population as a whole. The number of the insane is smaller than that of the community, and every unit taken from the general population and added to the asylum population counts for more than unit

-as much more as the great body of the community is larger than the small body of the insane. One per cent. on the general population may reckon many per cent. on the asylum population! Of course this has no bearing on computations showing the ratio per 10,000 of lunatics to the population-for example, in 1859, 18.67; in 1865, 21.73; in 1875, 26.64-but it is a consideration which should not be allowed to fall out of memory, especially in discussions as to the policy of extending asylum-accommodation for the insane. The calculations set out in Table 11 of the Commissioners' annual reports prove that the increment of the ratio above that of the population has been from 18.67 to 26.64 in the period 1859–75, i.e. 7·97 with a mean barely 47. And yet we hear of an alarming increase calling for vast expenditure and costly reforms! A very little careful inquiry would tend to curb the impetuous haste of justices and authorities who mistake the artificially created need of accommodation for an overwhelming and inexorable demand. Now let me lay down my second premise, namely: If any asylum which does not already contain all the old or chronic cases receives the recent or occurring cases of insanity in the district to its wards, the number of its inmates must inevitably increase at a greater rate proportionally than the total number of the insane. The new cases of any disease are the crop, and these must be calculated upon the total of previous, or existing, cases, to measure the increase. This strikes at the core of what I believe to be the fallacy and cause of misconception. The Commissioners return the number of certified lunatics, and that number bears a small increasing proportion to the growing population, but the number so. returned does not consist of new cases. Not only are the readmissions and transfers counted more than once, in a period of three years probably more than twice-I estimate that every true case of recurrent disease reckons for nearly three-but the multitude of imbecile or slightly refractory persons of advanced age, and the eccentric people of various grades in society, whom it is convenient to treat as insane, with the not inconsiderable class of persons who attract attention and are sent into asylums during temporary paroxysms of delirium dependent on physical disease-for example, the puerperal state, and after bouts of excessive indulgence in intoxicants and who do not always recover speedily when surrounded by lunatics, or, if they do, are nevertheless counted as insane, combine to augment the grand total with its proportional increase. If any unprejudiced person will glance again at the figures given above, and showing the large increase of so-called 'cures' within six months (which may be a few days), he will, I venture to think, arrive at the conclusion that no inconsiderable proportion of the cases so cured'

were in fact instances of disturbance, which only needed rest to subside without treatment. I do not say that these cases were not benefited by being sent to asylums. Many doubtless were, but not all, and few of the class to which I refer are, in any sense, cases of mental disease or advisedly so classed. This is a reflection essential to the interests of economy, the due protection of the subject, and scientific truth. I am strongly of opinion, on the bases of a judgment not hastily formed, that the crowding of imbecile paupers, troublesome old people of both sexes and all grades, eccentric, delirious, and indolent men, especially persons with 'fads' and 'crazes,' harmless enough but sufficiently strange for the purposes of a certificate, fully accounts for the so-called increase of insanity, and is the cause of much trouble, expense, and wrong.

The Medical Superintendents of Asylums are ceaselessly complaining of the small proportion of cases under their care, in respect to which there is the smallest prospect of improvement. How can it

be otherwise, while these establishments are convenient lumber-houses for helpless and intractable paupers, and the State offers a premium of four shillings a head per week for all the cases the guardians and their officers, with the approval of the justices-who are the legally constituted promoters of splendid county and borough asylums for the insane choose to send into them? The community is not aware to what a serious extent the dominant mania for public asylum building and crowding reacts on the commercial enterprise of private asylum keeping. It is vain to hope that any considerable change will be effected in the practical working of the lunacy question until the whole subject of insanity as a disease, and as a ground of legal disability, has been placed on a new and rational footing. Each year somebody discovers a new form or variety of mental disease, or gives a wider interpretation to an old definition. It may be convenient to extend the number of excuses for wrong-doing and to multiply pleas of irresponsibility; but every effort of charity in this direction recoils upon society, and what is one man's safety is another's danger. A sober and intelligent effort to fix the legal features of this Protean malady is indispensable, unless the Legislature is far-sighted enough to put an end, once and for ever, to the uncanny association of disease with disability, that fundamental error which has given rise to the anomaly of arming medical men with the power of making commitments to custody and imprisonment, and entrusting to irresponsible people generally the privilege of keeping private gaols.

It is not, perhaps, indispensable, but it would be well, as a proof of thought and earnestness, that every critic who comes forward to impugn the efficiency of an existing system of administration should propose a remedy. Few will succeed in the task of reconstruction, but any one may, by dint of hard thinking, excogitate an idea. The following is my contribution to the mass of suggestions for reform.

I sketched it briefly in evidence before the Select Committee of 1877-8, and it is developed at length in the work to which I have already referred.

1. Give the Commissioners in Lunacy power to enforce their recommendations on all proprietors, keepers, and officers, of asylums. The Board which has grown up under the fostering care of Lord Shaftesbury may be trusted. Its noble work has entitled it to public confidence.

2. Allow cases of mental excitement or disease to be sent to an hospital for the insane, just as a sick person is sent to an hospital, or treated at home, for bodily maladies, without certificate, but require that within eighteen hours of receiving the patient or commencing the treatment at home, the medical man shall report the case to the Commissioners, who shall forthwith issue their order to a duly qualified expert, not in practice or paid by fee, to visit the patient and make a proper return to Whitehall, upon the basis of which the Commissioners will sanction removal to an asylum or direct discharge from confinement.

