religion, even in the case of persons labouring under the most marked delusions; and such is the faith I am inclined to place in their usefulness, that I cannot conceive how any person can reasonably object to their exercise. Numerous cases have occurred within my own experience in which, when the last vestiges of reason had succumbed to the assaults of disease, the sense of religion still maintained its stronghold; and even it has happened that the very idiot, in whose incoherent and pointless repetitions of phrases the hearer in vain endeavours to seek for some meaning, has wound up with an invocation of the name of the Almighty." Impressed with the justness of the preceding observations, we trust, as by a decision in the Court of Queen's Bench in Ireland, it was ruled that the Lord Lieutenant in Council had not authority to appoint regular chaplains to hospitals for the insane, that in any future Act full powers may be conferred on his Excellency, on this and every other point, where the well-being of institutions for the insane is in question; and if doubts should arise on the construction of a clause, it should rest with the Lord Lieutenant in Council, on the opinion of the law officers of the Crown, to decide the meaning.

With regard to the internal economy of district asylums, and the organization of the staff of officers and attendants belonging to them, the Superannuation Bill has been productive of much benefit; many of the old and infirm have retired, making place for younger and more active servants. At the Richmond the late manager has been succeeded by a duly qualified medical gentleman of considerable experience, transferred to it from the Kilkenny Asylum. At Ballinasloe, a gentleman who had been assistant physician for some years at the Stafford Asylum is now resident superintendent; and at Armagh, too, a similar change has taken place. These appointments cannot but prove beneficial, as the institutions in question contain between them over 1,100 patients, and it becomes essential to have professional gentlemen resident in them. Some few since, with the exception of three, all the other superintendents in asylums were non-professional. At present, with one exception, all are now duly qualified practitioners.

years

Your Excellency is aware that there is attached to each hospital for the insane in Ireland a visiting physician, and in Dublin, at the Richmond, from its importance and much greater size, two, besides a visiting surgeon. It was originally intended that clinical lectures on the treatment of mental disease should be delivered in the metropolitan institution by the physicians connected with it-a project which, if carried into operation, would be productive of the best results, in affording to students a practical knowledge of the treatment of lunacy. Lord St. Leonards, who took a deep interest in all matters connected with lunacy, was very desirous to establish a regular course of such lectures at Dublin. Since then nothing has been done for their furtherance, as there existed no direct funds available for the purpose, and the ratepayers of the district could not be fairly expected to defray the expense. On the importance of a knowledge of mental disease to the civil and military branches of the medical profession it is unnecessary for us to dwell, and we trust that the subject will not be thought unworthy of consideration by the Executive in future legislation on medical education, as ample opportunities of affording clinical instruction on insanity are at command, both in the metropolitan and in some of the larger provincial asylums.

In one essential particular the management of Irish asylums differs materially from that of similar institutions in England. We allude to the attendance of visiting physicians at the former, a class of officers which, with one or two exceptions, is practically unknown in connection with the latter. The advisability of retaining the services of non-resident gentlemen, possessed of such ample powers as were conferred on them by the Privy Council regulations, at a time when lunatic asylums were placed under a different management, has of late years given rise to much discussion, as tending to impose undue restrictions on the freedom of action of the resident medical superintendents, who are primarily responsible for the general well-being of these establishments. But although fully aware of the sentiments of the English Commissioners on the subject, and alive also to the force of the arguments hitherto advanced against the existing system, our own views have undergone little or no change; for even if there were no other advantages to flow from the retention of the office in question, we are of opinion that the sense of security with which the appointment of visiting or consulting physicians appears to be looked upon by the public furnishes the best argument in favour of their continuance. We cannot, however, withhold our conviction, that a revision of the present Privy Council regulations, with a view to more strictly and clearly defining the respective duties of medical officers, is imperatively called for.

Reference has been made in a preceding paragraph to the claims for superannuation recently accorded to the staff's of lunatic asylums. Considering the responsibilities, the nature of their duties, and the neverending anxieties imposed on the superintendents of institutions crowded with their insane fellow-beings, almost their sole companions, we feel that the Act, in its most liberal construction, should be extended to these officers; and that while on the one hand as educated professional men, debarred of practice, their scale of salaries should be increased; on the other, the right to full superannuations should be granted them after a reasonable length of service.

