men, whose testimony had been ignored at the trial, and on the authority of the very person who had promoted the investigation. nary In the last report which we had the honour to submit to your Excellency, we referred to the want of suitable accommodation for that large and unhappy class of insane, whose friends, too well circumstanced or too honourable to permit of their relatives becoming a burthen on the public, are yet unable to meet their maintenance in private licensed houses. The subject being one of great importance, we venture to introduce the follow- ́ ing short extract from the report in question:-" Heretofore we have had frequent cause to observe the want in this country of asylums adapted to meet the exigencies of a large class, against whom public or pauper district asylums may be regarded as practically closed. We refer to the community of shopkeepers and farmers who have means sufficient, under ordicircumstances, to place their families beyond the reach of want, but not adequate, when their relatives become insane, to pay for the maintenance of the latter in private asylums. In some few cases of great urgency the governors of district asylums have admitted paying patients' at the ordinary cost of maintenance; but this has occurred in those estalishments where there existed no pressure for room. We trust that some foundations, whether through the benevolence of private individuals, or by a speculation, which, originating in motives of Christian charity, cannot, in the end, fail of success, will, at no distant period, be established. We are the more sanguine in these hopes, as we understand that a bequest of many thousand pounds has been already made for this most laudable purpose, to a committee of gentlemen, and that an institution capable of accommodating thirty lunatics, at an average cost for maintenance of twenty guineas per head, will be speedily opened under their direction, assisted by a religious sisterhood." More strongly impressed by experience of the necessity of such institutions, we are happy to find their feasibility has been fully proved, though on a small scale, by the establishment of the St. Vincent's Asylum, above referred to, and which in every respect has been most creditably conducted. NATIONAL VACCINE BOARD. Report of the National Vaccine Board for 1859. DURING the year 1859, 205,366 charges of lymph have been supplied. The letters of application for lymph received and answered by the board during the year amount to 13,541, being an excess of 1,123 over those of the preceding year. 8,330 vaccinations have been performed by the stationary vaccinators in London connected with the establishment. This is an excess of 1,885 over those performed in 1858. 110,145 vaccinations have been performed by the board throughout the country. Amongst the various places supplied with lymph during the year, besides hospitals, dispensaries, poor law unions, naval and military depôts, militia stations, &c., may be mentioned the following, which are taken in the order in which they stand in the register, viz. :-Gibraltar, Cape of Good Hope, Lisbon, Barbadoes, Buenos Ayres, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Gold Coast, Malta, Honduras, Hong Kong, Florence, Canada West, Shanghai, Valencia, Almora (Bengal), Newfoundland, Madeira, Malaga, New York, Ceylon, St. Michael's Wisconsin, Brest, Brazil, Trinidad, St. Kitt's, Corfu, Bruges, Berbice, Madrid, Cape de Verde Islands, Prince Edward's Island, Ascension, Montreal, Ottawa, Niger River, Trieste, Sydney, Valetta, Oporto, Genoa, Lima, Jamaica, Hayti, Demerara, Graham's Town, St. Lucia, Antigua. The recent extraordinary prevalence of small-pox having created great alarm, the applications for lymph reached the unprecedented number of 1,457 in the month of January last. These increased applications required a corresponding exertion on the part of all the officers of the establishment; and, after a temporary difficulty, the board was able to find the means of supplying the requisite quantity of lymph. The Privy Council having determined that no future medical practitioners shall be appointed public vaccinators unless they shall have received special instruction in respect of vaccination, and the distinctive marks of its success; and, having communicated their determination to this board, the board has given much time and attention during the past year to making such arrangements in London and elsewhere as they thought best calculated to aid the Privy Council in efficiently carrying out this important measure. For this purpose some alterations have been made in the London vaccinating stations connected with the National Vaccine Establishment, such as will place a station where there will be a competent instructor and a number of vaccinations sufficient for the purposes of instruction within a moderate distance of each of the large Metropolitan medical schools. Stations, also, at which instruction in vaccination can be properly given, have been brought into connection with this establishment in the following towns in which there are provincial medical schools, viz. :-Birmingham, Bristol, Hull, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Oxford, and Sheffield. COPYHOLD COMMISSION. Seventeenth Annual Report of the Commissioners for 1858. DURING the year 1858 the commissioners have made 204 enfranchisements and commutations, of which 32 were clerical, 13 collegiate, and 159 lay. In the eighteen years since 1841 the commissioners made 1,592 enfranchisements, of which 571 were clerical, 113 collegiate, and 908 lay. The consideration for the 204 enfranchisements and commutations in 1858 was 35,8021., payment in full; 3. 