of the house admitted it, have them placed apart in probationary wards-a practical suggestion which may be of much value in the future construction of similar establishments. As in previous reports we entered in detail into the various matters connected with the general economy of the asylum, it is needless to advert more largely to them at present. The patients still continue, for the most part, to be usefully employed, the males principally on the farm, and the females within doors, under the direction of the matron, who is most attentive to her duties. As heretofore, a large majority of both sexes attend at religious worship, and with the most marked benefit; the same chapel serving at different hours for the two persuasions of Protestants and Roman Catholics.

LUCAN SPA HOUSE.-Independent of the lunatics at the Central Asylum, Government also provides for the maintenance of those formerly belonging to the department of the Poor Law Commissioners as House of Industry patients, but who are now placed altogether under the control and management of this office. They were removed nearly two years since from the Hardwicke Cells-certainly a most unsuitable residence, confined and badly ventilated, to large buildings near Lucan, which were specially prepared for their reception, every requisite alteration having been effected in them by direction of the inspectors. A liberal scale of dietary was fixed for the patients, and in every respect they have been made comfortable. The salubrity and openness of the site are proverbial, while the premises themselves, now occupied by epileptic and idiotic inmates, served some forty years ago as the principal hotel and assembly-rooms for the gentry of the country, Lucan being then a highly-fashionable resort, and its mineral waters, now scarcely or never used, considered amongst the most wholesome and efficacious. As indicative of the benefit produced by the change of residence and the advantages of situation, we shall merely observe, however, that the mortality, which for years past averaged six to seven per cent. among the old and infirm residents at the Hardwicke Cells, is now reduced to little more than one. As at Dundrum, we visit this establishment at least once in the month, and have just reason to be satisfied at the manner in which it is conducted by Dr. Stewart, late governor of the House of Industry. He has contracted for the support of the patients at the rate of 25l. a head per annum, payable monthly by the Treasury on our certificates.

We would now respectfully direct your Excellency's attention to a subject of some importance in connection with the lunatic requirements of this country. We refer to an asylum accommodation for persons who, while employed in the military or civil services of the Crown, become insane, and who, at present, may be regarded in this respect as altogether unprovided for. Soldiers, marines, and the constabulary force in Ireland are so habitually changing place that they cannot be considered as belonging to any particular county or city, and thus possessing local claims on its charities; whilst their continued absence from home deprives them of social rights which they otherwise would enjoy. We find that unfortunate lunatics from the above-named classes are exposed to much privation, and that considerable obstacles have to be surmounted in procuring them a shelter in district asylums; not, however, from any want of sympathy on the part of boards of governors, but from the difficulty of obtaining admission into crowded institutions, while residents and ratepayers themselves are awaiting vacancies. So far as lies in our power, we facilitate into

asylums on every occasion the reception of members belonging to the service; still, we cannot but feel that they ought to be placed beyond the necessity of eleemosynary applications, and that some arrangement is requisite to secure to men whose lives are devoted to their country in all the vicissitudes of climate, a certain place of refuge when visited by one of the saddest inflictions of Providence on mankind.

PRIVATE ASYLUMS.-With regard to this important branch of our department, we have the honour to report to your Excellency that the provisions of the 5 & 6 Vict. c. 123, for the regulation of houses licensed for the reception of insane patients, have, on the whole, been fulfilled. No infraction of the law has occurred except in the instance of a medical man, who, the inspectors discovered, had under his care four patients, without legal authority for their detention, either by certificate or licence. As the party represented to us, on inspection, that he had no previous knowledge of the statute, coupled with the fact that two were his own immediate relations, and believing him to be correct in his representations, we forebore proceedings, on his engaging to apply at the next quarter sessions for a regular licence, meanwhile getting the necessary certificates in regard to the patients duly filled-all which stipulations were carried out.

