During the year from May, 1898, to May, 1899, 26 male and 28 female patients in the Derby County Asylum were attacked with the disease variously known as dysentery, dysenteric diarrhoea, or colitis, and characterised clinically by bloody stools and rise of temperature, and in advanced cases showing in post-mortem examination extensive thickening and ulceration of the lower end of the large intestine, with numerous microscopic hæmorrhages into the submucous layer. Of the 54 attacked, 23 died, in 13 the colitis being apparently the direct cause of death, in 10 a contributory cause. Some brief notes of our attempt to ascertain the cause of the outbreak may be of interest, though the results obtained were mostly negative or inconclusive.

It is just two years since the attention of the Association was directed to the condition of Indian asylums and the defects in their management. Since that time the subject has not been lost sight of, and it is now most gratifying to find that the Government of India has taken it seriously in hand. It was a fortunate occurrence that before Lord Curzon left England to assume his duties as Viceroy the requirements of Indian asylums were brought under his notice. He promised to look into the matter immediately on his arrival in India. Through a mutual friend Dr. McDowall was able to bring his presidential address under the notice of Lord Curzon. Whether owing to that fact or not, we now see the beginning of the reforms so urgently required.

The Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1899, effects several salutary changes in the law as to the treatment of juvenile offenders. By the first section of the Act the first schedule to the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1879 (which sets forth the indictable offences which can be disposed of summarily under that Act), is extended by the inclusion of two additional offences: (1) obtaining money, & c., by false pretences (Larceny Act, 1861, sect. 16); (2) setting fire maliciously to any wood, heath, & c. (Malicious Damages Act, sect. 16). It will, therefore, now be competent for courts of summary jurisdiction to dispose, with the consent of the accused, of any charge against an adult of obtaining by false pretences, where the amount of the money obtained does not exceed 40s. Where the accused is an adult pleading guilty, or a young person who consents to be dealt with summarily, the court can deal with the case, whatever may be the amount of money, & c., obtained. In order to prevent any misunderstanding as to what is necessary to constitute “false pretences,” the Act provides that where a court of summary jurisdiction proposes to deal summarily with a charge of obtaining by false pretences, the court shall, after the charge has been reduced to writing and read to the person charged, “state in effect that a false pretence means a false representation by words, writing, or conduct that some fact exists or existed, and that a promise as to future conduct not intended to be kept is not by itself a false pretence, and may add any such further explanation as the court may deem suitable to the circumstances.” By the second section of the new Act, section 11 of the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1879, which gives power to deal summarily with young persons by consent, is extended to all indictable offences other than homicide. Sir Matthew Ridley trusts that this provision will remove some of the difficulties felt by justices in dealing with youthful offenders. The number of such offenders committed for trial will no doubt be materially reduced; and whenever a boy under fourteen consents to be dealt with by a court of summary jurisdiction, and is convicted of any indictable offence (other than homicide), the court will now have the option of ordering a birching—a means of punishment hitherto available only in the case of larceny and certain other specified offences. Several juvenile offenders have, in London, already received practical object lessons on the new régime that has come into force.