have any thing to conceal, but their patients are of a class who, as a rule, shun observation, and pay a high price for the seclusion they require. As a general rule these private asylums are of the nature of boarding-houses, and most of their proprietors possess a professional reputation, which is a guarantee of the purity of their motives. Here and there, it is true, people talk of patients whose recovery has been delayed for the sake of the profit derived from them; but if such cases have occurred-which is doubtful-they are but as exceptions to the rule.

It has long been the fashion for the novelist who desires to create a sensation to have his hero or heroine carried off to a private madhouse. In a book called Valentine Vox, I remember, the most harrowing details were given of the horrible treatment a worthy elderly gentleman received at the hands of big and burly ruffians, who thought that he did not leave the world soon enough for his relations. Heartrending was the description of the feet-tickling to drive him into a state of mania; but I am afraid that it did not produce the right effect upon me, as the incident always reminded me of the wicked husband in Mrs. Jarley's Waxwork Exhibition. All this may be tolerated in fiction, but in reality I believe it impossible to occur at the present day. Even Lord Shaftesbury, the sworn foe of private asylums, and who would shut up every one of them had he the will, was obliged to confess the other day in the House of Lords that such cases could hardly occur under the present system. If we look at the obstacles, we shall at once see the justice of his lordship's assertion. In the first place, if a desire is felt to lock a person up who is perfectly sane, the certificate of two doctors must be obtained, which has to be endorsed by the medical attendant of the asylum, and forwarded to the Commissioners of Lunacy within seven days of admission. This presupposes very considerable and expensive collusion, for detection would be the moral death of all three culprits, and such detection is almost certain. The Commissioners are bound to visit the private asylums in the Metropolitan District four times a year; the public and provincial private asylums being under the joint supervision of the Commissioners and the county magistrates, are less frequently inspected by the former, who, however, visit all the public institutions once, and the private houses twice, a year. These visits, be it remarked, are made at unexpected moments. They do not trust to the reports of the medical man: they keep registers of their own, in which the names of every person under restraint are entered, with their own private annotations at the side, and they examine every patient personally. If they feel the slightest suspicion-which is a very rare case, I am happy to say on behalf of the profession-they drop in again and again to inquire into the reasons why the patient has not been discharged, and would soon drive any unfairly dealing proprietor of an asylum out of his last intrenchments. A mark would, in such case, be placed against his name, and he would soon find his occupation gone. At the most, only an error of judgment can occur on the part of a medical man, and that is very speedily rectified. In

short, the personal liberty of the lunatic is so well protected, that we may feel sure no person is placed under restraint at the present day unless there be just cause for it. The Commissioners who visit Colney Hatch must have a lively time of it, for it takes them a week before their labours are ended. I mention this fact as a proof of their conscientiousness, because a pauper asylum is the last place in which any fraud of this nature would be attempted.

I allow that the display made by several eminent medical men in the Windham case was not creditable to them, and had a tendency to disparage the treatment of lunacy generally. There was too much dialectical sophistry, and a species of legal refinement, according as the physician was engaged for or against. It is to be regretted that not one of them had the courage (except, perhaps, Dr. Hood) to express the general opinion, "the patient may be an idiot, but he has not the brains to go mad." But the system is a bad one, and a five hundred pounds' fee paid to a mad doctor has a dangerous effect. I will not go so far as to assert that the physicians called at the trial did not give their evidence conscientiously, but there is no doubt that the profession generally has been injured by public appearances in the witness-box. The Windham case nearly completed what the Palmer and Smethurst trials had begun, and it is high time that theoretical evidence, which scandalmongers are apt to regard as biased by heavy retainers, should be excluded from our courts of law. The Lord Chancellor, a short time back, could not refrain in the House of Lords from a fling at the "Mad Doctors"-in this following the popular lead; but in spite of any weaknesses they may have been guilty of, the country could hardly do without them.

All that is left me now to do is to resume the results of my inquiry into the present treatment of lunacy. The ground, I think, has been very considerably narrowed by the previous remarks; and with reference to the person whose claims I would more especially advocate, namely, the professional man with a precarious income, who might be suddenly afflicted with mania, I attain the following results: When first attacked, so long as symptoms of paralysis have not manifested themselves, or so long as there is a fair prospect of cure, his friends need only apply to Dr. Hood, who will be but too glad to support their application, and do all that great skill, combined with indefatigable attention, can to restore the patient to his family. In this way, at any rate, his friends have twelve months to look about them; and should he not, under Providence, be cured within that period, they have a refuge offered them in such houses as Dr. Paul's: there the rates of payment for private patients begin at fifteen shillings, or thereabouts. They may feel assured that he will be kindly treated during his seclusion, and have a guarantee that every effort will be made to promote his recovery. So far all is well. But there are cases in which the bereft family of the poor curate or struggling author is unable to make such a sacrifice as forty pounds a year. For such a class, I regret to say, the only refuge is parish relief and a residence in a

pauper asylum, which, however well it may be conducted, is uncongenial to the man of education, in consequence of the class with which he is brought into contact. I have watched the working of this system carefully at Colney Hatch: in that asylum there are clergymen of the Church of England and of Rome, artists, students, and other men of liberal professions, mingled with the scourings of the London streets. All I can hope in charity is, that they are so far demented as not to realise their position; for if mania be a curse, a terrible sting must be added in lucid intervals by the thought that poverty alone has reduced a man who once held a respectable position in society to fellowship with men who, from defective training in youth, indulge their worst passions, and are animated solely by an evil spirit, which reduces these unfortunate victims to desperation.