During the two years, 1857 and 1858, 276 patients were admitted, 102 were sent out cured, 68 improved, and 63 died-leaving in asylum 467. The total under treatment amounted to 738. The relative proportion of the discharged to the improved is much greater in private licensed houses than in district asylums-a result, doubtless, owing either to a desire on the part of their families to save as early as possible the expense of their maintenance therein, or from an anxiety to have them under their own roofs-a course alike objectionable in either case, so far as the welfare of the invalids is in question. The recoveries, calculated on admissions, amount to 36.59; the improved to 10:40 per cent. ; and both, on the total number under treatment, to 17.40; presenting, on the whole, a very satisfactory proportion; and we are happy to say that while the mortality is remarkably low, being only 6 per cent. on the average under treatment, no case of death has occurred from violence or casualty of any kind. During the period embraced in this report we have visited the provincial houses four times in the year, and those in the neighbourhood of the metropolis much more frequently; on the whole, we feel fully justified in reporting them as much improved, and some in a most creditable condition. In one case, where the proprietor had failed to carry out the wishes of the inspectors in reference to alterations which they deemed advisable for the comforts of the patients, they considered it their duty to recommend to the justices of quarter sessions not to grant a licence for more than three months, at the end of which time, if the desired improvements were not effected, the establishment should be closed. Our recommendation was acted on; and, on a certificate from us at the expiration of the quarter, a new licence was granted for the remaining nine months. In each case the full fees for one year were paid. On two occasions only we found it necessary to institute special investigations: the first at Lindville, in consequence of a patient who escaped, concealing herself in a wood, where she was found, at the end of the third day, in a state of exhaustion from want of food. On inquiring into the particulars, there did not appear any culpable negligence attachable to the servants sufficient to justify legal proceedings. The second originated in a charge made against the proprietor of an asylum in the

county Limerick of conniving at the escape of a female patient, and in reference to which sordid motives were imputed to the proprietor. Summonses were issued to all the parties concerned, and an examination on oath held at the asylum by one of the inspectors, assisted by a neighbouring magistrate, which eventuated in a total want of evidence to substantiate the accusation. A report of their proceedings was forwarded for the information of the Lord Lieutenant.

One of the most painful circumstances connected with private licensed houses, and which gives rise to much unhappiness to many of the afflicted inmates themselves, is the neglect with which they are treated by their friends, who neither call in person nor communicate by letter with them, doubtless considering, that while the stipulated allowance is regularly paid to the proprietor, their duty is fulfilled, and that neither raiment suitable to their former position in life, nor other domestic niceties, are needed in a lunatic asylum. We have known years to elapse without an inquiry, and have ourselves frequently remonstrated with parties of our own acquaintance for their neglect. Your Excellency may hence infer what may be the case when insane patients are placed by their relations in remote localities, and beyond official supervision. From this latter remark, we do not exclude even some found lunatic by inquisition, none of whom can be visited by the inspectors, except on a special requisition by the Lord Chancellor.

Indeed, with regard to the confinement of persons labouring under mental diseases, whether it be in regularly licensed houses, or singly in private families, we are convinced of the necessity of amending certain clauses of the 5th & 6th Vict., so as to render the manufacture, as it were, of individuals of doubtful sanity into certified lunatics, less easy than it is at present. In the Act it is provided, and very properly, that no practitioner, interested in the profits of a private asylum, shall sign a medical certificate for the detention of a patient therein. We are of opinion that no person connected in close relationship, or who could possibly benefit by the confinement of a third party, should certify to the existence of insanity. We have known, for example, a son testify to the imbecility of his father, a proceeding by no means judicious, as very disagreeable questions might be mooted thereon.

In a preceding part of this report we adverted to the loose manner in which lunatics were committed to gaols as dangerous; a looseness quite as great, and, we may add, more culpable, obtains, in regard to the signing of certificates on which individuals are sent to private asylums. The truth is, in many instances medical men do not make due inquiry into the casesometimes none at all; while others can know little or nothing of mental disease; for example, a simple apothecary-skilled and intelligent though he be in pharmacy and compounding prescriptions, but who never has had medical experience is by law authorized, with his next neighbour similarly situated, to sign certificates of insanity, quite as much as the presidents of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons and Physicians.

Even the best educated professional gentlemen are occasionally themselves rather hasty in arriving at conclusions; and sent for to see a lunatic, assume he must be insane. To guard against, we will not say the continuance of a practice, but to prevent its occurrence for the future, we think that no person should be certified to as insane, without the reasons being distinctly assigned on the face of the document signed by the professional visitor, with a further statement that his opinions were derived from

a separate personal examination, a proceeding which would be of the greatest utility in regard to the subsequent treatment of the patients themselves. Some short time since, two certificates of insanity were forwarded to our office from a town in a southern county, both signed, as it afterwards appeared, by the same person. In one the initials only, surname and "apothecary were given; in the other, the Christian name in full, surname and physician." Suspecting that in a town of some six thousand inhabitants there could not well be two of the same name and profession, we made inquiry, when it turned out that the gentleman considered he was justified in signing separately in his double capacity. As we had no reason to doubt his assertion, on receiving a second certificate filled correctly, we took no further steps in the case, the more so as we had been already aware that the lunatic was dangerous to himself.