In a fiscal point of view, and more immediately in regard to current expenditure, which is strictly examined by the Audit Commissioners, we believe the district asylums of this country are most carefully managed; it would, however, be more satisfactory were all accounts audited earlier after their monthly presentation, as then queries could be answered with greater facility. A marked improvement has latterly taken place, as the interval between the transmission and passing of accounts, which before was frequently a full year, is now materially diminished. Still we think it would be highly useful if an auditor was appointed responsible to this office, or to whatever central authority may be established, and which, in return, should certify to the Treasury once in every three months as to the correct outlay of moneys advanced by it; the inspectors do so at present in respect to all applications to the Lord Lieutenant in Council for such advances, they having, in the first instance, examined the various tenders and contracts entered into by the different boards of governors of asylums for the coming year.

Generally speaking, the system of contracts works well, and affords the best security for the due expenditure of public funds. We are of opinion, however, that the lowest offer, particularly in articles of dietary, should not, as a rule, be accepted, and that boards of governors should be influenced quite as much by the character and solvency of parties who

tender as by the rate of proposal. We are induced to make these observations, as on examining provisions we have occasionally found both meat and milk of inferior quality, owing, as it was alleged, to the lowness of the tender, which precluded the supply of a prime article, thus constituting a mistaken economy; further, a contractor without sufficient means is sure to seek for a remission of his engagement if prices advance. The charge for milk forms one of the heaviest items in district asylums, being of all others an article perhaps the most easy of adulteration, and at the same time the most requisite when pure; for which reason it appears to us highly desirable that a sufficient extent of farm should be attached to every asylum, where practicable, so as to admit the keeping of dairy cows for the establishment; from experience we feel satisfied a saving would be thereby effected of more than thirty per cent., with the certainty of securing a genuine commodity, besides affording additional occupation and interest to patients belonging almost all to the agricultural classes. As a case in point, on a late inspection of the Omagh Asylum, we found that thirty acres of good pasture could be had at 37. an acre, in close proximity to the establishment, and, in fact, from its position, almost necessary for its privacy. The cost of twenty-five cows would scarcely raise the first year's total outlay to 3904., while the expense for milk, carried daily some four or five miles, summer as well as winter, amounted to 380l. in twelve months. The quantity of land under cultivation, as appears from the value of its produce, has been remunerative, covering all direct expenses, and leaving a net gain of 4,174l. in two years. It is but fair, however, to observe, that no deduction is made from the nominal profit, on account of interest for purchase money, as rent, or for taxes of any kind. Generally speaking, the farms attached to asylums in this country are too small to afford even sufficient outdoor occupation. The English Commissioners, taking a comprehensive view of the question, regard an acre to four patients as the proper proportion; with us it barely amounts to one acre to twelve, although it is evident that the inmates of asylums could cultivate more land than they do, and at a certain profit. The pauper population of workhouses is liable to constant fluctuation, the ablebodied, when most needed for agricultural purposes, abandoning them, certain of obtaining remunerative employment out of doors. As this objection does not hold good in regard to lunatics, who, for the most part, are permanent residents, we trust that, if not to the extent approved of by the Commissioners in England, additional land will be purchased or rented, wherever practicable, for employing the insane in our district asylums.

Much has been said and written about the encouragement of literary pursuits in asylums: printing-presses and the issue of periodicals are not unknown in some. We cannot speak very buoyantly of success, the patients in Irish institutions, as a body, taking but little interest in books. Those advanced in years are almost all uneducated; a fair proportion of the younger are more or less instructed, but not sufficiently so to derive amusement from general reading. Prints, pictures, and such like ornaments in the corridors and day rooms, thus breaking the monotony of bare and whitewashed walls, are more to the taste of the inmates; they are cheaply obtained, as a novelty are beneficial to the insane, and from their humanizing influence agreeable to them, as well as to the casual visitor. POORHOUSES.-As may be supposed from the mode of admission into union workhouses, the application as well as the power of leaving being

discretionary with the pauper parties themselves, the number resident in them is subject to continual fluctuation. There is consequently from year to year a variation even in regard to the lunatics, epileptic, and weakminded which they contain. The aggregate number of the three classes in March, 1857, was 1,978; in 1859, 2,120. We visit from time to time the great majority of these poorhouses; but, amounting to 163, and some being in very remote localities, it would be impossible for us to inspect all within the period of a year. Neither, indeed, is it necessary at a personal loss of time, and with expense to the public, for a similar system is observed in each, with the exception of some very large unions, such as the North and South Dublin, the Belfast, &c. &c., where a more organized method of care is adopted, solely, however, with respect to in-door arrangements. Generally speaking, the demented and idiotic are detained in a distinct part of the building, where, for the most part, they are better fed than the ordinary paupers, getting three meals a day. But nothing can be more melancholy than the gloomy, ill-ventilated cells allotted to them; while small yards, overshadowed on all sides by buildings or high walls, constitute the sole places available for recreation or exercise. If any class of our fellow-beings requires, more than another, the genial influence of sun, light, and air, it is the idiotic; physically malformed, of weak frame, and presenting as it does the saddest victims of scrofula, it should command in every reasonable manner the unceasing exercise of our sympathies. Constructed, therefore, as poorhouses are, they cannot be regarded as other than most unsuitable abodes for idiots and weak-minded epileptics; so that neither parsimony on the one hand, nor a gratuitous supposition on the other, that they cannot fully value the comforts we would provide them, should interfere with the practical charity of placing the classes in question in establishments where they can be more humanely and more efficiently attended to. We have not in this country, as in England, at Colchester, Earlswood, &c., institutions supported by voluntary contributions for instructing the idiotic in manual occupations, or of cultivating their minds so far as their limited capabilities admit of. Although much success cannot be reasonably expected from any system of education in their regard, and the scanty information so acquired is, as it were, more mechanical than real, still a most benevolent example has been set to us, well worthy of imitation.