148. 7d. rent charges. The total consideration for the 1,592 enfranchisements was 340,9357. payment in full, 3,016. 11s. 8d. rent charges, and 1,223. land. INCLOSURE COMMISSION. Fourteenth Annual Report of the Commissioners for 1858. THE number of applications of all kinds, since the passing of the Acts, has been 2,667. The number of cases, since the last annual report, was 316. The total number of applications consisted of 809 inclosures, of which 256 were in progress; 1,351 exchanges, of which 170 were in progress; 68 partitions, of which 11 were in progress; 2 conversions into regulated pasture; 16 divisions of intermixed lands, of which 3 were in progress; 42 in reference to local Acts, of which 3 were in progress; 19 to define lost boundaries, of which 3 were in progress; 9 applications for money received under Lands' Clauses Consolidation or Railway Acts, of which 1 was in progress; and 5 to apportion fixed rents. The acreage of inclosure confirmed was 281,949, and 208,687 in progress. INCLOSURE COMMISSION. Fifteenth Annual Report of the Commissioners for 1859. THE number of applications of all kinds, since the passing of the Acts, has been 3,026. The number of cases, since the last annual report, has been 359. The total number of applications consisted of 858 inclosures, of which 245 were in progress; 1,990 exchanges, of which 224 were in progress; 79 partitions, of which 14 were in progress; 2 conversions into regulated pasture; 20 divisions of intermixed lands, of which 4 were in progress; 43 in reference to local Acts, of which 2 were in progress; 20 to define lost boundaries, of which 3 were in progress; 9 applications of money received under Lands' Clauses Consolidation or Railways Acts, of which 1 was in progress; and 5 to apportion fixed rents. The acreage of enclosure confirmed was 331,622 acres, and in progress 177,687 acres. BOARD OF HEALTH. Return of the Expenses, of every Description, connected with the Printing, Publication, Postage, and Circulation incurred by the Board of Health for a Paper called "The Weekly Return of the Health of the Metropolis, from the Commencement of Vol. I. to the present Time." (Mr. Thomas Duncombe.) 22nd June, 1857. (121 Sess. 2.) THE cost of the paper and printing of the first five numbers of the weekly return, entitled Health of the Metropolis, amounted to 62l. 18s. 5d.; but the expense per number may be estimated at about 117. 13s. 8d., besides the postage on 230 copies circulated weekly. IRREMOVABLE POOR. Report of the Committee of the House of Commons appointed to consider the Operation of the Act 9 and 10 Vict. c. 66, which enacts that no poor Person shall be removable who shall have resided five years in any Parish; and of the Act 10 and 11 Vict., c. 119, and 11 and 12 Vict., c. 110, which enact that the Relief given to such irremovable Persons shall be charged upon the common fund of the Union. (374 of 1858, and 146, Sess. 2, of 1859.) THE Committee was first appointed on the 10th July, 1858, and nominated on the 11th July, to consist of Mr. Sotheron Estcourt, Mr., Knight, Mr. Edward Treydell Bouverie, Mr. Miles, Mr. Lockhart, Colonel Smyth, Mr. Egerton, Mr. Tollemache, Mr. Maguire, Mr. Cobbett, Mr. Beecroft, Mr. Ayrton, Mr. Schneider, Mr. Gregory, and Mr. Lygon. The Committee sat four days, but they reported that, inasmuch as the state of public business before the House rendered it improbable that they could have brought the inquiry to a conclusion, and as it was unadvisable to enter upon any such subject, without the prospect of being able to receive evidence both for and against any proposition that might be made, the committee agreed to report the evidence received, and to recommend the reappointment of the committee at the commencement of the next session. The committee was thereupon reappointed on the 8th February, 1859; to consist of the same members as in 1858. Mr. Egerton was, however, afterwards discharged from, and the Earl of March added to, the committee. The committee sat nine days, and examined the following witnesses, viz.:-Mr. William Golding Lumley, assistant secretary of the Poor Law Board; Mr. John Blachford and Mr. William Davis Šalter, of Fulham; Mr. Samuel Cornell, of Chelsea; Mr. W. B. West, of St. Martin-in-the-Fields; Mr. Edward Joseph Southwell, of Mile End Town; Mr. Richard Tubbs, of Marylebone; Mr. John Bowring, clerk of the City of London Union; Mr. Alexander John Bayliss, clerk to the Guardians of the East London Union; Mr. James Kilner, clerk to the Guardians of the Strand Union; Mr. Thomas