It is for this class, then, the incurable patients of the unfortunate middle classes, that I venture to make the present appeal. I have reason to believe that another effort will be made in the course of the present year to bring their case before the public, and I trust that it will meet with greater support than on a previous occasion. Their number cannot be very large, and it would be easy to take such precautions as to prevent the charity being abused. A strict investigation would insure only those persons who desired the help of the institution receiving it; and I feel convinced that hundreds of wives and children would bless the day on which it was opened. In the course of my inquiry I have heard fearful tales of the destitution brought on families of this class because they could not allow a beloved member to enter an asylum since it is so suggestive of parochial relief, and the Anglo-Saxon pride will endure almost any thing before descending to such a humiliation. Still, it is a manifest injustice that money should be squandered in supporting a helpless father, which might be more usefully employed in the education of his children.

In the mean while, and until this much-desired institution-a Hospital for Middle-class Incurables-is founded, I would venture to offer a suggestion to the Governors of Bethlehem. They will, before long, have several wards at their disposal, by the removal of the criminal lunatics; and could they be better employed than by throwing them open to the class to which I refer? Dr. Hood, who has advocated their cause far more powerfully than I am able to do, and who is the life and soul of the movement, will, I feel assured, not be offended by this suggestion, which I offer in all humility, as a panacea for a recognised want. In this way, which need only be a temporary measure, an estimate might be formed of the numbers knocking for admission, and of the size of the hospital eventually to be built for them. I do not feel any fear that the public will turn coldly away from the appeal, so long as it be brought properly before them; and it is only necessary to guard against the mistakes that disfigured the last meeting which was held on the subject. The advocates of the Hospital for Middle-class Incurables must take higher

ground, and check any perversion of the meeting into a personal attack. The object is too sacred a one for private pique or private crotchets to be allowed to defeat it.

Finally, I wish my readers perfectly to understand that the proposed hospital must be solely the result of private charity; no wish is felt that county magistrates should interfere in its management, and convert it into a model lunatic prison. The class for whom it is intended is limited, and while no pampering will be aimed at, every effort will be made to cheer the last days of the unfortunate. As yet, not even the system has been arranged; in fact the scheme remains in embryo until the public have shown how far they are disposed to support it. In the late Dr. Reid the cause has suffered a great loss, for he possessed a peculiar talent for setting the springs of charity in motion, and I regret that he should not have been spared to coöperate in a work which would have proved so congenial to him, and whose success he would have done his utmost to insure.

L. W.

An Old Guide.

THE great Steam-faith is now one of the chief creeds of the land. Its rule of scrip and thirty-nine articles (standing orders, Parliamentarians say) are cheerfully subscribed to. The services, morning, mid-day, and evening, are attended to overflowing; its hymns are chanted lustily by earnest congregations, and its churches and temples are gorgeous monuments, sumptuously kept up. The tithes are paid handsomely, and with few defaulters; its ministers are far-seeing men, capable men, thinking men, and lack not abundant appointments. From the days when Preacher Stephenson set out on that humble tour of his to convert the empire, getting down in lumbering fashion from Dan to Beersheba— that is to say, from Manchester to Liverpool-the creed has prospered, and spread with miraculous activity. Dagon has thriven and fattened, and grown in favour; he has had hecatombs in whole burnt-offerings-increasing yearly, according to the ratio explained in the pleasant horseshoe nail puzzle-offered up day and night for his glorification, and has been filled to satiety with the untold offerings of trusting worshipers, in the shape of molten gold, worldly goods, and we should be afraid to say how many tons of water and excellent coke. Greedy Dagon, who must besides have human victims to swallow occasionally! He likes a poor widow now and then, as whet. He has no objections to tender young virgins, provided they be orphans, and places them all in his claws. Sweet to him is the odour of small savings, of offerings drawn from half-pay source; of trust-money, if it can reach him, because forbidden joint. It is a great, a holy religion. It will be a greater and a holier yet. Macte virtute! Go on, sacred Dagon. May thy wheels never lack unctuous aliment, great Juggernaut propelled by steam. Not so many proselytes made Mahomet, spreading his creed with fire and sword; not so many, poor Joseph Smith.

But if Mahomet, the prophet of the one God, had his famous textbook or Koran, written out for him so mysteriously; and if poor deluded Joe had his text-book to leave behind him-known as the Book of Mormon-surely it is only fitting and decent that our steam Baal should have a Bible, of some sort or kind. Why not, indeed? What shall the faithful do? Preachers are excellent in their kind, and furnish wholesome counsels; but preachers cannot be conveniently pouched, or rolled up into portable shape and taken of journeys. It was felt that Dagon must give his people a book, make it out where he could. There was a void, and it must be filled. Must be filled, even if some one were to do it for him. It came forth, and was welcomed greedily. Mahomet has his Koran, Joe Smith his Mormon Book, and Steam Dagonism it's Book of Hours, what is called in the Roman Church Hora Diurnæ. We might as well style it the Traveller's Breviary.