On former occasions we referred to the disadvantages resulting from the conversion of private houses into receptacles for the insane. The principal objection lies in the difficulty of effecting the due classification and separation of the sexes, particularly in the want of sufficient land for airing courts or pleasure-grounds. Still continuing to entertain the same opinion, and to urge it on the proprietors of private asylums, we are not insensible to the obstacles which present themselves, principal among which is the reluctance of parties to embark capital in the erection of establishments, which, by a not impossible change in the law, might, at some future time, be thrown on their hands. Should, however, no material change take place in regard to the licensing of private asylums, we think it would be most advisable to introduce a provision that the same premises should not be used for male and female lunatics.

We may here advert to a subject which has occupied our attention, and which we have had occasion to bring under the notice of the legal authorities, with a view to obtain, if possible, some solution of the difficulty. We allude to the expense attendant on inquisitions in lunacy before juries, frequently so high as materially to reduce the means of the parties concerned. In illustration, we will adduce a case just now under our cognizance. There is at present, in the Richmond Prison, a lunatic committed for the eleventh time as dangerous. He has to our knowledge been confined on five or six different occasions in a public metropolitan asylum. We have discovered that he owns something over 300l. in different small securities. To make him a lunatic would probably cost 50l., while there cannot exist a doubt as to his mental condition. In cases so palpably evident, and where the property is altogether limited to a few hundred pounds or less, we would respectfully suggest such a modification in the law as would render it unnecessary to have recourse to the present expensive and tedious mode of inquiry by commission; and would venture to submit that the lunacy might be established on the certificates of two duly qualified physicians previously acquainted with and attendant on the party, who would thus come within the immediate jurisdiction of the Lord Chancellor. In the particular case before us, the party, when transferred to asylum by warrant of the Lord Lieutenant, has to be supported at the public charge, although enjoying a property of his own, and without any apparent relative in this country, having been born in France, and of a mixed parentage.

There is another point of consideration in regard to lunatics, particularly when possessed of large means, to which we would cursorily refer. The

inmates of a pauper asylum have the privilege of being allowed out on probation, sometimes from the hope that change of air and restoration to their families may exercise a beneficial influence; occasionally, too, symptoms become so vague that it is difficult to pronounce on the true condition of the party. If it should then turn out that the insanity was real, as it frequently does, no injury of a pecuniary nature is liable to ensue; the lunatic has had no funds to dissipate. It is different, however, in the case of the wealthy (not a lunatic under the courts); no probation is recognized, and once discharged, he is master both of his means and movements. A very serious moral responsibility is hence entailed on those whose duty it is officially to inspect the insane, and who are naturally supposed to be the guardians of their liberty. Within the last year a gentleman, at all times a little eccentric in conduct, possessed in early life of a considerable sum of ready money, was discharged from a private licensed house by our directions. He became insane so far back as 1850, after having dissipated the greater portion of his fortune. His delusions turned principally on a dislike towards his own immediate family. They gradually subsided; but his dislike, though considerably modified, still continued. He was most rational in conversation, true to his word, and devoted his time to reading, but objected to associate with any person in the establishment. After successive visits paid at short intervals, and becoming satisfied that there existed nothing to justify his detention, he was discharged by our directions; but it was frankly suggested to him a very short time before (and by way of precaution), that he would be permitted to leave provided he promised not to draw, for three months, without the advice of any two friends whom he might wish to consult, the remainder of his funds, amounting to 3,000l., and which was lent at 5 per cent. interest, well secured. This he refused, saying he would dispose of his own means just as he thought fit the moment he was set free. We referred the case to the law adviser, simply from kindly feeling towards the party, and a desire to protect him, but found there was no alternative but to discharge him unconditionally. In such cases-but far more so where large properties are at stake-we think it would be highly useful, if probationary discharges from asylums were permitted, and that the party, till finally liberated, should not be legally responsible; the period of probation not to exceed three months, and at the termination of it a report to be made to the Lord Chancellor. The exercise of this power would be very rarely needed. Still, on two or three occasions, we ourselves are aware how beneficial it would have been in obviating much subsequent unhappiness.

A few years since a gentleman was brought before a commission de lunatico immediately after his discharge from a house licensed under the Act, the quietude of which, and the absence of causes tending to foment his former delusions, restored him to apparent sanity. The jury pronounced him to be of sound mind, notwithstanding the evidence adduced. Within a fortnight after, and master of his property, he was sent, under warrant, to prison as a dangerous lunatic; but he had already been free sufficiently long to commit an indictable offence, and to expose himself to litigation. On this subject the state of the law would seem to be anomalous, extending its protection much more to property than to the absolute possessor. A А party, for example, may be pronounced to be sane by a jury in the morning, and capable of managing his own affairs; while, the same evening, he may be legally conveyed to a private asylum on the certificate of two medical