Bashfield, chairman of the Whitechapel Board of Guardians; Mr. George Adams Farr, clerk to the Guardians of the Whitechapel Union; Mr. James Ryeley Collins, clerk to the Guardians of the Poplar Union; Mr. John Day, clerk to the charities in St. Georgethe-Martyr, Southwark; Mr. James Dunstan, vestry clerk of the parish of Bromley; Mr. Valentine Thomas Coombes, relieving officer in St. Georgein-the-East; Mr. Harry Barrald Farnall, Poor Law Inspector for the Metropolitan district; Mr. Henry Coppock, clerk to the Board of Guardians of the Stockport Union; and Mr. George Canning, vestry clerk of Liverpool. On the 5th August, 1859, the committee presented the evidence to the House, but made no report whatever. The following are the principal items in the evidence of witnesses. Mr. Lumley gave the following account of the law as to the removal of the poor before 9 and 16 Vict., c. 66, was passed:-"The earliest notice that we have with regard to the removal of poor persons, is in the statutes passed relating to the removal of vagrants, mendicants, and beggars, which were very severe Acts; and perhaps it is not necessary to refer to them further than to state that they were in force at the time of the 13th and 14th Charles the Second, the principal Act of Parliament to which we ought now to refer with reference to the established law of removal. That Act provided for the establishment of certain species of settlement, and recognized the existence of certain previously known heads of settlement, and then provided that any person who should come into any parish, not having a settlement therein, and likely to become chargeable as a poor person to that parish, should be liable instantly to be removed by the justices to the parish where he was settled. From that statute the modern law of removal of poor persons may be said to have taken its origin; it was a harsh law, as is evident, because it affected a poor person, whatever might be his condition, if there was a chance or a probability of that person becoming chargeable to the parish in which he had taken up his abode. There is this peculiarity about it, however, that the actual vagrant, one who did not come into that parish with the intention of making it his abode, was not liable to be removed; that is an accidental result, perhaps, of the language of the statute, but it has continued in force down to the present time. When that Act was passed, of course, removals took place of poor persons, and, to avoid the harshness alluded to, a system of certificate was introduced, a practice by which a man received from a parish a certificate of his being settled therein; with which certificate he could go to any other place and be free from the liability to be removed in the parish where he betook himself to work. The law continued in this state till the 35th of George III., c. 101, passed about 1795, when an alteration was made which removed the harshness of the then law, and provided that no person should be liable to be removed from the parish until he had become actually chargeable to the parish, until, in point of fact, he required relief, and that relief had been supplied to him; then, and not till then, could a poor person be removed. That same Act of Parliament introduced a system by which the order of removal, when made, might be suspended in the persons who were sick or in a diseased state, and to whom a removal would be a serious grievance and great calamity; in that case the order of removal was suspended. Now, the Commission that sat, in the years 1831 and 1832, upon the subject of the Poor Laws, among other matters recommended a great many alterations, in regard to the law of settlement and the law of removal. No material alteration with regard to the law of removal was made in the 4th and 5th William IV. c. 76, excepting in certain matters which may be treated as matters rather of practice than any actual regulations as to the removal. The pauper was prevented from being removed for a limited term of twenty-one days, until it was discovered whether the parish to which he was to be removed would receive him without appeal or not. If it appealed, the pauper was to be detained till the appeal was settled; but if there was no appeal, then, at the expiration of twenty-one days, the pauper was to be removed. No material alteration affecting the pauper was made at that time, and the law of removal continued, in point of fact, unaltered, so far as it affected the general paupers of England, until the 9th and 10th of Vict., c. 66." Mr. Lumley gave also some explanations of the bearing of this Act, of the difficulties experienced in carrying it out, and of the decisions given by the Court of Queen's Bench upon its provisions. cases of Settlement.-Mr. Blachford showed that, according to the present law, if a man removes from one parish to another, even if he crosses the street, he would lose his settlement. In his opinion, the abolition of settlement, by hiring and service, was very improper, because the effect of that has been to relieve the rich parishes at the expense of the poor. He thought that |