3. Let the same official who has acted for the Commissioners in this matter of diagnosis watch the case, seeing it at short intervals until ended by recovery or death, thus keeping the individual patient under personal observation instead of merging him or her in a crowd.

4. The medical officers of health might conveniently be empowered with this duty of certifying and inspecting within their districts. A proof of special study should be required, and could be readily obtained. The new duty would rapidly create a new interest in the subject of insanity; and the universities would examine in lunacy, granting special diplomas, as they are beginning to act with regard to the subject of State medicine and public health.

The scheme proposed is not a costly one, and if it be supplemented by placing private asylums on a public footing, their proprietors holding State bonds for the money invested, and their officers being paid by salary out of a central fund, the whole matter may be set on a better basis; one of which, I think, there will be little cause to complain, either on the score of safety or of prudence.

Before I leave the subject I should like to ask attention, in as few words as possible, for two of the financial and administrative consequences to which the policy of constructing palatial establishments has given rise. Take first the cost of public asylums. In Middlesex alone, up to the year 1875, before the third asylum, at Banstead, was commenced, a total of 788,3021. 4s. 9d. had been expended. I find in the annual reports of Hanwell, which was opened in 1831, entries of outlay to the extent of 348,754l. 5s. 6d.3 under the several heads 'building,' repairs and alterations,' 'furniture,' &c. This of course includes the first cost of land and construction. At Colney Hatch,

• The sums expended in 1860 and 1863 are not included. They would probably add upwards of 10,000l. to the total.

which was opened in 1851, 439,5477. 198. 3d. had been laid out in the same way, and since 1875 there is the third asylum, above mentioned, for which the ratepayers are again taxed. In Surrey, up to the end of 1875, Wandsworth cost 248,6521. 28. 8d., and Brookwood 130,072l. 28. 1d., together 378,724l. 48. 9d.; and now a third and costly institution is in progress for that county also. The City of London has devoted a considerable sum to the same object. I have been unable to ascertain the first cost of the asylum at Stone, but the annual reports show that in the course of ten years 10,204l. 48. 1d. was expended in enlarging, replenishing, and beautifying this home of the insane. All this is exclusive of the enormous cost of licensed houses kept up, partly at least, for the sake of the paupers boarded in them, and practically at the charge of the ratepayers.

Turning to the annual outlay, without loading these pages with details, I may point out that, whereas the expenditure per head for inmates of asylums has risen 14.2 per cent. since 1856, to the end of 1875, or 15.2 per cent. during the ten years 1864-5-1874-5, only 9.9 per cent. of the increase has gone to feed the patient, and 15·7 per cent. to clothe him! Meanwhile every comfort and luxury is lavished on the insane in their confinement, and the improvements in treatment' are so many and humane, that while the increased proportion of cures is no way remarkable, life, in an asylum has come to be, for the pauper at least, almost preferable to a self-supporting existence in the outer world. The chief cause of offence seems to be that an asylum is now, as always, a house full of mad people, or persons claiming the irresponsibility of lunacy; and it is just as easy as ever to get in, and as difficult to achieve an escape, with brain and character intact. I question whether enough, and more than enough, has not been written about the needs and interests of the insane. I fancy the time has arrived when the grievous complainings of the hardworking sane people outside should command attention; and in furtherance of that true and wise, though generous and benevolent, economy in which their interests are bound up, I venture to ask consideration for the figures, and reflections, I have tried to set forth. My inferences may be faulty, but the facts submitted will stand the test of a close scrutiny.

J. MORTIMER-GRANVILLE.

BANKING AND COMMERCIAL

LEGISLATION.

THERE has always been a doubt in the minds of those who are in favour of codes and systems, whether the laws of currency and banking in the three kingdoms, or those appertaining to the liability of shareholders and partners in trading companies, contain the greatest amount of anomaly and absurdity. No better idea can be formed of the confused state of our banking legislation than by examining the following propositions of Sir James Stephen as to the existing statutes affecting joint-stock banks, private banks, banks of issue, and non-issuing banks, laid before the House of Commons' Select Committee in 1875.

First. The Bank of England may issue notes for not less than five pounds throughout England, upon the conditions of the Act of 1844.

Secondly. Private banks in any part of England and joint-stock banks sixty-five miles from London, and having no establishments in London, and having issued notes on the 6th of May, 1844, may issue notes not less than five pounds, subject to the restrictions of the Bank Act of 1844.

Thirdly. Every private banker who fails or discontinues business, and every private banker increasing his partners above six, loses his right to issue notes.

Fourthly. Both private and joint-stock banks before mentioned may have agents in London for the payment of the notes which they issue.

Fifthly. No joint-stock bank which issues notes anywhere, except the joint-stock banks specified in Proposition ii., may carry on business in any part of England.

Sixthly. Any joint-stock bank which does not issue notes anywhere may carry on all other branches of banking business, except the issue of notes, in any part of England.

The series of Acts upon which this anomalous state of the law is founded partly arises from the gradual encroachment upon the exclusive privileges of the Bank of England, partly from the advisability