundabout that the small-pox was in the neighbourhood, and obtaining money for inoculating the people as a preventive.
The Earl of Roseberyexpressed a hope that the provisions of the bill would be applied to Scotland as well as England and Ireland, otherwise the benefits which were to be expected from the measure would be counteracted, or, at any rate, lessened by increasing the danger of contagion. He did really hope, therefore, that the noble Lord, who with so much promptitude and spirit had introduced the bill, would communicate with the noble Lords near him who were connected with Scotland, and that he would also enter into some communication with the Lord-advocate for that country, so that some mode might be devised by which the bill might be extended to Scotland as well as England and Ireland, and thus be rendered more efficient.
Lord Ellenboroughadmitted that the 1317 measure would be more efficient if it could be applied to Scotland; but he found that the only available body with whom he could co-operate were the Kirk Sessions, and they had no funds to work with. The House of Commons might be able to supply the requisite funds, and would possibly approach the Kirk Sessions with a better chance of success.
§ Petition laid on the table.