But few comparatively of the cases received into asylums are brought directly from poorhouses. As a general rule, on becoming troublesome or insubordinate, they are sent, in the first instance, to prison, as inclined to be dangerous to themselves or others: it being more tedious to seek for admission in the ordinary way, by applying at the asylum, the parties are summarily committed under the 1 Vict. cap. 27, probably by two of the ex-officio guardians, to remain in gaol till regularly transferred by warrant of the Lord Lieutenant to the district asylum. We would remark the more strongly upon this circumstance, from the wrong to which it leads. Poor-law unions are not conterminous with, or confined to single counties, often including portions of two or even three. By the statute just referred to, lunatics, when deposed to as dangerous, must be conveyed to the gaol of the city or county in which the circumstances denoting the indictable act or disposition have occurred or been sworn to, and that city or county will be obliged to defray the maintenance of the party, totally irrespective of the period of detention.

Thus, should a pauper belonging to an electoral division in Longford become dangerous on the very day of his admission into a poorhouse in Leitrim, he must be transmitted to the prison of the latter, thence to the district asylum with which Leitrim is connected at Sligo. The lunatic himself suffers the inconvenience of being removed perhaps sixty miles from his family; whilst the regular asylum at Mullingar, to which he naturally belongs, is not a dozen miles from his home. It may be advanced, and, perhaps, with some reason, that in rural districts a reciprocity exists, and that a Leitrim patient may similarly find his way into an institution not supported by his own county. Still there is so little difficulty to surmount in adjusting the question generally, that, were it merely for the sake of the insane themselves and of their friends, it ought to be arranged.

Faulty and inconvenient as is the practice, in many instances, of committing lunatics to prison, we apprehend the results would be much more unsatisfactory had magistrates the power of sending persons represented as insane directly to public asylums. Certainly such would be the case, as matters now stand, for with institutions overcrowded not one in twenty so sent could be admitted, from want of room, after the trouble and length, too, of useless journeys; and, again, were justices authorized to order admissions-incompetent of themselves for the most part to form a correct estimate of the merits of each case-dependent on hearsay evidence or on the opinions of others not conversant with insanity-the consequence would be that an accommodation which, judiciously managed, might be sufficient for the actual wants of the district, would be soon occupied by a mass of idiots, imbeciles, epileptics, and the like, every magistrate being naturally desirous to secure the benefits of any additional provision for the poor of his own immediate neighbourhood.

PRISONS. Within the last two years no less than 1,258 persons have been committed to gaols as dangerous; of whom 728 were males, 530 females. At the date of our last Report, 161 were remaining in custody; eightyseven males, seventy-four females. Thus, 1,419 in the aggregate have been confined under warrant, and are thus accounted for :-768 were transferred through our office by warrant of the Lord Lieutenant to district. asylums; 370 were discharged as improved or ceasing to be dangerous, on medical certificates to that effect; fifty-six died; leaving 223 in gaol on the 31st March-116 males, 107 females-or fifty-nine more than in 1857. The prisons of some districts have been remarkably free from lunatics. Occasionally while waiting a transference to the district asylum one or two may have been detained in them for a few days, but, from their short stay, not causing any inconvenience; but in other localities where asylum accommodation is too limited, we find the gaols crowded with insane inmates -in fact, no better criterion exists as to lunacy requirements than the state of the different prisons in Ireland. Bad, therefore, as the system of committing lunatics to them may at first sight appear, it has been productive of good, by obviating greater disadvantages and difficulties; as without some such protection property and even life itself would be exposed to constant hazard. But although experience fully establishes the principle and abstract propriety of the statute, it must be observed that in many instances, so numerous as almost to constitute a majority, magistrates act not only in a loose manner, but occasionally in direct contravention of the law. As a copy of the committal of every dangerous lunatic is at once